R12, 16 months on, ... how are you all finding it?

[Rising Night Wave]

It's been quite a ride.

How are you all finding R12 now?

Do you create your own Combi2 patches? Do you find yourself using Combi patches more often?

What about R+ content?

I'm just curious to see how you're all getting on with it ...

well, suma sumarum it is okey.
only little here and there i got some crashes of stock RE synths or stock RE players. in that case i save the project and restart reason.
i do not create my own Combi2 patches/designs. it is somehow too complicated and time consuming. i would prefer to use from others.
about R+ content. i do not know. it is a one folder mess. but it is okey. i do use sometimes patches from here.

as said suma sumarum it is okey.

i am not excited about VST3 support since i do not use VSTs because they need to be installed and with that it is a lot of work. i am awoiding VSTs like devil of light. hehe.

[MuttReason]

Personally, I am more than fine with abandoning developers who don't make the move to VST3. I don't think it is even worth investing in them. They have had far too long to move to VST3, by now. There is literally no excuse for it.

Biggest gap for me right now is UAD. Their entire range of UAD2 plugins (the plugins that run on SHARC DSP in UAD interfaces) are VST2 only. UAD say they’re working on porting to VST3 but it’s taking forever (we’re talking Reason Studios levels of glacial slowness here). Regular outbreaks of grumpiness about this on UAD forums.

To be clear, this is when using a UAD2 plugin as a VST within the DAW. The UAD2 plugins are fine when used in the UAD Console app within the audio interface itself.

To add to the confusion, UAD are in the processing of converting some of their SHARC DSP-powered plugins to a native plugin format (UADx) that works without UAD hardware. And those UADx plugins are all VST3…

[jam-s]

Bridging solutions will be worthless on macOS once Rosetta 2 goes away, as they are all Intel Code. It will only work on Intel Macs,a nd aside from Mac Pros and iMac Pros those machines generally feel decidedly low end compared to M1 Pro/M2 machines getting released today. Even the M1 Machines were competitive, if not better, than i9 MBPs (thermal constraints due to design likely played some role in that).

You're making it sound like code translation from x64 to arm64 instruction sets like done in Rosetta 2 would be some kind of magical tech while it could also easily be integrated into a wrapper/bridge as well. There has been an open source project (qemu) doing exactly this for more than a decade already.

[jam-s]

Fortunately Spire has a RE version...

Did that ever get fixed? I remember it being very buggy and a lot of people being very angry

When asked for details none of the alleged bugs could be named by the one bringing it up, so I think they are all fixed now. The only thing missing iirc are some of the newer features from the VST version.

[Jac459]

Did that ever get fixed? I remember it being very buggy and a lot of people being very angry

Actually I used it at lot... It was not buggy in the sense of crash or features not working. It was just poorly optimised. Basically 2-3 times the CPU usage of the VST.
That being said, with the skyrocketing power of computers... It is less of an issue in 2023 than in 2018...

[crimsonwarlock]

The only thing missing iirc are some of the newer features from the VST version.

As far as reports on this forum go, there were no new features in the synth engine and all the new stuff in the VST version is/was in patch management. Oh, and I've read something about saving the mod-wheel position in a patch, not something I'm missing in any way.

[kuhliloach]

still unable to use the RRP in Logic without crashing on macOS Ventura. I'm now avoiding both the DAW and all RE's, so this investment has been a total waste for me. Tempting to try to use some of my cool RE's but this system just doesn't work.

[iTrensharo]

Bridging solutions will be worthless on macOS once Rosetta 2 goes away, as they are all Intel Code. It will only work on Intel Macs,a nd aside from Mac Pros and iMac Pros those machines generally feel decidedly low end compared to M1 Pro/M2 machines getting released today. Even the M1 Machines were competitive, if not better, than i9 MBPs (thermal constraints due to design likely played some role in that).

You're making it sound like code translation from x64 to arm64 instruction sets like done in Rosetta 2 would be some kind of magical tech while it could also easily be integrated into a wrapper/bridge as well. There has been an open source project (qemu) doing exactly this for more than a decade already.

QEMU is notoriously awful for performance-critical applications, so we really need to keep the scenario we're discussing in mind when we start name dropping stuff like that.

I don't think it isn't possible. I'm saying that the performance drop won't be worth it. Even Rosetta 2 delivers a ~20-25% decrease in overall performance over native ARM binaries... and it's Apple's solution. Do you expect some F/OSS bridging solution to be better? 32-to-64-bit bridging solutions themselves have been problematic in a multitude of DAWs, and that's not even a full architecture change.

Rosetta 2 is going to be the best you will ever see or get with that.

[iTrensharo]

Personally, I am more than fine with abandoning developers who don't make the move to VST3. I don't think it is even worth investing in them. They have had far too long to move to VST3, by now. There is literally no excuse for it.

I theory I agree with you. In practice, there are a few A-List plugins that haven't jumped yet.
Spire from reveal sound is one of them. I don't use it as much as before, but for SAW Leads, and dance stuffs, it is unmatched in my opinion. I own Phase Plant, Serum, Pigments, but none does the kind of sound like spire... (maybe Synapse Antidote is the nearest).
So basically, even if these vendors have no excuse (especially as they continue to sell these plugins at high price), it is a bit frustrating...

Fortunately Spire has a RE version...

Synths are some of the easiest plug-ins things to replace, due to how many redundancies exist within that market.

Whether or not something is as good is always tainted heavily by preference and biases towards specific products, so I cannot really comment on that. People will personally like or dislike the "sound" of different synths to various levels.

Spire has a Rack Extension version, so it's not really a factor.

