Mattias: "Reason is the rack and you can use it as a plug-in or standalone with its own sequencer and mixer etc."

[Creativemind]

I hope they've been doing a deep investigation on other DAWs to see how they work with the Rack, getting new ideas, and thinking carefully about how they will tackle things in a way that fits with Reason's workflow.

Yes I hope so too with regard to the RRP. I'm unlikely to return to Reason now (after just over 7yrs use) and I'm now just interested in how the RRP will be improved.

I did send a message 10 days ago to Reason Studio's asking for some improvements to it (vst integration in the RRP, built in undo's, sample loading into Redrum, Kong, NN-XT, NN-19 & Grain), update the NN-XT and find a quicker method than username / password log-in of it but guess what, no reply at all. Not even a generic automated response. I understand they're busy but an e-mail reply saying thanks at least would've been nice.

[EdwardKiy]

Reason's USP is the rack. Always has been. The primary differing factor from every other DAW. That's all that's being said. It does not mean that the rest of the DAW isn't important. It's not the first time the rack was use alongside other DAWs/sequencers. That's what Rewire was for. People bought Reason just for Rewire in the past. RRP is just a Rewire replacement. Nothing's changed.

I happen to disagree. The USP is the hardware emulation concept, not the rack per se, that's why the mixer fit so perfectly with it. The age-long "true path does not have shortcuts because it's straight" samurai concept. It implies a highest learning curve/long-term user benefit ratio, that makes any musical skill/knowledge transferable. This is why most Reason users are adults. Kids don't care about long-term benefits, they need here and now - a concept executed near-perfectly in Live and, maybe FL (dunno, haven't tried). This is why every time they do anything other than improve on that original concept, it pisses the core users off.

The rack itself is not copyrightable - not in function, not even in name. It's already been reproduced and in better ways, to fit better with the concepts of other DAWs'. The RRP within other DAWs is just a synth/effect browser, which, I'm sorry to say, outside the DAW are quite mediocre with every single unit having better equivalents elsewhere. It has merit and should sell well as a cheap bundle, though.

[antic604]

...The USP is the hardware emulation concept, not the rack per se...

We might disagree about the exact number of steps necessary to duplicate vertical slice of arrangement in Reason, but this is an awesome post!

[Billy+]

...The USP is the hardware emulation concept, not the rack per se...

We might disagree about the exact number of steps necessary to duplicate vertical slice of arrangement in Reason, but this is an awesome post!

Um.........

[EdwardKiy]

Um.........

What's up, Billy? let it out

[Billy+]

Confused.

The Rack was designed to look like hardware in a studio setting, that at the time was its USP,
the non standardised colours / device faces adds to that notion it really looks like a bunch of hardware from different manufacturers that can be connected via cables just like a studio.

There are obviously differences as it's not real hardware and getting to the back of the rack is a whole lot easier plus you don't have to worry about the dust.

But I'm confused why you don't associate the two?

[EnochLight]

RS noticed people will pay full price to use the plugin only, so they won't invest into the DAW elements v12 or just keep them barely functional.

I know it's nothing new & it has been said here & elsewhere multiple times

I feel this is the most important thing one can take away from this thread, IMHO.

[EdwardKiy]

Confused.

The Rack was designed to look like hardware in a studio setting, that at the time was its USP

let's say that the hardware emulation concept is the organism
rack being the first organ in it - let's call it the heart.

to thrive among competition, the organism had to adapt and develop new organs.
sequencer became the brain
mixer is the liver

sure, you can say the heart is "the most important organ", but it's not viable without the kidneys or the lungs, let alone the brain and the lungs. You can stick it into a recipient organism to save it, but this means the donor dies.

if you reduce the organism survival strategy to being a transplant farm - it's a losing game, because it always comes with problems of rejection/compliance and it's a matter of time before the recipient organisms just decide to grow their own missing organs to bypass all of that.

