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[DaveyG]

Probably more about overall visibility than anything else. I don’t see any barriers for Reason and Hiphop production.

First impressions count.

Fire up FL Studio and the first thing you see is a 4 channel step sequencer preloaded with 909 sounds. A few clicks later and you have a drum beat going. Drag any sample into an empty space on that step sequencer window and you get a new channel with its own step sequencer. There is plenty of complexity to be had when you dig deeper but it gives you that immediate satisfaction.

Fire up Reason and you get a rack that is empty of instruments but that has a few devices in it that you probably don't know whether you need. You are left to browse through a whole pile of devices and if you do load one up you have no step sequencer (Redrum and Thor excepted). Kong, in particular, should load with a step sequencer. Kids are familiar with that 4x4 pad thing, one sound per pad, but sequencing Kong is not obvious for a newbie.

And I think the lack of a step sequencer is a big deal. Almost every popular app on a phone/tablet is centred around step sequencing. Reason should have one built-in to the Sequencer. Even Studio One has a step sequencer.

In addition we are in an era where people seem to prefer learning by video rather than by reading a manual. You can find Reason videos but FL Studio have video tutorials very prominently on their site and throughout their user manual, which is web-based. There are also a million FL Studio tutorials by "cool people" making specific genres.

But for youngsters the main barrier of Reason is probably that it is not seen as cool. Sad but true.

[Jac459]

But for youngsters the main barrier of Reason is probably that it is not seen as cool. Sad but true.

But i do think reason is cool....

Oups, I am not a youngster

[QVprod]

I hate FL but I have to admit it has the best step sequencer and piano roll in the game period not debatable. You are right you can do hip hop but the workarounds and lack of modern features is a deal breaker for many. I'm not going to use blocks for markers. I'm not going to flip the rack and unhook a cable just to check a mono mix. I'm not going to switch between Dr Rex and NNXT for samples or loops when most other samplers play both and Reason Studios created the Rex format. Nobody wants to have to choose Chunk Trig in Kong to chop up drum loops when you can hold shift and drag a REX File on one pad in Studio One and it will chop each sound on all pads. It's all about workflow for most people with very little free time for making music.

Probably more about overall visibility than anything else. I don’t see any barriers for Reason and Hiphop production. There’s a plethora of ways to do trap hihats if that’s your thing and many of these newer producers are using splice loops anyway. I’m not aware of any real advantages with that in mind.

I started on FL (very long time ago) because I didn’t know about anything else. FL is big in Hiphop because there where most of the YouTube tutorials are.

I wouldn't consider markers and mixing barriers for Hiphop production. Maschine has a large hiphop audience and mixing isn't great for that either nor are there markers; just sections/scenes that are actually very similar to how Blocks work. As far as chopping loops or samples there's now Mimic for that. No need for rex loops or NNXT. You can even stretch audio directly in the sequencer to match tempo.

[QVprod]

Probably more about overall visibility than anything else. I don’t see any barriers for Reason and Hiphop production.

First impressions count.

Fire up FL Studio and the first thing you see is a 4 channel step sequencer preloaded with 909 sounds. A few clicks later and you have a drum beat going. Drag any sample into an empty space on that step sequencer window and you get a new channel with its own step sequencer. There is plenty of complexity to be had when you dig deeper but it gives you that immediate satisfaction.

Fire up Reason and you get a rack that is empty of instruments but that has a few devices in it that you probably don't know whether you need. You are left to browse through a whole pile of devices and if you do load one up you have no step sequencer (Redrum and Thor excepted). Kong, in particular, should load with a step sequencer. Kids are familiar with that 4x4 pad thing, one sound per pad, but sequencing Kong is not obvious for a newbie.

And I think the lack of a step sequencer is a big deal. Almost every popular app on a phone/tablet is centred around step sequencing. Reason should have one built-in to the Sequencer. Even Studio One has a step sequencer.

In addition we are in an era where people seem to prefer learning by video rather than by reading a manual. You can find Reason videos but FL Studio have video tutorials very prominently on their site and throughout their user manual, which is web-based. There are also a million FL Studio tutorials by "cool people" making specific genres.

But for youngsters the main barrier of Reason is probably that it is not seen as cool. Sad but true.

There's plenty of people who aren't attracted to step sequencers. Personal experience, It's what I hated the most about using FL, the fact that the workflow's inherently tied to it. Not sure if that changed. As popular as hybrid groove boxes like Maschine and MPC are, it's still in fact very common for people to at the very least play their drums in by hand. And even for those who are step sequencer oriented, Redrum is the second device on the Instruments list. Just like FL's step sequencer, there's an extra step in getting it into the piano roll view. Coming to Reason from FL I was immediately clear on what it did. So I still say there are no barriers to hiphop production in Reason. Choice of workflow in this regard is preference, not a barrier.

we are in an era where people seem to prefer learning by video rather than by reading a manual. You can find Reason videos but FL Studio have video tutorials very prominently on their site and throughout their user manual, which is web-based. There are also a million FL Studio tutorials by "cool people" making specific genres.

