Trying to decide: Reason, Sampletank or Kontakt

[esselfortium]

Kontakt's built-in content is fairly dated and underwhelming, but it's of course very useful as a platform for third-party content. (With that said, a lot of third-party developers pay a license fee to get their instruments to run in the free Kontakt Player.)

There is probably no DAW that's going to get you high-quality realistic acoustic instruments out-of-the-box as part of your initial purchase. Note how the recommendations here are all for third-party products that can be used in any DAW, not other DAWs that will do better out of the box. If you want to have high-quality acoustic instruments controllable from your midi sequencer, be prepared to spend a lot of money and be on the lookout for discounts. Komplete might be a good starting point if this is what you're after, though I'd also argue that it's bloated with a lot of things you aren't going to need and doesn't necessarily offer the best options out there for the things you do want.

I'd say that whether you want to start with Reason or another DAW should depend on how you feel about its workflow and feature set.

[jlgrimes]

Sampletank probably has the best bread & butter type sounds and probably more geared for a keyboardist who wants a Rompler workflow. That said Sampletank can be slow to load in a live setting. And if you want synth sounds, it is probably the weakest.

Reason has older sounds but IMO still usable, but when it comes to synths Reason is the best. For speed Reason stuff usually loads pretty fast as the sample size is usually lower.

Kontakt is somewhere in between. It's real power is in scripting. Probably more expressive and expandable. Kontakt 3rd party libraries are the best. Built in library is good but also have a learning curve somewhat as the libraries has alot of bells and whistles.

[gullum]

what? on a Reason forum and someone advice against buying Reason.
You can get fine results with reason 10 stock devices and yes they are good quality too, I have use Reason only standalone since Reason and Record were released, before that, I rewired to Nuendo.
Anyway as many have pointed out about all 3 options there are extra purchases needed to get pro sound, but that is not totally true. you can buy a $1000 library and it sounds just amazing on its own, but not good when you add other instruments. The key to good sounding music is not the best most expensive plugin but your ears and ability to mix. so if your ears are good you can learn the mixing then Reason is perfect for your hobby music making.

[Garven]

Thanks to all for the info, advice, thoughts, etc. I decided to go with Reason after seeing the sale price. Here in Canada, the full version is $510, but until March 31, it's available for $379.

Over the past few days, I tried demos of Sampletank and Komplete software as well. Both are enticing, and I may keep an eye out for some sales in the summer, but for what I'm doing as a hobby, Reason fits perfectly and sounds great. As I tried the others, I found myself coming back to Reason each time and being happy with the ton of sounds the full version provides. I must say that Propellerhead is wise to provide a full, unrestricted 30-day trial. Had IK done the same with Sampletank 4, I might well have gone in that direction (Ni does demos with the Komplete stuff, but I agree with those who don't like its interface. The sounds are fine, but then so are Reason 10's).

Supplementing it with the free stuff that's around the net (including Komplete Start and Sampletank free) makes it all the more fun. I`m glad to be joining the ranks here!

[hurricane]

I`m glad to be joining the ranks here!

Great now let's hear your stuff.