Is Reason Studios falling apart?

[Steedus]

Didn't they have to re-write old parts of Reason to allow for the HD update? Hence why it took so long and was a bit janky.

Honestly if they didn't also use the opportunity to "modernise" the code in a way that those 'impossible' things could now be options would be surprising. But then again I know nothing.

My take is, they're not falling apart. They just changing. And that's a bit scary for a lot of people.

[joeyluck]

Didn't they have to re-write old parts of Reason to allow for the HD update? Hence why it took so long and was a bit janky.

Honestly if they didn't also use the opportunity to "modernise" the code in a way that those 'impossible' things could now be options would be surprising. But then again I know nothing.

My take is, they're not falling apart. They just changing. And that's a bit scary for a lot of people.

I don't have a real good understanding of it, but I think the needing to work around things was what made it more difficult and made it take longer...not to mention the bugs introduced.

They might've rewrote parts? But I'm talking about a complete rewrite and not having to work around anything. They could keep the UI very much the same (aside from all the cool things to add), but approach the code like they are writing a new DAW today without worry of compatibility with older projects.

[bxbrkrz]

The OP never came back after the launch of his black pill attempt. No OP participation in their own thread after 2 pages means it is not really important, or true

Although some great rewarding replies from mighty minds.

[LittleBoy]

Reason is the only major DAW for Mac that doesn't support Apple M1, and the only one with VST support that doesn't support VST3. Reason 12 included hardly any DAW improvements and was a technical disaster (although things are getting fixed). After presenting the most unstable and buggy version in its history, they raised the price by 42% (€349 to €499) and by 54% on updates (€129 to 199€). In addition to being the DAW that adds the fewest improvements in each version, despite offering the most expensive updates on the market because they want to encourage subscription. Reason Studios has hardly added any major improvements to the DAW for years. The deadlines set for VST3 and M1 support have not been met and it doesn't look like they will be soon. Server crashes prevent people from using a product they have paid for.

Is it necessary to continue saying things that in recent years have been a disaster in an application that is supposed to be professional?

[avasopht]

I don't have a real good understanding of it, but I think the needing to work around things was what made it more difficult and made it take longer...not to mention the bugs introduced.

They might've rewrote parts? But I'm talking about a complete rewrite and not having to work around anything. They could keep the UI very much the same (aside from all the cool things to add), but approach the code like they are writing a new DAW today without worry of compatibility with older projects.

In Software Engineering we tend to favour refactoring over complete rewrites of established codebases that include resolutions of some complex conflicts. A rewrite hints at a monolithic release, which is a recipe for disaster, while incremental improvements come with a perceived cost of time.

Chances are, however long it takes to gradually change/improve code is probably the fastest they could have done it by starting from scratch (unless starting from scratch allowed them to move 100 times faster).

As for the UI, the change to hardware acceleration is a bit of an undertaking, plus there are some conflicts they might only now be coming face to face with (which we saw last year with some devices that were glitchy).

For a start, there are some pixel fonts in stock Reason devices, as well as uses of fonts that assume a particular resolution. Pixel fonts do not scale well, and you cannot scale down a resolution-independent font to render as sharply as a tiny pixel font.

And then you have the issues they have found with switching zooming/resolution scaling. A default/naive approach is always to load the highest resolution data and just let the GPU decide what to do with it. That would support arbitrary zooming out of the box.

Video games do just fine with this.

But that won't prevent bad pixel alignment from looking blurry, and they might be using more sophisticated image processing algorithms to reduce that (and so aren't just letting the GPU get on with it).

Videogames had an early skirmish between text and resolution scaling in the mid-90s (as well as eliminating a problem with gaps/overlapping seams). It was always there, but in the mid-90s we went from remaking graphics for every target platform to rendering the same models for any display (because they're rendered from 3d polygons and textures designed for scaling).

Anyway, Reason Studios had to face that battle for themselves (and that may have spilt over to custom displays as I'm seeing many bugs indicative of oversight on resolution-independence).

At the same time, fixing these issues can cause new issues. For example, the code that resolves gaps/overlapping seam lines might result in a smaller or larger render area than initially calculated, while the rest of the code runs with it.

Basically, there are lots of conflicts to resolve that you probably can't fully anticipate ahead of time as they may differ for each device, and they're all necessary but costly conflicts to resolve.

They're also addressing productivity (as things have changed a great deal in the last 20 years). This will allow them to move faster.

When I got into the industry 15 years ago, compiling code could be awful. Some people saw 3-hour compiles (or 15 minutes with a distributed build system). There were ways to compartmentalize functionality (plugins do that by default).

It'll all be worth the wait, but while they're doing this it will seem like they're not moving.

Every long-running software product goes through this.

Adobe went through it.

Apple went through it.

Microsoft went through it.

Google went through it (though it's harder to tell as a user).

