How powerful are reason's stock synths?

[cymek74]

Everyone has their preferences on synths/FX etc. I personally use Reason synths more than the VST synths I own, and I have a few of the ones that almost always get recommended on different forums and social media, not that they are bad in any way, I just find Reason synths with the combination of how they can be wired up and played with, more creative and experimental, everyone is not after that though, they want a specific emulation or sound.

[avasopht]

1. Reason stock synths ...
   They're good, especially with combinators.
   
   Between Subtractor and Malstrom you have the tools to create all the key signature sounds. There are plenty of Refills (though no longer available on the Prop shop), and the Reason FSB has a wide range of instruments you can use to layer the attacks.
   
   With Thor, Grain and Europa you have all the firepower you need.
   
   There are hit songs out there earning platinum plaques that were built on top of FSB synth patches.
   
   ... but ... you will have to add your own grit and they are designed to be accurate digital synths with some of the dynamics you might find in analogue emulations. Thor can emulate some pretty complex behaviours.
2. Free upgrades for life ...
   If you sell enough product with minimal marketing and distribution costs, then sure, you can afford to give everyone free upgrades for life.
3. Picking your DAW ...
   Don't overthink it. Every DAW (even the crappiest one) is 100 times more capable than the environments electronic music producers used to create the songs you probably think are out of your reach.
   
   After 20 years of being in the game and trying to figure out how to recreate or match the sound of the workstation synths that dominated the industry in the early 00s, I came to find that the Reason FSB is a lot more powerful than its given credit for.
   
   When starting out it's easy to mistake style and flavour for unattainable quality. Sometimes what you think is a "powerful" synth is just a regular synth running through a really crappy but nice sounding signal chain (like an old amp or something). Sometimes it's the sonic character of the engineers and sound designers.
   
   I've built patches with the Korg M1 expansion packs that sound modern and fresh. Mostly I just remove their effects and season to taste.
   
   ... anyway ... try out some demos or lite editions and see what feels nice. Maybe even fork out a bit for a full version. If you don't like it you can just sell it (maybe buy a used copy so that you can sell it for the same amount you bought it for).
   
   There are a few no-brainer VSTs that are uber cheap but on par with the best of them, as well as a few combinations of VSTs that can cover all your bases.
   
   If you don't know what type of synth you want (e.g. modular analogue, modern digital, workstation/rompler, oscillator/PWM hybrid, etc.) I'd say just get one of each. Check out PluginBoutique for AIR VSTs. They're brilliant sounds to work with.

[R303]

Subscribe to R+

I would not recommend that now. Running costs with a low music budget are rather pointless.
In addition, two important points are still there:
1) the number of new releases is too low
2) online connection to open songs

For certain groups, however, R+ will make sense.

[EpiGenetik]

I would be very careful with this thinking, if I were you.

To me, the FL business model is an "out", or an "end game"; they don't look like they intend to exist indefinitely. They can afford to give free updates forever providing there is always a steady stream of new customers; so if the customer rate slows, so do the upgrades - and it gets slower than "rate x" then no more FL. At that point the company will sell off their assets and call it a day.

Do a bit of Googling for "Ponzi scheme". This is precisely what Image Line upgrade model resembles, with the exception that when it goes to the wall and the company folds there will be no liability to the company directors/owners etc.

Jus my 2 cents
Good luck!

If we all went by this way of reasoning, whats the point of sticking with Reason if its inevitably going to become subscription only? While I see your point, to devalue FL like that simply because you dont get on with it is a bit unnecessary. Theres a lot there for the money. Whether you like it or not.

OP, use what you like. Not what we tell you is good. The longer you do it, the more you realize having other DAW's isnt the end of the world.

Not sure what you're trying to say to me here, it seems like an incomplete thought process. I'm commenting about the business model.

[EpiGenetik]

To me, the FL business model is an "out", or an "end game"; they don't look like they intend to exist indefinitely. They can afford to give free updates forever providing there is always a steady stream of new customers; so if the customer rate slows, so do the upgrades - and it gets slower than "rate x" then no more FL.

I know what you are saying but they're currently celebrating 23 years of free updates. That's long enough for some of their customers to have kids old enough to become new customers. Theoretically you can run out of new customers but in practice you don't. And if you take a look at any of their minor updates you'll find more bugfixes and new features than are in a Reason major update. So they are doing pretty well right now. To quote one of the product managers "FL Studio sales have been doubling every other year for the last 8. Before that it was more like 10-20% year/year.". And whilst the core DAW updates are free they can still sell you add-on packs, an upgrade to a higher tier or individual instruments from one of the higher tiers.

