Announcing Reason 11

[TheDavidAgenda]

You've given up on the DAW side of things, haven't you.

Not at all! All workflow features are super highly requested and there are more of them than most full version upgrades we've ever done. Curved automation, crossfades, muting notes, new pen tool, increased vertical and individual zoom, visual feedback when playing in the piano roll and so on. This is definitely a commitment to Reason as a whole. Try 'em out, they're super useful!

First of all, I'm pumped for Reason 11. Very excited to check it out, but let's be honest here:

The workflow features are super highly requested because Reason was so lacking before (from a usability perspective). I love Reason, but you don't really get praised for adding something that should have been there ages ago. Reason is still playing catch up with most other DAWs in terms of usability.

Also, let's talk about Reason Suite. I own most of the rack extensions already that I already paid full price for. I get that it's a bundle, but here's what really rubs me the wrong way. You just recently announced Processed Pianos and offered a discounted price for people upgrading who already had the refill. Thankfully, I didn't take up this offer as I was still trying to decide if I actually wanted to stick with Reason or switch completely to Ableton. Less than a month later, you announce Reason Suite, which includes Processed Pianos as part of the upgrade. That's really a slap in the face to anyone who paid for it in the last month. Why didn't you just wait until the Reason 11 announcement to release it? It's tactics like this which make it seem like you're just trying to get everyones money rather than actually make meaningful improvements to the product.

I'll be upgrading to the Suite but I have to admit, I have less trust for the company now.

[DJMaytag]

How does making Reason a plugin bring in more users? It does less than Rewire does.

It brings SOME people back who stopped upgrading at around R8 or R9, who've been using it via Rewire. It's no coincidence that Rewire support is being dropped, to help push legit license holders into buying upgrades. It will MOST DEFINITELY shut down users of cracked R5 if other DAWs start dropping Rewire from their feature set. At the worst case, it'll force the crackers to get frozen at a certain point where they can no longer use the latest version of some DAWs that no longer support Rewire.

Who’s going to pay full price for Reason just use it as a plugin?

I think they have to get smart and make a VERY basic version of Reason available... for free. Give it everything that was included with Reason up to R5 (and no more), and let people use those devices in their free Reason Rack. Now you've got thousands of people who were using cracked R5 using a legit product, with a way to upgrade up to more and/or buy RE's in the Prop Shop. Think of the floodgates that will open from the crackers (now legit users) if they could sign up for Prop Shop accounts and buy some of the rather cheap RE's available now.

As a user of R10? I see zero need to use Reason Rack, but other people might, especially if there are multiple levels to choose from. I don't know if that's been fully addressed yet.

No one outside of the Reason user base is going to buy in on non-resellable Re period. Imo only current Reason users see the value of the Rack plugin.

Don't discount the draw of impulse buys to things $29 and under, of which there are a good bit to choose from in the Prop Shop. That's a market that seems to be thriving, as far as I can tell. $100+ RE's are a dead market, even for someone like me who is a huge RE supporter that has been in some devs ears about continuing to support the RE's they've written.

[Spaceship]

Reason 11.

I wish there were more upgrades to the sequencer and more devices, but the VST thing is interesting.

[aeox]

It's either that, or they go out of business and stop development of the program completely.. which do you choose?

you can’t honestly believe they had to make users of other DAWs the focus of a major version upgrade just to stay afloat.

I think it's a last effort to keep the business going by increasing it's reach and income.

[guitfnky]

yes, but you’re missing the part where 450 of those features should be super-easy to implement.

...

like someone else said, most of this stuff is low-hanging fruit. it’s not difficult.

It's not that I'm missing it, its that the notion that they are "super easy" and "low hanging fruit" is complete and utter bollocks.

I don't accept your or anyone's opinion on how "easy" something like this is, unless they have a documented track record as a software engineer and programmer. sorry. You're just looking to pad a narrative that claims that these guys are just too lazy to wave their magic wand for you a couple of times. That's not how this works.

now sure, if you're just looking to make features go splat like Reaper does, it's probably easier than it would be if you are working on a cohesive whole product, but it's still not "easy" even for them, and if that's what you want, Reaper exists already, why does Reason have to be like it?

I have a fundamental disagreement to the notion that all DAWs need to feature chase till they're all the exact same mess. sorry if you disagree.

