Hi guys, new user here.
Can I use external standalone VST via the External MIDI Input in Reason (8.3 btw) as seen you youtube.....
OR
is it a pain?
If it's a pain, would I be better off getting a copy of Cubase or 'something' to host the VSTs and rewire?
IF NOT...
what other options are there for being able to get vst to work in reason. I know it's not 'supported' but it would be nice to be able to expand my sources of samples and presets? I am aware there's a few folk on the WWW with a few work arounds.... what are your thoughts.
Cheers.
VST's - Reason discussion
Playing external instruments is no problem, just use a virtual MIDI output and the "External Midi" instrument in Reason. Getting the audio back into Reason is a bit more involved depending on how you do it / if your audio interface has virtual loopback channels etc.
-
hadmyrackextended
- Posts: 39
- Joined: 12 Feb 2016
Yeah I see. So the issues aren't getting the vst to play externally....its getting the audio output from the vst back into reason....
I have a focusrite scarlett 2i4 usb and a peavey USB mixer ( which has a USB monitor button ) I use it for doing tutorials..it means it just records whatever reason plays and whatever I am inputting to the mixer... Would this feature be useful in terms of vst. Or could I get some sort of program that routes the audio back into reason using my focusrite only.
I have a focusrite scarlett 2i4 usb and a peavey USB mixer ( which has a USB monitor button ) I use it for doing tutorials..it means it just records whatever reason plays and whatever I am inputting to the mixer... Would this feature be useful in terms of vst. Or could I get some sort of program that routes the audio back into reason using my focusrite only.
-
hadmyrackextended
- Posts: 39
- Joined: 12 Feb 2016
This is the video im talking about... guy suggests to use 2 soundcards and basically send the audio from the one to the other (back into reason)
I use a Focusrite Saffire 24 to loop audio. It is a seamless process and eliminates the use for a 2nd card. Plus with 2 cards you have the potential for induced latency. The funny thing about this video is that he uses SaviHost for the stand alone running of VST which is an awesome tool in itself. There is a built in audio recorded right into the device which allows you to export the end result as an individual audio wave file. I have used this so that after building my track and all is happy as I want it I will record the output and immediately import the wave as an audio track. Done. In truth it takes no longer than lining up two audio cards. After a few times building confidence in how it is done (lining up audio track and all) it becomes no issue at all.
Another topic I'll hit on here is how I personally organize my VST. I have created folders that link to shortcuts of all VSTi. I keep my licensed VST in one area and all the fre stuff in another. Drum machines in another and then I created large icons for them of their GUI so that when I search through them instead of relying on names which becomes cumbersome I can see what they look like. Some I don't need to remember in particular licensed ones but there are a lot of cool free ones that I like to explore with from time to time. Here is a screen shot so you can see what I mean.
Another topic I'll hit on here is how I personally organize my VST. I have created folders that link to shortcuts of all VSTi. I keep my licensed VST in one area and all the fre stuff in another. Drum machines in another and then I created large icons for them of their GUI so that when I search through them instead of relying on names which becomes cumbersome I can see what they look like. Some I don't need to remember in particular licensed ones but there are a lot of cool free ones that I like to explore with from time to time. Here is a screen shot so you can see what I mean.
- vst_folders.png (1.2 MiB) Viewed 3166 times
Last edited by Lizard on 12 Feb 2016, edited 1 time in total.
Theres also tools like Soundflower which basically simulate a soundcard and allow you to route audio from one app to another. Using your USB mixer should be fine as well, depending on how many I/O channels you have / use. You could also just let the external instrument play through the internal soundcard and record it through your USB interface / mixer.
I'm personally in the Rewire camp, but odd thing I've never seen some one suggest is simply using spdif (if your audio card/interface has it) Just connect the spdif output to the spdif input of the same audio interface and you have a loopback without any loss of quality and minimal latency.
These threads usually give you two pieces of info: You need a way to get MIDI from Reason to another Daw (i.e. virtual MIDI cables), and you need a way to get audio back into Reason (Soundflower-type VIRTUAL audio card, a sound card with audio-loopback, or using audio-cables to PHYSICALLY route audio back into another sound-card input).
I've been obsessed with VSTs in Reason for years, so here's some more thoughts on it. I have PC, so I only have done this on the PC side.