This on the other hand was exactly my point. Visibility. The most popular Hiphop YouTube producers use FL Studio. Curtiss King, Busy Works Beats...etc...

[DaveyG]

The most popular Hiphop YouTube producers use FL Studio. Curtiss King, Busy Works Beats...etc...

Maybe they consider it the best tool for the job.

You should revisit the FL Studio piano roll. It's a class leader.
In addition to all the usual stuff you can draw in a single long note and then flam it, chop it into equal sections, chop it according to a bunch of preset patterns ("Trance 4" etc), turn it into chords, arps, even melodies all right there in the piano roll window with a couple of clicks. And then there are the slide notes - slide smoothly from any note to any other. It only works for the built-in instruments but there are plenty of those and a few of them are truly great. You can also drag and drop any audio waveform onto the piano roll window and it displays it as the background - superb if you are trying to add notes or oneshots to an existing audio track.

It's all so darned quick to do and undo and is lots of fun. You can achieve most of the same stuff in Reason but you have to use players, or CV, or even the infernal F8 window that makes me go "Grrrr".

And here's the thing. I am far from being a big FL Studio fan. There are more things in there that annoy me than please me. The mixer routing and workflow is particularly awful and the playlist window is so "flexible" it can quickly become confusing. The browser is all over the place and the project file management is plain crazy. But the piano roll and some of the instruments keep me coming back (Hamor ftw). These days I use Reason and FL Studio as idea generators and I can't remember the last time I finished a track in either of them.

It's not a coincidence that FL Studio is so popular and so successful - they recently boasted of reaching 3 billion TikTok views. I don't really know what that means but it's quite a big number so it must be good...

I just wish that the Reason devs would take a bit of time to look at other DAWs and steal some of the better ideas. That's how DAWs get better.

[Goriila Texas]

Bro I know you understand that people who use Maschine love it for the software and hardware tactile workflow. Maschine isn't a DAW and the software only cost $99 vs Reason $499. Maschine doesn't have mono channels but that's it's only mixing flaw imo and being able to mix with knobs on my Maschine Studio makes it fun and I bounce to mono in Studio One. Maschine's Clips is far superior than Blocks in Reason as I never like the clunkyness of it. In Maschine I can drag audio sample into a channel and then expand a clip and the sample will play for as many bars as I like in time. I don't know how to do that in Reason it would always skip bars. You don't have to switch back and forth copying and pasting from song to Blocks either in Maschine. Workflow workflow! Markers are easy to create in Maschine check video. Markers are very important for writing music and staying organized for many. Writing and mixing are fundamentals of making a song how is that not a barrier for any genre?? You mentioned stretching audio in the sequencer but most hip hop heads want time stretch in the sampler and want to use Rex/wave files with one sampler.

I hate FL but I have to admit it has the best step sequencer and piano roll in the game period not debatable. You are right you can do hip hop but the workarounds and lack of modern features is a deal breaker for many. I'm not going to use blocks for markers. I'm not going to flip the rack and unhook a cable just to check a mono mix. I'm not going to switch between Dr Rex and NNXT for samples or loops when most other samplers play both and Reason Studios created the Rex format. Nobody wants to have to choose Chunk Trig in Kong to chop up drum loops when you can hold shift and drag a REX File on one pad in Studio One and it will chop each sound on all pads. It's all about workflow for most people with very little free time for making music.

I wouldn't consider markers and mixing barriers for Hiphop production. Maschine has a large hiphop audience and mixing isn't great for that either nor are there markers; just sections/scenes that are actually very similar to how Blocks work. As far as chopping loops or samples there's now Mimic for that. No need for rex loops or NNXT. You can even stretch audio directly in the sequencer to match tempo.

[jam-s]

I'm not going to use blocks for markers. I'm not going to flip the rack and unhook a cable just to check a mono mix.

Really?! The only thing you need is to do once is to add a mono-switch combinator to your template and you're golden. Sorry, but this sentence shoots the tone of your post pretty much into troll territory.

[QVprod]

Y’all are both sort of arguing against points I’m not making

The most popular Hiphop YouTube producers use FL Studio. Curtiss King, Busy Works Beats...etc...

Maybe they consider it the best tool for the job.

You should revisit the FL Studio piano roll. It's a class leader.
In addition to all the usual stuff you can draw in a single long note and then flam it, chop it into equal sections, chop it according to a bunch of preset patterns ("Trance 4" etc), turn it into chords, arps, even melodies all right there in the piano roll window with a couple of clicks. And then there are the slide notes - slide smoothly from any note to any other. It only works for the built-in instruments but there are plenty of those and a few of them are truly great. You can also drag and drop any audio waveform onto the piano roll window and it displays it as the background - superb if you are trying to add notes or oneshots to an existing audio track.

It's all so darned quick to do and undo and is lots of fun. You can achieve most of the same stuff in Reason but you have to use players, or CV, or even the infernal F8 window that makes me go "Grrrr".