And at the same time, support comes and goes for some of the libraries they're using (which is why Google tends to roll their own). Support also changes for the tools they use (and sometimes the behaviour changes a little).

Liken it to the three little pigs where the pig who built a brick house would have had to mix the cement, lay a foundation, align the bricks and whatnot. Or a mason spending a few days building casts to make tailored tools that interrupts development for a few weeks but allows the following years to see much more accelerated and stable production

[avasopht]

Reason is the only major DAW for Mac that doesn't support Apple M1, and the only one with VST support that doesn't support VST3. Reason 12 included hardly any DAW improvements and was a technical disaster (although things are getting fixed). After presenting the most unstable and buggy version in its history, they raised the price by 42% (€349 to €499). In addition to being the DAW that adds the fewest improvements in each version, despite offering the most expensive updates on the market because they want to encourage subscription. Reason Studios has hardly added any major improvements to the DAW for years. The deadlines set for VST3 and M1 support have not been met and it doesn't look like they will be soon. Server crashes prevent people from using a product they have paid for.

Is it necessary to continue saying things that in recent years have been a disaster in an application that is supposed to be professional?

Shit happens.

It happened to Adobe.

It happened to Microsoft.

It happened to Rare.

It happened to Nintendo.

Making software is hard.

But do they add the fewest improvements? Are you ignoring the Players and REs? What about the Combinator2? What about APE? And you can seamlessly switch between the various sound engines (which I think a lot of people don't realise).

They practically added Recycle into Reason.

High DPI support was added in R12. Throws a few spanners in the works. You will never know how much work that required. In one fell swoop, hundreds of devices are suddenly supporting high-DPI rendering. That's pretty unique.

I agree with you on the price rise. They definitely didn't read the room on that one

That being said, you will never know how much R&D goes into a DAW or any application for that matter. They will have built many devices and features that never saw the light of day. But it's still valuable work, because at the end of it ... ... ... as a user you just see Friktion, Algoritm, Mimic, Combinator 2 with its built-in WYSIWYG editor ... ... and it just works like magic.

You don't get to see what actually went into it, and it's hard to appreciate what you have when it's a unique but seamless feature.

On top of that, they also have the RE SDK. That's lots of additional work. Documentation. 10x the effort is required for a public API. They have to make that cross-platform and work in multiple environments.

They will also have to update their code to work with the whims of LLVM (who opt for breaking changes with pretty much every release). So whenever you see the RE SDK supporting new C++ features, ... you can bet your socks they had to rewrite a bunch of code and scripts to be able to support the newer version It's all work that goes easily unnoticed.

And you still don't know what else they're working on. And they will always be working on things you don't know about. There is always R&D.

Or they can be like Reaper with a billion features, but yet here we all are not using a practically free DAW (it's pretty cheap ).

For reference: here is a free open-source DAW (ardour). Here's another free DAW (Cakewalk by BandLab). Yet here we are.

Clearly, there's something all of these paid DAWs do well (Reason, Reaper, FLStudio, etc.) despite user's complaints.

[Heigen5]

Reason might need to have a kid at some point, i.e. a finalized version of Reason. If Reason 14 would be the last one, we'd obviously keep that version too, but otherwise they wouldn't need to keep the backwards compatibility for that kid anymore IMO. If they'd make a new "super-version" of Reason, by coding it from scratch, (except if some code could be partly kept), I could already imagine, how all the grips would be taken out of it and all the missing things would be included to the plugins and tools then.
As example, Mimic would get an auto-bpm detection feature, when you change the tempo, the Rex-Player would timestretch, the samplers would all reverse, all the plugins that are stocks or REs would be modular i.e. we would have all the devices split into the modules maybe, we could export in mono, The list goes on 'n on 'n on...

The actual architecture of Reason is VEERY good imo already. But Reason has lots of very potential devices, but oftenly miss few things in most of them. The future tools should be designed for hardcore users, but be simple to learn too. The DSP-Quality of course a TOP-NOTCH!
And if I guess right, the Props might need to make it subscription only, which I think is a no-no for lots, but they need that money, to make sure, they can pay off their business costs.
I think the idea-bank of possible improvements, are known by them already, but yeah, I would be one of those, who would be ready to pay a subscription fee off..
The change doesn't need to make the beauty of the current Reason worse, but just finalize everything that kinda was half-baked etc.

I'm pretty much like sure, that there would be some benefits, if the RS-guys would make "Reason X Pro" out of the current Reason. How much of codes they have, that run badly, because of the all-time fixes or because of the backwards compatibility reasons, etc.

Anyway, some other companies have also made new "software-kids" out of the old ones. Right now I give RS Reason 9/10, - but I'd like it to be 11/10, i.e. - even more than the maximum 10 !!
RE's should be pretty safe, as they are 3rd party plugins and can always get updated, without a need to update the core-code. Actually the whole coding thing, should be so sterile, that all the understanding over the software is even cleaner, than the babyboy's arse is.

