Having a ball with reason 12 - workarounds for a couple things?

[Theo.M]

Hi, I have not bought it, I received 6 months free of reason plus with the purchase of my M-Audio 192/6, and activated it 2 days ago.

Wow Reason has come a long way.

If I was ever to continue using it after sub expires, I will do a month here and there where needed, and I personally think the sub model is great for this one cause you get all the RS devices.

I have been having a lot of fun without a keyboard composing in bed at night because of all the players and I am really impressed with the sounds of synths like Europa.

I will not be buying RE's like before, I will get the free ones and if I keep using it I will need something essential like Selig gain but that's about it.

I am however impressed that a lot of RE's have rent to buy options that can really help fledgling musicians out or anyone in a tight spot. And regardless, have looked through the RE's and am flabbergasted (in a good way) how many are available since I disappeared.

The best news is that it works flawlessly in Pro Tools. I can use the players and synths as well as FX in my preferred DAW, and the cpu load has been ridiculously light. PT's meter's are barely moving with a few R+ instances.

One thing I noticed - like Ableton live, Reason does not compensate visual latency.

So for example, if I put in a fab filter linear phase EQ in Reason itself, it will produce no audio as the playhead passes over any clip on any track, just by the plugin being placed even once on any track, until the latency value of the plugin has passed. DAWs like PT and Cubase and pretty much all the others do it differently buy playing out the delay BEFORE the playhead starts moving, therefore everything is always in visual sync.

Basically, the way I see it, using reason itself, you really just don't want to use latent plugins. For a heavy UAD user like me, it would be fairly difficult when it comes time to cutting up audio tracks for example and auditioning slices.

Hence it's a bit of a showstopper for me as a main DAW, but it's a bit of a shame as it has so much to love and I was able to get right back into it and remembered all key shortcuts like I never stopped using them.

My favourite drum sequencer is ReDrum, still, but I use it to control other devices, because I love the traditional step system per sound rather than an overview grid.

All this said with regards to latent plugins, it keeps it audibly in check, but since I do a lot of editing.... not for me.

Unless, there's a workaround I don't know of? I have been into every menu drop down setting and every setting in preferences, is there anything I have missed that could have the PDC behave like other DAWs?

There are plenty of no latency native plugs out there and most REs are the same, and I guess I have the Pro Tools workaround as long as I have my ilok dongle handy.

I have actually gone back to Mac (M2 Ultra) after getting back into music after such a massive hiatus, and keeping my PC for the gaming I love it and use it for. I am thrilled to see Props just released a native Apple silicon version also.

It seems REs work in plugin mode but not VST, so the latency thing is not really an issue in plugin mode anyway, and main sequencer is not usable, it's all about the devices.

BTW I was comparing Reason's time stretch quality to elastique pro and it holds up even today,. Very very impressive.

You really can do EVERYTHING in Reason now, you have integrated pitch, audio quantize, great stretch, AND, vst2 & 3 plugins. It's become serious one stop shop DAW for many and I can see why.

[Bes]

ya love to hear it

[Theo.M]

ya love to hear it

You mean if there's a workaround you'd like to know it also?

Ableton live does it which stopped me from using it as my main DAW as I actually LOVE ableton for the composition process and always have.

However Ableton's automation is still in time audibly speaking, even with latent plugins, I have yet to come to a conclusion with Reason on that, but I *think* it's keeping automation on time, the issue is just a visual thing.

AFAIK these are the only two DAWs which do PDC this way in 2024. I have Bitwig, Nuendo 13, PT 2024, and Logic, and they all work flawlessly in this regard, but I have also tried Reaper and that works great, and Studio One (although that has its own issue as its dropout protection is broken since 2019 and still is to this day, better to leave it entirely disabled, but that's another topic).

On an impressive note, on my PC I have 24 cores and 32 threads, and I love the option in Reason options how many to devote to Reason, so I have chosen to devote 24 threads total, and the performance is GREAT (I also love the new option to show cpu usage per plugin in the rack in realtime).
I haven't set it up on the Mac yet as I have a lot of other stuff to do first.
But yeah, I was duplicating a bucket load of Serum tracks and it was working flawlessly, cycling cores and using them all evenly. Nice job RS.
Really good performance even at the lowest 64 buffer via Asio and high CPU usage.

