Your Upgrade History?

[Melody303]

joeyluck shared this link elsewhere in the forums https://www.reasonstudios.com/en/reason/upgrade
On it, you can view the main features that were introduced to each version of Reason, and I'm just wondering which features made you take the leap to which version upgrade?

In my own case, I started with Reason 1, and Reason 2 was a no brainer with the killer feature for me being the Malstrom (2 also introduced the Orkestre soundbank, which they neglect to mention on that page).
2.5 got me with the RV7000 and Scream-4.
3... I didn't quite grasp the importance and usefulness of the Combinator when R3 was announced, but I did upgrade, as more was still certainly more for me back then, and I definitely did not regret it.

4. I skipped 4. Thor was an amazing killer feature that almost got me over, but the changes to the sequencer alienated me. I've no problem admitting I was resistant to that change, but FYI, it did break backward compatibility slightly. I often get the impression that I'm the only person who knows this fact. The break in compatibility is the way pattern sequencer behave has altered. The most direct way to explain it is that if you start a single 1/16 bar pattern playing at 1.2.1 on the sequencer, it used to start at the 5th step in R3 and before, and since R4 it starts at the 1st step. Was that an improvement? Perhaps, but it did 'break' a few older songs.

Then came Record, and somehow, allowing me to sing (without a lot of workarounds and 3rd party software) made an honest woman out of me, because that's the point I bought Reason+Record duo. (Record also brought in the Line 6 amps, which I dearly miss nowadays)

5 got me too, and Kong was the reason for that. I so very wanted a drum synth in Reason, but looking back now, I hardly used it over the years, having become so used to Redrum that it was always just quicker and easier to set that up instead of a Kong+Redrum. Neptune shows up as a new feature for Reason 5 in that list, but that was actually a Record 1.5 feature (that I got, it was a free upgrade) before the duo was merged.

R6 was the pay-what-you-want upgrade, and its killer feature for me was the Echo. Got that too.

R6.5 was the free upgrade that opened the RE format, definitely a killer feature, and at an unbeatable price to boot.

I did not get R7. It's killer feature for me was the Midi Out device, but I had my doubts that it'd slow me down overall. To this day I've only used it once. I should have got it for the audio slicing, which has been very helpful, but I didn't realize how useful it would be at the time.

R8's killer feature for me was the RV7000 Mark II, the brought over IR support, It almost got me to upgrade, on the other hand, I didn't want to lose the Line 6 amps.

R9... didn't have a killer feature for me. The players were mildly interesting, but hardly enough (though nowadays I *love* the Dual Arp, but that's mostly thanks to Lectric Panda's refills for it)

R9.5 came with the VST support, and while in the early years I clamored for VST support, by this point, I had become so familiar with Reason that I didn't need it. This is a feature that would've gotten me to buy had it been introduced years earlier, but at 9.5 it was too little, too late.

10 did get me though: Europa and Grain were the chief culprits, with the assistance of Radical Piano, Humana, a new factory sound bank, VST support, players, RV7000 MKII, and support for newer RE's that I wanted.

My story ends there, because 11 had nothing of interest to me. I'm very happy with R10, but I still look forward to the next killer feature, if there ever will be another.

[Billy+]

Started on version 1 upgraded to 2 might have missed 3,4,5 but have purchased updates since and opted for suite even though I had quite a few of the RE's and have since purchased Friktion.

Features wasn't the main reason I upgraded, I just loved using Reason it's just awesome and has always been the standout DAW in my eyes.

I don't even wait for a sale price.

[TritoneAddiction]

R7 was my first bought version of Reason.
Skipped R8.
Upgraded to 9 eventually.
Upgraded to 10.
Upgraded to 11 Suite.

[motuscott]

Crawled onboard at v4 to use as a rack of synths with Digital Performer. Not sure when I realized DP was too much for my lizard brain, maybe after Record came out and I jumped on that. I've been a faithful updater except for v8. Not sure why, the lizard brain no longer remembers back that far.
11 is suite!

[joeyluck]

That link is great, but they need to update it to show what is included in Reason 11, not that we don't know. It also doesn't show what was in Reason 1, because it's presented in the angle of "what's new" coming from that version.

I started on Reason 1. It was already installed on a Mac G4 Cube I bought from a friend. Reason 1 was on there and so was Digital Performer (version ?). Reason clicked with me.

