It was 20 years ago today…

[selig]

…that I first got Reason and fell into the rabbit hole. And it’s been a long strange trip.

I first got Reason for a specific gig, creating background tracks for Aaron Carter’s (RIP) “Aarons Jukebox” tour in 2003. My sample cell no longer worked in my new computer (different PCI slot), and I knew I needed a software sampler. When I found Reason it was version 2 (updated to 2.5 upon purchase), and already included NNXT. For about the same price as Kontakt I got an entire suite of instruments and an environment to work with them in. This would soon come in quite handy when building the backing tracks because I wasn’t limited to just samples!

So in I jumped, got up and running in a few weeks and started converting my CMI/S900/Sample Cell library to NNXT (which is STILL use to this day). I now also have (since around 2005), but have never felt the need to build more than a handful of libraries there as I find it much easier to do so in Reason.

Anyone else have stories to share of how they came to use Reason?

[joeyluck]

I bought an Apple G4 Cube from a coworker.



It had Reason 1 installed on it. It also had Digital Performer installed (I think version 3).

I found Reason to be more intuitive, more fun, and performed the best.

I then purchased my own license.

[PhillipOrdonez]

Must have been over 20 years when I went to a friend's house to work on my first track ever. He was a music student at the conservatory and played the violin. I was a teenager totally obsessed with dance music and DJing. We made a weird sounding electro tune using nothing but reason which he had on his computer. I remember I had such confidence that I took the song on a CD gave it to Dr. Motte who was playing my city at the time. I didn't even put any contact information on the CD, and of course the tune wasn't good enough anyway! But what a wild ride it has been since those early days. Who knew I'd be looking at the same program for so long? Reason is and has always been a part of my music making life, right from the very start.

[MarkTarlton]

Nice thread, I jumped in when I had a brand new G4 tower in 2002, so around 20 years here too. I found a copy while I was going to school in the campus bookstore, I remember it was a little cheaper there, like $160 to get it, and I hadn't used any other music making software besides rebirth prior to that, but that was too limited for what I wanted to do. The motivation for me to buy it at that time was how difficult it was to find musicians who wanted to work as much as I did, so I went down the path of isolation, haha, and started spending everyday addicted to this amazing software. I still played in bands and worked at a studio too, but every free second I had you could find me at my desk making terrible 8 bar loops, but man was that a golden time of learning

Probably my favorite thing about it was you could download patches and rns files to see how others worked, and ran into Peff and EditEd4TV and that pretty much blew my mind open. The old Props User Forum was a great place to hang out.

[DaveyG]

In mid-1997 a friend showed me Rebirth running on his averagely-powered office PC. I bought it a few days later and a couple of years later when Reason launched I bought it pretty much straight away. It was everything that other software synths were not - reliable and quite frugal in terms of required processing power. Truly a revelation.

[earwig83]

I was using fruity loops and then a friend showed me Reason 1.0. I immediately preferred it and then by 2.0 I was permanently addicted. I stuck with 2.5 for awhile and then eventually bought Reason 5 and Record and have updated every version since.

[jlgrimes]

…that I first got Reason and fell into the rabbit hole. And it’s been a long strange trip.

I first got Reason for a specific gig, creating background tracks for Aaron Carter’s (RIP) “Aarons Jukebox” tour in 2003. My sample cell no longer worked in my new computer (different PCI slot), and I knew I needed a software sampler. When I found Reason it was version 2 (updated to 2.5 upon purchase), and already included NNXT. For about the same price as Kontakt I got an entire suite of instruments and an environment to work with them in. This would soon come in quite handy when building the backing tracks because I wasn’t limited to just samples!

So in I jumped, got up and running in a few weeks and started converting my CMI/S900/Sample Cell library to NNXT (which is STILL use to this day). I now also have (since around 2005), but have never felt the need to build more than a handful of libraries there as I find it much easier to do so in Reason.

Anyone else have stories to share of how they came to use Reason?

I also got Reason in 2003.

I was heavily into hardware prior to that using Akai mpc2000 as my center of production with keyboards from Roland (xp 50) and Kurzweil (k2600). I also used my roommates mpc4000 and his hardware.

We made alot of great tracks but when it came time to "track out" the beats we would dread recording everything (or at least I did). Also careful documentation was needed to recall a saved beat.

My roommate also bought a Pro Tools LE system on a G3 Mac. it was nice but limited, you could only use a few plugins before crapping out, so it was difficult achieving a good mix.

I took a crapshoot on my newly bought home Dell PC and bought Sonar 2.2 as a DAW. It was light years ahead of Pro Tools g3 in terms of CPU efficiency as you could actually mix songs and use a bunch of plugins. That said the soft synths were OK, but I didn't quite like the midi sequencing on Sonar. I think I heard something about Reason in a forum (can't remember where) and tried Rebirth a few years prior and liked it as well as Recycle, so I bought Reason 2.5. I was amazed at how powerful it was in terms of synths, sampling, and effects. It's sequencer while basic was easy to get to grips with and make music. And while Sonar had some instability issues at times Reason kept chugging along. it was also very CPU efficient. Even though it couldn't record audio, it fit my need perfectly of midi song composition.

