Feedback: Your favorite features of Reason!

[chaosroyale]

How about a topic is for positive feedback only - a chance to share your favorite parts of Reason and maybe inspire others to check them out!

Rule: Post ONE feature and ONE device that right now, you couldn't live without. Say why in a sentence or 2 if you want. The idea is to keep it simple.

mine--->
Feature: CV. I know, its obvious, but if you're new to Reason or "not a sound designer", give it a try! It will open up new ideas for you!

Device: ecf-42. Yes, the humble Envelope Filter from way back in Reason 1.0. So simple and effective. 24dB low pass is great for PHAT subs and you can parallel a bunch of of bandpasses for thick warping Reese mayhem.

[jlgrimes]

Favorite feature:

1. Integration

Kind of a hard to describe feature but I think the biggest thing that sells Reason is how all devices work together in the Rack, share a common theme and integrates nicely in the Sequencer. Generally Reason’s workflow is very direct which kind of makes its learning curve lower than other DAWS in most areas.

2. RV7000

One of my favorite reverbs. It’s versatile and sounds great and Props adding convolution makes this a full featured reverb.

[stratatonic]

COMBINATOR - this thing has spawned SO MANY useful Instruments/Sounds and Effects that it is indispensable to me for working in Reason. (Arguably a Device. but If this thing wasn't in Reason, I probably wouldn't use the program - it is littered all over the place).

RV7000 - almost for the Film Score patch alone. (love the MKii convolution addition as well)

[jayhosking]

Feature: Modularity? Is that what you'd call it? Stacking, wiring, sidechaining, submixing, building up the weirdest things in my imagination and then so much further. This is what makes Reason special and keeps me away from other DAWs with synthesizers. I love the rack. It is an endlessly inspiring creativity machine. (And Stratatonic, yeah, I'd agree that the Combinator is an essential part of that!)

Device: Europa. I love the unexpected weirdness that Grain can produce, but when I want to create a sound in my head, Europa has become my new PH go-to device. I love the visual feedback on the waveform, I love the modifiers and filters, and I love how intuitive the layout is for adding LFOs or envelopes to these features. And with the modularity and low CPU, things can get crazy and interesting really quickly.

[groggy1]

Feature: Combinator: The ability to take a RE or VST, and add couple effects, and then SAVE it for later re-use. Totally changed the way I work.

Device: Spider Audio-splitter. I *love* how I can have audio routed into a Bus, AND split it off as an input to another device (e.g. into a compressor for side-chaining)

[NekujaK]

Favorite Feature: The Rack
Some people think simulating real-world interfaces on a computer is stupid because when you're in the software realm you're no longer bound by real-world physical constraints, so why limit yourself. But the rack is truly brilliant because the cabling and physical layout is instantly intuitive and completely makes sense, not to mention it looks great. One of the reasons I stopped using Reaper is because, for me at least, understanding how to do even the simplest routing between devices was perpetually confusing and completely non-intuitive. Without the rack, Reason is not Reason.

Favorite Device: None
Sorry, there's no single native Reason device that is a go-to for me. I find myself reaching for REs and VSTs first. So instead, I'll just say the Softube FET Compressor (which happens to qualify as both an RE and VST ) is one of my absolute favorite compressors, especially for drums, and it usually finds its way into every one of my tracks.

[Raveshaper]

Feature: Remote
While less commonly used, Remote is a powerful tool that can customize Reason to do things in completely new ways or to invent organic sounds you could never program intentionally.

Device: Thor
I use this more and more as a utility than as instrument (wish I could place a copy of it in that device type folder) and its ability to process audio pass through is critical to my current mastering chain.

[CaliforniaBurrito]

Feature: SSL EQ Implementation in the rack is great for my workflow.
Device: D16 Decimort was the device that made me appreciate distortion.

[Hauser+Quaid]

Favourite feature: the sequencer. I've used every major DAW (and still do for various projects) and for me, the sequencer in Reason is unmatched. It's just so quick and easy to arrange, I love it.

