Reason 10: Not Very Impressed
Posted: 17 Apr 2018
I have been using Reason 10 now since it was released, which gives me 6 months (?) of hands-on use, and over that time there have been some things that frusrate the heck out of me.
Maybe some readers can offer solutions, if there are any, so I hope to use this thread to vent, and maybe get some tips from others.
Some of what I bring up are peculiarities to Reason 10, while others I think are problematic of all previous versions, but seem like strange development decisions, or a lack of vision in best serving the user.
1. The Browser
When I launch Reason, the Browser is always on-screen by default. Who on earth needs a file browser always on ? I have never seen any other software that does this, because it doesn't make any sense. Sure, I can simply close it with the F3 key, but I usually work in a dark environment so it's silly to have to go hunting for the key to close something that for the most part should never be open. It would be more logical to assign the closing of the pane to the ESC key.
And with the embedded browser design, rather than a pop-up screen (like every other software out there), the ability to arrow up/down to browse patches to listen to while a track is playing seems to be gone. Am I missing something here? It's a real pain to have to drag every patch onto a device just to preview it.
2. The Mix Channel Container
Sometimes I like to drag my chosen instrument in to the Mix Channel, as a speedy alternative to creating a Combinator, since the rotaries and buttons can be programmed in the same way. But when I do this, it re-manes the container as 'Mix Channel', rather than keep the original name format
3. Renaming Rotaries
Still with the Mix Channel/Combinator style utilities, when a rotary is renamed to whatever it's doing (let's say 'Delay Dry/Wet'), once that function is automated in the sequencer, the renamed function does not carry over. It still says Insert FX Rotary 1 or whatever. This means that there is no actual reference to what each automation lane is doing, in the window that users are working in while drawing or playing the automation.
4. Organising ReFills and the Favourites Feature
I have renamed all of my ReFills according to the instruments the open up in. For example, 'Miroslav String Ensembles ReFill' I would change to 'COMBINATOR String Ensembles' in the Windows folder where it lives, but in Reason's Browser window, it shows as the original name. Where is it pulling the name from, and why isn't my custom name (making for more logical quick reference) appearing ?
5. No export to MP3
Unlike other DAWS, even the free Audacity software, it seems not possible to add the codec such FFMPEG, so users need to export a WAV, then re-open in another DAW to render to MP3. What a hassle this is.
Some may be aware that the MP3 technology patent is expired, so it should be able to be built right in to Reason now. And isn't the Propellerhead-created Alihoopa platform serving media as MP3 anyway ?
6. No Custom Color Swatches
Assigning colors to individual tracks is an invaluable workflow management tool, but Reason 10 only has some stock colors, half of which look pretty terrible, and some that are even outright unusable. Like using the yellow colour, you then can't make out the bar lines in the sequencer. And with the darker colors, the track title fonts don't revert to white, which makes them so difficult to read.
7. Screen Real Estate
I run a 27" screen and a 23" screen at 1920x1080, which is hardly tiny. But with the Browser pane open, I can't even view two columns of rack devices in the browser's default state. To me, this negates the whole rack experience that makes Reason unique. It means I need to use the ridiculous Navigator in the top left of the screen just to see what's going on. Or if I reduce the horizontal size of the Browser to fit two rack widths, the Browser menu reverts to icons only
And if all three windows in a project stay attached to one screen, while in sequencer active mode, there are those three grey bars that span vertically, taking up space that could otherwise be used for one extra track view.
Not to mention every time they roll out an update, there is a nag-screen reminder that will not go away on each new launch, taking up even more space.
8. No Zoom of the Rack Window
Since so much of the magic happens in manipulating device functions, and since so many modern instrument pack so many knobs into as few horizontal rack units as possible, it makes me sad that I cannot use a simple zoom control to get a closer look. For example in a web browser, or Word, or Excel, or other software, it is second nature for me to simply use CTRL+Mousewheel to zoom in and out.
9. The Audio Editor
Oh my gosh, I could write a short story on how bad this is. Audio DAWS have been around for a very long time, and everyone else seems to get it. But Reason is still clunky, time consuming and illogical.
10. Sequencer Horizontal View Limit
This may not be important to many people, but it is for me. We can only see around 20 minutes at any one time when viewing a project.