I purchased R2 after 2.5 was released.

I upgraded to R4, skipping R3.

I upgraded to R5/Record, right before R6 was released.

R6 was pay what you want, but I had a free upgrade anyways because I purchased R5/Record within that window...

And I've been current since. So I think version R3 was the only version I didn't use.

[Creativemind]

Interesting story. I started on version 6 at college (Sept 2012) and immediately loved it due to Thor, Subtractor and the effects. I bought 6.5 so I could load projects at home and college but because I didn't know anything about software, I didn't know newer version software couldn't load on older versions so couldn't work on stuff I'd done at home at college. Doh! Also, not knowing about how Reason worked with upgrades, as it had gone over the time period for getting either Radical Piano, Polar or Pulsar free I didn't get any of those. I was quite gutted. I had no money at the time to buy Re's and wanted to use one, oh well.

A few months or was it beginning of 2014? Reason 7 was out and a lad at college got it and brought it in on his laptop. I was impressed with the grouping of channels and the red fader and being able to quantize audio but I didn't have the money to upgrade. Thinking back, I don't undersrand why transient sensitivity and transient time markers weren't added to 7 to add to the audio quantizing and more sends, bypass fx, stereo to mono buttons and ganged faders weren't also added to the mixer in 7. It woulda completed it. Also PDC should've been in 7 to coincide with parallel channels.

I skipped 7 and bought 8 when it came out. Wasn't a massive fan of the new Transport but got used to it after a couple of months and although I think I preferred the old one, kinda don't mind it now. Not sure what swayed me, Oh I do, I had the money and although it was only really the drag 'n' drop and browser that really wowed me (RV7000 Mk II was great too) I upgraded because with all the features of 7 too it was worth it.

My next upgrade was 10. I demo'd 9 and was impressed with the easy Rex Bounce, Themes and the Players but not enough to upgrade at the time. I upgraded to 9 a couple of weeks before 10 as you still get 10 on release and so 9 and 10 together were great and finally got VST in Reason and loved Europa.

Over the years though, the features have been too slow to come and was on the cusp of swapping daw's bevause of it. After 11's release I was gobsmacked at the features for a whole version update. Muting a midi note lol! I decided it was time after years and years of seeing all these great features in Logic, FL Studio and Ableton that I was gonna start using a different DAW but was so used to Reason and the learning curve of a far more advanced daw daunted me. As soon as they released the Reason Rack Plug-In I was like, wow, I can use all the devices I'm used to in a different daw. Although it was still daunting I decided it was time. It was a choice between Logic, Reaper, FL Studio or Cakewalk By Bandlab..Didn't have a Mac for Logic so that was out, loved FL Studio but the lack of comping and can only quantize audio in Edison and the price a bit of a factor too, it was between Reaper and Cakewalk. I demo'd Reaper and used both of those daw's but I just loved the fact that any track can be any type of track in Reaper and the audio editing is superb so as a guitarist as well as an electronic producer (also with neither Cakewalk nor Reaper having any decent stock instruments or sounds or Reapers being quite bland and uninspiring anyway) the instruments weren't a sway so Reaper just seemed a bit more fluent and easier to wrap my head around. Went with that.

I've gotten so used to it now that Reason 12 needs to really up it's game feature-wise for me to return to it. I'll just continue to use the RRP in Reaper. I'd miss Slip Editing, Scrub, Slice By Play Cursor, Audio Properties, how advanced the Media Browser is compared to Reason, Pooled Items and Automation, Markers and Regions, how advanced compared to Reason the Midi Editor is, Track Templates, Track Folders, Scanning the VST folder while the daw is open and how versatile and customizable it is to return to Reason me thinks. Oh and Undo History and Manual Inputs. Not until most of the above is in Reason can I see myself returning.

I still think Reason is one of the best daw's for sounds though and I still think Subtractor is 2nd to non for learning Subtractive synthesis on (my tutor at college with 30yrs experience even said that) and it was still being able to use those that gave me that leap. FL Studio and Logic that I know of have fantastic stock sounds and synths. Studio One and Abletons sounds didn't wow me on demo's.

Sorry for the novel lol!

[RoryM0]

First encountered Reason in 2002 or 2003 when I saw a friend using it. Think it was version 2.0 or 2.5 he had? Not sure.