Sometimes when I vision up tools, I try them to make maximum sense to me. So all the native features should do just that... making sense immediately. That's almost there... almost...
So yeah, if you RS read this, I'm sure you kinda would do this yourself, i.e. making a perfect kid for Reason, and finish this awesome piece of software like A MASTER-MIND! lolz..

PEACE!

[LittleBoy]

Reason is the only major DAW for Mac that doesn't support Apple M1, and the only one with VST support that doesn't support VST3. Reason 12 included hardly any DAW improvements and was a technical disaster (although things are getting fixed). After presenting the most unstable and buggy version in its history, they raised the price by 42% (€349 to €499). In addition to being the DAW that adds the fewest improvements in each version, despite offering the most expensive updates on the market because they want to encourage subscription. Reason Studios has hardly added any major improvements to the DAW for years. The deadlines set for VST3 and M1 support have not been met and it doesn't look like they will be soon. Server crashes prevent people from using a product they have paid for.

Is it necessary to continue saying things that in recent years have been a disaster in an application that is supposed to be professional?

Shit happens.

It happened to Adobe.

It happened to Microsoft.

It happened to Rare.

It happened to Nintendo.

Making software is hard.

But do they add the fewest improvements? Are you ignoring the Players and REs? What about the Combinator2? What about APE? And you can seamlessly switch between the various sound engines (which I think a lot of people don't realise).

They practically added Recycle into Reason.

High DPI support was added in R12. Throws a few spanners in the works. You will never know how much work that required. In one fell swoop, hundreds of devices are suddenly supporting high-DPI rendering. That's pretty unique.

I agree with you on the price rise. They definitely didn't read the room on that one

That being said, you will never know how much R&D goes into a DAW or any application for that matter. They will have built many devices and features that never saw the light of day. But it's still valuable work, because at the end of it ... ... ... as a user you just see Friktion, Algoritm, Mimic, Combinator 2 with its built-in WYSIWYG editor ... ... and it just works like magic.

You don't get to see what actually went into it, and it's hard to appreciate what you have when it's a unique but seamless feature.

On top of that, they also have the RE SDK. That's lots of additional work. Documentation. 10x the effort is required for a public API. They have to make that cross-platform and work in multiple environments.

They will also have to update their code to work with the whims of LLVM (who opt for breaking changes with pretty much every release). So whenever you see the RE SDK supporting new C++ features, ... you can bet your socks they had to rewrite a bunch of code and scripts to be able to support the newer version It's all work that goes easily unnoticed.

And you still don't know what else they're working on. And they will always be working on things you don't know about. There is always R&D.

Or they can be like Reaper with a billion features, but yet here we all are not using a practically free DAW (it's pretty cheap ).

For reference: here is a free open-source DAW (ardour). Here's another free DAW (Cakewalk by BandLab). Yet here we are.

Clearly, there's something all of these paid DAWs do well (Reason, Reaper, FLStudio, etc.) despite user's complaints.

Clearly there is something they did well for years. But not long ago. And I'm really sorry, if you check the list of improvements of the other DAWS (Logic, Ableton Live, Cubase, Nuendo, Studio One...) every time they release a major update, you will see a list of 20, 30 or 40 improvements, not 3, 4 or 5 improvements, which is what Reason offers, and also charging more (€199 for a sampler, Combinator 2 and HD graphics is a joke). The players and REs are paid (or included with the subscription), are not valid examples like upgrades to the perpetual license.

And if I'm here, it's because I want them to improve Reason, because I haven't used it for many months. Now I can't even use it, because my version is Reason 10 and I can't use it on M1, and I've sworn I won't pay for any more upgrades until they implement VST3 support (and I'm not planning on paying for an upgrade to work on Rosetta without VST3 support). But right now my main DAW is Nuendo 12.

[avasopht]

Clearly there is something they did well for years. But not long ago. And I'm really sorry, if you check the list of improvements of the other DAWS (Logic, Ableton Live, Cubase, Nuendo, Studio One...) every time they release a major update, you will see a list of 20, 30 or 40 improvements, not 3, 4 or 5 improvements, which is what Reason offers, and also charging more (€199 for a sampler, Combinator 2 and HD graphics is a joke). The players and REs are paid (or included with the subscription), are not valid examples like upgrades to the perpetual license.

And if I'm here, it's because I want them to improve Reason, because I haven't used it for many months. Now I can't even use it, because my version is Reason 10 and I can't use it on M1, and I've sworn I won't pay for any more upgrades until they implement VST3 support (and I'm not planning on paying for an upgrade to work on Rosetta.). But right now my main DAW is Nuendo 12.