Getting MIDI from one Daw to another is the EASIEST part - LoopBe1 is a great shareware program on Windows - I've used it for years, and never had a single problem. Works great on Windows10 too.
Now, about the audio - let's review the choices:
1) Virtual audio card (Mac has Soundflower, Windows has a few choices too)
2) Get a sound-card that has a MIXER that lets you route audio between DAWs
3) Physical audio cables to route audio back (remember, you're leaving the DIGITAL domain when you do this, if it's not SPDIF etc)
4) Export audio from your other DAW MANUALLY when you're ready, and import the audio-file into Reason - a lot of people like this because it makes it easy to line-up the audio perfectly latency-wise. But seems like a bit of a pain to have this manual step.
5) Use Rewire (but then you miss all the great benefits of #1-4 - which is namely that you get to use the Reason sequencer, single method of param automation, use Reason CV even for your VSTs through Reason's MIDI device)
Ok, so what's my preference? **** #2 **** If you can afford it, get an audio-card that lets you route audio internally. For PC at-least, it just makes the whole process simple. No worrying about an extra audio-driver, or getting good latency, or leaving the digital domain.
Over the years, I've had two audio-cards that supported loop-back audio: Audiophile 2496, and recently the Focusrite Saffire 6i6 (FIREWIRE). Both worked well, but obviously the 2496 is a dinosaur now.
Some nice things about the Focusrite:
a) The mixer is SOOOO intuitive - it just gives you an extra audio-driver called "Daw", and that's what you output audio to in your non-Reason DAW. And then in reason, you use that driver as the INPUT for audio. It's SOOOOO nice, in that you can see the VSTs signal in the mixer itself, which makes it easier to troubleshoot in-case you don't hear audio when you first set it up. Basically, the Focusrite mixer software is amazing and intuitive.
b) LATENCY, LATENCY, LATENCY - Firewire audio-card gets me quite a low latency, and this is IMPORTANT for using VSTs in Reason. Why? Because you actually have TWO audio latencies: 1) The regular latency from Reason out to your speakers, and 2) The new latency to get audio from one Daw to another.
...And that OVERALL latency matters, ESPECIALLY if you want to just directly monitor the audio in Reason LIVE (i.e. you want to create an effects chain in Reason for your VST that you can hear while you're playing LIVE). For me, getting this working makes my workflow much better, because I don't have to limit myself creatively during the sound-creation process - I can mess around in the VST to mangle a sound, AND add effects in Reason.
So beware of any audio-card that can't get you down to ~3-4ms: Your latency will just be too high for the extra audio-routing. In-practice, this meant that I had to stay clear of *USB* audio-cards, which tend to have higher latency. But, I have heard from others on this forum that Babyface Pro has low latency and supports audio-loopback. So that seems like an option too?
One warning on Focusrite audio-cards: Only SOME of them support audio-loopback, so just double-check that the one you want supports it before you buy. E.g. Most of their Scarlett series (USB) don't have the audio-loopback feature. Not sure why.
A few other tidbits:
1) Reason lets you control how MONITORING works within Reason (see bottom of audio tab in preferences). Your choices are: Automatic, Manual, External. I've found that MANUAL is what you want if you're going to use Reason with another DAW for VSTs. Why? Because I always monitor all my VSTs LIVE in Reason until I finish a song. If you DON'T set it to manual, that means that when you have focus on a Thor instance (for example), and then play the overall song, you won't hear the audio from your other Daw.
So set it to manual. And then MANUALLY, set the audio-track in Reason that your using for DAW input to "echo/monitor". Now reason will just leave that track-setting alone, and everything will work as expected.
2) You can have MULTIPLE VSTs that you control in your other daw - just use different MIDI channels.
3) I modify my default Reason template to make setting-up a new song much easier: The template has a MIDI-out device configured to send midi to my virtual MIDI cables. And I create an audio track that is configured for the DAW audio-input. I set that audio-track to have monitoring on.
Now, every time I create a song, I have track in Reason ready to go, no extra setup needed.
4) Total recall for your song is just as easy as it is when you use Rewire: Save your reason song as MyChartToppingSong.rsn. And in your other daw, save the project as MyChartToppingSong.snr (I use Sonar). Now you have two files (a bit of a pain), but you can easily re-load your song along with all the VST settings easily. If you think about it, Rewire requires you to save two files too.