I first started using Reason in 2009 on version 4 which I bought for $4 along with the Electromechanical ReFill from a market stall on the Khao San Road in Bangkok. It was not a legitimate copy. Installed that on a little netbook while I travelled around SE Asia. Loads of fun.

Then I didn't think about Reason again until around 2017 when it was on version 9.2, started demoing it and was on the fence until news of VSTs in version 9.5 dropped and decided to purchase.

The upgrade to R10 was a no-brainer.

I haven't updated to R11 even though the RRP is something I expect I will really like and use a lot because I'm sick of squinting at the screen and decided I would wait until HD was available. I plan to buy Reason 12 (or whatever it's called) on release day.

[Melody303]

Sorry for the novel lol!

No need to apologize, those were exactly the type of replies I was hoping for.

[FrankJaeger]

Apparently I was late jumping on the Reason bandwagon having started out with the Reason 5 + Record Duo. I had started out with Garageband (don't judge me) and had been using Ableton but heard about Reason from somebody when I was in the military. It became my own personal escape from some of life's misery and I fell in love with how it functioned.

Upgraded to version 6 with the intention of using Pulverizer to mangle everything and The Echo to delay my pulverized mangling... wait what?

Upgraded to 7 but can't remember why exactly. Maybe because I didn't have to use ReCycle anymore.

Skipped version 8 because I had taken a sort of hiatus from making music and was more focused on other things.

Upgraded to version 9 and 9.5 to experience the workflow changes and new layout of Reason that I had missed out on from version 8. Plus up until that point I had been resistant to using VSTs and only worked in the Reason environment, but curiosity got the better of me with 9.5 to see how they'd work in the Reason environment. I must say with everything included, 9.5 is the update I had the most fun with. I'd be in the lab experimenting for hours on end.

Skipped version 10 because the main draw was Europa and Grain (wasn't too interested in the players either) and I just really didn't feel the need to add any new synths to my collection at the time.

Upgraded to version 11 suite because it seemed like a pretty good deal coming from 9.5 and the only disappointment I've had with it is that my Waves Gold Bundle plugins crash the software 100% of the time and I had to put in a ticket to Reason Studios. Other than that it's been smooth sailing.

[rgdaniel]

After Gibson knocked the pins out from under me when they bought and killed Opcode Studio Vision, I wandered in the wasteland for a while, then somehow landed on Reason 2.5. It seemed under-featured compared to Vision, but I enjoyed the vibe. Went to Reason 4 for while, then took a very long break. Jumped back in for Reason 9, and haven't missed an upgrade since, though 11 did slow me down. I think it was Beatmap that finally triggered the strike (to borrow a bass fishing metaphor). I have not opted for Suite because I already have just enough of the devices offered that it wasn't that tempting a bargain. I'm pretty maxed out on devices and sounds, like many here, so R12 will have to be appealing in its DAW features for me to buy it. Aw, who am I kidding, one sexy device would put me over the top again, I suspect. Bring it!

[Creativemind]

Sorry for the novel lol!

No need to apologize, those were exactly the type of replies I was hoping for.

Haha! thanks.

[Proboscis]

Interesting to read other folks' mindset when it comes to upgrading. For me, it's not going to make my music any better if I jump on every release that comes out.

I started with version 4, at a time when I was interested in getting into electronic production, which kind of coincided with me discovering psytrance after many years of being a strictly rock/metalhead (my prior home recording life was all analogue, guitars/bass/drum machine). When I started trying out software, Reason ticked the boxes for what I saw as an incredible concept of having a custom-wiring capable rack concept.

Then upgraded to v6.5 with a v7 pathway, as part of the Balance bundle.

Didn't upgrade again until v10, because I couldn't justify what I believed to be some pretty poor offerings. Jumping up three versions for $129 however, worked out to be great, great value. In between those years I instead spend a lot on Rack Extensions to round out the virtual studio.

And that's where I'm at now. I also felt that v11's offerings were quite lackluster.

As for the future of upgrading ? I'm most certainly going to buy into v12, but then that's it for my relationship with Reason Studios. Having the 'rack as a plugin' will give me all the great things I love about Reason, with the ability to use a superior sequencer of another DAW, which will be Cakewalk/Bandlab

One niggling concern for a while has been that they might not release a v12, and go the subscription route. But since the latest R+ announcement, I'm quite sure we'll see at least one more standalone product.

