Update on Reason 10.3 and VST performance

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MattiasHG
Reason Studios
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Joined: 16 Jan 2015

14 Dec 2018

We have an update on Reason 10.3. Since I know there's a lot of people who are super passionate here on ReasonTalk, I'm cross-posting our blog announcement here today.
The end of the year is nigh and you might be wondering how the VST performance improvements are going. The bad news is that it won't be done this year after all, but the good news is that we've entered alpha testing and we're getting great results!

To understand why this work is taking a while, we wanted to share some details on what we’re actually doing. Many VSTs use less CPU when run with larger audio buffers. Reason has always run all devices with 64 frame buffer, regardless of the user’s audio setting. Reason native devices and Rack Extensions are optimized for this so they show no difference in CPU usage when audio buffer setting changes. Other parts of Reason can still have improved performance with a larger buffer size, but this is the case with our devices. The challenge with this update is to keep existing Rack Extensions and native devices running with 64 frame buffers, as before, while allowing VSTs to run with larger buffers in the same Reason rack.

We made this technical choice because many of our users expect high performance while playing their instruments “live” and while patching, including feedback connections, which requires low latency for an optimal experience. By choosing a low fixed buffer size in Reason and Rack Extensions we were then able to optimize the whole system based on that condition, yielding high performance and a realistic result when patching audio and CV cables. The work now is to marry that world with the different paradigm of VST, providing maximum performance for all users in all situations.

As I mentioned, we're currently alpha testing our prototype with our trusted Test Pilots, a small group of seasoned Reason power users, and they're getting great results in the prototype.

When we've gotten to a state where all parts of Reason are updated to work with these changes, we will begin a more public beta testing. With all this said, I personally want to apologize that I promised something we couldn't deliver on time. That's also why I don't want to promise a new date when this will be done, but we're working hard and it's getting closer! I hope you look forward to the improvements, they'll be worth the wait.

Mattias Häggström Gerdt
Reason Product Manager
Needless to say, I'm not happy about not keeping a promise but I hope you look forward to the improvements.

You can find the blog post here: https://www.propellerheads.com/blog/upd ... erformance
You can find an article on CDM about this here: http://cdm.link/2018/12/reason-10-3-vst/

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pongasoft
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14 Dec 2018

As far as I am concerned, I prefer a million times getting updates like this even if is less of a good news than total silence! It is very good to know that you are working on it, and you are making progress even if it is taking longer than anticipated. Explaining why it is taking longer is also amazing as it makes us understand the challenges (vs all the rumors of kludgy code that have been circulating...).

Please keep the channel open

Thanks!
Yan

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ReasonUser
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14 Dec 2018

Like all good politicians - you drop the bad news at closing time on Friday! Well played. :D

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rudiarii
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14 Dec 2018

Thanks for the honesty and update.......patience is my middle name....😉
"dont let the world bring you down, not everyone here is that fucked up and cold" Incubus

tanni
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14 Dec 2018

yes, take the time and make it rock solid !

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Zac
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14 Dec 2018

Whoa! That was quite an update and insight. Unprecedented I would say, and very welcome by me. It takes as long as it takes IMO. Can you sneak midi support for VSTs in there too? :P

I hope this announcement serves to assuage the doubters fears and doesn't just provide them with ammunition :roll:

R10.3 will be something to look forward to in the New Year. Happy Holidays :)

(Reading my language above I think I may have been listening to too many Brexit politicians!)

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Emian
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14 Dec 2018

Reading the posted links sounds promissing ! take your time Props, i'm sure it'll be worth the wait now :)


"i might be established, but i'll never be establishement "
- Dave Clarke -www.soundcloud.com/emian

antic604

14 Dec 2018

Since I'm not using VSTs with Reason I'm indifferent about it, but while you're tweaking stuff under the hood is there any chance for making REs also perform better? The 64 samples buffer was an ambitious goal and is probably useful for those that perform live, but many (most?) of us would rather prefer running few more instances of Vk-2 or Expanse that them having the lowest latency possible :)

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GRB
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14 Dec 2018

Great news Matthias! Developing software is not an easy task, any dev can confirm that. Almost anything could go wrong and it takes patience and expertise to find out how to sort things out.