Now consider that squid become the dominant organism and wipe out all the others. They need 3 hearts with 3 chambers each, so the 4-chamber humanoid hearts are of no interest to them, even as a donor.

Better be the dominant organism.

[antic604]

RS noticed people will pay full price to use the plugin only, so they won't invest into the DAW elements beyond v12 or just keep them barely functional.

I'll transfer to you all my REs if I'm wrong

I don't see how my quote above is controversial anymore. We've seen the signs for past 2 years and now they only are getting more clear everytime RS representatives open their mouths...

[QVprod]

Reason's USP is the rack. Always has been. The primary differing factor from every other DAW. That's all that's being said. It does not mean that the rest of the DAW isn't important. It's not the first time the rack was use alongside other DAWs/sequencers. That's what Rewire was for. People bought Reason just for Rewire in the past. RRP is just a Rewire replacement. Nothing's changed.

I happen to disagree. The USP is the hardware emulation concept, not the rack per se, that's why the mixer fit so perfectly with it. The age-long "true path does not have shortcuts because it's straight" samurai concept. It implies a highest learning curve/long-term user benefit ratio, that makes any musical skill/knowledge transferable. This is why most Reason users are adults. Kids don't care about long-term benefits, they need here and now - a concept executed near-perfectly in Live and, maybe FL (dunno, haven't tried). This is why every time they do anything other than improve on that original concept, it pisses the core users off.

The rack itself is not copyrightable - not in function, not even in name. It's already been reproduced and in better ways, to fit better with the concepts of other DAWs'. The RRP within other DAWs is just a synth/effect browser, which, I'm sorry to say, outside the DAW are quite mediocre with every single unit having better equivalents elsewhere. It has merit and should sell well as a cheap bundle, though.

Gah I give up. At the start the USP wasn’t just the rack it was a complete studio rack sequencer mixer all in one place. Either people here are too young, too recent users of reason or have too short a memory.

Sure there was a rack but this held the devices. It was a very close abstraction and metaphor for a virtual studio. Soft synths were in their infancy and DAWs weren’t called DAW they were called hard disk recorders or software workstations.

What reason had as its usp was a shed load of devices that would usually cost thousands each all together tightly integrated with the mixer, each other and the sequencer. It was just so slick and unique.

These days the rack as a usp is to disguise the lack of development to that tight integration and packaging of all the devices. It’s essentially an excuse. I wonder how many reason plus sound pack rinsers spend ages wiring up their racks in clever ways.

You guys are arguing semantics. A USP doesn't need to copyrightable. Just has to be different. When I say the rack I'm including all of the functions related to it, not just the physical (or virtual rather) space itself, as I'm sure Mattias was referring to the same with his statement. The rack proceeds the SSL mixer. Reason's hardware emulation concept is a virtual studio with the ability to wire up devices. Where does all of this functionality happen? The rack. The SSL didn't exist until Reason 6.5. Before that, you used the 14:2 or the 6:2, which are both rack mixers. So even mixing happened in the rack. You literally had the rack and a sequencer. 80-90% the functionality you speak of that drew you to Reason happens in the rack. You're not disagreeing with me at all unless you're saying the sequencer was what won you over because that's all that's left. As I mentioned, many people bought Reason to use it Rewired. Nothing changed there regarding RRP. Same-ish product, new skin. To say the RRP is just a synth/effect browser however, is negating the fact that the tab key still works.

I think we have to let go of the old man vs. child argument of ease of use. Having used both Ableton and FL Studio, I disagree 'ease of use' is the draw. Workflow is. Ableton has the session view. For FL, the step sequencer was a big deal. Sound design and music creation are separate skill sets. Ton's of Reason users were preset users (despite being stupidly criticized on the PUF). That's why Refills existed. They weren't all sample based. I used Reason for years before I made my own combinators. I wouldn't expect Reason + users to be spending hours wiring things up, and they shouldn't be expected to unless they want to. That what the pack creators (many of whom are also Refill creators) are for. Creating the most amazing sounds only gets you so far if you can't hear how to use them well in a song.