[BonsaiMacKay]

By the time I bought Reason, I had toyed around with a few trackers and early DAWs that belonged to fellow musicians but was never sure what to get for myself. I still functioned with an instrument mindset and also loved manipulating audio. Because of that, Reason and Live looked very appealing to me. I loved ReBirth and ReCycle so I figured these Propellerhead dudes had to know a thing or too. I got Reason 2.5, and not long after that I got Live 4 (the version that included MIDI and ReWire for the first time). I have been using LIve as my main DAW since then and used Reason very extensively up to a point. I even hoped they'd make a full-fledged DAW of it one day. What brought me back to Reason was mostly the fact I can use it as a plugin, so all I do is fire out Live and whenever I need a Reason device in a project, I can easily find it.

2000 ReBirth (sold it when I got an OSX mac)
2004 R2.5 (I bought Live 4 when it came out and have bought every upgrade since including moving on to Suite when it was first offered. No regrets at all.)
2004 ReCycle 2 (I used to love this cutie! I got the free 2.2 update in 2011 but haven't used it since 2012 probably)
2006 R3
2007 R4
2009 Record
2010 R5
2010 Record 1.5
2011 R6 (happily payed them €1 for it)
2012 R6.5
2013 R7 (I felt Reason had given me all I could get it from and decded to move on)
2019 R10 (the prospect of getting Europa as a plugin was a big motivator)
2020 R11 Suite (now I can use any device as a plugin. Love it. I find it kind of ugly and old, but I hope R12 will make it look fresh again. Throw in the much needed DAW improvements and I might even get back to working directly on Reason standalone)

[WOO]

Started with 4 then5, 6,8,10. Was waiting on suite 12 to drop. I guess I waited a bit too long. Will buy 12 when it drops which I'm almost certain will be the last perpetual license that "verdane" will offer.

[Dante]

Had Rebirth then every single version of Reason (Incl. Record) since then. But now for final mix/mastering I use Harrison Mixbus 32C

[esselfortium]

I tried a demo of Reason 1.0 on a MacAddict magazine CD (remember bundled software CDs with magazines?) when I was around 12, spent a few minutes clicking around in the rack and couldn't figure out how to make notes come out.

A year or so later I tried again with Reason 2.5, after having run up against the limitations of the other music software I owned, and this time it clicked. The demo would time out after 20 minutes and you couldn't save anything, so I ended up just spending hours exploring it and making little loops in those 20-minute periods. I tried piracy but couldn't get past the CD authentication, so I took a barrel full of accumulated change to the CoinStar machine and managed to just barely afford a secondhand copy of Reason sold via eBay. It was the best software purchase I've ever made.

Reason 3's additions of the Combinator and MClass devices made it feel more complete as a standalone DAW (finally, an output limiter!), and enabled much easier sharing of patches in the community. A few years later I used it to create my first proper album, released shortly before I graduated high school.

Reason 4 somehow didn't feel huge to me at the time, but I don't think I could ever go back to the old sequencer. It took me years to really wrap my head around Thor's potential, I still relied on Subtractor a lot for a long time.

Reason 5 and Record were an odd era. It was a questionable move to split up Reason into two separate DAWs that were only really feature-complete when combined. Being able to work with audio directly in the sequencer was great, though. I stubbornly resisted using the SSL mixer for a long time, bypassing it entirely and instead routing a classic 14:2 mixer directly to the main outputs.

Reason 6 made a fool of me. I remember thinking, "why do I need a new delay or a dirty compressor when I can surely just build those with the Combinator?", shortly before The Echo and Pulverizer became my new favorite devices to use on everything. I still kept resisting the SSL mixer, though. Rack Extensions in 6.5 made me happy, seeing the closed-off Reason world expand with new developers for the first time.

I waited a while to finally update to Reason 7, because my old computer was still on macOS 10.6 for a long time. It was worth the wait, though, as the SSL mixer felt feature-complete at last thanks to the additions of the spectrum EQ popup and bus channels.

Reason 8 initially underwhelmed me, but similarly to Reason 4's sequencer overhaul, I can't imagine going back to the old browser. I also found that performance improved a lot for me here, there were some heavy NNXT-based Combi instruments that Reason 7 was struggling a lot with that suddenly behaved a lot better in Reason 8. Not sure what happened there, but I appreciated it.