5) Parameter automation works great for VSTs: For every param you want to automate, create a Reason MIDI instrument set to the same channel as the one your playing notes on. And on this channel, record the knob-movement as you play. In your audio-host, do "MIDI-learn" to control a knob, and it'll now respond to that MIDI CC. Ok, it's a bit of a pain to have to do MIDI-learn for every knob your control, but it's not that bad. In this case, it's actually BETTER than controlling a PHYSICAL midi instrument, if you think about it! Do they have MIDI learn? (not always) So you'd have to actually play the right MIDI CC to control a particular parameter. This is MUCH easier.
6) About latency compensation: Ok, I saved this fun tidbit for last: Remember, there's latency to get audio between DAWs. If you just hit record in Reason, that latency will be recorded into your song. When I'm ready to finalize my song, I want to get that audio to line-up perfectly. In my case, I often quantize notes, so this makes sense - but it's up to you if you want to do this.
But here's the warning: There are two things you need to do to compensate for this few-milliseconds latency:
a) In reason's audio preferences tab, change the "Recording latency compensation". The value you use will depend on your own latency, but in-general it'll be a POSITIVE number. E.g. +5. How do you find the right number? Record a quantized note to a VST that's playing a simple SAW wave (with no attack in ADSR, of course). And then experiment with values on the recording latency compensation until you see it line-up PERFECTLY in the recorded audio track. You'll need to zoom in on the audio a lot to see if you have it exactly lined-up. This takes a few minutes to get right, but it's worth it, and you only have to do it once.
b) Ok, this one took me a while to figure out: When you finally want to record the VST audio into reason, you need to turn off the MONITORING in all your Reason tracks. As long as your VST track has monitoring on, it'll record with the latency. I can't remember the exact reason why this is (it was years ago that I investigated it), but it is what it is.
I'll leave you with one final thought: Once you get used to using VSTs in Reason, it's really fun and easy. And there are great-sounding VST instruments out there (Serum, Dune2, Reaktor, etc). So honestly, I'll always spend my money on these instruments rather than buy a Re instrument. But to each his own (and I do understand that Re instruments do have advantages, like working great in Combinator, a bit easier to setup param automation). But if a Re instrument is $99 or more (there are a few in this price-range), and if Serum or Spire cost $189 - Think about saving a bit more money and get the awesome VST. Ok, that's just my opinion.
But, given the above, there are other REs that I DO keep buying: Effects and Utilities. Effects, because the latency of bouncing audio OUT of reason into a DAW and back *LIVE* is too high. And I would be disappointed if I couldn't do it live.
And I buy RE utilities because they're just AWESOME, of course: You get to use them in your VST workflow!! E.g. a great RE utility is Korde sequencer, Mercury, Auto-Theory, Euclid, CV Tune. And you can use ALL of these to control your VSTs.
Ok, hope this was helpful.
I've been obsessed with VSTs in Reason for years, so here's some more thoughts on it. I have PC, so I only have done this on the PC side.
Getting MIDI from one Daw to another is the EASIEST part - LoopBe1 is a great shareware program on Windows - I've used it for years, and never had a single problem. Works great on Windows10 too.
Now, about the audio - let's review the choices:
1) Virtual audio card (Mac has Soundflower, Windows has a few choices too)
2) Get a sound-card that has a MIXER that lets you route audio between DAWs
3) Physical audio cables to route audio back (remember, you're leaving the DIGITAL domain when you do this, if it's not SPDIF etc)
4) Export audio from your other DAW MANUALLY when you're ready, and import the audio-file into Reason - a lot of people like this because it makes it easy to line-up the audio perfectly latency-wise. But seems like a bit of a pain to have this manual step.
5) Use Rewire (but then you miss all the great benefits of #1-4 - which is namely that you get to use the Reason sequencer, single method of param automation, use Reason CV even for your VSTs through Reason's MIDI device)
Ok, so what's my preference? **** #2 **** If you can afford it, get an audio-card that lets you route audio internally. For PC at-least, it just makes the whole process simple. No worrying about an extra audio-driver, or getting good latency, or leaving the digital domain.
Over the years, I've had two audio-cards that supported loop-back audio: Audiophile 2496, and recently the Focusrite Saffire 6i6 (FIREWIRE). Both worked well, but obviously the 2496 is a dinosaur now.