You cannot compare those lists. They don't tell you much (especially if you don't write software).

For example, one improvement could involve 20 months of work, while 40 improvements might only require a week. RS tend to be more conservative with its public change list. Based on that alone. No. No meaningful comparison can ever be drawn by merely looking at the number of listed features. And when I look at many of those exhaustive lists, there are lots of minor changes and bug fixes (basically a much more verbose change list).

Sometimes I'll write a single feature that is more complex than the next 10. Sometimes a simple feature takes more time than a complex one because of the workflow (for example, the simple feature might incur a 1-hour cost per build/change as it needs to run other build pipelines or something). That's one of many reasons why trying to gauge work by feature lists, etc. is a fool's errand.

And are you including the RE SDK change list? What about the change list for each RS Player and RE? What about features that haven't been mentioned? What about sub-features? Or side-effect features (e.g. a side-effect feature of a convolution reverb is that it can replicate any linear reverb/eq, etc.)

Put in an accurate time estimation of each feature and maybe then we can talk about the feature lists (a near impossible task, but no less feasible than counting features or making wild guesses).

...

As for M1 and VST3 support. It's in progress. Nobody would expect you to upgrade to a product that isn't supported on your machine

[guitfnky]

amazing. you can’t compare a DAW to a different DAW because idk reasons I guess.

[avasopht]

amazing. you can’t compare a DAW to a different DAW because idk reasons I guess.

Not even remotely what I said.

I said you can't compare feature lists (in terms of productivity).

I also gave a clear example of one feature that takes a year versus 40 features that take a week. Useless to compare .... ..... .... but I've been thinking about this though ... ... I've been having a lot of fun on my MPC One that doesn't have many features in standalone (e.g. vsts, mouse, etc.).

Anyways ... if feature lists were a valid metric, then that would mean the problem of software estimation is 100% solved (which it's not).

See also:
1. Can developer productivity be measured? (from the founder of Stack Overflow).
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month (from the 1970s, and no less relevant today)

In the software engineering field, it's well established that no, feature lists aren't a valid metric for productivity.

[joeyluck]

@avasopht, I'm actually not bothered by many of the ticky tack graphics things you mention. I'm talking about new and necessary features and removing the quirks and road blocks of the software by starting fresh (if necessary).

I'm only saying that if things like MPE, MIDI 2.0, etc. etc. etc. are either going to be a huge pain to implement or impossible without breaking things, I don't care if I lose backwards compatibility in the version that brings Reason up to speed with these features. I'll make new music and use older versions or bounce tracks to finish older music. I'm also particularly concerned with any half-baked implementation of these types of features because of possible things they may need to work around.

I'm not making a statement that this is what they have to do. I'm just saying that I think it's important to note that if it comes down to it, if maintaining backwards compatibility is a road block, they should clear it. Opening old projects is so much less important than these other features. Maybe they can implement them without breaking backwards compatibility? I'm just throwing it out there that backwards compatibility is not as a big deal to me if it means getting these features. #justdoit

[jlgrimes]

Clearly there is something they did well for years. But not long ago. And I'm really sorry, if you check the list of improvements of the other DAWS (Logic, Ableton Live, Cubase, Nuendo, Studio One...) every time they release a major update, you will see a list of 20, 30 or 40 improvements, not 3, 4 or 5 improvements, which is what Reason offers, and also charging more (€199 for a sampler, Combinator 2 and HD graphics is a joke). The players and REs are paid (or included with the subscription), are not valid examples like upgrades to the perpetual license.

And if I'm here, it's because I want them to improve Reason, because I haven't used it for many months. Now I can't even use it, because my version is Reason 10 and I can't use it on M1, and I've sworn I won't pay for any more upgrades until they implement VST3 support (and I'm not planning on paying for an upgrade to work on Rosetta.). But right now my main DAW is Nuendo 12.

You cannot compare those lists. They don't tell you much (especially if you don't write software).

For example, one improvement could involve 20 months of work, while 40 improvements might only require a week. RS tend to be more conservative with its public change list. Based on that alone. No. No meaningful comparison can ever be drawn by merely looking at the number of listed features. And when I look at many of those exhaustive lists, there are lots of minor changes and bug fixes (basically a much more verbose change list).

Sometimes I'll write a single feature that is more complex than the next 10. Sometimes a simple feature takes more time than a complex one because of the workflow (for example, the simple feature might incur a 1-hour cost per build/change as it needs to run other build pipelines or something). That's one of many reasons why trying to gauge work by feature lists, etc. is a fool's errand.

And are you including the RE SDK change list? What about the change list for each RS Player and RE? What about features that haven't been mentioned? What about sub-features? Or side-effect features (e.g. a side-effect feature of a convolution reverb is that it can replicate any linear reverb/eq, etc.)