And again, if they are that slow to keep up, then I don't see a point in investing in them. I'm paying them and basically green lighting this development philosophy, and that is something I no longer do.

There is about a 1-3% chance that I'll ever buy another Reason upgrade for this very reason. It will work on Windows for the foreseeable future, so I'll at least be able to open projects that use it when necessary. That is good enough for me.

[Jac459]

Synths are some of the easiest plug-ins things to replace, due to how many redundancies exist within that market.

Whether or not something is as good is always tainted heavily by preference and biases towards specific products, so I cannot really comment on that. People will personally like or dislike the "sound" of different synths to various levels.

Spire has a Rack Extension version, so it's not really a factor.

And again, if they are that slow to keep up, then I don't see a point in investing in them. I'm paying them and basically green lighting this development philosophy, and that is something I no longer do.

There is about a 1-3% chance that I'll ever buy another Reason upgrade for this very reason. It will work on Windows for the foreseeable future, so I'll at least be able to open projects that use it when necessary. That is good enough for me.

Well I agree with you that the fact that it is a vst still in 2023 should be taken into account negatively in the buying decision.
But I agree with me that if I have Spire already today and I like it, I don't see any reason to proactively replace it before it is really obsolete. It remains a great sounding synth.

[Jac459]

Well I agree with you that the fact that it is a vst still in 2023 should be taken into account negatively in the buying decision.
But I agree with me that if I have Spire already today and I like it, I don't see any reason to proactively replace it before it is really obsolete. It remains a great sounding synth.

It is really funny, look what Reveal sound just announced:

[sublunar]

The sequencer is still annoyingly clunky/tedious to use. Only a handful of the recent instruments/features have been remotely interesting to me.

But I still like the overall environment better than the alternatives, despite now owning Studio One 5 and Bitwig. Just wish they would focus on improving the workflow.

[MrFigg]

Love it

[TheGodOfRainbows]

Reason 12 is the first version of Reason I've ever bought that I don't use. The interface is and has been slower and sluggish compared to all previous versions. I have an i7 cpu PC thats about 7 years old now, so maybe that's too old. However, I do have a more that adequate (GeForce GTX 960), so I would think it could easily handle the graphics.

Anyway, the only reason I never requested a refund is because I foolishly opened some of my songs in 12, saved, and cant go back. And I do want to play with the Combi 2, but I haven't delved at all because I don't want to save any work in 12. So yeah, 12 is a bummer for me.

[crimsonwarlock]

I have an i7 cpu PC thats about 7 years old now, so maybe that's too old. However, I do have a more that adequate (GeForce GTX 960), so I would think it could easily handle the graphics.

My studio machine is an i7 with a GTX970, no problems running Reason 12 here.

[TheGodOfRainbows]

I have an i7 cpu PC thats about 7 years old now, so maybe that's too old. However, I do have a more that adequate (GeForce GTX 960), so I would think it could easily handle the graphics.

My studio machine is an i7 with a GTX970, no problems running Reason 12 here.

Interesting. Then I have no idea what could be wrong. I do of course have the latest drivers. Could it be the video memory. Mine has 2 GB, so that's plenty right? Other than that, I can't imagine what the problem is. I never bothered contacting Reason support because I couldn't imagine what they could do on their end. What possible tweaks could be made? Other than playing with the performance preferences (multi-core, hyper-threading, etc.), what else is there?

[crimsonwarlock]

Could it be the video memory. Mine has 2 GB, so that's plenty right?

That could be the issue, the GTX 970 has 4 GB memory.

[iTrensharo]

The sequencer is still annoyingly clunky/tedious to use. Only a handful of the recent instruments/features have been remotely interesting to me.

But I still like the overall environment better than the alternatives, despite now owning Studio One 5 and Bitwig. Just wish they would focus on improving the workflow.

For beatmaking the sequencer is fine, and it seems like they are targeting that markey harder than others. Less work to do, etc.

Reason 12's sequencer looks a lot better when you're comparing it to MPC or Maschine 2 (minus the hardware, obv).

Generally, I regard it more as a groovebox and synth/fx rack. So, where it gets use is pretty cut and dry for me.

[TheGodOfRainbows]

Could it be the video memory. Mine has 2 GB, so that's plenty right?

That could be the issue, the GTX 970 has 4 GB memory.

Well there you go. That explains it for me. Thanks for letting me know. Is that an official system requirement? If not, in my case, it should be.

[crimsonwarlock]

Is that an official system requirement?

I have no idea. But I'm running 3 screens on this rig, two 2K screens and one 4K screen. So with only one screen, I guess 2 GGB should suffice.

[TheGodOfRainbows]

Is that an official system requirement?

I have no idea. But I'm running 3 screens on this rig, two 2K screens and one 4K screen. So with only one screen, I guess 2 GGB should suffice.

Wow. Thats impressive. Yeah, I'm just running an old fashioned 1080p. So 2 GB SHOULD suffice.

[syncanonymous]

But I gotta say I am preferring the simpler approach like in LUNA where there is one track with all related automation included.

SAW Studio has had all automation events on a single layer per track since 2000
granted it is only the native FX

adding reams of automation lanes is certainly not efficient for screen real estate

[Billy+]

has it really been that long since the release of R12

I still haven't been persuaded to upgrade from R11

[avasopht]

has it really been that long since the release of R12

I still haven't been persuaded to upgrade from R11

Still hard to believe I've been trying Reason for 20 years, ... I was barely 18 years old

[Billy+]

has it really been that long since the release of R12

I still haven't been persuaded to upgrade from R11

Still hard to believe I've been trying Reason for 20 years, ... I was barely 18 years old

I started on R1 and had upgraded within a few days of each new release, I trialed R12+ but gave up before the 3 months was up.......