[selig]

In mid-1997 a friend showed me Rebirth running on his averagely-powered office PC.…

Speaking of other Props products, Reason was not my first Pheads product. Neither was it ReBirth. And it was almost 10 years earlier than my Reason experience - almost 30 years ago (next year). The year was 1994, and a friend asked if I could help with a Review for Electronic Musician Magazine because I had a Sample Cell and they were reviewing software that somehow used that hardware (he had no way to test the software himself). The product was ReCycle, and I had no idea what it was at first! After the review, since the main writer didn't have any way to use it himself he gave me the license and I started down the path of ReCycling beats and loading them into Sample Cell. Yes, I gave it a good review as I ended up writing the technical part of the review and he wrote the non-technical. It was also the start of my on again/off again magazine review writing 'career'. Years later I would go on to write a Reason 4.0 review for Recording Magazine as I was the only Reason user the editor knew!

I'm sure that my initial positive experience with Propellerhead Software was part of the 'reason' I was so quick to jump on the platform after only a short demo period.

[DaveyG]

. The product was ReCycle, and I had no idea what it was at first!

Yep, I don't remember exactly when I met it but it's fair to say that I just didn't "get" Recycle at first.
I had a few hardware synths and a rack of stuff which included an Akai sampler and I had a PC with fledgling software synths and Cakewalk as a MIDI sequencer but I didn't really latch on to the potential for slicing up audio in PC-land. I was still very much in the realm of recording stuff to analogue tape (and, a bit later, ADAT).

My Recycle "WOW!" moment was a few years later...

[MuttReason]

The keyboard player in one of the bands I was with was a beta tester for Reason v1 and showed me it on his computer when I was at his house working out horn section arrangements with him. It instantly blew my mind. At the time I had a home studio with various bits of gear, and what I saw on his screen was clearly designed to look a lot like some of the stuff I either owned already or that I wanted to own but couldn’t afford. The simulated cables did it for me, like having actual Hosa jack cables with none of the real life ground loop/dodgy soldering/cables-always-too-short-or-too-long comedy moments of home studio life back then. Also the transport controls were like the old Revox tape machines I used when I worked in radio… that was something special too (and BTW I still miss the old transport controls, I do love a good skeuomorphic design).

I bought version 1 as soon as it came out and have never looked back. I started selling off my hardware (something I regretted years later when I tried out the whole DAWless thing, such is life) and decided to be as ITB as possible from then on.

Funny thing is I still get a bit of a buzz when I load up Redrum or Subtractor, and after all these years they’re still my go-to devices. And I will never get bored of the sight of the cables at the back of the rack wobbling when they’re moved or connected. It’s a small thing but I love it, it was pure genius really.

I’ve had moments when Reason kind of disappeared from my setup (including quite a long period when I mostly used Ableton Live) although I can’t remember now why whatever version(s) of Reason were around at that time didn’t do it for me. Even though I upgraded to them and tried to use them, something didn’t gel then. But I came back to Reason in a big way with v10 then upgraded to v11. The v12 launch was a hot mess as we all know and I gave up on Reason for a while, but then RS fixed R12 and I think it’s now pretty much the best version I’ve ever used. I use it every day (both as RRP in Live and as standalone DAW). Yeah it has its flaws and gaps and wow can RS be slow in getting stuff done (and the Props were the same)… but after so many years, it’s still around, I’m still around, it’s better than ever (wish I could say the same about me)… so all good.

[Jac459]

I started with rebirth, I was a big big fan of the 303, 808, 909 emulation...
The day they created reason 1.0 I got it (pirate copy if I remember well, I was student and without ANY money...). Since then I think I paid my debt to them with multiple thousand dollars of REs....

[robussc]

I remember playing with a Rebirth demo but never really got it. Reason on the other hand made instant sense. What a joy!

[challism]

... Sgt Pepper taught the band to play
.

3da2d08bd98bb4275d1086f79413f831.jpg

[rorystorm]

bought a computer in 2001 and a dj friend of mine gave me a bunch of software, Reason included. tbh it didn't click with me then - at the time I was mostly making experimental noise music so synths and drum machines were pretty much the opposite of what I was doing. But around 2010 I started getting into old school techno and rave and reason was perfect for that. learned about how to use a synthesizer off Subtractor, never looked back. at some point I'd picked up reason 2.5 and seeing as I was still using the same computer, running mac OS9, I couldn't really advance beyond 2.5. Then four years ago I inherited a bit of money and bought a new laptop and Reason 10 and it was like whhhhooooaaaah, a new world. Kind of like when you're a kid and read the Hobbit and then a bit later you read Lord of the Rings. I still miss 2.5 though - it's warmer!

[RobC]

I simply had a phone call with a past friend in around 2006, where he mentioned his D.J. brother using Reason. I looked it up, which made me curious. Another past friend mentioned it later, too.