[Bes]

ah, no i can't read as much as you can write.
i think i was referring to anyone enjoying making music with reason, which genuinely is a nice thing to hear

[jam-s]

You could try to turn off "Render audio using audio card buffer size setting" and see if it changes the visual delay.

Also have a look at these pages:
http://docs.propellerheads.se/reason12/ ... .04.4.html
http://docs.propellerheads.se/reason12/ ... tml#451932

[fullforce]

My favourite drum sequencer is ReDrum, still, but I use it to control other devices, because I love the traditional step system per sound rather than an overview grid.

Step is the best. Steptime input is still non-existent.

Also, [mod edit] **THE WONDERFUL DEVELOPERS OF REASON, WHOM I DEARLY LOVE WITH ALL MY HEART,** [/mod edit] still haven't integrated Recycle.

I got 12 though. I just don't do enough with it.

[Theo.M]

ah, no i can't read as much as you can write.
i think i was referring to anyone enjoying making music with reason, which genuinely is a nice thing to hear

Haha, all good and understood. I am a bit of a novelist, that part of me I can't change I am afraid.

[Theo.M]

You could try to turn off "Render audio using audio card buffer size setting" and see if it changes the visual delay.

Also have a look at these pages:
http://docs.propellerheads.se/reason12/ ... .04.4.html
http://docs.propellerheads.se/reason12/ ... tml#451932

Will do that right now.

To be honest, it is only really noticeable with plugins with large delay. Although any delay, even say 100 samples, means the visual timing for the entire project would then be out 100 samples, it's still entirely usable in those situations.

I guess I just avoid UAD in Reason and plugins with linear phase. See I can't turn chord or bassline tracks into midi on the arranger page when the plugin is used, so there's times I'll want to do that and just use Reason.

Reason's own plugins are still excellent. I was amazed today just how well the reverb is STILL holding up in 2024, when it comes to that smooth lush Lexicon type sound (when that's wanted). I was fiddling around with the very CPU intensive Waves H reverb for 10 minutes, then popped in an RV2K in its place,. and was done in under a minute. It's really good.

[jam-s]

As for the built in delay compensation in Reason this part of the manual might also give an idea what's happening there: http://docs.propellerheads.se/reason12/ ... .18.2.html

Some very noticeable visual lag might even be an case where contacting support could be useful as it might show a bug with some plugin or in general. So if you could make a well documented case/video showing what's happening and where you can measure the delay/lag it would be a good idea to submit it to RS as they seem to be in a prolonged bug clean-out phase since the lunch of R12.

[Theo.M]

As for the built in delay compensation in Reason this part of the manual might also give an idea what's happening there: http://docs.propellerheads.se/reason12/ ... .18.2.html

Some very noticeable visual lag might even be an case where contacting support could be useful as it might show a bug with some plugin or in general. So if you could make a well documented case/video showing what's happening and where you can measure the delay/lag it would be a good idea to submit it to RS as they seem to be in a prolonged bug clean-out phase since the lunch of R12.

It's always operated like that since they introduced it. I already made a big hullaballoo about it in the past, years back, when I was that guy.
I am too embarrassed to even contact RS these days other than the personal apology I sent them, I kind of wouldn't dare.

To give you another example, I just tested DP 11 demo and added two extreme LP EQ's which added a second of latency.
Everything was in time in every way, but when playback stop is pressed, the delay plays out, which is fine I guess.

I think the way PT, S1, Logic, Cubendo et al do it where they hold the cursor still till the total project delay is compensated, then move the playhead in time, is the best way. It's really up to RS if they want to change it.

[chimp_spanner]

Should add that Live 12 just added latency correction in recording. Haven’t managed to try it yet myself despite owning a license but just haven’t had time.

[Theo.M]

Should add that Live 12 just added latency correction in recording. Haven’t managed to try it yet myself despite owning a license but just haven’t had time.

Yes but it's still visually broken in Live 12 unfortunately. The more latent plugins you add, the more the playhead cursor is out of time with the audio.