[Billy+]

I love wiring things up

[avasopht]

But for a business that also means they can get more revenue focusing on one thing, rather than three (to simplify). And they can probably estimate, that if they put the same extra resources (money, people, time) to RRP instead of to Rack, Sequencer and Mixer, they can actually get more users in and more money. I'm pretty sure many of the new users attracted by RRP are not even considering switching to Reason DAW, no matter how much money RS would pour into that. And probably that amount of resources, to make Reason DAW compete with say Ableton or Cubase is much higher, than to make RRP compete - at least on a surface level - with Kontakt or Reaktor. Not to mention the return on that expenditure is completely different, i.e. say $150 for Reason DAW upgrade every 2 years vs. $75-100 for a new RE every 3-6 months.

The factors that are important are:
1. Cost/benefits ratio: what is the cost (development effort of Reason DAW features) in relation to the benefit (revenue from those users).
2. Market size of RRP: it could be 10% of Reason standalone for all we know. But it could also be far greater.
3. Opportunity cost: how much development effort (and potential market appeal) does RRP lose by developing Reason standalone. But if RRP is selling well, they could always extend the team. Ditto for ditching Reason standalone - that could be a massive opportunity cost if it loses them all of their current users.
4. Conversion ratio: how many Reason standalone users would really switch to RRP if it was the only option (which also requires a DAW purchase).

RRP would need to be bringing in substantially more than Reason standalone for there to be a real conversation about dropping the Reason DAW in favour of exclusively producing RRP.

It could possibly be a better direction, but it's a route that would have been better taken 20 years ago.

If Reason had been released as a VST from day 0 with a pre-LLVM variant of Rack Extensions, it could have gained a lot of traction as a must-have instrument and effects plugin.

I agree, it doesn't mean that. But simple economic calculation may lead RS to set up their product line & pricing structure in a way that will eventually (if it hasn't already...) discourage and chase away Reason DAW users and/or compell them to use RRP in 3rd party DAWs instead. There's no place for sentiments in business.

This is ALL I'm trying to say.

That's presuming firstly, that it's even a viable path. Whatever intentions Verdane may have, it just might not be possible to do that.

It could be a possibility under a set of conditions. I'm quite doubtful as I suspect the vast majority of Reason users use it exclusively (they've done surveys and will have good stats on this), so this would require all of those users to also find and purchase a new DAW, which could lose them completely (especially since it means all of their previous tracks would no longer be accessible). It would piss off users to the n'th degree and most likely lose them entirely. We could be talking about a loss of a good €10m per year for what could accounts for just €200-600k worth of development/yr (if you consider things like APE, etc. which may have a fair bit of R&D still going on).

There is just no way to really compel a user to give up their entire 10-20 year library if they really don't want to - and for such little gain as well (losing potentially millions/yr for a relatively small expense).

[antic604]

When I say the rack I'm including all of the functions related to it, not just the physical (or virtual rather) space itself, as I'm sure Mattias was referring to the same with his statement.

All? Where in the RRP are pattern tracks? blocks? automation clips? shared sends & returns? audio & CV patching between separate "tracks", sampling?

No. RRP is just an instrument/FX and it having the "tab" key changes nothing, because there's several VSTs instruments/FX that don't have "tab" - or cables altogether - and offer the same or greater patching & routing flexibility (PhasePlant, Falcon, Bazille, Voltage Modular, MuTools, etc.).

Bitwig's Grid is also the perfect analogy, because if they'de take it out and package as a VST, it would lose half of its features and strengths, provided by tight integration with Bitwig's sequencer and its modular/modulation systems. Without its native DAW, it would be yet another "modular environment" VST, with the only redeeming quality being a slightly smarter workflow.

Anyway...

I got into Reason only in 2017, so for me its USP was always the interconectedness, interplay and synergy between Rack, Sequencer and Mixer. RRP alone simply doesn't cut it.