Now, looking it up, I was like 'so many buttons and knobs, this must be what pros use!'. : D

When I first tried it out, I almost ran away screaming. But then I heard it was used by The Prodigy; and when seeing the DVD of Jean Michel Jarre's Aero 5.1 concert in China, the documentary part showed him using Reason 3.0 on his Apple laptop.

After that, I dumped my old, flawed DAW, and in 2007 summer, I sat down with the Reason Operation Manual, and was at it, until I figured it out in a few days.

[kitekrazy]

I use to see the installed demos in a Guitar Center back when 4 came out. I liked it for its eye candy and didn't look like the usual DAW. I waited until it was on sale for $299 and bought it. That was when boxed software was in. I still have the box. With a $199 upgrade price I'm done after 12. I remember getting my upgrades as low as $80. The Reason Studio upgrade some time ago was a great deal. Unfortunately the stuffed shirts running the show don't realize the DAW is not that competitive in upgrade price. Waiting for the day they go all Apple on us and RE's will not be backwards compatible.

[motuscott]

I wuz outta my mind on dergs & alcobahol when I realized that I now owned Reason4
Thor swept me offa my feet in a nonconsensual MIDI feed
The rest, as they say is history

[arnigretar]

Great story selig

I started with using propellerhead ReBirth in early 1998. Then it was already out as v2 and it completely changed my life. I was only 13 years old at the time - but here I got to understand the creativity and workflow to finish tracks. futuregrapher.bandcamp.com/album/rebirth-rb-338 - Tracks from that period for someone who is interested.

I got so much into ReBirth - not only the software - but the community. I spent most of my hours of the day in talking to other ReBirth artists and Mod creators. Even got to know Tage who used to work many years at propellerhead. In my small online friend's circle were two guys who were deep inside the Props crew; jesuspark and Peff. They told me all about Reason when it was in the works. We used the old hotline client for chatting - which was sort of like msn or irq - and there they posted pics of not yet released version of the "next big thing". Jesuspark or Thomas Merkle was the creator behind the gui of Subtractor. I even got into the beta testing system, which was not very open as it is today, and I can fairly say I was excited. This changed everything.

So many years later and many albums produced and played around the world in my field of music - still here and still using Reason. I even still have all the ReBirth stuff. All the boxes, the merch and so on. It's something I will never forget. I even have a new compilation series on one of my labels which are designed on the old ReBirth gui.

[Heigen5]

I got my Reason 2.0 in the 2002. My big brother heard about it from some kind of a cheff (my brother is a cheff too) that some Finnish band uses it. I was using a pirated copy of Fruity Loops 3 in that time. But then I decided to give it it go and ordered it via a Prop-shop. I felt like a kid in the candyshop when I started to learn it and actually I read the whole manual, while trying stuff out with it. I was very close to jump off the Reason wagon, because it didn't do audio, but I'm glad I was patient and waited for long enough. And the more I used it, the more I got addicted to it. So by now after 21 years, I'm like really impressed with the Reason 12.5 (or R+ to be clear) because The RS guys have added all the tools one would ever want. And I'm very proud that the RS has added like 10 features I've requested for. Viva la Reason and Reason Studios!

[Heater]

I got Reason 1 as soon as it was out and was blown away. Can't believe it's been that long.

Redrum is still the fastest way for me to get a beat going and Subtractor is still my go to device to test out reverbs etc...

[DaveyG]

Redrum is still the fastest way for me to get a beat going

For me that always used to be the case but now I think FL Studio just shades it. The in-your-face step sequencer and the piano roll slide notes just shade it over Reason. Some of the other aspects of FL Studio drive me crazy (e.g. mixer wiring and messy overlapping windows).

Fortunately both programs happily run as VST plugins in a "proper DAW" so I can have my cake and eat it

[dvdrtldg]

13 years for me. I'd been playing guitar & keys since I was a little kid, and playing in bands since my teens. It was all rock & roll/punk/garage type stuff, but I'd also developed a parallel interest in a wide range of what generally gets called "experimental" music. Drone, oddball electronica, noise, collage, whatever - if it was weird, I'd give it a listen

Around the early 2000s I fell out of love with the guitar. I started to hate the way I played, all the patterns and styles that had become overly familiar, and was sick of playing with the people I played with - the inevitable compromises and lack of control that you get with the traditional band setup. I'm not a big control freak, but it all just started to feel incredibly limited and constrained. So I decided to switch to "experimental" - but for budget reasons, that meant selling my guitars & amp to fund the purchase of a laptop & Reason, along with a recording kit because I wanted to work with field recordings. Seemed like a big scary decision at the time

I chose Reason because a few years earlier, a dub producer I knew had shown me what would probably have been Reason 2. I was really psyched by the architecture of it and what it seemed to offer. By the time I got on board, it was version 4 - I can still remember the excitement of busting out Thor, Subtractor, Malstrom, NNXT and just starting to explore the possibilities on both sides of the rack. That was 2010, and the excitement hasn't really gone away. I've tried other DAWs over the years but keep coming back to Reason, which isn't surprising because my whole idea of what a DAW is has been shaped exclusively by Reason