And here's the thing. I am far from being a big FL Studio fan. There are more things in there that annoy me than please me. The mixer routing and workflow is particularly awful and the playlist window is so "flexible" it can quickly become confusing. The browser is all over the place and the project file management is plain crazy. But the piano roll and some of the instruments keep me coming back (Hamor ftw). These days I use Reason and FL Studio as idea generators and I can't remember the last time I finished a track in either of them.

It's not a coincidence that FL Studio is so popular and so successful - they recently boasted of reaching 3 billion TikTok views. I don't really know what that means but it's quite a big number so it must be good...

I just wish that the Reason devs would take a bit of time to look at other DAWs and steal some of the better ideas. That's how DAWs get better.

I’m not denying that FL has good features. But again, none of this is a barrier to producing hip hop.

Bro I know you understand that people who use Maschine love it for the software and hardware tactile workflow. Maschine isn't a DAW and the software only cost $99 vs Reason $499. Maschine doesn't have mono channels but that's it's only mixing flaw imo and being able to mix with knobs on my Maschine Studio makes it fun and I bounce to mono in Studio One. Maschine's Clips is far superior than Blocks in Reason as I never like the clunkyness of it. In Maschine I can drag audio sample into a channel and then expand a clip and the sample will play for as many bars as I like in time. I don't know how to do that in Reason it would always skip bars. You don't have to switch back and forth copying and pasting from song to Blocks either in Maschine. Workflow workflow! Markers are easy to create in Maschine check video. Markers are very important for writing music and staying organized for many. Writing and mixing are fundamentals of making a song how is that not a barrier for any genre?? You mentioned stretching audio in the sequencer but most hip hop heads want time stretch in the sampler and want to use Rex/wave files with one sampler.

I didn’t realize you could buy machine separately without hardware (Komplete Kontrol keyboard or Maschine hardware) which would cost more than $99 but sure it’s cheaper to get into with the Mikro MK3being $249. No ones using it without the a hardware though. It’s a mess as a standalone software.

I use Maschine as well, so I’m aware of the differences. I just said they function similarly. they all get the job done in their own way. You can convert blocks into “clips” in the sequencer as well. Maschine and Reason’s sequencers actually mirror each other quite a bit. I mentioned in a different response; Workflow is preference. Everyone’s preference will be different. I mentioned mixing not being a barrier, one because it’s common for songs to not be mixed on the same medium or DAW it was created on, and 2 because it’s not like you can’t mix in Reason. You just prefer not to, as do I. However, nobody is parading FL as a top tier mixing program either, neither Maschine, neither the MPC…etc… I’m speaking as someone who does produce hip hop in Reason as well as Maschine and Studio One.

Let me be clear, I’m not arguing which program is the best, just that there are no barriers for hip hop production. It’s conceptually very simple, There are barriers for other things that are far more complicated.

[jam-s]

There's plenty of people who aren't attracted to step sequencers. Personal experience, It's what I hated the most about using FL, the fact that the workflow's inherently tied to it.

I also don't get where exactly the problem is. When you zoom in a bar and have quantize set to 1/8th or 1/16th in the reason sequencer it basically becomes a step sequnecer where you can simply click to set your notes just like in any other step sequencer.

[QVprod]

There's plenty of people who aren't attracted to step sequencers. Personal experience, It's what I hated the most about using FL, the fact that the workflow's inherently tied to it.

I also don't get where exactly the problem is. When you zoom in a bar and have quantize set to 1/8th or 1/16th in the reason sequencer it basically becomes a step sequnecer where you can simply click to set your notes just like in any other step sequencer.

True, there's also that. All the pad/channel label names on Kong and Redrum even transfer to the sequencer. Hadn't thought of it as a step sequencer, but it basically is. No rack sequencer required.

[DaveyG]

I also don't get where exactly the problem is. When you zoom in a bar and have quantize set to 1/8th or 1/16th in the reason sequencer it basically becomes a step sequnecer where you can simply click to set your notes just like in any other step sequencer.

True, there's also that. All the pad/channel label names on Kong and Redrum even transfer to the sequencer. Hadn't thought of it as a step sequencer, but it basically is. No rack sequencer required.

Ha ha! You've both just reached a new height, or depth, of self-delusion.

[ltbrunt00]

I often wonder when a great consolidation is coming to the DAW and plugin makers. I see new A.I tools coming in the near future will decimate those not embracing A.I.

Soon we will be able to train a A.I to turn your crummy piano playing into a exquisite Thelonious Monk piano solo. Training a A.I to turn low quality violin samples into perfect replicas of the best violin player sounds in the world.

The A.I arms race is coming to music software. There are already tools on the market that can generate entire pieces of music. This will lead more companies to follow suit.

A.I will cause most musicians to become out of work with exception of live performances. Corporations will have one button solutions to create any style of music for any type of project.

I work at a company that is heavy into A.I development. This work will eventually cause many people at my company to loose jobs.

I just hope Reason Studios survives into the Future along with many of the many plugin makers I have invested money in. I love what A.I can do but scared of all the disruption it will cause. Not here to argue with anyone, I work at a place where A.I is taking center stage and it will be the biggest thing to happen since the internet.