Some nice things about the Focusrite:a) The mixer is SOOOO intuitive - it just gives you an extra audio-driver called "Daw", and that's what you output audio to in your non-Reason DAW. And then in reason, you use that driver as the INPUT for audio. It's SOOOOO nice, in that you can see the VSTs signal in the mixer itself, which makes it easier to troubleshoot in-case you don't hear audio when you first set it up. Basically, the Focusrite mixer software is amazing and intuitive.
b) LATENCY, LATENCY, LATENCY - Firewire audio-card gets me quite a low latency, and this is IMPORTANT for using VSTs in Reason. Why? Because you actually have TWO audio latencies: 1) The regular latency from Reason out to your speakers, and 2) The new latency to get audio from one Daw to another.
...And that OVERALL latency matters, ESPECIALLY if you want to just directly monitor the audio in Reason LIVE (i.e. you want to create an effects chain in Reason for your VST that you can hear while you're playing LIVE). For me, getting this working makes my workflow much better, because I don't have to limit myself creatively during the sound-creation process - I can mess around in the VST to mangle a sound, AND add effects in Reason.
So beware of any audio-card that can't get you down to ~3-4ms: Your latency will just be too high for the extra audio-routing. In-practice, this meant that I had to stay clear of *USB* audio-cards, which tend to have higher latency. But, I have heard from others on this forum that Babyface Pro has low latency and supports audio-loopback. So that seems like an option too?
One warning on Focusrite audio-cards: Only SOME of them support audio-loopback, so just double-check that the one you want supports it before you buy. E.g. Most of their Scarlett series (USB) don't have the audio-loopback feature. Not sure why.
A few other tidbits:
1) Reason lets you control how MONITORING works within Reason (see bottom of audio tab in preferences). Your choices are: Automatic, Manual, External. I've found that MANUAL is what you want if you're going to use Reason with another DAW for VSTs. Why? Because I always monitor all my VSTs LIVE in Reason until I finish a song. If you DON'T set it to manual, that means that when you have focus on a Thor instance (for example), and then play the overall song, you won't hear the audio from your other Daw.
So set it to manual. And then MANUALLY, set the audio-track in Reason that your using for DAW input to "echo/monitor". Now reason will just leave that track-setting alone, and everything will work as expected.
2) You can have MULTIPLE VSTs that you control in your other daw - just use different MIDI channels.
3) I modify my default Reason template to make setting-up a new song much easier: The template has a MIDI-out device configured to send midi to my virtual MIDI cables. And I create an audio track that is configured for the DAW audio-input. I set that audio-track to have monitoring on.
Now, every time I create a song, I have track in Reason ready to go, no extra setup needed.
4) Total recall for your song is just as easy as it is when you use Rewire: Save your reason song as MyChartToppingSong.rsn. And in your other daw, save the project as MyChartToppingSong.snr (I use Sonar). Now you have two files (a bit of a pain), but you can easily re-load your song along with all the VST settings easily. If you think about it, Rewire requires you to save two files too.
5) Parameter automation works great for VSTs: For every param you want to automate, create a Reason MIDI instrument set to the same channel as the one your playing notes on. And on this channel, record the knob-movement as you play. In your audio-host, do "MIDI-learn" to control a knob, and it'll now respond to that MIDI CC. Ok, it's a bit of a pain to have to do MIDI-learn for every knob your control, but it's not that bad. In this case, it's actually BETTER than controlling a PHYSICAL midi instrument, if you think about it! Do they have MIDI learn? (not always) So you'd have to actually play the right MIDI CC to control a particular parameter. This is MUCH easier.
6) About latency compensation: Ok, I saved this fun tidbit for last: Remember, there's latency to get audio between DAWs. If you just hit record in Reason, that latency will be recorded into your song. When I'm ready to finalize my song, I want to get that audio to line-up perfectly. In my case, I often quantize notes, so this makes sense - but it's up to you if you want to do this.
