Reason vs. the competition: make it competitive again

[SebAudio]

Issue 2 - Outdated devices

What about an « attic » section in the browser ?

[Oquasec]

They make enough synths as it is. I would just outsource or something for people to make more orchestral/rock/tribal/Jazz etc refills.

[avasopht]

When people say "just use the competition," what they mean is that if Reason has all these issues, why are you still using it?

Why I don't agree with that idea is that Reason has very unique features that are exceptional, and there is no alternative for it. That's why these shortcomings hit so hard, because there aren't any alternatives when you want the sets of features where Reason is strong.

You end up having to choose the lesser of evils between Reasons benefits + overlooked features versus a vanilla DAW without the Rack and all of Reason's workflows you've become accustomed to.

Personally I'm happy with R10. I gave the latest version of StudioOne a try to see if I could use it exclusively with VSTs, and it sucked in a few key areas. Maybe there's a really good VST that does what I want, but in Reason, it was a simple drag & drop.

I've tried the competition and it doesn't cut the mustard. So I just grin and bear it.

Pobody's Nerfect.

[selig]

Seeing it was a negative post from the get go, or at least one where the OP put his opinions forward in a negative slant -

Weird, I saw nothing negative at all in the OP! I read it with much interest because I get good information from those outside of the everyday Reason experience. Yea, it's another feature request thread, but I found it coming from an interesting angle, that's all.

[selig]

I have a pretty good PC. I did a quick experiment to check: Loading time on my PC, from the same SSD, all the same VSTs etc.

Reaper: 1.8 seconds.

Bitwig: 9.5 seconds.

Reason: 30 seconds.

Scrolling seeming jerky and slow is very much subjective, I understand, but I am pretty sure the screen operations are slower and less smooth on Reason than on Reaper or Bitwig. Apparently this is such an issue on Mac that the official workaround is to use lo-res mode.

I'm on a Mac (late 2014 iMac, nothing special) and boot times from a "hybrid" (not SSD) drive have been a consistent 11 seconds on all versions. I have a TON of REs and VSTs, a pretty cluttered/full internal drive, and I've never seen the boot times change with any settings changes, and I'm not currently even using "low res" mode! No "jerky" or less smooth reactions either, so I'm not sure what's going on in your end - just wanted to give you hope that it is possible for Reason to run smoothly on a mac without special settings (though I AM using the sRGB profile, but not sure that's actually doing anything with the current version of Reason).

[chaosroyale]

Selig, I don't doubt you, all I can report is that these are accurate times on my system, which is a powerful modern PC. Bitwig has a reputation as a "heavy" start-up, and took just under 10 seconds, as you might expect. Reaper, naturally, opens almost instantly. Reason genuinely takes 3 times longer than Bitwig on my system. Maybe other PC users could post their load times with various DAWs.

edit- I don't mean to give the impression that Reasons GUI is glitching and stuttering. I mean that compared to other DAWs it is less smooth. Reaper is lightning-fast. I guess you could use a gaming analogy of 30 FPS vs. 60FPS.

second edit: all my VSTs are in a custom folder on C drive, called "VST", (not the windows default Steinberg folder & "documents" folder, because that is a horrible mess). Maybe Reason is taking time to scan through the VST folder?? But in that case, why are the other DAWs so much faster?

I have a pretty good PC. I did a quick experiment to check: Loading time on my PC, from the same SSD, all the same VSTs etc.

Reaper: 1.8 seconds.

Bitwig: 9.5 seconds.

Reason: 30 seconds.

Scrolling seeming jerky and slow is very much subjective, I understand, but I am pretty sure the screen operations are slower and less smooth on Reason than on Reaper or Bitwig. Apparently this is such an issue on Mac that the official workaround is to use lo-res mode.

I'm on a Mac (late 2014 iMac, nothing special) and boot times from a "hybrid" (not SSD) drive have been a consistent 11 seconds on all versions. I have a TON of REs and VSTs, a pretty cluttered/full internal drive, and I've never seen the boot times change with any settings changes, and I'm not currently even using "low res" mode! No "jerky" or less smooth reactions either, so I'm not sure what's going on in your end - just wanted to give you hope that it is possible for Reason to run smoothly on a mac without special settings (though I AM using the sRGB profile, but not sure that's actually doing anything with the current version of Reason).

[Jackjackdaw]

Reason 11 is loading my default template of about 7 devices in 10.8 seconds, and thats including clicking the login screen quickly. Ableton Live Lite 10 blank template 12 seconds. I don't have Cubase installed just now but I'm sure that took ages to boot to the Hub screen.

Acer Swift 3, AMD Ryzen 5 ,256gb SSD, 8gb ram

[bxbrkrz]

What are the avantages of a login screen vs my (old) USB Ignition Key?

[selig]

Selig, I don't doubt you, all I can report is that these are accurate times on my system, which is a powerful modern PC. Bitwig has a reputation as a "heavy" start-up, and took just under 10 seconds, as you might expect. Reaper, naturally, opens almost instantly. Reason genuinely takes 3 times longer than Bitwig on my system. Maybe other PC users could post their load times with various DAWs.

edit- I don't mean to give the impression that Reasons GUI is glitching and stuttering. I mean that compared to other DAWs it is less smooth. Reaper is lightning-fast. I guess you could use a gaming analogy of 30 FPS vs. 60FPS.

second edit: all my VSTs are in a custom folder on C drive, called "VST", (not the windows default Steinberg folder & "documents" folder, because that is a horrible mess). Maybe Reason is taking time to scan through the VST folder?? But in that case, why are the other DAWs so much faster?

I wasn't meaning to sound like I was disputing your numbers at all - was just trying to give you hope that the load times SHOULD/COULD be much shorter. Not sure why one DAW loads faster - could be they are only loading certain parts of the app, and take longer to actually do things once loaded. For me, 11 seconds isn't anything I think about, but if it was 30 seconds I'd be looking for solutions.

[Logic takes a second to create a new audio track, Reason does this instantly. Logic takes a second or two longer to load Kontakt. This is the sort of thing that could be caused by having to load more of the app once booted vs loading more of the app during boot up - just speculation here, I'm not an expert on this subject by any means]

[chaosroyale]

That's a useful data point and suggests that Reason is loading especially slowly on my PC. Maybe I should ask support about it. About 10 seconds for Ableton sounds right from my experience too.

Reason 11 is loading my default template of about 7 devices in 10.8 seconds, and thats including clicking the login screen quickly. Ableton Live Lite 10 blank template 12 seconds. I don't have Cubase installed just now but I'm sure that took ages to boot to the Hub screen.

Acer Swift 3, AMD Ryzen 5 ,256gb SSD, 8gb ram

[ab459]

I said antialiasing option.

Do not touch Subtractor sound, PLEASE. As well aliasing - which can be a FEATURE in right arms.
Do not need to make all synths sterile and equal. There is a ocean of other soft synths if need.

Added: After such wishes, the CPU meter begins to show 3 bricks at almost empty place. And then the program is criticized as unusable. Circle closed.

Well, if only as additional option - ok.

[Mike B]

Windows 10 - 16gb ram

Fl Studio 20.7 startup time : 2 seconds
Reason 11 startup time: 10 seconds