Marrying both paradigms (RE and VST) its even harder but I'm sure you can do it well! We don't want two Reason flavors, Reason RE and Reason VST. we want Reason REVST! :)

As a Product Manager we appreciate that you can tell us whats going on there, other software companies keep silence about their faults and they pay a high price for it.

Just to mention some real world example that audio software that barely can be considered software at all you can take Algoriddim DJay Pro windows version... it needs two soundcards to work properly, this guys never heard of ASIO or even of soundcard with multiple outputs. They even want to sell you a cable that split the stereo audio output, left for music and right for monitoring giving you a nice mono sound for DJing, amazing... not!
R12 12.2d36 / Reason+ / R11 Suite - Win10 64bit HP i7 - 32Gb RAM - SSD / Scarlett 2i4 / Novation Launchkey 61 MK3 / Nektar Impact LX61+ / JBL 305 MKII

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Emian
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14 Dec 2018

antic604 wrote:
14 Dec 2018
Since I'm not using VSTs with Reason I'm indifferent about it, but while you're tweaking stuff under the hood is there any chance for making REs also perform better? The 64 samples buffer was an ambitious goal and is probably useful for those that perform live, but many (most?) of us would rather prefer running few more instances of Vk-2 or Expanse that them having the lowest latency possible :)

Good point, they are about the only RE's that perform terrible on my system (they sound fantastic tough ! )... i prefer Legend over VK-2 just because it performs remarkably better (and also sounds phat/analogue). with Europa & Massive i have good alternatives for wavetablesynths like Expanse too...


"i might be established, but i'll never be establishement "
- Dave Clarke -www.soundcloud.com/emian

antic604

14 Dec 2018

Emian wrote:
14 Dec 2018
Good point, they are about the only RE's that perform terrible on my system (they sound fantastic tough ! )...
Sure, they're pretty taxing to the CPU on their own but if Props were able to shave off 5-10% of CPU on every RE in the Rack, that would be quite something as well!

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EnochLight
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14 Dec 2018

I'm down with this. I was aching for a 10.3 VST performance update as much as the next person, but if it takes them into 2019 to get it right, then so be it. Ozone 8 and Neutron 2 are the big ones I need performance improvement on. Everything else is just secondary issues for my productions. Looking forward to the fix!
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

antic604

14 Dec 2018

EnochLight wrote:
14 Dec 2018
I'm down with this. I was aching for a 10.3 VST performance update as much as the next person, but if it takes them into 2019 to get it right, then so be it. Ozone 8 and Neutron 2 are the big ones I need performance improvement on. Everything else is just secondary issues for my productions. Looking forward to the fix!
But, but, but.... Matthias said "there will be no paid update in 2018".

Does that mean 10.3 will be paid? :o

j/k, in case it's not obvious ;) :lol:

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esselfortium
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14 Dec 2018

antic604 wrote:
14 Dec 2018
Since I'm not using VSTs with Reason I'm indifferent about it, but while you're tweaking stuff under the hood is there any chance for making REs also perform better? The 64 samples buffer was an ambitious goal and is probably useful for those that perform live, but many (most?) of us would rather prefer running few more instances of Vk-2 or Expanse that them having the lowest latency possible :)
I'm pretty sure that getting any benefit from a similar patch for REs would also require individual REs to be updated by their developers to actually make their DSP code utilize that larger buffer size, whereas VSTs are already designed with that capability (or expectation). I might be mistaken though.
Sarah Mancuso
My music: Future Human

electricthing
Posts: 68
Joined: 08 May 2018

14 Dec 2018

antic604 wrote:
14 Dec 2018
Since I'm not using VSTs with Reason I'm indifferent about it, but while you're tweaking stuff under the hood is there any chance for making REs also perform better? The 64 samples buffer was an ambitious goal and is probably useful for those that perform live, but many (most?) of us would rather prefer running few more instances of Vk-2 or Expanse that them having the lowest latency possible :)
I agree,

would be nice option if the user could put Reason in ´Live´ or ´Mix´ mode.
Anyway, good to hear this news about VST performance.
I´m using Reason for half a year now and very happy with it,
even more happy when VST performance gets improved.