“feature chase”? how about just doing the basics to keep up with the times?

there’s no reason whatsoever that they shouldn’t include auto-punch. there’s no reason whatsoever that they shouldn’t let you create track folders. there’s no reason whatsoever that they should limit you to two markers that you can’t even label.

these are quality-of-life requests that belong in any DAW, because they’re useful in EVERY DAW. giving Props credit for keeping basic features out because it keeps the program different makes zero sense. it’s not like if we finally got VST MIDI in Reason, it would somehow cross a line and become indistinguishable from Reaper. there are thousands of things that give a DAW its ‘identity’, and man, these aren’t them.

and as for not accepting my opinion of how easy it would be to add stuff like markers and track folders—fair enough. I don’t accept your opinion of how difficult it is, so we’re square.

[guitfnky]

you can’t honestly believe they had to make users of other DAWs the focus of a major version upgrade just to stay afloat.

I think it's a last effort to keep the business going by increasing it's reach and income.

last? well, we can quibble about that—I think that’s a bit hyperbolic, given how well-regarded Reason is, but we don’t have to agree on that.

a few minutes ago, I pointed out how with a bit of extra effort, they could have kept the focus on the core users, giving them much that would make them happy, AND still roll out the VST thing, and build excitement outside of the user base.

[hari_seldon]

Finally, I can use Reason in a fully featured DAW. Thank you Propellerhead!

Thank you for investing your upgrade cycle to this feature. Personally, I wish Reason would switch to a license plus subscription model like ProTools so we can get away from the charade of update cycles, and move to rolling updates as you complete stable new features.

[ShawnG]

It's not that I'm missing it, its that the notion that they are "super easy" and "low hanging fruit" is complete and utter bollocks.

I don't accept your or anyone's opinion on how "easy" something like this is, unless they have a documented track record as a software engineer and programmer. sorry. You're just looking to pad a narrative that claims that these guys are just too lazy to wave their magic wand for you a couple of times. That's not how this works.

now sure, if you're just looking to make features go splat like Reaper does, it's probably easier than it would be if you are working on a cohesive whole product, but it's still not "easy" even for them, and if that's what you want, Reaper exists already, why does Reason have to be like it?

I have a fundamental disagreement to the notion that all DAWs need to feature chase till they're all the exact same mess. sorry if you disagree.

“feature chase”? how about just doing the basics to keep up with the times?

there’s no reason whatsoever that they shouldn’t include auto-punch. there’s no reason whatsoever that they shouldn’t let you create track folders. there’s no reason whatsoever that they should limit you to two markers that you can’t even label.

these are quality-of-life requests that belong in any DAW, because they’re useful in EVERY DAW. giving Props credit for keeping basic features out because it keeps the program different makes zero sense. it’s not like if we finally got VST MIDI in Reason, it would somehow cross a line and become indistinguishable from Reaper. there are thousands of things that give a DAW its ‘identity’, and man, these aren’t them.

and as for not accepting my opinion of how easy it would be to add stuff like markers and track folders—fair enough. I don’t accept your opinion of how difficult it is, so we’re square.

I haven't given you an opinion on how difficult it would be to do any of those things, we weren't talking specifics until now, you were making the ridiculous assertion that 450 feature requests are all child's play. so now you move the goalposts to track markers and auto punch, which sound like they're easy because lots of daws have them. But the simple fact is that neither of us know what it would take to implement in the reason codebase since neither of us are working on it. I guess it all boils down to whether you think the programmers are just being a**holes or not I guess, I'm banking on it's probably harder than you think. for the record, track folders are on my want list as well, but to be fair I almost never actually use them in my other DAWs so...

to zero in on one of your gripes: which is VST MIDI. have you not perhaps noticed that MIDI works just a tad different in Reason than other DAWs? that you never have to select a midi port or channel (and couldn't if you wanted to) Have you not noticed that if you have a track selected, that any midi device you have hooked up automatically plays notes on that track, and then all automatically switches to the next track when you change? Have you noticed that if you wanted to record 2 midi tracks at the same time, that you would have to manually lock each keyboard to the track? Propellerheads did this a LOONG time ago in an effort to make reason friendly for those not well versed in MIDI-fu. all that highly simplified MIDI routing is still there, which makes it just a tad bit non-trivial to try to jam in a protocol that expects a full MIDI implementation. Props can do a bunch of things to get around this, but all of them involve big changes to a substantial part of the program. (my wish is for virtual MIDI cables in the rack) either way, not the work of a moment.

[ShawnG]

Finally, I can use Reason in a fully featured DAW. Thank you Propellerhead!

Thank you for investing your upgrade cycle to this feature. Personally, I wish Reason would switch to a license plus subscription model like ProTools so we can get away from the charade of update cycles, and move to rolling updates as you complete stable new features.

aren't you supposed to be working on the foundation? or is propellerheads somehow involved?

I could not possibly disagree more about the subscription model, but I like the username, well done sir.