Reason 9 gave us pitch edit and VST support. The pitch editor has been endlessly useful, and VST support is what's kept me using Reason instead of migrating to another DAW to use Kontakt. Players didn't make a huge impression on me, but they're alright.

Reason 10 added some killer new synths (finally!), multi-lane editing (or multi-lane viewing, at least...), and overhauled the internal audio handling to make VSTs run better. Europa is my new favorite synth in Reason, because it's so easy to get great sounds out of.

Reason 11 felt like mostly small changes, aside from the rack plugin. It's a nice peace-of-mind thing to know that I can keep all my patches and the rack workflow if I ever switch DAWs. Beatmap was a great point-update addition, I use it a lot for adding layers of extra complexity to my main drums.

Looking forward to Reason 12 and hoping for lots of focus on workflow features. The handful of workflow tweaks in Reason 11 were a nice start, but not enough.

[ab459]

Reason 2.5 bought in 2018 (at kvr) > 10 > 11 Suite

First time tried program in 2000-2002 i not remember exactly, shortly after Rebirth

[HumbleNature]

the college I went to included Reason 3 in their mandatory laptop package.
It was in the school program and they upgraded it to reason 4 soon after it had came out.
I didn't really into it because I was voice major and knew nothing about DAW.
but 2011, I finally made up my mind and got me a Reason 4 Ignite! book from amazon and actually tried it.
then when they announced 9.5 VST support and free upgrade to 10, I upgraded.
and when last year they offered a handsome discount for 11 suite, I upgraded it.
still trying to figure it out and working on it.

[PhillipOrdonez]

First bought version was 6.5 with free upgrade to 7.

Then upgraded to 9.5 with free upgrade to 10.

Then 11 suite.

I've always upgraded because of features that are relevant for me. If an upgrade has stuff I want and could improve my workflow and business, then I'll upgrade. Back in the day when 8 came out I really wanted to get that upgrade because of the workflow improvements, however back then I was broke, so it needed to wait a bit and fortunately by the time I upgraded the amount of features added were even greater.

[Melody303]

I tried a demo of Reason 1.0 on a MacAddict magazine CD (remember bundled software CDs with magazines?) when I was around 12, spent a few minutes clicking around in the rack and couldn't figure out how to make notes come out.

A year or so later I tried again with Reason 2.5, after having run up against the limitations of the other music software I owned, and this time it clicked. The demo would time out after 20 minutes and you couldn't save anything, so I ended up just spending hours exploring it and making little loops in those 20-minute periods. I tried piracy but couldn't get past the CD authentication, so I took a barrel full of accumulated change to the CoinStar machine and managed to just barely afford a secondhand copy of Reason sold via eBay. It was the best software purchase I've ever made.

Hah, the first songs I wrote in Reason were while using the demo of R1. I opened a notepad, and wrote down what I did in each session before the 20 minutes were up (like what parameters I changed on the subtractor, what my Matrix patterns looked like, what I did in the sequencer and so on). I had them saved as text files until I got the full version and recreated them one last time to save as RNS files and export.

Reason 4 somehow didn't feel huge to me at the time, but I don't think I could ever go back to the old sequencer. It took me years to really wrap my head around Thor's potential, I still relied on Subtractor a lot for a long time.

I still use the Subtractor more often than Thor or Europa, or any other synth (bar ABL3) to the present day.

I loved your response.

[esselfortium]

I tried a demo of Reason 1.0 on a MacAddict magazine CD (remember bundled software CDs with magazines?) when I was around 12, spent a few minutes clicking around in the rack and couldn't figure out how to make notes come out.

A year or so later I tried again with Reason 2.5, after having run up against the limitations of the other music software I owned, and this time it clicked. The demo would time out after 20 minutes and you couldn't save anything, so I ended up just spending hours exploring it and making little loops in those 20-minute periods. I tried piracy but couldn't get past the CD authentication, so I took a barrel full of accumulated change to the CoinStar machine and managed to just barely afford a secondhand copy of Reason sold via eBay. It was the best software purchase I've ever made.

Hah, the first songs I wrote in Reason were while using the demo of R1. I opened a notepad, and wrote down what I did in each session before the 20 minutes were up (like what parameters I changed on the subtractor, what my Matrix patterns looked like, what I did in the sequencer and so on). I had them saved as text files until I got the full version and recreated them one last time to save as RNS files and export.

