No Auto Save Feature? Lost 4 hours of my life! PISSED OFF!!!

[MrWeston]

Almost every single DAW I have used has an auto save feature because the use of VST plugins can be unstable at times. I just worked on a project for 4 freaking hours today and Reason 12 has froze up causing me to have to kill it in task manager. I lost every single thing I did. I am so disappointed in what is supposed to be one of the most advanced DAWs on the market. How much time was invested into Reason 12 having graphic updates and new devices and yet a most basic feature like an auto save that would keep me from loosing everything the new devices do is not a priority? I am pissed beyond belief right now and am considering not using this software anymore just because of this. WTF is the reason for not having it?????

[demt]

Could be then.o of undo,s between hitting save occasionally

[Billy+]

I've never experienced Reason crashing freezing or hanging, but I'm fairly certain that I would have saved before 4 hours

What vst's did you use?
Why didn't you just let your system catch up?
How long did you give it before killing the process?

[MarkTarlton]

I just lost a file but only had maybe 15 minutes of work, but I was digging it. I normally always hit save after every change I make. but I was in the groove and wasn't thinking. One of the things I really like about Universal Audio's DAW Luna is you don't have to hit save at all, and you don't need to go to an auto save folder like Pro Tools hoping your last version is intact. Could be a future improvement to add to R12.

[joeyluck]

Maybe someday we will get an auto save feature along with version saving. Other DAWs also have you create a project when you open the application. I try to save Reason projects as soon as I start them and then I hit cmd+s very often.

[DaveyG]

Almost every single DAW I have used has an auto save feature because the use of VST plugins can be unstable at times. I just worked on a project for 4 freaking hours today and Reason 12 has froze up causing me to have to kill it in task manager. I lost every single thing I did. I am so disappointed in what is supposed to be one of the most advanced DAWs on the market. How much time was invested into Reason 12 having graphic updates and new devices and yet a most basic feature like an auto save that would keep me from loosing everything the new devices do is not a priority? I am pissed beyond belief right now and am considering not using this software anymore just because of this. WTF is the reason for not having it?????

You don't want to hear this but learn from the experience. Ctrl-S every time you do something significant.
Years ago I came back from lunch with a colleague to find him cursing the PC and saying he had lost the entire morning's work. He had not even saved it before going off for his lunch. Shit happens but you can take steps to reduce the odds.

[Loque]

While i would appreciate any recovering technique (which is available in Windows), i don't want a 15s saveing... dialog while i am in the flow.

[huggermugger]

No thanks to Autosave, I'll save when I'm ready. But yes please to an AutoBackup, in the style of ProTools. Unfortunately, Reason's ridiculous monolithic project file architecture makes AutoBackup impractical to say the least.

[challism]

Sorry you lost 4 hours and your project. Personally, I'm glad Reason doesn't have a forced autosave. Sometimes I open an older project in a newer version, but I don't necessarily want it to be saved to the newer version (making it unusable to the older version). Autosave would be a good optional feature to have, though... one that we could opt-in/out of using.

[joeyluck]

Well a good auto save feature happens in the background. It doesn't save over your project. It's more like revision handling. When I had Logic crash, and I reopened my project, it asked if I wanted to revert to the auto saved project. It hadn't saved over my file from my last save. But Logic has version saving and all that.

[MixerJaexx]

Well a good auto save feature happens in the background. It doesn't save over your project.

Yeah, this. The amount of times I open up projects and make changes (simply soloing a track is considered a change in Reason), I don't want projects autosaving. 75% of the time I'm in Reason is playing songs (released and unreleased) for people (often times myself). Why? Sure, I could ask Siri "Play AirPod Condensation" on my HomePods, but my custom studio hardware does groovy s. like this...



This...



Some'a this...



And let's not forget magical hands-free stuff...



I get auto saving for Apple's Notes, Pages, lots of stuff and I love it. Autosaving for Reason? If it's like Joey Luck suggests, right on. But otherwise I'd disable that. I'd hate for me to ever say to my baby buds when they ask for me to play a song "Na, sorry, last time I did that, something autosaved and screwed the song up and I don't know what it was. Maybe some other time."

Like others have said, getting into the habit of saving stuff is key. Even if you're just goofing and don't think you're going to need something, save it to your desktop to delete after you session if you're really not gonna' use it. My technique is to save something with a genre in mind and a single word. My song "Window Fog" started out as "CO - Morning 01.rns" ("CO" short for "Chill-out"). And save revisions. "CO - Morning01.rns" became multiple revisions until "CO - Morning 07.rns", which I named the song and renamed the files "Window Fog 01.rns", "Window Fog 02.rns", etc.

Not to mention self-contained samples (such as vocal and instrument recordings) are saved per project file (not project folder). Early versions of the files for my song "Life Lockdown" were 770 Mbs each. With about 8 revisions, the size of the Reason .rns files totaled 4,900 MBs (nearly 5 GBs) for that one song. I want to see autosaves done right, but those autosaves will be adding in even more space.

In case anyone at Reason Studios is reading this, chill... You're good on auto-saves, we're good on auto-saves. If you can do it right, go for it. Otherwise, don't mess up a good thing, work on the myriad of other things people are wanting.

[Oberlai]

InDesign (and Office apps too i believe) does autosave really well imo, these will create a second hidden file storing all changes regularly, and when you hit save manually this will save into the main file. If it crashes, it will (probably) load the most recent file afterwards. This great feature is on by default but i'm sure it can be deactivated. But lemme tell you, it has saved me some hours of work.