Put in an accurate time estimation of each feature and maybe then we can talk about the feature lists (a near impossible task, but no less feasible than counting features or making wild guesses).

...

As for M1 and VST3 support. It's in progress. Nobody would expect you to upgrade to a product that isn't supported on your machine

I think that is alot of people's gripe with Reason, they will ignore a bunch of small feature enhancements over just a "few". If people dont see or know of the background stuff being done, they ultimately wont know and probably wont care.

Reason went years without things like folder tracks, markers, better keybinding support etc.
Im not sure how easy these are to implement over creating a new RE, or making a your program a plugin, but i do know these are features people have been wanting for over 10 years and most other programs have this.


Ableton can go awhile before adding requested features as well but each update, they usually satisfy something for a wide variety of people. Keeping people happy. Not saying there are no upset forum posts during upgrade cycles, but the forums are usually positive. It feels less positive and more polarizing during Reason updates and it is not just forums but, YouTube as well. I think that is a clear sign a good amount of users arent happy.

Reason's approach feels like they are neglecting the DAW and it even goes in their marketing which emphasizes the plugin. FL Studio can be a plugin as well, but they focus their DAW well above the plugin letting people know, they rather would want you to use FL as your primary DAW. The plugin is a cool feature but it is one of the reasons people feel the Core DAW is losing focus.

I think at the end of the day a end user doesnt care how long an implementation would take. If they think Product X offers more value and features, they will start looking at that direction. Company size and what not dont matter much to the end user. It can be a pain as Id imagine most people do know coding is hard work, but it is human nature to put one company against the other to see what program works best for them.

[chimp_spanner]

@avasopht, I'm actually not bothered by many of the ticky tack graphics things you mention. I'm talking about new and necessary features and removing the quirks and road blocks of the software by starting fresh (if necessary).

I'm only saying that if things like MPE, MIDI 2.0, etc. etc. etc. are either going to be a huge pain to implement or impossible without breaking things, I don't care if I lose backwards compatibility in the version that brings Reason up to speed with these features. I'll make new music and use older versions or bounce tracks to finish older music. I'm also particularly concerned with any half-baked implementation of these types of features because of possible things they may need to work around.

I'm not making a statement that this is what they have to do. I'm just saying that I think it's important to note that if it comes down to it, if maintaining backwards compatibility is a road block, they should clear it. Opening old projects is so much less important than these other features. Maybe they can implement them without breaking backwards compatibility? I'm just throwing it out there that backwards compatibility is not as a big deal to me if it means getting these features. #justdoit

^ I’m with Joey. “Backwards comparability forever” sounds good but where would Cubase be if they built its development around being able to open Cubase VST files from like, the 90s? Even our OS’s eventually reach a point where, for the sake of actually improving things, some stuff just won’t work anymore.

So long as we always had the last version to access our work and do stem and midi exports, I see no problem. obviously I quite like Reason as it is but I do wonder if the reason I don’t have certain things I’m always asking for is because the program as it exists just won’t allow for it.

[guitfnky]

amazing. you can’t compare a DAW to a different DAW because idk reasons I guess.

Not even remotely what I said.

I said you can't compare feature lists (in terms of productivity).

I also gave a clear example of one feature that takes a year versus 40 features that take a week. Useless to compare .... ..... .... but I've been thinking about this though ... ... I've been having a lot of fun on my MPC One that doesn't have many features in standalone (e.g. vsts, mouse, etc.).

Anyways ... if feature lists were a valid metric, then that would mean the problem of software estimation is 100% solved (which it's not).

See also:
1. Can developer productivity be measured? (from the founder of Stack Overflow).
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month (from the 1970s, and no less relevant today)

In the software engineering field, it's well established that no, feature lists aren't a valid metric for productivity.

does anyone here give a shit about "productivity" measures? maybe, but it just seems like one guy, really. just a handy dandy way to continually distract and excuse the objective fact that Reason is a wasteland of missing basic features compared to even the lowliest competitors' offerings. yes, some things take longer to develop, and others take less—such is the way of the world. but be that as it may, RS choose what features to focus on, and, well, they're not doing a great job. justify that all you like (I know you will), but again, it's all just semantics meant to distract from the larger point people are making.

keep carrying that water, good sir.

[jonnyretina]

In the software engineering field, it's well established that no, feature lists aren't a valid metric for productivity.

Collectively on here we aren't in the software engineering field though, we're in the consumer comparison field - looking at all the DAW products and noticing a trend in the loss of reliability of our favourite piece of software compared to its competitors. That doesn't matter though; for example, you don't need to be a car engineer to appreciate when a car is well engineered and drives well.

I have to say I have noticed that every time someone criticises the flakiness of R12 on this forum and starts saying that the coding standards must be slipping or new features aren't forthcoming enough, avasopht always pops up without fail to try and gaslight that individual with some megapost about why they're wrong because "I'm a software engineer".