[guitfnky]

“feature chase”? how about just doing the basics to keep up with the times?

there’s no reason whatsoever that they shouldn’t include auto-punch. there’s no reason whatsoever that they shouldn’t let you create track folders. there’s no reason whatsoever that they should limit you to two markers that you can’t even label.

these are quality-of-life requests that belong in any DAW, because they’re useful in EVERY DAW. giving Props credit for keeping basic features out because it keeps the program different makes zero sense. it’s not like if we finally got VST MIDI in Reason, it would somehow cross a line and become indistinguishable from Reaper. there are thousands of things that give a DAW its ‘identity’, and man, these aren’t them.

and as for not accepting my opinion of how easy it would be to add stuff like markers and track folders—fair enough. I don’t accept your opinion of how difficult it is, so we’re square.

I haven't given you an opinion on how difficult it would be to do any of those things, we weren't talking specifics until now, you were making the ridiculous assertion that 450 feature requests are all child's play. so now you move the goalposts to track markers and auto punch, which sound like they're easy because lots of daws have them. But the simple fact is that neither of us know what it would take to implement in the reason codebase since neither of us are working on it. I guess it all boils down to whether you think the programmers are just being a**holes or not I guess, I'm banking on it's probably harder than you think. for the record, track folders are on my want list as well, but to be fair I almost never actually use them in my other DAWs so...

to zero in on one of your gripes: which is VST MIDI. have you not perhaps noticed that MIDI works just a tad different in Reason than other DAWs? that you never have to select a midi port or channel (and couldn't if you wanted to) Have you not noticed that if you have a track selected, that any midi device you have hooked up automatically plays notes on that track, and then all automatically switches to the next track when you change? Have you noticed that if you wanted to record 2 midi tracks at the same time, that you would have to manually lock each keyboard to the track? Propellerheads did this a LOONG time ago in an effort to make reason friendly for those not well versed in MIDI-fu. all that highly simplified MIDI routing is still there, which makes it just a tad bit non-trivial to try to jam in a protocol that expects a full MIDI implementation. Props can do a bunch of things to get around this, but all of them involve big changes to a substantial part of the program. (my wish is for virtual MIDI cables in the rack) either way, not the work of a moment.

yes, some of the features will be more difficult than others to implement. good job? ‍♀️

[Luxuria]

Anyone else think it's funny how ironic this update is?

Propellerhead's old CEO Ernst stated: "Basically, if you ask me, VST sucks from a technological standpoint, and I’m not sure how it will survive in the fast-changing computing landscape that we have now. Rack Extensions are a completely different beast and geared for the future."

Later on he stated: "As you may know, we’ve had some reservations on the plugin formats out there, VST included. The technical designs leave the host vulnerable to problems that might affect your song document. The lack of integration standards make basic tasks like finding sounds, automation, setting up remote control etc, harder than it should be. And that takes focus off what is always closest to our heart – your music making. And there are market problems too, finding the perfect EQ for your specific situation takes hours of unnecessary account registration and downloads. And purchasing a plug often means putting in your credit card on one web site and getting the actual product from another. So, all of the above is what lead us to creating the Rack Extension format. It really does solve all of the above by cutting one giant Gordian knot."

And now you've got RRP as a VST running RE's! LMAO

What a joke.

Also what happened between now and 5 months ago when the "What is Reason?" video was released on youtube? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpx_LvSB2_Q

The direction promoted in the video as an all around music production tool, aka DAW, is a 180 degree turn from what is presented today.

[Juan Rosa]

This update is not intended for loyal Reason users, it is for users of other DAWS, they sell you the idea of 5 devices of which 3 do not have the ability to save presets, 6 workflow features which they call "A Lot Of Features "We work on the most requested" As it would be if they removed the forums from their website, this version is not for me, maybe the 12.

[Juan Rosa]

The same happened to Reason 8 and his famous "Drag and Drop" with 2 new super devices replacing those who left Line 6, I thought they had learned the lesson.

[boingy]

Propellerheads did this a LOONG time ago in an effort to make reason friendly for those not well versed in MIDI-fu. all that highly simplified MIDI routing is still there.

It's weird isn't it? Reason has probably the most complicated and flexible audio/CV routing system in any DAW. You can get right into the guts of the process and breakout and modulate all sorts of stuff (stuff that is beyond my understanding) yet they were worried that we couldn't cope with the concept of separate MIDI ports and channels. All it would take is a drop-down box in the inspector that defaults to "omni" but lets you specify a port and channel for each track. Erm, just like almost every other DAW.

[calebbrennan]

Derek Smalls always said the 11 was better than 10.
Because he said
"it would one better right?