11. The right-Click 'Add' Menu Popup
I'm really struggling to see how to make sense of the decision to group everything by developer. If I want to go to a B3 organ, I want to see a B3 organ, and not have to remember who the developer is. If I want an Amp Sim, do I look for it in Reason Devices because it's Native, Propellerhead Software because it's a Rack Extension, or Softube, because they've developed it , and it's branded as Softube? Those are just examples, I know where to find these things, but it's a whole lot of extra menu diving.
It would be much smoother if it were simply "Add Instrument > List all' or even "Add Instrument>Synth>List All.
12. A-List Extensions & the Humana/Klang/Pangea Suite
This one is just crazy. If I load a new patch, the mix channel and the device gets named as that patch. But if I change the patch within the device window itself rather than select from the Browser, the mix channel name stays at it's original loaded name.
13. Renaming Mix Channels / Sequencer Tracks
If I rename a channel in the SSL, it reflects on the Mix Channel in the rack, and visaversa. But it doesn't update the sequencer track !
Also, if I load a new instrument from new, and switch between patches, the mix channel is updated to reflect the patch name. But if I have previously renamed anything to make more sense, then change a patch, it doesn't update anything. What the heck ?
And on that topic, I really don't like that a track/channel will take on the patch name by default, because somewhere down the track in a project if I change a patch within the same device, the mix channel name is still locked in as the old patch name.
I should probably stop this list for now, because instead of relieving my frustration, it's only adding to it. I know some of these issues have been inherent in Reason for a while now, but it annoys me a little bit that nobody has the foresight or the vision to fix them. And some of these points are very unique to Reason 10, so in my opinion it's actually a backwards step.
There are a lot of more technical and advanced design flaws that I'm sure super-users encounter, but I feel like these are all pretty basic things, that are simply ignored. I guess Reason designers and developers don't actually use Reason very much.
And I hope and pray that I'm missing some custom features here, so I welcome any comments that may help me use Reason a bit more cleverly, because Reason 10 to me is actually less efficient than the version I bought into (6 releases prior to the latest one). If I had a time machine, I would have not bothered upgrading, because it doesn't offer me very much that's improved upon over the past few years.
Maybe some readers can offer solutions, if there are any, so I hope to use this thread to vent, and maybe get some tips from others.
Some of what I bring up are peculiarities to Reason 10, while others I think are problematic of all previous versions, but seem like strange development decisions, or a lack of vision in best serving the user.
1. The Browser
When I launch Reason, the Browser is always on-screen by default. Who on earth needs a file browser always on ? I have never seen any other software that does this, because it doesn't make any sense. Sure, I can simply close it with the F3 key, but I usually work in a dark environment so it's silly to have to go hunting for the key to close something that for the most part should never be open. It would be more logical to assign the closing of the pane to the ESC key.
And with the embedded browser design, rather than a pop-up screen (like every other software out there), the ability to arrow up/down to browse patches to listen to while a track is playing seems to be gone. Am I missing something here? It's a real pain to have to drag every patch onto a device just to preview it.
2. The Mix Channel Container
Sometimes I like to drag my chosen instrument in to the Mix Channel, as a speedy alternative to creating a Combinator, since the rotaries and buttons can be programmed in the same way. But when I do this, it re-manes the container as 'Mix Channel', rather than keep the original name format
3. Renaming Rotaries
Still with the Mix Channel/Combinator style utilities, when a rotary is renamed to whatever it's doing (let's say 'Delay Dry/Wet'), once that function is automated in the sequencer, the renamed function does not carry over. It still says Insert FX Rotary 1 or whatever. This means that there is no actual reference to what each automation lane is doing, in the window that users are working in while drawing or playing the automation.
4. Organising ReFills and the Favourites Feature
I have renamed all of my ReFills according to the instruments the open up in. For example, 'Miroslav String Ensembles ReFill' I would change to 'COMBINATOR String Ensembles' in the Windows folder where it lives, but in Reason's Browser window, it shows as the original name. Where is it pulling the name from, and why isn't my custom name (making for more logical quick reference) appearing ?