[antic604]

There is just no way to really compel a user to give up their entire 10-20 year library if they really don't want to - and for such little gain as well (losing potentially millions/yr for a relatively small expense).

But the cruel "beauty" of the situation is they don't make you give up your library! You get to take all of it to another DAW, that's not "included with the Rack". You will be compelled to keep the RPP up to date to not lose access to that library and buy new stuff because why not if you're paying anyway? But over time you just won't need Reason anymore, as it will fall behind your current host more each month, and they'll slowly phase it out eventually.

BTW, it's funny how my perspective changed in 2 months (at least on the last bullet):
viewtopic.php?p=534097#p534097

[EnochLight]

I'll transfer to you all my REs if I'm wrong

I'll hold you to that.

I don't see how my quote above is controversial anymore. We've seen the signs for past 2 years and now they only are getting more clear everytime RS representatives open their mouths...

Anyway...

I got into Reason only in 2017

I don't see it as controversial, I just see it as someone who literally only starting using Reason 4 years ago and is grossly unaware of the history prior to coming aboard. In contrast, I've been aboard since... late 2000. And in the past 2 decades - even before Record+Reason 5 and then Reason 6 came along - I can absolutely attest that Reason was always "a rack of plugins/gear/effects/blah blah blah" first and foremost - and that was its USP. Full stop. It still is, IMHO.

So, no - I don't feel like what Mattias said over at KVR is anything new. And no, I don't believe Reason 12 will ignore the core DAW portion of Reason. And yes, I look forward to you transferring all of your RE licenses to me. jk

[LongFist]

I love wiring things up

As do I. I was once chief sound engineer at an unknown hidden out-of-the-way studio that occasionally saw stars. Everything there required wiring, re-wiring, and sometimes even a little hacking here and there. So when Reason appeared before me, I recognized the call and - get this - I haven't cut myself on a rack frame in over twenty years!!! Nor have I accidentally shocked anybody, or let the magic smoke out, or sat in the middle of the floor between two subracks wondering why one won't "talk to" the other. To us really old old guys, this has always been heavenly!!!

[stratatonic]

It was a bit disconcerting at first to read from Reason Studios recently that you could use Reason with its “included DAW”.
But its all semantics, and Mattias is right on with his statement - regardless of the context.

In fact, you could always use single rack Reason directly in a DAW. That DAW was Record.
Reason didn’t get the SSL mixer. Record did. Reason didn’t get audio tracks. Record did.
If you owned just standalone Record, you got a barebones DAW with some ID8 instruments/effects in a rack, SSL mixer and new sequencer with audio tracks. But if you owned Reason as well, you could seamlessly use all of the instruments and devices within Record in multiple racks. I still think they did an amazing job integrating the two programs like they did. You can speculate as to why things happened the way they did so that Record was merged into Reason, but really, the heart of Reason is the rack.

[Billy+]

I love wiring things up

As do I. I was once chief sound engineer at an unknown hidden out-of-the-way studio that occasionally saw stars. Everything there required wiring, re-wiring, and sometimes even a little hacking here and there. So when Reason appeared before me, I recognized the call and - get this - I haven't cut myself on a rack frame in over twenty years!!! Nor have I accidentally shocked anybody, or let the magic smoke out, or sat in the middle of the floor between two subracks wondering why one won't "talk to" the other. To us really old old guys, this has always been heavenly!!!

I'm just thankful that the cables are always the right length.

[avasopht]

But the cruel "beauty" of the situation is they don't make you give up your library! You get to take all of it to another DAW, that's not "included with the Rack". You will be compelled to keep the RPP up to date to not lose access to that library and buy new stuff because why not if you're paying anyway? ...

I meant people's personal libraries of songs and giblets and whatnot.

Do bear in mind that the amount people would pay for RRP applies only to those who want RRP. People who want Reason Standalone are not necessarily those customers.

