Reason Workflow and UI

[Yonatan]

I agree broadly what this guy says about workflow when it comes to a more deadline oriented work situation. That Reason is a great creative tool, but it needs some serious steps to take it to the hearts of those having or wanting to have payed projects in music production. I think its good that RS saw the trend and offers the Rack as a plugin, but may it never stop in the task of making Reason more efficient in that regard. Workflow is key for many semi pros.
As a hobbyist playing around, Reason is great stimulating to make songstarters and beats.

Somehow Reason has always found a way forward each time the bells of doom is ringing over the future of Reason. Is it the end or a new chapter, we will have to see...

So what is your experience along the road as an aspiring hobbyist or as a semi pro or as a pro producer?

Would you get by totally Reason Only as is?
What is most crucial for your needs as producer or artist when it comes to the workflow part?

[Jagwah]

So what is your experience along the road as an aspiring hobbyist or as a semi pro or as a pro producer?

Would you get by totally Reason Only as is?
What is most crucial for your needs as producer or artist when it comes to the workflow part?

I love Reason but I am annoyed that the sequencer has hardly been worked on all these years while Props have designed and built endless REs and apple phone apps and whatever it is that isn't sequencer improvements. I use the sequencer a ton and it could have been so much more by now. It really annoys me when I think about it.

[Yonatan]

So what is your experience along the road as an aspiring hobbyist or as a semi pro or as a pro producer?

Would you get by totally Reason Only as is?
What is most crucial for your needs as producer or artist when it comes to the workflow part?

I love Reason but I am annoyed that the sequencer has hardly been worked on all these years while Props have designed and built endless REs and apple phone apps and whatever it is that isn't sequencer improvements. I use the sequencer a ton and it could have been so much more by now. It really annoys me when I think about it.

I agree on the frustration on seeing loads of work is being directed to new toys, and I also get a bit "oh, cool, a new device or app" but then after the temporary blood sugar high has landed, one scratches the head and asks just the same questions as you. The small but very important things in sequencer are too often being side stepped by "let´s do this instead", because it may give a faster kick than the bread and butter stuff.
And I can not understand it other than most people at RS are not themselves using Reason as a real DAW more than scetching things up.
They may hear us, but they do not really feel us, how it is to everytime meet same tiny things that should have been fixed x amount of versions ago. I often think "how on earth can someone using this software, not wanting to fix this". And, well, that may be the answer, they do not use Reason in that way frequently, in the sense of finishing projects and doing real tasks. Because I do not bother either with it when I only play around with the devices and come up with some beats etc.
Maybe they mainly use another DAW if doing whole production, or they have no time or interest in that at all in their spare time, which is totally understandable, but please listen and try to understand the users needs. Or is some of them maybe became a bit bored with doing real improvements that makes difference for us but is not as rewarding to work on in the office. I cross my fingers that this will drastically change.

By all means, come up with new fun stuff, but not to the expense of more acute dilemmas of the actual everyday users. Sequencer is the main center of the DAW for most. Players in the rack is fun and cool, but again, why so reluctant on improving the main sequencer workflow...
Now I am indeed glad about the few adds made to R11, but it needs to continue now in an more even regular pace if to be taken seriously, and not a few adds in 2 years from now. We need to be "wowed" after all the waiting years of different workarounds to obvious things.

When having to go the whole way with Reason (compose, arrange, edit, record, mix, master, export), often rather small things per se but they add up the frustration feeling those same sharp stones in the shoes as several versions ago, over and over. If opening Reason seldom and making a few cool beats and starters, then it is a joy often times. Often tiny things that could be adressed rather quickly if there was some determination.
I mean they seem to rather create a new sequencer in an app than improving the existing, or making players and RE. All that is great, but only if the core and center of the DAW, the main sequencer with midi and audio and arranging is taken really serious care of. I am sure the message has come across though and expect to see some hasten pace in progress of the workflow side of things onwards, as well as new devices. Off course shall those who work at RS have a good time and have fun when working, I can relate to that need being more creative and not only doing "tasks", but it can be fun also to see how glad the user community gets for every tiny fix and improvement that may seem boring at the paper but gets so inspiring for us to manifest our works.

[boingy]

Reason has turned into more of a sound design platform rather than a DAW. Many of the loudest voices on this forum are sound designers first and musicians second. It's kinda stuck between being a DAW and being a half-arsed modular system. There are better DAWs and better modular apps. <shrug>

[adfielding]

I agree broadly what this guy says about workflow when it comes to a more deadline oriented work situation. That Reason is a great creative tool, but it needs some serious steps to take it to the hearts of those having or wanting to have payed projects in music production. I think its good that RS saw the trend and offers the Rack as a plugin, but may it never stop in the task of making Reason more efficient in that regard. Workflow is key for many semi pros.
As a hobbyist playing around, Reason is great stimulating to make songstarters and beats.