That's amazing! I don't think I had that kind of patience.

[gullum]

started with 2 or 2.5 cracked version
then got Reason adapted with an M-Adusio midi keyboard
Upgraded it to Reason 4
had record also
have upgraded every version since then most on day of release

[MuttReason]

joeyluck shared this link elsewhere in the forums https://www.reasonstudios.com/en/reason/upgrade
On it, you can view the main features that were introduced to each version of Reason, and I'm just wondering which features made you take the leap to which version upgrade?

In my own case, I started with Reason 1, and Reason 2 was a no brainer with the killer feature for me being the Malstrom (2 also introduced the Orkestre soundbank, which they neglect to mention on that page).
2.5 got me with the RV7000 and Scream-4.
3... I didn't quite grasp the importance and usefulness of the Combinator when R3 was announced, but I did upgrade, as more was still certainly more for me back then, and I definitely did not regret it.

4. I skipped 4. Thor was an amazing killer feature that almost got me over, but the changes to the sequencer alienated me. I've no problem admitting I was resistant to that change, but FYI, it did break backward compatibility slightly. I often get the impression that I'm the only person who knows this fact. The break in compatibility is the way pattern sequencer behave has altered. The most direct way to explain it is that if you start a single 1/16 bar pattern playing at 1.2.1 on the sequencer, it used to start at the 5th step in R3 and before, and since R4 it starts at the 1st step. Was that an improvement? Perhaps, but it did 'break' a few older songs.

Then came Record, and somehow, allowing me to sing (without a lot of workarounds and 3rd party software) made an honest woman out of me, because that's the point I bought Reason+Record duo. (Record also brought in the Line 6 amps, which I dearly miss nowadays)

5 got me too, and Kong was the reason for that. I so very wanted a drum synth in Reason, but looking back now, I hardly used it over the years, having become so used to Redrum that it was always just quicker and easier to set that up instead of a Kong+Redrum. Neptune shows up as a new feature for Reason 5 in that list, but that was actually a Record 1.5 feature (that I got, it was a free upgrade) before the duo was merged.

R6 was the pay-what-you-want upgrade, and its killer feature for me was the Echo. Got that too.

R6.5 was the free upgrade that opened the RE format, definitely a killer feature, and at an unbeatable price to boot.

I did not get R7. It's killer feature for me was the Midi Out device, but I had my doubts that it'd slow me down overall. To this day I've only used it once. I should have got it for the audio slicing, which has been very helpful, but I didn't realize how useful it would be at the time.

R8's killer feature for me was the RV7000 Mark II, the brought over IR support, It almost got me to upgrade, on the other hand, I didn't want to lose the Line 6 amps.

R9... didn't have a killer feature for me. The players were mildly interesting, but hardly enough (though nowadays I *love* the Dual Arp, but that's mostly thanks to Lectric Panda's refills for it)

R9.5 came with the VST support, and while in the early years I clamored for VST support, by this point, I had become so familiar with Reason that I didn't need it. This is a feature that would've gotten me to buy had it been introduced years earlier, but at 9.5 it was too little, too late.

10 did get me though: Europa and Grain were the chief culprits, with the assistance of Radical Piano, Humana, a new factory sound bank, VST support, players, RV7000 MKII, and support for newer RE's that I wanted.

My story ends there, because 11 had nothing of interest to me. I'm very happy with R10, but I still look forward to the next killer feature, if there ever will be another.

I’ve owned all of them IIRC apart from (I think) v9. Stumbled across 1.0 (can’t remember where... it was a VERY long time ago!) and it blew my mind that I could have stuff that looked like hardware gear in the rack that cost thousands. And I didn’t have to worry about ground loops. AND I could have more than one of each instrument in the rack! I grew up with hardware stuff and recognised all of the bits of kit that the Props were cheekily emulating without having to get into copyright/IP hell. Even the mixer looked like the Mackie I was using as a sub mixer at the time.