But here's the warning: There are two things you need to do to compensate for this few-milliseconds latency:
a) In reason's audio preferences tab, change the "Recording latency compensation". The value you use will depend on your own latency, but in-general it'll be a POSITIVE number. E.g. +5. How do you find the right number? Record a quantized note to a VST that's playing a simple SAW wave (with no attack in ADSR, of course). And then experiment with values on the recording latency compensation until you see it line-up PERFECTLY in the recorded audio track. You'll need to zoom in on the audio a lot to see if you have it exactly lined-up. This takes a few minutes to get right, but it's worth it, and you only have to do it once.
b) Ok, this one took me a while to figure out: When you finally want to record the VST audio into reason, you need to turn off the MONITORING in all your Reason tracks. As long as your VST track has monitoring on, it'll record with the latency. I can't remember the exact reason why this is (it was years ago that I investigated it), but it is what it is.
I'll leave you with one final thought: Once you get used to using VSTs in Reason, it's really fun and easy. And there are great-sounding VST instruments out there (Serum, Dune2, Reaktor, etc). So honestly, I'll always spend my money on these instruments rather than buy a Re instrument. But to each his own (and I do understand that Re instruments do have advantages, like working great in Combinator, a bit easier to setup param automation). But if a Re instrument is $99 or more (there are a few in this price-range), and if Serum or Spire cost $189 - Think about saving a bit more money and get the awesome VST. Ok, that's just my opinion.
But, given the above, there are other REs that I DO keep buying: Effects and Utilities. Effects, because the latency of bouncing audio OUT of reason into a DAW and back *LIVE* is too high. And I would be disappointed if I couldn't do it live.
And I buy RE utilities because they're just AWESOME, of course: You get to use them in your VST workflow!! E.g. a great RE utility is Korde sequencer, Mercury, Auto-Theory, Euclid, CV Tune. And you can use ALL of these to control your VSTs.
Ok, hope this was helpful.
Is it possible to install and use ReaRoute without Reaper?Stranger. wrote:I'd go with most,if not all suggestions here.
There's also http://wiki.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/ReaRoute
I still to this day cannot understand why PH is holding out here--they always had audio in using ReBirth's interface.
It will register as a host,and another programme will detect upon loading and enter slave mode...
Midi in was always there,but in early versions ofason just didn't allow the midi outs..again,quite bizarre in this day and age imo.
Must be credit control,in control...
I use JackAudio on Win 8.1 and it works fine.
-
hadmyrackextended
- Posts: 39
- Joined: 12 Feb 2016
Thanks guys for all advice posted much appreciated!
it's a pain to work in windows. sometimes i could get the audio to record and than when i tried again it wouldn't work. i would still love to use my vst's in reason. i feel like i'm close but i must be doing something wrong because i always get mic feedback when i record on the audio track and my mic is turned off. never figured that out.
Reason 10.4 
| 
2.2.4 | Ableton Live Suite 10.1| MPC Software 1.9.6 | Photoshop CC 2019 | Novation Impulse 49 | Nektar Impact LX 49
| 2.2.4 | Ableton Live Suite 10.1| MPC Software 1.9.6 | Photoshop CC 2019 | Novation Impulse 49 | Nektar Impact LX 49Hi, is your problem with recording in-general in Reason? Or with trying to get VST audio routed back into reason?mreese80 wrote:it's a pain to work in windows. sometimes i could get the audio to record and than when i tried again it wouldn't work. i would still love to use my vst's in reason. i feel like i'm close but i must be doing something wrong because i always get mic feedback when i record on the audio track and my mic is turned off. never figured that out.
The reason I ask is because you mention mic feedback, and I'm not sure how the mic is involved.
So, a few questions:
1) What daw are you using to host the VSTs?
2) How are you routing audio from that daw into Reason?
Another one in the Rewire camp here. It seems logical to me if you want to use VSTi's in all their multi-instanced and multi-channel glory then you'd use a VST host to do that, then either bounce the results out to stem to import back in Reason all perfectly synced or progress the project from that point on in your chosen host with Reason attached.
A couple of points to note if you are planning to loop back audio into Reason is that some interfaces on Windows will actually have hardware loopback built in, mine for example has a 'Mix' channel which shows up on Reason's inputs, bear in mind though however you do it even with hardware you will get an additional amount of latency corresponding to the signal having to come back in again so some adjustment to the resultant audio WILL be necessary.
Again as QVProd mentioned if you are SP/DIF equipped you can use that as a loopback route avoiding the need to come out of the D/A and back in the A/D converters on your interface.