It's hard to tell the future, but unless it's a revolution (like some groundbreaking hardware integration) I really can't see many Reason users wanting to jump ship to another DAW with RRP so easily. And stagnating Reason standalone could just throw them into the arms of a much more established competitor.

If Reason standalone was scrapped or stagnated and forced to use a DAW, they have lots of other options to choose from that could threaten RPP (especially if the motive for using RRP is that Propellerhead abandoned them):
1. Roland Cloud.
2. Korg Collection.
3. EWQL Cloud Composer.
4. Output Arcade.
5. Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate.
6. Various AIR offerings.

I've no idea what their intentions are, but what you're suggesting could easily be an act of suicide for RS. Don't underestimate how willing people are to cut off their nose to spite their face if they feel cheated in any way.

In the ultimatum game, player 1 is given £10 to split with player 2. They can split it however they like but if player 2 rejects the offer, both get nothing. Research shows that if a low amount is offered, player 2 will reject it on the basis it’s one-sided (this rejection is spiteful insofar as player 2 is sacrificing whatever small sum they were offered). The most common outcome is that player 1 offers a reasonably fair amount for fear of rejection by a spiteful counterpart.

This suggests, disarmingly, that you act more fairly towards someone you believe to be spiteful. “The common idea of fairness is that it’s an extension of our pro-social and co-operative behaviours,” says Smead. “But when you consider game theoretic situations, you see that fairness can be interpreted as not necessarily an extension of our pro-social behaviours, but rather a reaction to others’ anti-social behaviours.”

[QVprod]

When I say the rack I'm including all of the functions related to it, not just the physical (or virtual rather) space itself, as I'm sure Mattias was referring to the same with his statement.

All? Where in the RRP are pattern tracks? blocks? automation clips? shared sends & returns? audio & CV patching between separate "tracks", sampling?

No. RRP is just an instrument/FX and it having the "tab" key changes nothing, because there's several VSTs instruments/FX that don't have "tab" - or cables altogether - and offer the same or greater patching & routing flexibility (PhasePlant, Falcon, Bazille, Voltage Modular, MuTools, etc.).

Bitwig's Grid is also the perfect analogy, because if they'de take it out and package as a VST, it would lose half of its features and strengths, provided by tight integration with Bitwig's sequencer and its modular/modulation systems. Without its native DAW, it would be yet another "modular environment" VST, with the only redeeming quality being a slightly smarter workflow.

Anyway...

I got into Reason only in 2017, so for me its USP was always the interconectedness, interplay and synergy between Rack, Sequencer and Mixer. RRP alone simply doesn't cut it.

You're taking my comments out of context.... I said all functions related to the rack. You mentioned a bunch of things more directly related to the sequencer and the mixer. As far as the other software you mentioned, all of them are synths with modular capabilities. Similar...sure I guess in the same way that apples and oranges are both fruit. But they taste very different...

Reason is the rack and you can use it as a plug-in or standalone with its own sequencer and mixer etc...]

Regardless, replace "plug-in" with Rewire (RRP being the replacement) and this statement has literally always been true. No one's telling you to like the RRP. The very statement you're speculating about is mentioning people having options.

[antic604]

You're taking my comments out of context.... I said all functions related to the rack. You mentioned a bunch of things more directly related to the sequencer and the mixer. As far as the other software you mentioned, all of them are synths with modular capabilities. Similar...sure I guess in the same way that apples and oranges are both fruit. But they taste very different...

I don't believe I do. I might be quoting you out of context to save on space, but I'm trying not to do that as well.

So please make up your mind - what does "all functions related to Rack" mean? Are there any strictly Rack related functions - as per your definition - that are not yet present in RRP? Other than patching between tracks, I don't think anything else's missing? If that's the case, then for me RRP (that =Rack) misses a lot of things that I appreciate from its integration & synergy with Reason. And that's my objection:

• in Reason DAW - Rack is much more than just instrument/FX container
• as RRP - it is only that and in many aspects inforior, more cumbersome and more limited than 3rd party alternatives; the only benefit (for me) of having RRP is ability to use Complex-1 or The Echo in Bitwig, but all the patching & modulating I can do easier and quicker in Bitwig itself.