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=ht ... mrc&uact=8

[Last Alternative]

Anyone else notice Mattaus ducked out yesterday? I honestly don't blame him but... it's common when there's heavy criticism.

[Mr. Watts]

I wanted to let a couple of days go by before I came back to post on the subject. From what I see there’s a lot of us here who feel the same way about this “update”. At this point I feel rather indifferent about it. The folks at Reason are going to do what they need to make money, and that’s fine I have no gripes about it. However I feel that it would have been a better strategy to have released the Rack vst as a seperate purchase altogether. I’ve thought about it a lot and it’s troubling to see the company I’ve put so much money and time into would so blatantly disregard the needs of users like me. Other than the 6 or so minor workflow enhancements this isn’t at all an update to Reason, but rather a new business venture altogether. So to coin it as such is a little disrespectful to those who use Reason as their main DAW. With that said I find it hard to continue investing in this company. I hope they’ll eventually come around but I don’t see it happening. This could easily be a ploy by the new CEO to milk the last amount of money from their investment before abandoning it completely. And it’s basically a checkmate because I will have to upgrade just so that I can continue to use my RE purchases within a DAW that is meets my needs. So with that said I will be upgrading, as much as I spitefully didn’t want to. It seems to be my only option at this point. Anyways I’m looking at other DAWs as we speak. Thanks to everyone here who has helped me when I needed assistance. You were all a part of what made Reason so enjoyable for me. Peace

[WeLoveYouToo]

[*]Crossfades, overlap two audio clips and either choose Crossfade from the context menu or press the X key to crossfade. Drag the crossfade to adjust.

so about the crossfade, does this mean we finally get a "snap" (or maybe it's called shuffle?) mode like in protools? or like in other daw's or video editors, where clips auto-align (where moving audioclips automatically connects them to the beginning/end of the one you drag it to)?
this has been my #1 request since i bought record!

[Creativemind]

So has it been definitely confirmed that Rewiring Reason into another daw will not be available after 11?

What about Rewire in general, say Logic into FL Studio? just tryna clarify.

Yes, it's on the FAQ page: https://www.propellerheads.com/en/reaso ... -daw-hosts

Rewire support in other software is up to each individual vendor whether they want to discontinue support for it now that it's no longer maintained. I mean, it's not going to magically stop working everywhere else when Reason 11 comes out.

That's crap. So people who use Rewire a lot can't upgrade and still use it. Bummer.

[Reasonable man]

Think i've finally cooled down after watching that horrid Reason 11 promo. An hour playing with Expanse will do that.

The good people at 'Reason Studios' are still good people who are following whatever orders/agenda given to them by upper management who have made and are making very questionable decisions about their company. The reality is that none of us are privy to it. I worked in a telecoms company that changed its name and ownership 4 times in the space of 3 years and was eventually taken over by vodafone ...... its a stressfull time for staff and in that time sometimes people want to leave and sometimes other people are asked to leave and alot of staff dont agree themselves with decisions that are being made .
For me the important thing is they dont close the door on their Daw and if people start seeing reason as a vst only ..that is kinda is closing the door on the daw that is 'reason'. They need to adress this . If they dont ..there are schools and colleges who teach reason who will drop it which will be the end ... (anyone i personally know who uses reason and bought it was introduced to it in a school or college first). I'm not going to pretend to know how marketing works but targeting schools and colleges with group licences that are competitive is how you introduce your product to millions of potential buyers.
And talk of reason 12 or 13 is premeture . We dont even know if there is going to be a reason 12. I'm starting to wonder if the company knows.

[VariableX]

Think i've finally cooled down after watching that horrid Reason 11 promo. An hour playing with Expanse will do that.

The good people at 'Reason Studios' are still good people who are following whatever orders/agenda given to them by upper management who have made and are making very questionable decisions about their company. The reality is that none of us are privy to it. I worked in a telecoms company that changed its name and ownership 4 times in the space of 3 years and was eventually taken over by vodafone ...... its a stressfull time for staff and in that time sometimes people want to leave and sometimes other people are asked to leave and alot of staff dont agree themselves with decisions that are being made .
For me the important thing is they dont close the door on their Daw and if people start seeing reason as a vst only ..that is kinda is closing the door on the daw that is 'reason'. They need to adress this . If they dont ..there are schools and colleges who teach reason who will drop it which will be the end ... (anyone i personally know who uses reason and bought it was introduced to it in a school or college first). I'm not going to pretend to know how marketing works but targeting schools and colleges with group licences that are competitive is how you introduce your product to millions of potential buyers.
And talk of reason 12 or 13 is premeture . We dont even know if there is going to be a reason 12. I'm starting to wonder if the company knows.