If you are limited to a software loopback though on Windows again for the lowest latency then ASIOLink is the fastest performer although sadly only the bloated 'Pro' version of that is available now which may be overkill. Other Windows solutions such as Jack, Virtual Cable et, al all use port audio which means latency.
Another thing is that I see LoopBe1 being mentioned for midi routing on Windows bear in mind that loopMIDI is far more flexible, not limited to a single port and is again freely available.
Get that here:
http://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/loopmidi.html
Seriously though if you are using Kontakt with multi-channel outs or a big drum sampler with masses of mic outputs (or both and a few more besides) you'll be saving yourself a lot of time and effort just bouncing that stuff out as stems whilst Rewired and importing the audio back in. That will take 2 minutes max. Audio loopback though might provide you with endless hair pulling and a lesser result as you are limited to a single stereo out VSTi which you'd have to record manually for as many times as you have instruments to render. For a single instrument it might be fine for you though.
A couple of points to note if you are planning to loop back audio into Reason is that some interfaces on Windows will actually have hardware loopback built in, mine for example has a 'Mix' channel which shows up on Reason's inputs, bear in mind though however you do it even with hardware you will get an additional amount of latency corresponding to the signal having to come back in again so some adjustment to the resultant audio WILL be necessary.
Again as QVProd mentioned if you are SP/DIF equipped you can use that as a loopback route avoiding the need to come out of the D/A and back in the A/D converters on your interface.
If you are limited to a software loopback though on Windows again for the lowest latency then ASIOLink is the fastest performer although sadly only the bloated 'Pro' version of that is available now which may be overkill. Other Windows solutions such as Jack, Virtual Cable et, al all use port audio which means latency.
Another thing is that I see LoopBe1 being mentioned for midi routing on Windows bear in mind that loopMIDI is far more flexible, not limited to a single port and is again freely available.
Get that here:
http://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/loopmidi.html
Seriously though if you are using Kontakt with multi-channel outs or a big drum sampler with masses of mic outputs (or both and a few more besides) you'll be saving yourself a lot of time and effort just bouncing that stuff out as stems whilst Rewired and importing the audio back in. That will take 2 minutes max. Audio loopback though might provide you with endless hair pulling and a lesser result as you are limited to a single stereo out VSTi which you'd have to record manually for as many times as you have instruments to render. For a single instrument it might be fine for you though.
groggy1 wrote:Hi, is your problem with recording in-general in Reason? Or with trying to get VST audio routed back into reason?mreese80 wrote:it's a pain to work in windows. sometimes i could get the audio to record and than when i tried again it wouldn't work. i would still love to use my vst's in reason. i feel like i'm close but i must be doing something wrong because i always get mic feedback when i record on the audio track and my mic is turned off. never figured that out.
The reason I ask is because you mention mic feedback, and I'm not sure how the mic is involved.
So, a few questions:
1) What daw are you using to host the VSTs?
2) How are you routing audio from that daw into Reason?
I'm just using the EMI. I can do it fine if i rewire. i've tried the same way as described in the video about. Somehow my internal mic always comes on. I disable it and it still does it. I've gotten it to record correctly a few times but i dont know how. i've done it the same way every time. It's like a hit and miss with windows. i could be doing something wrong but i don't know what. i pretty much gave up on doing it that way. i just bounce the stems from the mpc software or ableton.
Reason 10.4 | 2.2.4 | Ableton Live Suite 10.1| MPC Software 1.9.6 | Photoshop CC 2019 | Novation Impulse 49 | Nektar Impact LX 49
| 2.2.4 | Ableton Live Suite 10.1| MPC Software 1.9.6 | Photoshop CC 2019 | Novation Impulse 49 | Nektar Impact LX 49Sorry to hear that. Yeah, it's strange that reason is recording from your internal mic when it's disabled (and presumably not listed as an input at all for reason).mreese80 wrote:groggy1 wrote:Hi, is your problem with recording in-general in Reason? Or with trying to get VST audio routed back into reason?mreese80 wrote:it's a pain to work in windows. sometimes i could get the audio to record and than when i tried again it wouldn't work. i would still love to use my vst's in reason. i feel like i'm close but i must be doing something wrong because i always get mic feedback when i record on the audio track and my mic is turned off. never figured that out.
The reason I ask is because you mention mic feedback, and I'm not sure how the mic is involved.
