Reason 9.5 – VST in Reason

[pjeudy]

Here's a quote I posted a few weeks ago regarding Propellerhead and the POTENTIAL for VST in reason, some users where saying never...and I said... :

first of all, I'm old enough to have learned to never say never! EVER!
If Propellerhead's back was against the wall, i.e (sales wise or in fading popularity )..then you would be surprised on how quickly the inconceivable would become conceivable (I'm saying this as an example, not saying that there back is against the wall)

[Oquasec]

I feel like suplexing people now. I havent been this hype in a minute...

[Loque]

I feel like suplexing people now. I havent been this hype in a minute...

2500 Reads within a few minutes...Lot of likes on the video on PH facebook and 500 comments...This is something big, with a big impact...

[Gulale]

Here's a quote I posted a few weeks ago regarding Propellerhead and the POTENTIAL for VST in reason, some users where saying never...and I said... :

first of all, I'm old enough to have learned to never say never! EVER!
If Propellerhead's back was against the wall, i.e (sales wise or in fading popularity )..then you would be surprised on how quickly the inconceivable would become conceivable (I'm saying this as an example, not saying that there back is against the wall)

I also mentioned in somewhere but I didn't quote it cause I don't like I told you so thing. However, please people of VST haters don't come to the forum and say "Oh my god how did I live without wave, UAD, Slate digital, sound toys or whatever plugin developer is". We know they are great that is why we bought them over the years.

[satyr32]

Honestly I do not need VSTs at all. We have all we need and even more with REs. On the other hand, Reaktor in Reason, omg, is amazing.

[Ahornberg]

this is great !!! can't wait to load my first VST into the rack

[Chizmata]

the day reason stopped to be what it was intended to be and became "another DAW". im out. everything after R6 was pointless or simply wrong and this is the conclusion of the developement. there is no point in using reason over any other DAW anymore.

What do you think they should've focused on instead of this? I mean Reason as it is now is pretty much perfect for me. It has been for a while tbh. So I'm just interested to know what you think Reason should be, if not what it is right now? This seems like such a great time for the platform. It'd be a shame to abandon it because of something like optional VSTs!

it should have stayed an emulation of analogue studio equipment and refine on that more and more. thats just what reason is. more sound design, luxurious "analogue" sequencing tools (which dont exist at all right now) and CV. a world in its own that no other DAW has to offer. super-stable, very live-capable and with a unique feel. the streamlining as modern DAW makes it a mediocre one among others and the introduction of VSTs is actually the last step there, while the things im looking for havent been touched in years.

But what I'm saying is like, how could they have refined the analogue studio equipment experience further? We've got nice looking front panels, we can flip it all around and mess with CV and audio. We've got old school analogue style sequencers, pattern and pulse generators. Not sure where else they could go from there - maybe like, altering individual components within a synth or effect? But then you're veering into Reaktor territory and honestly, most people won't do that. The only thing I would've liked to see myself is an official PH modular system with filters and oscillators and Eurorack style goodies.

"Sound design" isn't 'a thing they can add. It's a thing we can already do, by patching and routing and experimenting. And if VST plugins are now part of that process...I'm happy! Adding more features isn't streamlining. If they said "we're adding VST and taking away the rear panel" then yeah, that'd suck. But we get to keep everything we already have, and then some.

I mean of course, you gotta do what you gotta do man. I just don't see why this development should stop you from enjoying what you already have. Do you have another DAW in mind as an alternative? I know Ableton has some modular-esque capabilities. And there's also Bitwig but I know nothing about that.

might be quite an adventurous idea but an optimized physical reason controller to completely control all rack synths and switch between them on the fly could have been a thing. a thousand ideas how to optimize the stock synths comes to mind. emulation of analogue sequencing in reason is non-existant except for some rudimentary step sequencers (not saying that its better than digital sequencing but it would stay true to reasons "feel"). they should have pushed way further into the direction where reason is already good at instead of using resources to catch up to other platforms strengths. i could actually also imagine reason as one huge plugin into another daw (while still able to be 100% functional on its own, but with the special workflow of analouge studios).

oh and i will not lose the fun of what i have, i just will not upgrade. the upgrade to 8 was already a mistake for me (except the rv7000 upgrade which was a cool thing to happen and there should be way more of this kind).

[Oquasec]

Using synthedit in reason is gonna keep me occupied for...god knows

[zakalwe]

I'm curious about PDC. Have they introduced it for RE as well and is CV signal timing also compensated for?

[MattiasHG]

As the Emi, not for Reason Essential, right?

It's available for Reason Essentials too!