I have a friend who only uses non-licensed versions of music software (I've tried telling her but she's addicted to piracy, what can you do) and she recently tried both Reason 11 and Reason 12. After playing with both she told me that she chose to uninstall Reason 12 and keep 11 because "it's just much snappier". That tells you everything you need to know. Not even interested in 12 for free.

[LittleBoy]

Clearly there is something they did well for years. But not long ago. And I'm really sorry, if you check the list of improvements of the other DAWS (Logic, Ableton Live, Cubase, Nuendo, Studio One...) every time they release a major update, you will see a list of 20, 30 or 40 improvements, not 3, 4 or 5 improvements, which is what Reason offers, and also charging more (€199 for a sampler, Combinator 2 and HD graphics is a joke). The players and REs are paid (or included with the subscription), are not valid examples like upgrades to the perpetual license.

And if I'm here, it's because I want them to improve Reason, because I haven't used it for many months. Now I can't even use it, because my version is Reason 10 and I can't use it on M1, and I've sworn I won't pay for any more upgrades until they implement VST3 support (and I'm not planning on paying for an upgrade to work on Rosetta.). But right now my main DAW is Nuendo 12.

You cannot compare those lists. They don't tell you much (especially if you don't write software).

For example, one improvement could involve 20 months of work, while 40 improvements might only require a week. RS tend to be more conservative with its public change list. Based on that alone. No. No meaningful comparison can ever be drawn by merely looking at the number of listed features. And when I look at many of those exhaustive lists, there are lots of minor changes and bug fixes (basically a much more verbose change list).

Sometimes I'll write a single feature that is more complex than the next 10. Sometimes a simple feature takes more time than a complex one because of the workflow (for example, the simple feature might incur a 1-hour cost per build/change as it needs to run other build pipelines or something). That's one of many reasons why trying to gauge work by feature lists, etc. is a fool's errand.

And are you including the RE SDK change list? What about the change list for each RS Player and RE? What about features that haven't been mentioned? What about sub-features? Or side-effect features (e.g. a side-effect feature of a convolution reverb is that it can replicate any linear reverb/eq, etc.)

Put in an accurate time estimation of each feature and maybe then we can talk about the feature lists (a near impossible task, but no less feasible than counting features or making wild guesses).

...

As for M1 and VST3 support. It's in progress. Nobody would expect you to upgrade to a product that isn't supported on your machine

That is not my problem as a user. You also take for granted what I know or don't know (and honestly, I'm not going into that field because all you want is to divert the subject and put yourself above me). As a user, I see that Reason Studios has spent years neglecting basic improvements requested by its clients. As a user I see that they have erred the plugin strategy from the beginning. A lot of us DAW users don't want the plugin, and don't give a damn what formats it's available in or what improvements are made to it.

Reason Studios should have separated the plugin from the DAW, and they could perfectly have sold each one at €299 and the pack at €499, and the updates the same, €99 each separately and €199 for the pack. But no, they force DAW users who don't want it to pay for a product they don't need and that has been killing the product they do want for years.

That there are improvements that take longer than others, does not justify that only 3 or 4 improvements are implemented. I work as an editor in a major Spanish music technology publication and I have to test a lot of software. And I assure you that, for example, Nuendo 12 and Cubase 12 do not implement only minor improvements, and implement many. Other DAWS already have Dolby Atmos mixing, MPE support, MIDI 2.0 support, video support, and endless functions that Reason will never have and I assume, but at this time they haven't even been able to release the native M1 version and support for VST3, which should be a priority for any company selling a DAW.

Nuendo 12 upgrades for 199€:

https://www.steinberg.net/nuendo/new-features/

The comparison is ridiculous. But if we say something we are complainers. Please.

[avasopht]

I think that is alot of people's gripe with Reason, they will ignore a bunch of small feature enhancements over just a "few". If people dont see or know of the background stuff being done, they ultimately wont know and probably wont care.

Agreed with the gripes. It makes it even more annoying when the feature is small.

Ableton can go awhile before adding requested features as well but each update, they usually satisfy something for a wide variety of people. Keeping people happy. Not saying there are no upset forum posts during upgrade cycles, but the forums are usually positive. It feels less positive and more polarizing during Reason updates and it is not just forums but, YouTube as well. I think that is a clear sign a good amount of users arent happy.

Ableton has never really felt like it was incomplete or had any gaping gaps. They typically implement the features you would expect, so I think it's easier to forgive them taking a while (if and when they do).

[avasopht]

does anyone here give a shit about "productivity" measures? maybe, but it just seems like one guy, really. just a handy dandy way to continually distract and excuse the objective fact that Reason is a wasteland of missing basic features compared to even the lowliest competitors' offerings. yes, some things take longer to develop, and others take less—such is the way of the world. but be that as it may, RS choose what features to focus on, and, well, they're not doing a great job. justify that all you like (I know you will), but again, it's all just semantics meant to distract from the larger point people are making.

keep carrying that water, good sir.