Edit; I join the consensus here; Don't mind waiting for a reliable improvement.
Last edited by electricthing on 15 Dec 2018, edited 1 time in total.

antic604

14 Dec 2018

esselfortium wrote:
14 Dec 2018
I'm pretty sure that getting any benefit from a similar patch for REs would also require individual REs to be updated by their developers to actually make their DSP code utilize that larger buffer size, whereas VSTs are already designed with that capability (or expectation). I might be mistaken though.
That's a good point! But maybe it's also possible for Props to introduce something on the API level through which REs are communicating with Reason. I've no idea, but good point.

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Loque
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Joined: 28 Dec 2015

14 Dec 2018

Thanks for the info update. No need to excuse, because i prefer to wait a bit longer instead of getting something unfinished. Looking forward to the release next year.
Reason12, Win10

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EnochLight
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14 Dec 2018

antic604 wrote:
14 Dec 2018
But, but, but.... Matthias said "there will be no paid update in 2018".
:lol: :lol: :lol:

And he is a man of his word. 2 weeks & 4 days left in 2018 and no paid update expected. ;)
antic604 wrote:
14 Dec 2018
Does that mean 10.3 will be paid? :o

j/k, in case it's not obvious ;) :lol:
I know you're joking (I think), but just in case it's not obvious to some - 10.3 will be free. ;)
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

chaosroyale
Posts: 728
Joined: 05 Sep 2017

14 Dec 2018

"kludgy code" ahhh fuck, I'm sorry I even used that term!

Anyway, best of luck to the Props team with the performance update and all future refinements.

Also, Pongasoft: thanks for your cool RE's. Your A/B Audio & CV Switch was the key to building a particularly tricky granular multi-sample player for a project I did, it saved my life!
pongasoft wrote:
14 Dec 2018
As far as I am concerned, I prefer a million times getting updates like this even if is less of a good news than total silence! It is very good to know that you are working on it, and you are making progress even if it is taking longer than anticipated. Explaining why it is taking longer is also amazing as it makes us understand the challenges (vs all the rumors of kludgy code that have been circulating...).

Please keep the channel open

Thanks!
Yan

PhillipOrdonez
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14 Dec 2018

Getting excited! Nice that Peter wrote a piece about it too. Have a good jul, you guys!

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chimp_spanner
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14 Dec 2018

Fantastic news! Someone - Normen? - actually alluded to this ages ago, and I kinda got the feeling this was the case recently when I upped my buffer to maximum in a project and saw absolutely noooo change in DSP usage. Aaaalso VCV Rack's VST bridge would always report 64 regardless of the interface buffer size. So yeah it's all making sense!

The only thing I really need super low latency for is guitar tracking. Otherwise if I can ease the burden by just switching to 128 or 512 it’ll make a huge difference. Excited!
Last edited by chimp_spanner on 14 Dec 2018, edited 1 time in total.

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pongasoft
RE Developer
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14 Dec 2018

chaosroyale wrote:
14 Dec 2018
Also, Pongasoft: thanks for your cool RE's. Your A/B Audio & CV Switch was the key to building a particularly tricky granular multi-sample player for a project I did, it saved my life!
This makes my day! So happy to see when my REs (and hopefully VSTs) are useful to others. That is the reason why I build them (and release them for free and open source (for VST only due to RE NDA...)).

Yan

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friday
Posts: 336
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14 Dec 2018

Thanks for the open communication!!! Great to hear that you have good results.

groggy1
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14 Dec 2018

I don't mind waiting a bit longer to get this update. Agree with everyone on the thread that the communication here is awesome.

Mattias, if you put the Reason Ugly Sweater on the props shop, you can take till 2020. :)

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Wobbleburger
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14 Dec 2018

I really hope that this news slows down the negative comments on here (and facebook and reddit). It's clogging up creative resources with toxicity.
In the 90s, my midi music was on the Baulder's Gate site. That was my life peak.
Reasonite since 2000. My music (and my old midi) can be found here:
https://futurewizard.org

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