5. No export to MP3
Unlike other DAWS, even the free Audacity software, it seems not possible to add the codec such FFMPEG, so users need to export a WAV, then re-open in another DAW to render to MP3. What a hassle this is.
Some may be aware that the MP3 technology patent is expired, so it should be able to be built right in to Reason now. And isn't the Propellerhead-created Alihoopa platform serving media as MP3 anyway ?
6. No Custom Color Swatches
Assigning colors to individual tracks is an invaluable workflow management tool, but Reason 10 only has some stock colors, half of which look pretty terrible, and some that are even outright unusable. Like using the yellow colour, you then can't make out the bar lines in the sequencer. And with the darker colors, the track title fonts don't revert to white, which makes them so difficult to read.
7. Screen Real Estate
I run a 27" screen and a 23" screen at 1920x1080, which is hardly tiny. But with the Browser pane open, I can't even view two columns of rack devices in the browser's default state. To me, this negates the whole rack experience that makes Reason unique. It means I need to use the ridiculous Navigator in the top left of the screen just to see what's going on. Or if I reduce the horizontal size of the Browser to fit two rack widths, the Browser menu reverts to icons only
And if all three windows in a project stay attached to one screen, while in sequencer active mode, there are those three grey bars that span vertically, taking up space that could otherwise be used for one extra track view.
Not to mention every time they roll out an update, there is a nag-screen reminder that will not go away on each new launch, taking up even more space.
8. No Zoom of the Rack Window
Since so much of the magic happens in manipulating device functions, and since so many modern instrument pack so many knobs into as few horizontal rack units as possible, it makes me sad that I cannot use a simple zoom control to get a closer look. For example in a web browser, or Word, or Excel, or other software, it is second nature for me to simply use CTRL+Mousewheel to zoom in and out.
9. The Audio Editor
Oh my gosh, I could write a short story on how bad this is. Audio DAWS have been around for a very long time, and everyone else seems to get it. But Reason is still clunky, time consuming and illogical.
10. Sequencer Horizontal View Limit
This may not be important to many people, but it is for me. We can only see around 20 minutes at any one time when viewing a project.
11. The right-Click 'Add' Menu Popup
I'm really struggling to see how to make sense of the decision to group everything by developer. If I want to go to a B3 organ, I want to see a B3 organ, and not have to remember who the developer is. If I want an Amp Sim, do I look for it in Reason Devices because it's Native, Propellerhead Software because it's a Rack Extension, or Softube, because they've developed it , and it's branded as Softube? Those are just examples, I know where to find these things, but it's a whole lot of extra menu diving.
It would be much smoother if it were simply "Add Instrument > List all' or even "Add Instrument>Synth>List All.
12. A-List Extensions & the Humana/Klang/Pangea Suite
This one is just crazy. If I load a new patch, the mix channel and the device gets named as that patch. But if I change the patch within the device window itself rather than select from the Browser, the mix channel name stays at it's original loaded name.
13. Renaming Mix Channels / Sequencer Tracks
If I rename a channel in the SSL, it reflects on the Mix Channel in the rack, and visaversa. But it doesn't update the sequencer track !
Also, if I load a new instrument from new, and switch between patches, the mix channel is updated to reflect the patch name. But if I have previously renamed anything to make more sense, then change a patch, it doesn't update anything. What the heck ?
And on that topic, I really don't like that a track/channel will take on the patch name by default, because somewhere down the track in a project if I change a patch within the same device, the mix channel name is still locked in as the old patch name.
I should probably stop this list for now, because instead of relieving my frustration, it's only adding to it. I know some of these issues have been inherent in Reason for a while now, but it annoys me a little bit that nobody has the foresight or the vision to fix them. And some of these points are very unique to Reason 10, so in my opinion it's actually a backwards step.
There are a lot of more technical and advanced design flaws that I'm sure super-users encounter, but I feel like these are all pretty basic things, that are simply ignored. I guess Reason designers and developers don't actually use Reason very much.
And I hope and pray that I'm missing some custom features here, so I welcome any comments that may help me use Reason a bit more cleverly, because Reason 10 to me is actually less efficient than the version I bought into (6 releases prior to the latest one). If I had a time machine, I would have not bothered upgrading, because it doesn't offer me very much that's improved upon over the past few years.