Here are some things that I think are really important (I hope Matthias reads them
-I am curious to see how undo/redo works, hopefully they will have a solution for this
-I hope there will also be a good integration with remote. Ideally, I want to be able to add remote-map sections for each VST, and I also want things like patch/up down to work
-There should also really be a remotable for bringing the plugin in window, i.e. when I have selected the VST RE in the rack, I want to be able to use my midi controller to bring up/close the corresponding window

We have implemented undo that looks at parameter changes in VSTs and tries to undo them. For many plugins, this simply works. However, there will likely be some "gotchas" when plugins behave differently and undo won't work as you expect it to. That comes with the format I'm afraid.

Re: remote, check it out in the beta. Not quite ready to give you the full details yet

[Kenni]

Another question about 9.5 not related to VST support:

Does this update address the performance issues with certain Mac OS versions?

[Ostermilk]

Normen, you're an RE dev and very helpful person. Even creating a device all in the effort to assist, or help, people. All due respect.

Did you see this coming?

I didn't hear anything, is all i'll say. Not a peep. And I'm like Varys on Game of Thrones, with birds n stuff.

Well funny timing with me releasing VMG-01 for free, hm? Now if I was smart and greedy I'd have made a sale for it instead, right? So depending on what you think of me you can decide if I did or didn't know about that

I'm wondering now if VMG-01 might be even more useful than it already was. I guess time will tell (no pun intended).

[normen]

If you are talking about the DSP usage I really don't care now as I will be using UAD.

Hehe. Like the 8 instances of a Neve channel that you can run on a UAD Quad? xD

[Loque]

Normen, you're an RE dev and very helpful person. Even creating a device all in the effort to assist, or help, people. All due respect.

Did you see this coming?

I didn't hear anything, is all i'll say. Not a peep. And I'm like Varys on Game of Thrones, with birds n stuff.

Well funny timing with me releasing VMG-01 for free, hm? Now if I was smart and greedy I'd have made a sale for it instead, right? So depending on what you think of me you can decide if I did or didn't know about that

I'm wondering now if VMG-01 might be even more useful than it already was. I guess time will tell (no pun intended).

Tbh, something came in my mind about delay compensation, but than "naaa....not in the next 3 years"...

[chimp_spanner]

As the Emi, not for Reason Essential, right?

It's available for Reason Essentials too!

Here are some things that I think are really important (I hope Matthias reads them
-I am curious to see how undo/redo works, hopefully they will have a solution for this
-I hope there will also be a good integration with remote. Ideally, I want to be able to add remote-map sections for each VST, and I also want things like patch/up down to work
-There should also really be a remotable for bringing the plugin in window, i.e. when I have selected the VST RE in the rack, I want to be able to use my midi controller to bring up/close the corresponding window

We have implemented undo that looks at parameter changes in VSTs and tries to undo them. For many plugins, this simply works. However, there will likely be some "gotchas" when plugins behave differently and undo won't work as you expect it to. That comes with the format I'm afraid.

Re: remote, check it out in the beta. Not quite ready to give you the full details yet

While you're here and fielding questions - and because I'm too impatient to wait for the beta - can you tell us if alt+clicking parameters will create automation lanes? My hunch is that this is a native Reason thing, and I noticed in the video that there's a VST toolbar with an automation button so I'm gonna guess that we will have to do a little manual mapping of VST automation IDs to Reason. Would that be correct-ish?

[MattiasHG]

While you're here and fielding questions - and because I'm too impatient to wait for the beta - can you tell us if alt+clicking parameters will create automation lanes? My hunch is that this is a native Reason thing, and I noticed in the video that there's a VST toolbar with an automation button so I'm gonna guess that we will have to do a little manual mapping of VST automation IDs to Reason. Would that be correct-ish?

That's a Reason native thing. Another reason why I've kept using a lot of REs during the internal beta.

[Gulale]

If you are talking about the DSP usage I really don't care now as I will be using UAD.

Hehe. Like the 8 instances of a Neve channel that you can run on a UAD Quad? xD

those are exceptional isn't it like the new SSL. By the way I have my suspicion even UAD is doing that intentionally to force you buy extra DSP card. who expects the leaner phase EQ to run a hundred something right?

Speaking of that, Can Reason VST loader differentiate Mono and stereo or Stereo only like AU and it is adaptive?

[QVprod]

might be quite an adventurous idea but an optimized physical reason controller to completely control all rack synths and switch between them on the fly could have been a thing.

It technically is though. Nektar Panorama pretty much does this.

they should have pushed way further into the direction where reason is already good at instead of using resources to catch up to other platforms strengths.

But they did. What other DAW allows CV control of VSTs? There are now even more things that can be done in Reason that can't be done elsewhere.

[scratchnsnifff]

Hey please correct me if I a wrong, will vocodex by image line work??? And also I'm on a Mac, is there a specific version of vsts for Mac? Where can I learn which formats to buy, I already know my personal must haves serum image line vocodex and harmor! Help

[centomila]

I expecting many crashes with VST's ...

Was it not exact the "Reason" why we had no VST implementation ? Is the ultra stable Reason time over ?

