Reason 10.2 on Surface Go

[Artmuzz]

I have a written a report on how Reason 10.2 performs on the new Surface Go tablet.

I recently bought the new Surface Go Windows 10 tablet and installed Reason 10.2 on it in the hope to use it as a small portable iPad sized Reason workstation with touch when travelling. I loaded up the Reason 10 demo projects but the CPU indicator went sky high. I then created an empty project and loaded Europa synth but with just one instance of the Europa synth the CPU yet again goes sky high and there is crackle. However, Reason 10.2 plays very well on my Surface Go when I load old Reason projects that I created when I had Reason 1.0 and 2.5 and touch works very well using the surface pen.

In a nutshell Reason 10.2 will play great and it’s possible to create music on a Surface Go if only using the old synths and racks like Malstrom, Subtractor, NN-XT and all the other racks and synths that came with the original Reason but using the newer synths and racks will cause the CPU to have a panic attack.

Of course this test was only done using the only onboard sound on the Surface Go with no adjustments made to Windows 10.

[antic604]

Are you sure you were in high-performance power profile? Native devices - incl. Europa and Grain - are still pretty efficient compared to certain REs and most VSTs? It runs Live, Cubase or ProTools pretty well (considering its specs):

Having said that, I'm on a 12'' Surface Pro 4 i7 and I can't imagine Reason looks like on a 10'' screen...

Also I'm not sure what you mean by "touch works well" - there's no multi-touch and majority of controls in the devices and Reason's GUI are way too small, at least for me.

[Artmuzz]

When I say touch works well I mean it is responsive especially with the surface pen. I know that the controls on Reason are way too small but that’s when the surface pen comes in handy.

Reason looks good on a 10 inch screen and I am able to make some tunes on Reason by using the surface pen and right click works with the pen too. I am going to apply the tweaks that they guy on Molten Music advised and see if I get better performance with Europa.

[mcatalao]

Yeah i have a Windows Surface, and it is not the best option for music.

You have to understand that all the CPU's on hybrids are low power CPUs, and most if not all are only 2 core CPU's so if you're trying to make big projects with them and use high cpu synths with them, the surface will crap out!

Keep in mind these are hybrids. They are good enough laptops that can be a tablet and vice versa. Imho even the I7 will be short for music work.

That being said, they are stable, and i've used mine live a couple of times, but always with projects that relied mostly on reason's core devices.

Good Luck!

[Artmuzz]

I have tweaked the settings on my Surface Go as seen in the Molten Music video and what a difference it makes on performance. Now when I load Reason 10.2 demo songs the CPU runs a lot better and it goes to a maximum of four bars on the DSP indicator on Reason. Loading Europa synth is a lot better too and the CPU seems to handle it better. The only problem now is my Surface Go runs hot which is expected but it worries me because the tablet is fanless.

[Studio67]

I also use the Surface Pro 2018 i5 model (fanless) and its a really stable system. I can run enough VST for a live gig. And yes the molton user tips works good enough. The heat is not a problem. Set the processor performance to 95 procent in Reason. The GUI from reason is slow and let's hope the next update will fix the multi-touch. I use a lot of VST synth because the interfaces are bigger and more touch friendly.

[Loque]

I am not sure Europa and Grain are really native devices in the fashion of oder Reason devices..

[antic604]

I am not sure Europa and Grain are really native devices in the fashion of oder Reason devices..

Europa is developed by the same guy who did Maelstrom (and other stuff, I think) so I meant that + the fact that it's probably more tightly integrated with Reason that your regular RE.

And it really has a tiny DSP footprint compared to say Expanse.

And it's included with v10 and not available in the shop.

Yes, I call that "native"