Favourite device: Scream. Used on every project multiple times, it's indispensable. Also nothing quite like it in VST, I always miss it on projects where I don't use Reason.

[ProfessaKaos]

A bit lame but at this very moment, my favourite feature is: VST Support
My favourite device is: VST Device

Other than these I just love Reason as a whole. All the features and devices others mention is what I love about Reason.

[Psuper]

Reasons experimentation is about as good as it gets -- pure fun juggling around some cables and trying things out - there's nothing else out there like it that greets you so warmly.

[PeterP]

Favorite feature: Blocks. Miss it dearly every time I'm using another DAW.

Favorite device: SSL mixer. Elegant and efficient. Makes it fun to mix.

[Zac]

It's always been the abstract but very real intuitiveness of everything (except the later added audio functionality - comp edit? Ive still no clue). Right from R1.01 everything just made sense to me. I'm a trial and error messer and things happened as i guessed they would most of the time. That was huge, i hate frustration.

Device has to be Dr Rex because in those early days it gave me beats to my music until i bit the bullet and learned how to program them (im more of a chord/melody guy). I still love it even now. I mainly use it as adding layers for hi percussion but even that can be inspiring for using the groove on my main beats to lesser or greater extent.

[avasopht]

Modularity
Thor

Combined I can do crazy things. Like at the moment I'm working on some drum processing for a challenge I gave myself.

To emulate some hardware properties I decided to create a threshold split of the audio signal so that I can process audio above that threshold separately. I achieved this with Thor, it's such a powerhouse.

Combined with Reason's modularity I am able to experiment with a variety of standardized effects chains to produce an insane amount of sound textures.

[TritoneAddiction]

1. Right click for automation. I've worked a little bit in Reaper before where the program opens a huge list of everything automatable. Not fun. If you don't know exactly what the parameter is called it's a struggle compared to just right click whenever you tweak some knob and stumble upon something cool.

2. I'm gonna count the SSL master bus compressor. I pretty much use it for every track i make. Such a simple way to make everything sound better. Fits my kind of music.

[Gorgon]

The brush tool! Oh wait, it doesn't have that.

[Zac]

[Noplan]

My favorite feature is the close button. it saved me a lot of frustration during the creative process.

[Zac]

My favorite feature is the close button. it saved me a lot of frustration during the creative process.

Ive only recently used this option. I used to push through all sorts of nonsense.

It leaves a lot of orphans for me. I occasionally try and get them a mother. Can be tricky but probably Reason is the only DAW where all takes are recoverable and future relevant and compatible.

[kitekrazy]

Redrum - I have a zillion one shots and I love Redrum over the likes of Live's drum rack. I know it;s been an old stand by in Reason but for someone new to Reason this is great to play with.

[Taff]

NN-XT

I rarely use anything else, as I mainly make "pseudo-classical" stuff with real sounding "orchestral" instruments. (Pretty shite at it though.)

[Ahornberg]

The quality of timestretch and pitchshift stands out.

[Carly(Poohbear)]

Favourite feature: Tab Key, back of the rack, all that CV stuff and extra controls, it's what makes Reason unique.

Favourite device: My Computer that runs Reason
that's a hard one, Thor due to the routing mainly and then the sounds you can get out of it.

[aeox]

Feature: the rack

Device: Europa

[Faastwalker]

Feature - Virtual cabling. Always been an amazing feature. I think some (especially non Reason users) see it as something of a gimmick. But it's totally sublime, integral to Reason's workflow, and just makes so much sense from a visual workflow perspective. It's a what you see is what you get system. It's easy to work with for that reason. But is also one of Reason's most powerful features. Amazing.

Device - That's a tough one, especially since I just bought & downloaded Reason 10 today. So far I've not gotten past Radical Piano. It's so good. I've a feeling Grain is going to blow my brains out! Effect wise I love reverb and the RV7000 is top draw I think, especially since getting the convolution options. Also love effects that have a tendency to totally mutilate sounds. Fritz is amazing for this. I cant decide on a specific device. Too many amazing ones