I love Reason's workflow, and while there are extra features I'd love to see in the sequencer I'd also hate for it to lose it's simple approach. One of the things I particularly like about using Reason is that it's only as complicated as you want it to be while using it - sometimes I want a sound design environment, other times I want to just get an arrangement down quickly. The sequencer follows that approach to a certain degree imo, and I like the changes they're bringing with R11.

Workflow is key, and Reason suits my workflow perfectly. I'm glad they're bringing the rack VST to other DAWs, but the core Reason experience is what I'm all about.

[antic604]

I LOVE Reason's UI / GUI - it's very aesthetic, colorful, pleasing and inviting for me. Obviously I want it to eventually go 4K, scaled and GPU-accelerated, but I hope this won't change the style of it.

When it comes to workflow I guess a lot depends on music one's doing - if it's "just" recording of audio and MIDI keyboards with some light processing and automation, then it should be fine and pretty quick. In my case, I just go nuts with CV, signal splitting & processing, connecting stuff across whole rack. And while it's a lot of fun at the beginning (4-8 tracks), it gets really tedious and frustrating as the project gets bigger: I start to lose track of which MIDI tracks, audio bounces and automations belong to what instrument (no folders, separate automation tracks for chained FX), after 1 or 2 weeks I can't any longer remember how the rack was patched and if I try to move or change something I'm almost always breaking stuff - things won't move together or on the contrary: they'll move together when I want to move just one, etc., sequencer tracks, mixer and rack order somehow gets unsynchronised, labelling is inconsistent, etc.

And then there's lots of SMALL things that look like half a days work for average developer, like inability to hear MIDI when moving notes with arrow keys (I can when doing the same with mouse), no way to change the length of notes with computer keyboard, no shortcut for changing the grid spacing (grid adjustement to zoom from 10.2 helps, but still), no way to actually disable instrument REs to save CPU, automation is often displayed in values completely unrelated to what's being automated, etc.

I hope most if not all of that v11 money will go towards those things and not Compact or new REs.

[gullum]

for all the reasons the first guy does not like Reason I like Reason. the rack is so well linked to the mixer press the rack button in mix channel and you are in the rack for that channel. in all other daws, you get separate windows opened for every plugin you use in the channel 1 for eq 1 for compressor 1 for that and 1 for this 20 chanels with 4-5 plugins and you have a rainforest of windows opened

[esselfortium]

And then there's lots of SMALL things that look like half a days work for average developer, like inability to hear MIDI when moving notes with arrow keys (I can when doing the same with mouse),

I wonder if I'm the only person who specifically likes the current behavior... when I'm using an instrument with keyswitches, moving a note around any other way can mean accidentally triggering an articulation change that I'd then have to go back to the instrument and revert. Having a simple way to move notes without playing them is actually really useful IMO. When I want to hear a note while I'm moving it, I can drag it with the mouse.

no way to change the length of notes with computer keyboard, no shortcut for changing the grid spacing (grid adjustement to zoom from 10.2 helps, but still), no way to actually disable instrument REs to save CPU, automation is often displayed in values completely unrelated to what's being automated, etc.

I agree with 100% of these though!

[toddbooster]

in all other daws, you get separate windows opened for every plugin you use in the channel 1 for eq 1 for compressor 1 for that and 1 for this 20 chanels with 4-5 plugins and you have a rainforest of windows opened

You still get the same problem in Reason using VSTs. Yes, you click the button and you're in the rack for that channel, then you have to click to show the plugin GUI, make some adjustments, click to close the GUI, flip to the mixer make adjustments, do it again... It's a clickfest of constantly flapping back and forth between screens.

The rack paradigm works for REs, but on a 30 track mix with just VSTs, it's a bit of a nuisance. On a computer with a single screen, it's frankly a nightmare. OK, maybe nightmare is exaggerating a bit, but it's not the most efficient.

[gullum]

in all other daws, you get separate windows opened for every plugin you use in the channel 1 for eq 1 for compressor 1 for that and 1 for this 20 chanels with 4-5 plugins and you have a rainforest of windows opened

You still get the same problem in Reason using VSTs. Yes, you click the button and you're in the rack for that channel, then you have to click to show the plugin GUI, make some adjustments, click to close the GUI, flip to the mixer make adjustments, do it again... It's a clickfest of constantly flapping back and forth between screens.