So, a few questions:
1) What daw are you using to host the VSTs?
2) How are you routing audio from that daw into Reason?
I'm just using the EMI. I can do it fine if i rewire. i've tried the same way as described in the video about. Somehow my internal mic always comes on. I disable it and it still does it. I've gotten it to record correctly a few times but i dont know how. i've done it the same way every time. It's like a hit and miss with windows. i could be doing something wrong but i don't know what. i pretty much gave up on doing it that way. i just bounce the stems from the mpc software or ableton.
Any chance you have some funky config on your audio cards mixer? (What audio card do you have?)
I think I will check out ASIOLink ... thanks for that tipOstermilk wrote:Another one in the Rewire camp here. It seems logical to me if you want to use VSTi's in all their multi-instanced and multi-channel glory then you'd use a VST host to do that, then either bounce the results out to stem to import back in Reason all perfectly synced or progress the project from that point on in your chosen host with Reason attached.
A couple of points to note if you are planning to loop back audio into Reason is that some interfaces on Windows will actually have hardware loopback built in, mine for example has a 'Mix' channel which shows up on Reason's inputs, bear in mind though however you do it even with hardware you will get an additional amount of latency corresponding to the signal having to come back in again so some adjustment to the resultant audio WILL be necessary.
Again as QVProd mentioned if you are SP/DIF equipped you can use that as a loopback route avoiding the need to come out of the D/A and back in the A/D converters on your interface.
If you are limited to a software loopback though on Windows again for the lowest latency then ASIOLink is the fastest performer although sadly only the bloated 'Pro' version of that is available now which may be overkill. Other Windows solutions such as Jack, Virtual Cable et, al all use port audio which means latency.
Another thing is that I see LoopBe1 being mentioned for midi routing on Windows bear in mind that loopMIDI is far more flexible, not limited to a single port and is again freely available.
Get that here:
http://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/loopmidi.html
Seriously though if you are using Kontakt with multi-channel outs or a big drum sampler with masses of mic outputs (or both and a few more besides) you'll be saving yourself a lot of time and effort just bouncing that stuff out as stems whilst Rewired and importing the audio back in. That will take 2 minutes max. Audio loopback though might provide you with endless hair pulling and a lesser result as you are limited to a single stereo out VSTi which you'd have to record manually for as many times as you have instruments to render. For a single instrument it might be fine for you though.
I would probably side with Rewire as well. My only issue with Rewire is that it currently only works one way and Reason cannot be the Rewire Master. This one way routing prevents you from processing audio in Reason and also prevents midi use in Reason. I'm still hoping that one day Props will understand how important VST's are to some of us out here.
I use LoopBe1 (planning to buy LoobBe30, as it gives 30 midi ports so you can route to more and more devices and get away from Vst Wrappers), and i record the audio through my audio card internals. Rme has immense routing capabilities, and it is so easy to use. My audio card has 36 channels, so i still use 16 to connect to all my pre-amps, and the other channels are for routing through it again to reason. When i need to commit down the VST's to reason as wave, i just have to make one or two passes for the whole bunch of the channels.
I use this mostly with East West Play witch was the most expensive VST pack i had until Record came out.
Reason has a great amount of good sounds - i mean every synth, and natural stuff there is great - but i'm yet to know something on Reason that replaces Ra, Voices of Passion, SD2, or Synphonic Choirs. And even with Miroslav Gold, or Project Sam, none is so intuitive as East West for orchestral stuff.
That being said... Making orchestral stuff, with East West, is great, because their reverb is amazing, and key switching is a breese. Reason only recently added reverbs that can match these, but with good dynamics and nice routing you shift from the "mix engineer" perspective to an orchestrator perspective and things glue quite easily with East West.
And as East west is a Sample based, HDD streaming app, as reason is being used only as a sequencer, performance is barely an issue (unless you load the huge orchestral multi key switching patches).
I use this mostly with East West Play witch was the most expensive VST pack i had until Record came out.
Reason has a great amount of good sounds - i mean every synth, and natural stuff there is great - but i'm yet to know something on Reason that replaces Ra, Voices of Passion, SD2, or Synphonic Choirs. And even with Miroslav Gold, or Project Sam, none is so intuitive as East West for orchestral stuff.