If you go and look at their forum you'll find senior management and devs actively interacting with users and being frank and open about what they are planning, why they are doing it and explaining why some decisions were made, even the unpopular ones. There is an open Beta right now and the interaction between customers and devs is astonishing and refreshing. I can think of another DAW manufacturer not too far away from this unofficial-official forum who could learn something from that. The RS official types usually only pop up here to sell us something or to defend the new subs model.

And if you want to talk about companies disappearing, whatever happened to those nice, decent guys at Propellerheads? I'll tell you what happened. They were bought by evil venture capitalists, got renamed, had their support team cut and had everything refocussed onto profit profit profit with a view to selling the company on and losing even more of its soul.

Bubbles burst, typically just after they reach their maximum rate of expansion.

[Oquasec]

The ignition key needs to work wit R+ lol

[DaveyG]

Bubbles burst, typically just after they reach their maximum rate of expansion.

I get that you don't want them to succeed and that no company lasts forever but however you look at it they are doing better financially and productivity-wise than Reason Studios. And they communicate openly and honestly with their users every single day. They even respond to support tickets in a sensible timeframe!

But these days you don't have to use just one DAW so you can have your cake and eat it for not too many $$$.

[Enlightenspeed]

Aardvark!

[DaveyG]

I get that you don't want them to succeed

Nope, it's not a personal thing.

Either you've got two accounts or you're finally gone mad.

[EpiGenetik]

I get that you don't want them to succeed

Nope, it’s not a personal thing, it’s simply a business model thing.

[DaveyG]

Aardvark!

Nice edit but I quoted you ;p

[mcatalao]

3 years ago, I would tell you otherwise...

But Europa and Grain pulled reason's stock devices to another level, imho.

[avasopht]

3 years ago, I would tell you otherwise...

But Europa and Grain pulled reason's stock devices to another level, imho.

I use grain a lot more (it's just so easy to make good use of).

I need to give Europe some TLC.

[ortxedys]

If we all went by this way of reasoning, whats the point of sticking with Reason if its inevitably going to become subscription only? While I see your point, to devalue FL like that simply because you dont get on with it is a bit unnecessary. Theres a lot there for the money. Whether you like it or not.

OP, use what you like. Not what we tell you is good. The longer you do it, the more you realize having other DAW's isnt the end of the world.

Not sure what you're trying to say to me here, it seems like an incomplete thought process. I'm commenting about the business model.

I'll just pretend I didn't understand your original comment and leave it at that. It's easier for the both of us genuinely.

[DaveyG]

I need to give Europe some TLC.

I know that's a typo but Europe really could use some TLC right now.

[22ndCenturyStudio]

I'm torn between FL studio and reason 10. FL studio's price plan and larger userbase (hence greater support infrastructure) has me tempted. However, reason's stock synths appear far more powerful that FL's. Could a more experienced producer than I verify this? Its an important factor for me as I can't financially justify buying FL + a few synths.

(I also prefer reason's workflow btw).

Thanks in advance for your help (:

I've been using Reason's stock synths since version 4 and there are quite a few 3rd party sound designers that have tweaked Reason's factory synths to perfection and have truthfully revealed their potential, which is huge.Some of these designer sound packs include SoundCell,Fairlight Platinum,NucleusSoundLab and Sonic Reality is pretty good.

[Carpainter]

I'm torn between FL studio and reason 10. FL studio's price plan and larger userbase (hence greater support infrastructure) has me tempted. However, reason's stock synths appear far more powerful that FL's. Could a more experienced producer than I verify this? Its an important factor for me as I can't financially justify buying FL + a few synths.

(I also prefer reason's workflow btw).

Thanks in advance for your help (:

Thor is still one of my favorite soft synths because it strikes a good balance between editability, immediacy, sound quality, and CPU efficiency. I use it exclusively as a virtual analog synth, and I often use it in favor of superior virtual analog synths because of its small CPU footprint.

Subtractor still has its uses because of its unique phase offset modulation section, which allowed you to do supersaw and PWM-type stuff with very little CPU overhead back in the day. It's also not terrible at virtual analog sounds if you put some effort into it, but there isn't much point in doing that when you have access to Thor (and Europa).

Europa is a versatile 'ease-of-use' synth. You can dial in complex modulations without having to go into the modulation bus section and you have access to adjustable stereo unison without running it through another device.

I never really liked Malmstrom because it doesn't allow you to run samples through its granular synthesis engine. It's a preset machine with bad presets, but it used to be the only way to do comb filtering in Reason.

Grain is what Malmstrom should have been: a powerful, easy-to-use granular sampler-synth. It's a best-in-class instrument that got lost in the shuffle because it wasn't as flashy as Europa.

So yeah, Reason's stock synth are more than adequate if you want off the VST merry-go-round.