I wouldn't be surprised if its a fairly toxic place to work at the moment. I too have been through this kind of thing in similar sized companies it never seems to end well. Costs get cut, the best talent leaves, complete idiots ( management) think they know best and wreck what is left.
Hopefully there will be someone willing to pick up the pieces if any of this conjecture is even near the mark.

[Aosta]

I jumped from Cubase to Reason at R6 and have been dedicated to using it as a music creation tool ever since...why the hell would I want to use it in another DAW? I chose it because of its simplicity and unique features.
Now it seems it has lost its identity and is simply going after other markets (plugin/mobile) which is fair enough in a competitive world but I feel by doing this it has lost what many were attracted to in the first place at its core.
Reason has lost its soul.

[Carambo]

It seems that the profitability of RE was not really there for companies like Uh-e, Softube, Synapse...who have stopped their developments even before VST was introduced. It's already complex and expensive to develop AU, VST and AAX...Today only small or one guy companies are still developing RE on top of PH (no offense here, size doesn't matter), but you don't see anymore the big names of the industry developing RE, it's never a good sign. So the rack is just a compensation for the existing RE developers to give them a breath after the obvious sales decrease following the introduction of VST, and a tentative from PH to test how far the market would accept another plugin standard, and a last tentative to take the big names on board.
But it seems that the rack cannot be purchased alone, it's part of Reason 11, you have to purchase the whole package to get the rack, so it is challenging to consider that people who use other DAWs will purchase the full package just to get the rack.
I love my Reason 10, it's fantastic, I use it as my main creative tool vs Logic used for mixing and mastering. But I guess I will never use the RE rack in Logic, I don't see any situation where I would do this instead of creating in Reason directly.

[RobBarnett]

I wanted to let a couple of days go by before I came back to post on the subject. From what I see there’s a lot of us here who feel the same way about this “update”. At this point I feel rather indifferent about it. The folks at Reason are going to do what they need to make money, and that’s fine I have no gripes about it. However I feel that it would have been a better strategy to have released the Rack vst as a seperate purchase altogether. I’ve thought about it a lot and it’s troubling to see the company I’ve put so much money and time into would so blatantly disregard the needs of users like me. Other than the 6 or so minor workflow enhancements this isn’t at all an update to Reason, but rather a new business venture altogether. So to coin it as such is a little disrespectful to those who use Reason as their main DAW. With that said I find it hard to continue investing in this company. I hope they’ll eventually come around but I don’t see it happening. This could easily be a ploy by the new CEO to milk the last amount of money from their investment before abandoning it completely. And it’s basically a checkmate because I will have to upgrade just so that I can continue to use my RE purchases within a DAW that is meets my needs. So with that said I will be upgrading, as much as I spitefully didn’t want to. It seems to be my only option at this point. Anyways I’m looking at other DAWs as we speak. Thanks to everyone here who has helped me when I needed assistance. You were all a part of what made Reason so enjoyable for me. Peace

I too am looking at other DAWs as we speak. I'm also considering buying Reason Intro 10 (with free upgrade to 11 and the RACK VST) to protect my investment in REs. I'll then look to sell my Reason 10 Full licence to offset the purchase of the new DAW

[Boombastix]

One GOOD point of the new Reason Rack VST that I have not seen anyone mention yet is its resistance to being cracked. A new user can get Europa, Thor, the RR-VST and a bunch of stuff for $99 bucks, can also buy a Rigs (on sale) with Spire for about the same cost as Spire VST. Good value proposition. Potential for new customers. Maybe they need to offer the Reason Rack VST as a "naked" standalone for $29 or something in the future.

But here is the kicker: VST developers are hurt by cracked software, this gives them the potential to build REs that via the Reason Rack VST is accessible for all DAWs and in a crack free environment. Maybe Synapse says (as an example), hey here is our Dune XT v4 and you get a free Reason Rack VST with it. No sales loss for Synapse due to cracked VST software, but everyone can still use the new synth in any DAW.

Something like this can fail, like Palm OS, but it can be a hit like Apple OS, they just need to get the developers on board (accept SDK, sales channel, cut from sales), the consumer price point right, keep it crack safe, and not omit critical features (yeah, that's right midi and VST inside the Reason Rack VST). PH pulling Europa VST off the market and not making Grain as a VST probably tells a story - it is not nice out there in "VST crack land".

On top of this the Gorilla Engine for custom DSP code is probably around the corner - giving developers a working SDK that is fast to use (I think) and no need to maintain their own basic lib, just focus on features, sounds, and unique DSP.

I see such HUGE potential here - I hope they succeed, but they really HAVE TO nail every detail...