That being said... Making orchestral stuff, with East West, is great, because their reverb is amazing, and key switching is a breese. Reason only recently added reverbs that can match these, but with good dynamics and nice routing you shift from the "mix engineer" perspective to an orchestrator perspective and things glue quite easily with East West.
And as East west is a Sample based, HDD streaming app, as reason is being used only as a sequencer, performance is barely an issue (unless you load the huge orchestral multi key switching patches).
VST's as a format itself are not important to me. If East West made an idt of the stuff i have i would probably buy them if they weren't expensive. ButUpright wrote:I would probably side with Rewire as well. My only issue with Rewire is that it currently only works one way and Reason cannot be the Rewire Master. This one way routing prevents you from processing audio in Reason and also prevents midi use in Reason. I'm still hoping that one day Props will understand how important VST's are to some of us out here.
1 - They didn't and they said they wont in a very definitive way in they're forum,
2 - It's stupid not to use a pretty good and huge, great sounding sample package, since now we can.
I really don't know if props are planning to transform Reason in a Rewire Master. At this time and with things so oiled in in the way i work my stuff with the external VST's (committing to audio takes awhile but it's not that bad) having reason as a Rewire master, would change things a bit and make this process faster (and maybe account from some latency?) but other than that i don't think it makes such a difference now. It will be great to use it but remember you will always depend on the VST maker to have a stand alone OR you would need a VST to Rewire wrapper - I think.
I think you hit the nail on the head! People keep asking for vsts support in reason, and others say that props won't add vst support because it's against the reason design/principals.Upright wrote: having reason as a Rewire master, would change things a bit and make this process faster (and maybe account from some latency?) but other than that i don't think it makes such a difference now.
But, as you point out, reason already HAS vst support, and many of us use it.
So props adding true vst support is just about making this a bit easier. yes, it would be a big change. But they're already on the slippery slope towards it?
Working with Rewire is of course the best solution as it is engineered this way. But this method is if you want or welcome the concept of tracking on two different softwares. I'm not sure how many there are like myslef but I would rather do all my sequencer work in Reason. So in Rewire your final result will have to come from your other host as it is one directional right? Audio does not come back to Reason. If I wanted them to come back to Reason I would have to essentially do the same thing which is bounce the stems from my host and import them into a Reason Audio Track. This is why I like the Herman Sieb products (SaviHost and VSTHost) via Virtual MIDI as VST/SaviHost are full of a lot of features and allow you to record audio....not to mention, completely free. Both are light on the CPU and super simple to use. Opposed to rewiring audio I am still controlling all the MIDI data for VST from Reason and not in another (often CPU heavy) DAW. Run VSTHost if you want to house multiple VST in one instance that you can recall 5 of them quickly like a saved song or the simple SaviHost that you just rename to your DLL file. It is easy easy stuff that allows you to work in Reason primarily which is how I care to work. There are lots of tracks where I am pulling audio from several sources and doing editing in another program like audacity. This is just another part of the process for me.
I will still say though, if you prefer to work in two programs via rewire this will of course be your best option. It does make some aspects much much easier. You have to switch back and forth between programs however and there is still some setup involved. Some programs implement it differently so choose the best for you. So I feel as though in the end it is a matter of choice and one that is best for the individual. If you want to work with VST how do you want to do it? There are several ways as can be clearly seen. How do you want to track your music?
I will still say though, if you prefer to work in two programs via rewire this will of course be your best option. It does make some aspects much much easier. You have to switch back and forth between programs however and there is still some setup involved. Some programs implement it differently so choose the best for you. So I feel as though in the end it is a matter of choice and one that is best for the individual. If you want to work with VST how do you want to do it? There are several ways as can be clearly seen. How do you want to track your music?
Seriously just get this instead.mcatalao wrote:I use LoopBe1 (planning to buy LoobBe30, as it gives 30 midi ports so you can route to more and more devices and get away from Vst Wrappers), and i record the audio through my audio card internals.
http://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/loopmidi.html
I bought LoopBe30 years ago and ditched it soon as I found loopMidi.
You'll be able to create as many midi ports as you like and zap them at will without even having to reboot it's great, flexible and rock solid. Try it and if you don't like it I'll see if I can search out my redundant LB30 and transfer it to you for zilch.
-
- Information
-
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: Steedus and 7 guests
Share and download patches!
Join ReasonTalk on Slack!