[QVprod]

You're taking my comments out of context.... I said all functions related to the rack. You mentioned a bunch of things more directly related to the sequencer and the mixer. As far as the other software you mentioned, all of them are synths with modular capabilities. Similar...sure I guess in the same way that apples and oranges are both fruit. But they taste very different...

I don't believe I do. I might be quoting you out of context to save on space, but I'm trying not to do that as well.

So please make up your mind - what does "all functions related to Rack" mean? Are there any strictly Rack related functions - as per your definition - that are not yet present in RRP? Other than patching between tracks, I don't think anything else's missing? If that's the case, then for me RRP (that =Rack) misses a lot of things that I appreciate from its integration & synergy with Reason. And that's my objection:

• in Reason DAW - Rack is much more than just instrument/FX container
• as RRP - it is only that and in many aspects inforior, more cumbersome and more limited than 3rd party alternatives; the only benefit (for me) of having RRP is ability to use Complex-1 or The Echo in Bitwig, but all the patching & modulating I can do easier and quicker in Bitwig itself.

Yes you are taking my comments out of context. Consider the posts I was responding to when I said “all things related to the rack.” That wasn’t about the RRP. It was about the rack in general, same one that standalone users use. I’m not sure how that turned into you defending your dislike of the RRP...

The literal point of anything I’ve said in the last few posts is that a population of people buying Reason just to use the rack in another DAW, or any other production environment, has always been the case since version 1. It’s not a new thing at all...

[selig]

Reason's USP is the rack. Always has been. The primary differing factor from every other DAW. That's all that's being said. It does not mean that the rest of the DAW isn't important. It's not the first time the rack was use alongside other DAWs/sequencers. That's what Rewire was for. People bought Reason just for Rewire in the past. RRP is just a Rewire replacement. Nothing's changed.

I happen to disagree. The USP is the hardware emulation concept, not the rack per se, that's why the mixer fit so perfectly with it.

I totally agree with this. I got Reason 2.0 in 2003 because it had a software sampler and I had a gig and a crap load of samples and an old Sample Cell cared that was no longer supported. Reason's ability to do 100% in software something I had been doing in hardware for almost 20 years was mind blowing at the time. So for me, Reason's USP wasn't the rack, but that was nice. It wasn't the sequencer, but that was also nice. It was the instrument(s). The rest was a bonus for me, and I got the whole shebang for less than I paid for any one sampler in years past.

Also, whatever the USP is in Reason, it can't stand alone. Tesla's USP was arguably the electric engine - but take away the wheels, the seats, or the windshield and see how happy folks are with their unique electric engine.

[EnochLight]

I mean... technically - no - actually - the "hardware emulation" is the rack, though. Right? Always has been, really.

[selig]

I mean... technically - no - actually - the "hardware emulation" is the rack, though. Right? Always has been, really.

Well, literally speaking the "rack" had absolutely nothing to do with audio or instruments. If you want to get really literal, it was the cables and the mixer that allowed all the instruments to work together. They could have all had keyboards and been on stands instead of the rack and you would have had the same capability as far as I'm concerned. The rack was just the visual metaphor they chose to represent the combination of instruments, it was hardly the attraction to me or the technology that set Reason apart from other options at the time.
If anything, one could say it was literally the cables that represented the biggest step forward at the time. The instruments/fx themselves could have been represented in other ways just as easily as mentioned above (by keyboards on stands in a virtual studio, for example).

So I would say it was the "collection" of instruments and effects that gave Reason the power that attracted me, and their ability to be freely connected as in the "real world". I couldn't have cared less about the rack at the time, it was simply one way to present the collection.