From https://www.propellerheads.se/reason-95

"What about stability? Will Reason be less stable now?
We've implemented a limited crash protection system for VSTs that means we attempt to detect crashes in the VST and prevent the plugin from crashing Reason. Since VST plugins are third-party code, it is still possible to experience problems with plugins. Keep in mind that our VST support in Reason in itself doesn't make the application less stable if you don't have or use any VST plugins."


For my experience, most problems with VST stability comes from the host (especially in the Live 8 era) or from pirated vsts.

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I'm happy for serum, some kontakt libraries and fabfilter... except that, i didn't miss anything on reason :p.... but anyway is a good and REALLY unexpected news


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Rethinking about all the "PH acquired by the rich guys" i've imagined it's gone something like this

Money guy: what is your number one request from users?
PH guy: well... they ask about VSTs support but...
Money guy: and why you don't have it?
PH Guy: ehm...
Money Guy: Add those damn STD or how it's called. Now.
PH Guy: (oh fuck)... ok

[The_G]

the day reason stopped to be what it was intended to be and became "another DAW". im out. everything after R6 was pointless or simply wrong and this is the conclusion of the developement. there is no point in using reason over any other DAW anymore.

Hey Chizmata...you need to go where you need to go, but on the other hand, you can just ignore the extra features introduced after R6 if you don't want to use them.

Out of curiosity, what were you hoping for instead? Updates to the stock devices? (Admittedly, a Subtraktor 2 is at least 5 years overdue.)

[ravisoni]

Reason just began a juggernaut. Damn, I feel good about owning this toy.

[Chizmata]

the day reason stopped to be what it was intended to be and became "another DAW". im out. everything after R6 was pointless or simply wrong and this is the conclusion of the developement. there is no point in using reason over any other DAW anymore.

Hey Chizmata...you need to go where you need to go, but on the other hand, you can just ignore the extra features introduced after R6 if you don't want to use them.

Out of curiosity, what were you hoping for instead? Updates to the stock devices? (Admittedly, a Subtraktor 2 is at least 5 years overdue.)

stated it above... generally a focus into the "analogue studio emulation" direction instead of "catch up to what other daws can do". and yes sure i can ignore extra features until a certain point, but i cant anymore if stability is compromised by CV support. if that is the case has yet to be seen.

@QVProd yes but i would have wished for something more dedicated than nektar panorama. lets say something that has enough, faders, knobs and buttons to theoretically completely control any existing reason device without switching modes or layouts. on top there could be a digital display naming each knobs and faders function depending to which device you switch.

[mreese80]

I KNEW THIS DAY WOULD COME. I'M PROUD OF THEM. THEY ARE SO LATE WITH THIS BUT IT'S FINALLY ARRIVED.

[plasticfractal]

I'll be honest, I have concerns about this. I've been using Reason since version 1, and back then I would have loved to see VST support. But now the RE ecosystem is really maturing and there are tons of excellent choices. I feel like this may be a shortsighted decision, but I hope I'm wrong. Sure right now the hype will be through the roof, and many people will be excited for it. But Propellerheads don't make money from VST purchases, they make money from RE sales. I have two big conerns now.

1. Fewer developers will choose to make Rack Extensions. Why would any developer out there spend extra time and effort making an RE version of their synth now? There is no upside for them to do that now. That means the RE ecosystem may slow down (which equals less money for our overlords).

2. Propellerheads can't guarantee the stability and backward compatibility that Reason was always famous for. One of the things that I love about Reason is that all my rack extension licenses are managed in one centralized spot. If my computer crashes, I just log into the Reason site, click a few times and suddenly all my stuff will be back. I know the counter argument is "you don't have to buy VSTs if you don't want to" and I respect that argument. So this concern is maybe more about the tarnishing of the Reason experience in users' minds.

EDIT- A third concern I have is that fewer people will decide to be RE developers in the first place. Take a person who has never made a soft synth before but wants to get into it now. They could choose to make a VST format synth, which they can sell to users of every DAW that exists, or they can spend the time learing the RE SDK and just make a synth for one DAW. Or they could spend the time doing both. I think that the common sense choice for the dev is to choose the one format that can reach the most potential customers. So aside from concern #1 about current devs choosing to abandon the RE format, there will be fewer devs who even start to develop Rack Extensions at all if my concern is valid.

So yeah I'm just concerned about the long term impact this will have. I'm guessing Propellerheads have looked at all the numbers and determined that this move would make them more money than if they don't (and hopefully this wasn't a "hail mary" pass), but I'm hoping that extends to the long term. Yes I am excited about getting the full Ozone and using it in Reason, but I also intend to keep buying Rack Extensions (assuming devs keep making them). I'm glad everyone is excited about this change, but I feel like we all need to step back and evaluate the possible negative impacts it could have. I mean, there is a good reason why this choice was never made before.