From then on, every single release for years, and I was a beta tester for several of the big ones. Each release had something in it that was really cool. Also Record... I remember being blown away by the quality of the timestretching, it was way ahead of other DAWs. Only began cooling a little on Reason around (I think) v9 when Ableton Live added a bunch of features that I loved (can’t remember which version, probably around 8) and then I bought a Push (now Push 2) and suddenly Reason’s lack of hardware integration became a real barrier. Ableton has gone from strength to strength since and while I still owned Reason, it wasn’t getting fired up very often.

Then RRP came along - gamechanger. RRP in Live is an amazing combo. That said, I still like the workflow integration of the Reason DAW, and I think the modelled (kinda...) SSL desk is a major plus. The fact that hardware controllers now don’t really have true out of the box integration with Reason is a big drag IME... Props/RS really dropped the ball with the whole remote codec thing I think. Also lack of HiDPI (although not for much longer we hope...). Big question now of course is if they will dump the DAW (and with it that lovely modelled SSL desk) and focus just on RRP with new REs trickled out under Reason+ subs model. Pretty risky if they do so when there are so many good plugins out there that can do what each RRP instrument can do,... around 15 months of R+ subs would cost the same as a Maschine controller plus a ton of NI sounds.

[Dave Beep]

idk why my account shows me as having Reason 3 as well as 11.

[jlgrimes]

joeyluck shared this link elsewhere in the forums https://www.reasonstudios.com/en/reason/upgrade
On it, you can view the main features that were introduced to each version of Reason, and I'm just wondering which features made you take the leap to which version upgrade?

In my own case, I started with Reason 1, and Reason 2 was a no brainer with the killer feature for me being the Malstrom (2 also introduced the Orkestre soundbank, which they neglect to mention on that page).
2.5 got me with the RV7000 and Scream-4.
3... I didn't quite grasp the importance and usefulness of the Combinator when R3 was announced, but I did upgrade, as more was still certainly more for me back then, and I definitely did not regret it.

4. I skipped 4. Thor was an amazing killer feature that almost got me over, but the changes to the sequencer alienated me. I've no problem admitting I was resistant to that change, but FYI, it did break backward compatibility slightly. I often get the impression that I'm the only person who knows this fact. The break in compatibility is the way pattern sequencer behave has altered. The most direct way to explain it is that if you start a single 1/16 bar pattern playing at 1.2.1 on the sequencer, it used to start at the 5th step in R3 and before, and since R4 it starts at the 1st step. Was that an improvement? Perhaps, but it did 'break' a few older songs.

Then came Record, and somehow, allowing me to sing (without a lot of workarounds and 3rd party software) made an honest woman out of me, because that's the point I bought Reason+Record duo. (Record also brought in the Line 6 amps, which I dearly miss nowadays)

5 got me too, and Kong was the reason for that. I so very wanted a drum synth in Reason, but looking back now, I hardly used it over the years, having become so used to Redrum that it was always just quicker and easier to set that up instead of a Kong+Redrum. Neptune shows up as a new feature for Reason 5 in that list, but that was actually a Record 1.5 feature (that I got, it was a free upgrade) before the duo was merged.

R6 was the pay-what-you-want upgrade, and its killer feature for me was the Echo. Got that too.

R6.5 was the free upgrade that opened the RE format, definitely a killer feature, and at an unbeatable price to boot.

I did not get R7. It's killer feature for me was the Midi Out device, but I had my doubts that it'd slow me down overall. To this day I've only used it once. I should have got it for the audio slicing, which has been very helpful, but I didn't realize how useful it would be at the time.

R8's killer feature for me was the RV7000 Mark II, the brought over IR support, It almost got me to upgrade, on the other hand, I didn't want to lose the Line 6 amps.

R9... didn't have a killer feature for me. The players were mildly interesting, but hardly enough (though nowadays I *love* the Dual Arp, but that's mostly thanks to Lectric Panda's refills for it)

R9.5 came with the VST support, and while in the early years I clamored for VST support, by this point, I had become so familiar with Reason that I didn't need it. This is a feature that would've gotten me to buy had it been introduced years earlier, but at 9.5 it was too little, too late.

10 did get me though: Europa and Grain were the chief culprits, with the assistance of Radical Piano, Humana, a new factory sound bank, VST support, players, RV7000 MKII, and support for newer RE's that I wanted.

My story ends there, because 11 had nothing of interest to me. I'm very happy with R10, but I still look forward to the next killer feature, if there ever will be another.

I started with 2.5 on i think I only skipped like 7 and/or 8.