Yes they do "give a shit about 'productivity' measures," because that is what comparing feature lists is. It's a measure of productivity. That's what they were effectively bringing up.

And no, I've not tried to distract or excuse the "missing basic features." I've never said it doesn't have missing basic features. It's stupid to claim I'm just trying to distract. Especially given I have been open and vocal about my criticism of them. So to make that claim is just outright dishonest (unless you're going to claim those threads of mine don't exist).

Someone commented on feature lists (treating them as productivity measures).

And no. I'm not justifying the features they focus on. I was responding to what was being raised and discussed by that person.

You have made false accusations of my intentions ("semantics meant to distract from the larger point people are making"). I have been very clear on my intentions.

I also have lots of threads where I have criticised the release so it's stupid to claim I'm just out here justifying them when I have harshly criticised the R12 release.

[jam-s]

Reason might need to have a kid at some point, i.e. a finalized version of Reason. If Reason 14 would be the last one, we'd obviously keep that version too, but otherwise they wouldn't need to keep the backwards compatibility for that kid anymore IMO. If they'd make a new "super-version" of Reason, by coding it from scratch, (except if some code could be partly kept), I could already imagine, how all the grips would be taken out of it and all the missing things would be included to the plugins and tools then.
As example, Mimic would get an auto-bpm detection feature, when you change the tempo, the Rex-Player would timestretch, the samplers would all reverse, all the plugins that are stocks or REs would be modular i.e. we would have all the devices split into the modules maybe, we could export in mono, The list goes on 'n on 'n on...

You seem to have some pretty naive idea on how things might work or might not work. From the architecture pov none of those things would need a rewrite but just some extended (internal) API. Instead starting over with a fresh new version (your "kid") would easily take a few years in preparation to get to about 50% of the currently implemented features in Reason. To me the key problem with current Reason development seems to be the lack of enough skilled developers for the Reason core and starting over with a new "kid" version would heavily cut into those spare resources thus leading to a few years of stagnation with the current version of Reason and then most likely a pretty underwhelming and lacking release of the "kid"/successor version, if RS could manage to keep afloat that long.

Incremental refactoring of the codebase would be the much more logical choice. And this seems to be the way RS chose to go. This will of course lead to breakage and strange bugs all over the place, but is the better strategy as you still keep on having a product which (slowly) evolves and can be sold during all that work.
Also it's usually a bad idea to start adding new features to a code base while refactoring is still in progress (if they even had the developer capacity for this, which I highly doubt).

[guitfnky]

does anyone here give a shit about "productivity" measures? maybe, but it just seems like one guy, really. just a handy dandy way to continually distract and excuse the objective fact that Reason is a wasteland of missing basic features compared to even the lowliest competitors' offerings. yes, some things take longer to develop, and others take less—such is the way of the world. but be that as it may, RS choose what features to focus on, and, well, they're not doing a great job. justify that all you like (I know you will), but again, it's all just semantics meant to distract from the larger point people are making.

keep carrying that water, good sir.

Yes they do "give a shit about 'productivity' measures," because that is what comparing feature lists is. It's a measure of productivity. That's what they were effectively bringing up.

And no, I've not tried to distract or excuse the "missing basic features." I've never said it doesn't have missing basic features. It's stupid to claim I'm just trying to distract. Especially given I have been open and vocal about my criticism of them. So to make that claim is just outright dishonest (unless you're going to claim those threads of mine don't exist).

Someone commented on feature lists (treating them as productivity measures).

And no. I'm not justifying the features they focus on. I was responding to what was being raised and discussed by that person.

You have made false accusations of my intentions ("semantics meant to distract from the larger point people are making"). I have been very clear on my intentions.

I also have lots of threads where I have criticised the release so it's stupid to claim I'm just out here justifying them when I have harshly criticised the R12 release.

yeah, you’re definitely still missing the point.

[avasopht]

That is not my problem as a user. You also take for granted what I know or don't know (and honestly, I'm not going into that field because all you want is to divert the subject and put yourself above me).

I respond to the words you have written.

No. I don't want to put myself above you. That's a stupid claim to make. I don't know who you are. Why the hell would I "want to put myself above you?" I don't know you. I don't care if I'm above, beside, alongside or any other measure relative to you.

I don't even understand how that could make sense to anyone. I don't think like that, and it baffles me why anyone would want to put themselves above:
1. Someone they don't know.
2. Someone whose accomplishments they don't know.
3. Someone whose name they don't recognize.
4. Someone who, to me, is sort of non-existent as I don't recognize your name, don't recall any past communications, don't know if I've ever heard your music.
5. Someone who, as far as I am aware, has no state or status that I would want or need to compare myself to.

