Reason 11 is the reason why Reason will Prevail

[Dribbs]

This goes to all the doomsayers: I abandoned Reason and all my precious REs a few years ago. I switched to ableton live and it was a revelation. The workflow was just so much more efficient. Rewire was to clunky for me but I always missed Reason and its devices. Now with Reason 11 and the Rack VST I started to use Reason again and I even found myself browsing the RE Shop ready to spend some doe. I don‘t see any other way they would have been able to bring me back other than going Rack VST. And I‘m extremely happy that they did! So if you feel left alone because you’re a Reason only user just think of all the people that stopped using Reason because they started using other DAWs. They might come back now. And that‘s good for all of us...

[r_ek]

Depends on what they do with the VST, yes I also like to use it in Ableton right now, but no multichannel midi in, no midi out, that’s a hit and miss right there. Will they just leave it like this to try push a few more romplers then it’s game over.

[MannequinRaces]

Absolutely. This is a good thing!

[MannequinRaces]

Will they just leave it like this to try push a few more romplers then it’s game over.

Doomsayer #1

[miscend]

People always say things like that whenever they switch DAWs. When Live users switch to Bitwig they say its a "revelation". Most former Reason users I've known eventually come back after a few years or so, when the honeymoon has ended.

[Dribbs]

People always say things like that whenever they switch DAWs. When Live users switch to Bitwig they say its a "revelation". Most former Reason users I've known eventually come back after a few years or so, when the honeymoon has ended.

I know what you mean, people get excited easily. But it’s been five years now. I tried to go back to Reasons Sequencer but I can‘t.

[Loque]

I tried Live years back an i like the workflow, tools, UI... Everything... Great stuff! Just the fx and synths were crap at that time. Not much value for the buck back than.

But i choose Reason... Dunno exactly why... Maybe because i always had the feeling to get trillions of cool synths and an extra DAW when i flip the rack

But the OP is right... A lot of ppl now can have the DAW they like and they always can use Reason synths and fx. Impossible with other DAWs fx and synths. Fits perfectly in Reason Studio philosophy.

[Carpainter]

People always say things like that whenever they switch DAWs. When Live users switch to Bitwig they say its a "revelation". Most former Reason users I've known eventually come back after a few years or so, when the honeymoon has ended.

That's because no other piece of music software has as polished a modular interface as Reason. Most attempts at modularity in the software space look scarcely better than Buzz Tracker circa 1998. We keep coming back to Reason despite its many limitations because it's the only DAW that doesn't look like a computer program.

[PhillipOrdonez]

Amen.

[dpcoffin]

Ditto the OP, DEFINITELY!

For me it's having the Rack in Logic (currently thanks to BlueCat Patchwork), since I NEVER clicked with the Reason Seq—HAPPY DAY! Tho so far I'm spending all my time just building patches and Combinators in Reason itself. SO many great REs these days…and the rack itself is still MY favorite virtual modular environment, VCV/Voltage Mod, Reaktor, Bitwig notwithstanding. And huge thanks to Robotic Bean for the CV-IO gift—can't wait to explore THAT!!

I certainly hope there's a MIDI FX version, too, when they get the AU update together, but I can already use all the FANTASTIC Players with anything in Logic via the IAC Driver, as well as inside the VST Rack, so I'm plenty busy just digging it all:)

Bravo, Props—no matter what you call yourselves now!

[Bod]

I even found myself browsing the RE Shop ready to spend some doe.

Careful now, some of them are a bit deer.







I'll get my coat....

[KEVMOVE02]

The unfortunate thing is that choosing “either or” robs us of those happy accidents that lead to discovery. The bass guitar is part of the rhythm section; Larry Graham saw it as an equal partner with the percussion instruments, which lead to the slap bass innovation; James Jamerson challenge the notion of whether the bass could credibly add melody and harmony to its function in an ensemble, which created space for legends like Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten. I see software environments like Ableton Live and Reason defy categorization because they Both contain instruments, while being an instrument, in and of itself. Push controller makes that a little clearer for one; given a little time, the Reason Rack as VST will forge a similar path. I know from experience the exhilaration of play well with others in a band environment. I look forward to exploring that dynamic with Reason Rack and or Reason Compact.

[boingy]

I also think that the Reason Rack bodes well for the future but I do worry about the price of entry. Not the monetary price but the time and effort price.

It definitely needs to ship with a good number of presets. That's rack presets not instrument presets. Someone needs to be able to download the trial, load up the VST and call up a bunch of preconfigured racks that show off the best of Reason. At the moment you excitedly open the VST and get an empty rack with a handful of instruments visible. All the others are hidden in the browser which is folded up behind a not-at-all intuitive circular button-thing.

When you trial a VST you typically load it up and jump through a few presets to get a feel for what noises it can make. That's not very easy to do as a newbie rack user. I can imagine some folks getting put off before they have really begun which would be a real shame.

[Dribbs]

I even found myself browsing the RE Shop ready to spend some doe.

Careful now, some of them are a bit deer.

I'll get my coat....

i'm not a native english speaker, obviously

[Oquasec]

the rack vst is vst 3 and 64bit.Enough reason to upgrade.

[stephensmattlee]

Have to admit at first I was pretty pissed and insulted at what Props/Reason Studios were offering as an “upgrade” to Reason itself with v11. A small handful of half arsed features that they probably programmed in an afternoon.

At first I thought it was a huge shame as I think myself and a lot of other long-time Reason users had high hopes for v11 and it being a huge upgrade after so many years of minor changes to the daw itself. And instead to see they were pretty much abandoning their own daw and actively encouraging users to switch to other daws by announcing the rack as a VST definitely came as a shock.