[MarkTarlton]

InDesign (and Office apps too i believe) does autosave really well imo, these will create a second hidden file storing all changes regularly, and when you hit save manually this will save into the main file. If it crashes, it will (probably) load the most recent file. This great feature is on by default but i'm sure it can be deactivated. But lemme tell you, it has saved me some hours of work.

I can't tell you how many times it has saved me over the years, I'm 100% certain that people who are against it would change their minds if they actually understood how it works, it doesn't save over anything you don't want, there are no screens popping up to say saving... it's mainly there for crashes and you would never know it until the day you need it, and totally in the background. If you open a file and remix a song for an hour and don't hit save, the next time you open it it will be the way it was the hour prior with no saved data. Why would you turn it off? That would be insane to not have that safety net.

[Popey]

Well a good auto save feature happens in the background. It doesn't save over your project. It's more like revision handling. When I had Logic crash, and I reopened my project, it asked if I wanted to revert to the auto saved project. It hadn't saved over my file from my last save. But Logic has version saving and all that.

Yeah live is the same and on the odd occasions it crashed being offered the opportunity to get this back has been a godsend. I save quite a bit when working but there are still times you get engrossed in making tracks and may not save for a few minutes.

[StephenHutchinson]

Almost every single DAW I have used has an auto save feature because the use of VST plugins can be unstable at times. I just worked on a project for 4 freaking hours today and Reason 12 has froze up causing me to have to kill it in task manager. I lost every single thing I did. I am so disappointed in what is supposed to be one of the most advanced DAWs on the market. How much time was invested into Reason 12 having graphic updates and new devices and yet a most basic feature like an auto save that would keep me from loosing everything the new devices do is not a priority? I am pissed beyond belief right now and am considering not using this software anymore just because of this. WTF is the reason for not having it?????

Since the early days of home computing, after my Apple ][+ gave up the ghost and I got a hand-me-down 286 computer from my father, I learned the hard way about losing an entire days work of writing when the computer rebooted and I hadn't saved to the big 5-1/4 disks.. ever since then, I have become a CMD+S / CTRL+S junkie. Takes less than a second... but wow... and it's pretty much universal with every program ever written in the last 20 years... Those two keys are lifesavers... I've never found a need in Reason or any other DAW, or program to have automatic saving on.

[QVprod]

Like others reiterated, sorry to hear this happened, but even with auto save, you should never let 4 hrs go by without a manual save. {CMD/CTRL + S ] is your best friend. I've been burned by auto saves as well whether through a crash during the save or before the autosave time frame. It's one of the few things that's okay to be OCD about.

[fullforce]

Almost every single DAW I have used has an auto save feature because the use of VST plugins can be unstable at times. I just worked on a project for 4 freaking hours today and Reason 12 has froze up causing me to have to kill it in task manager. I lost every single thing I did. I am so disappointed in what is supposed to be one of the most advanced DAWs on the market. How much time was invested into Reason 12 having graphic updates and new devices and yet a most basic feature like an auto save that would keep me from loosing everything the new devices do is not a priority? I am pissed beyond belief right now and am considering not using this software anymore just because of this. WTF is the reason for not having it?????

You didn't save for 4 hours. In 2021. Nuff said.

[plaamook]

Stability in Reason doesn’t lend itself to habitual saving practices. You need to learn that elsewhere I think!

[selig]

Point of clarification:
There are two different but related features being discussed here; auto SAVE (which most probably don't really want because it would overwrite your existing file), and auto BACKUP (versions) which is what I've used in other DAWs and is SUPER useful - though you don't ever actually WANT to use it.

[Popey]

Point of clarification:
There are two different but related features being discussed here; auto SAVE (which most probably don't really want because it would overwrite your existing file), and auto BACKUP (versions) which is what I've used in other DAWs and is SUPER useful - though you don't ever actually WANT to use it.

I am assuming for live it is auto backup as you do not see the files in recent but they are available in the folders if you look for backups. Totally agree super useful though and always good to know it is there.

[dvdrtldg]

I get that what happened to you is incredibly frustrating, but you need to turn that frustration on yourself and learn the lesson. Doesn't matter how "in the zone" you were, not saving for FOUR HOURS is just crazy

[doze]

STOP!!! Don’t turn auto-save into the next big feature announcement.

[Creativemind]

While i would appreciate any recovering technique (which is available in Windows), i don't want a 15s saveing... dialog while i am in the flow.

Autosave usually has options to save anytime, save when not recording, save when not playing or recording etc.

[Loque]

While i would appreciate any recovering technique (which is available in Windows), i don't want a 15s saveing... dialog while i am in the flow.

Autosave usually has options to save anytime, save when not recording, save when not playing or recording etc.

Sometimes ppl think it would be so easy to implement a simple feature, but in reality there is so much stuff to considere and even a simple auto-save can be a nightmare. Just imagine you are auto-saving while you play live for 250.000 ppl

PPL should realize, "it is not always as easy" as it seems. Like you said: What sense does it make to save only when not playing audio? Like the OP is playing for 4h...

[Creativemind]

Autosave usually has options to save anytime, save when not recording, save when not playing or recording etc.

Sometimes ppl think it would be so easy to implement a simple feature, but in reality there is so much stuff to considere and even a simple auto-save can be a nightmare. Just imagine you are auto-saving while you play live for 250.000 ppl

PPL should realize, "it is not always as easy" as it seems. Like you said: What sense does it make to save only when not playing audio? Like the OP is playing for 4h...

Just when not playing the project and for live you'd just disable it.