It's a very stupid claim to make and just doesn't make any sense to me (but I understand there are people who do think like this, but I believe they are pretty rare, like maybe 1% of the population).

As a user, I see that Reason Studios has spent years neglecting basic improvements requested by its clients. As a user I see that they have erred the plugin strategy from the beginning. A lot of us DAW users don't want the plugin, and don't give a damn what formats it's available in or what improvements are made to it.

I've never disagreed with them neglecting basic improvements. I've started threads where I am very critical about it. I've shared my apprehensions about R12 both before and after release (hence why I'm still on R10). That's why I've been making a lot of music in Maschine this last year. And why I also tried Ableton+Push. I've written about my critical thoughts quite a lot mate ... so let's not make the stupid argument that I'm some sort of Reason Studios apologist.

but at this time they haven't even been able to release the native M1 version and support for VST3, which should be a priority for any company selling a DAW.

No. Their #1 priority should be fixing showstopping bugs. Which they have devoted plenty of time to (hence the delay to VST3 and M1).

There was a point when the R12 UI was sluggish. They had to spend time fixing that. They had to spend time improving how it streamed high-resolution assets.

There were also some regressive bugs, crappy behaviour, various UI glitches and whatnot.

You don't introduce more variables when hunting down elusive bugs. That's not a good idea.

The comparison is ridiculous. But if we say something we are complainers. Please.

Well. guess what LittleBoy, I've written my own criticism of R12 and Reason Studios (as I was not keen on recent behaviour and activity).

So the idea I'm just saying, "you have criticism, therefore you're just complaining for the sake of complaining" is a stupid claim to make, as that would mean I'm saying it about myself (and I'm not even saying it about you).

I do think there are people who complain for the sake of complaining.

I never said you were.

So it's stupid to even suggest I was accusing you of that disposition.

[avasopht]

yeah, you’re definitely still missing the point.

The point is that you were falsely accusing me of intentions I don't have.

But please do elucidate to me your revelations.

[guitfnky]

yeah, you’re definitely still missing the point.

The point is that you were falsely accusing me of intentions I don't have.

okay, maybe you didn’t “mean to” play semantic games, but that was still the end result, and, well, you’re still doing it, so I guess it doesn’t much matter what the intent is. I can’t know your intentions, but I can see the clear pattern of behavior (which someone else here summed up perfectly). sorry to accuse you of false intentions. not apologizing for pointing out true behaviors.

[avasopht]

okay, maybe you didn’t “mean to” play semantic games, but that was still the end result, and, well, you’re still doing it, so I guess it doesn’t much matter what the intent is. I can’t know your intentions, but I can see the clear pattern of behavior (which someone else here summed up perfectly). sorry to accuse you of false intentions. not apologizing for pointing out true behaviors.

You believe I'm effectively playing semantics.

You also believe you've identified patterns of behaviours (and presumably dispositions or intentions if they're related to some of the other posts you've hinted towards).

You could be 100% right. Maybe you understand my behaviours and words better than I do.

I disagree. I think you are terribly mistaken.

But you were the one who falsely accused me of having a very specific set of intentions. And now you are trying to minimize what you did and deflecting away from your false accusations by now trying to say "semantics ... patterns of behaviour" .

We're communicating in text asynchronously. There's bound to be a little misunderstanding. This is something you should know by now.

We're going to misread others' intentions and their message from time to time. We're going to be really sure they're "doing something".

We do this because human psychology is vastly more complex than our limited life experiences can account for. Add to that how much more complex the world and everything else is than we're aware of. Everything seems about as simple as our interactions with it. So we will accuse someone of lying when they're just telling you what's right in front of them (but we assume they will see the same thing as us from a millions miles away).

This is why I often use the word "stupid" when referring to people's mischaracterizations of what I've written, especially when there's irrefutable evidence in the form of past forum posts that indicate otherwise (as in, there are a lot of threads I've started where I'm very critical of RS). I do dial down my critique so that it's not toxic, so maybe you might not think I mean it as much as you do. I dunno.

And many things are nuanced that can easily be seen in a black and white way.

My impression of you is that you skim what I've written and look for ways to mischaracterize whatever I've said. To me you seem to either lack comprehension, or are deliberately trying to lie to pretend you don't understand what I'm saying so that you can accuse me of things like trying to deflect, or whatever it was you said earlier.

But I don't read too much into those impressions as I know they can be wrong. So I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Even when they've made stupid false claims of my intentions or my message.

Plus ones impressions of others often hints at one's own inner world.

The eyes are the windows to the soul, but nobody told you in which direction



You'd have thought that cutting people a little slack because we know it's easy to misunderstand someone would be common sense by now. Probably why so many things are polarised nowadays.