The rack paradigm works for REs, but on a 30 track mix with just VSTs, it's a bit of a nuisance. On a computer with a single screen, it's frankly a nightmare. OK, maybe nightmare is exaggerating a bit, but it's not the most efficient.

I can agree on the VST thing but to use only VST in reason would IMO make totally no sense what so ever. I can see the frustration but then again I don't have 1 VST on my computer so I am bias there

[antic604]

I wonder if I'm the only person who specifically likes the current behavior... when I'm using an instrument with keyswitches, moving a note around any other way can mean accidentally triggering an articulation change that I'd then have to go back to the instrument and revert. Having a simple way to move notes without playing them is actually really useful IMO. When I want to hear a note while I'm moving it, I can drag it with the mouse.

I imagine there would be an option in settings - like it currently is for mouse - for disabling it.

[toddbooster]

I can agree on the VST thing but to use only VST in reason would IMO make totally no sense what so ever. I can see the frustration but then again I don't have 1 VST on my computer so I am bias there

You're absolutely right! It makes little to no sense at all, but you don't know that until you buy it and try it. They sell it as a complete music production system with VST support, but, well... no.

[boingy]

in all other daws, you get separate windows opened for every plugin you use in the channel 1 for eq 1 for compressor 1 for that and 1 for this 20 chanels with 4-5 plugins and you have a rainforest of windows opened

You haven't used many other DAWs. My favourite "other DAW" puts instruments and effects in tabbed windows and automatically activates the tab that matches the selected track. It's much quicker and less cluttered than seeing loads of instruments in a rack. Plus, you can read the text on the VSTs on hi-res screens.

[selig]

I love the simple workflow for creative tasks. In fact, I'd really love it if it were even more simplified, and involved fewer steps for basic tasks.
Then there are things i avoid doing because of the lack of features including no edit groups, plus there's no automation trim, track show/hide, markers, auto punch, and many features that could seriously speed up my work.
Seems more of these include the sequencer than any other area.
Despite this, I still find it the most creatively inspiring DAW available at preset, and more of my issues come towards the end of production rather than the beginning.

[gullum]

in all other daws, you get separate windows opened for every plugin you use in the channel 1 for eq 1 for compressor 1 for that and 1 for this 20 chanels with 4-5 plugins and you have a rainforest of windows opened

You haven't used many other DAWs. My favourite "other DAW" puts instruments and effects in tabbed windows and automatically activates the tab that matches the selected track. It's much quicker and less cluttered than seeing loads of instruments in a rack. Plus, you can read the text on the VSTs on hi-res screens.

no I havn't used any other DAW in years I already have the perfect for me DAW Reason

[fieldframe]

I've always had the sense that Reason is positioned at the intersection of sound design and songwriting/arranging. The emphasis on REs makes sense for the former, but the latter just seems oddly neglected. I still don't understand how Reason's original songwriting tool, Blocks, has been neglected for over a decade now while nearly every other recording software on the market has far surpassed it with basic features like individual looped and linked clips.

It's not that Blocks is a bad tool. But it could be so very much more with a few improvements, which Reason Studios has thus far proven uninterested in making.

[ShelLuser]

I agree broadly what this guy says about workflow when it comes to a more deadline oriented work situation.

I couldn't disagree more.

In my opinion it all boils down to picking the right tool for the job. And Reason's workflow is quite specific, it does not match those of other DAW's so if you pick up Reason with the assumption that you get the same treatment you'll end up disappointed.

Honestly: this is exactly what I love about both Reason and Ableton Live. Yes, I'm spelling out the other one because... Live also has a very specific workflow and honestly you guys: back in the days when the Abe forum was more active we had plenty of the same kind of threads "over there". The workflow sucks "because....".

Seriously: get the right tool for the job already.

At the risk of getting a little too harsh but in my opinion only tools blame their tools.

Heck, to get back more ontopic (apologies for the wee bits, but Live is also a big part of my setup) I can even tell you that this kind of complaints existed at the times of Reason 4. Basically: there's no pleasing everyone. As it should be, because if the Props went that way we'd get a DAW just like any other.

And the main reason I picked up on Reason in the first place was exactly that: it wasn't something like most others.

As always: just my 2 (probably biased) cents here. No offense intended but yah, this is what I believe.

[Creativemind]

I never quite get this, "I love Reasons simplicity", that's easily prolonged then - stay on version 10.4. VST is there, still relatively simple. I want at least 50 more features.