Now I’ve had chance to reflect on things I think I’ve actually done a bit of a 180 and actually see the focus on having the Reason rack as a plug-in for other daws as a good thing. I think it’s clear Reason as a daw is dead and will never be what we all dreamed of it becoming. Instead I guess if they focus on Reason being an instrument rack full of awesome synths and devices they can leave the daw development to other bigger companies that can focus on cramming in loads of requested features every few years, such as Logic, Ableton, Studio One etc.

It’s a shame but I genuinely think this is the nail in the coffin for Reason as a daw. Going forward I can definitely see them focussing on just instruments and fx devices. If I’m being honest with myself I guess it would be playing to their strengths and would definitely open a lot of doors to new customers that otherwise would never have given Reason a chance.

[Boombastix]

I think it’s clear Reason as a daw is dead and will never be what we all dreamed of it becoming.

It’s a shame but I genuinely think this is the nail in the coffin for Reason as a daw.

An educated guess is that the majority of income comes from Reason the DAW - they will NOT kill their milk cow. The Rack Plugin is a move to bring back users that went to other DAWs, so they get a one time buy in, and some RE sales as well. But that will not replace the income from the DAW user base, just augment it. I suspect they will continue to adress sequencer updates in their usual fashion, slow and underwhelming, but it will be a trickle of new features, but probably not 30-50 feature updates that other DAW manufacturers are capable of.

Going the plugin route only would be a serious mistake, that market is maxed out and the $250 plugins can now be had for $5-10 each in a bundle. Buy two bundles and you have plugin FX for the next five years or so. Plugin only guys will be forced to go to some form subscription eventually, or fold. A DAW manufacturer has much more opportunity to develop the core product for many years to come and sell at a fairly nice price. Though prices are dropping with Studio One and Cubase giving cross grades in the $150-170 range.

DAWs will have to be better to integrate a store for plugins, presets, loops. This has only just begun, they all need that to survive in the long run when DAW features sets take longer to roll out and people upgrade every other update, and do not buy many new synths or FX plugins, so new sales opportunities has to be developed as well.

They NEED a DAW user base to capitalize on that. A Rack Plugin only sales model will loose all future preset/loop sales to the DAW maker of choice. So if you are in Studio One with the Reason plugin, you'll buy Studio One loops, etc. Thus Reason NEEDS to develop their DAW aggressively now, once the Rack Plugin is out (and updated so it works properly).

I hope they understand this...

[Oquasec]

Yeah I don't think propellerhead wanted to focus on what the other 90% of daws were doing because obviously from a business standpoint that's not gonna help much.

[BigPictureSound]

While I am not going to upgrade yet due to having recently purchased v10, I can see that months of development time went into this update. It certainly wasn’t an easy or quick dev cycle to add all those new effects and SSL modules plus QOL improvements like track height.

The VST rack was given center stage which really took the spotlight away from the core reason experience but as the OP suggested, this will end up being better for Reason as a whole.

I can see more and more YouTube channels actively promoting it along with whatever their flavor of the month program happens to be.

I finished a track in Logic today that took over 70 plus hours to write and many times during the process I wished I had just created it in Reason for common editing tasks like slip and pitch editing, automation, and even mixing. Logic does many things better, but also many things worse. I fought with my mix for hours. Eventually i just exported it into Reason where I greatly enhanced my final master in a matter of minutes using 1 Rigs 3 combi patc. The results were amazing.

For this reason, I am definitely looking forward to incorporating the rack into projects where other DAWs may be better suited to use.

[Proboscis]

Have to admit at first I was pretty pissed and insulted at what Props/Reason Studios were offering as an “upgrade” to Reason itself with v11. A small handful of half arsed features that they probably programmed in an afternoon.

Life is to short to be so emotionally attached to a company and how they do business, to the point where it upsets you. I agree with you, in that this release is very much lacking, but instead of huffing & puffing I just shrugged my shoulders and decided to pass on paying for what are some slim pickings. I'm ultimately the winner if I wait for the next release, because I'll get two for the price of one.

And I don't think the features are 'half-arsed' at all. In fact I would very much find them a helpful addition, especially the note muting and track height. And automation curves would make things less painful than having to open my set of premade templates and importing the shapes, then adjusting to suit the tempo.

[Proboscis]

Actually, the MIDI draw *is* probably a bit half arsed, now I think of it. Someone mentioned that you can only draw notes in a straight line, horizontally. What's the point of that ? It would be a better tool if you could draw anywhere while holding the mouse button down, and nominate the scale of the song you're in so it only populates those notes.

[Oquasec]

Every single version someone complains about something. it's been like that for 8 years already.

[anko]

I even found myself browsing the RE Shop ready to spend some doe.

Careful now, some of them are a bit deer.

I'll get my coat....

the hills are alive.

[hurricane]

Reson 11 is the reason why Reason will prevail, huh?

Well R11 is the first version I haven't upgraded to since I've been using Reason - and that's been since 2.0. I imagine there are others like me. Reason 11 is the version where a lot of us are finally waking up and leaving this abusive relationship.

[Loque]

Reson 11 is the reason why Reason will prevail, huh?

Well R11 is the first version I haven't upgraded to since I've been using Reason - and that's been since 2.0. I imagine there are others like me. Reason 11 is the version where a lot of us are finally waking up and leaving this abusive relationship.

Uh? You are still here? After all your bashing of RE, Reason and Reason users?