Hello everyone,
I am using Reason Rack Plugin (RRP) in some other DAWs and I would like to share and need more opinions on how to optimize the performance and user experience when using RRP.
Do you use RRP in any DAWs? Do you have any tips or techniques that solve this problem?
Hopefully someone can help me figure out how to optimize. Thanks!
How to Optimize Reason Rack Plugin in Other DAWs
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It would be a good start to describe in detail what you're doing (which DAWs, software versions, audio interface, system specs, etc.) and what kind of performance issues you're seeing.
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Not sure what you mean by optimize the RRP. It's a VST plugin like any other. The amount of CPU pressure it puts on your system is entirely dependent on what devices you use in it.
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Could be the bots are just getting a little bit better (but not good enough to make sense)?huggermugger wrote: ↑23 Jan 2025Not sure what you mean by optimize the RRP. It's a VST plugin like any other. The amount of CPU pressure it puts on your system is entirely dependent on what devices you use in it.

Selig Audio, LLC
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Bot or not, the question as-is could still be interesting for any newbie random readers in my opinion; though I agree that the raised issue is a bit broad.
Oh well... I'm a Live user first and foremost and have been using Reason alongside Live for most of the past decade, however things cooled down for me ever since the Props dropped ReWire and only provided the rack to their plugin; these days I use RRP very sporadically; but I still love the player devices. Another thing is that I also bought into synths like The Legend & Antidote as rack extensions back in the day and although they may be a bit dated they're still pretty awesome. Especially in addition to previously mentioned player devices.
First.. performance. I'm still using Reason 11, but even so: I fail to see a problem here. Because of the above I ended up replacing Reason with FL Studio as my #2 sequencer and I always keep taps on performance issues (Live has dedicated indicators for that). I've set up some crazy sets in both environments and I speak from personal experience when I say that the RRP provides a solid performance. It's noticeably better when compared to FL Studio's VSTi for example (which basically brings in the whole DAW 'inside' another).
Heck, when I use Live + RRP I get much better performance than in the past then I ran both DAW's side by side through ReWire.
As for optimizing... I can easily see how this could become an hassle if you're used to Reason's multiple rack space, but using combinators and a bit of custom routing can be of great help here; also don't forget about the mergers & splitters.
However, you need to be careful with incoming MIDI. It's my main gripe with the plugin: not having any dedicated MIDI control, instead all devices in the rack get triggered "just like that" which I think is kinda dumb. Fortunately you can work around that. Either rely on multiple audio outputs and only enable a channel whenever you need it, or do what I prefer: use a combinator, some custom signal routing and combinator programming after which you expose some of the controls back into your DAW.
For example... let's say I want to play both Thor & Europe in Live. I drag in a combinator and add both instruments as well as a spider audio merger. I combine both audio outputs, open the combinators programmer after which I dedicate buttons 1 & 2 to the "Receive notes" option for both instruments. So now I have my instrument toggles. I also rename the buttons right away, but that's personal preference.
Well, now it's easy: go back to Live, enable configure mode on the VST device and then click both buttons in order to expose them. Unfortunately this will show another (small) issue with the plugin: it falls back to the default name values. Annoying, but whatever. Even so, you now have full access to an on/off switch for both instruments, thus giving you full remote control. Now you can automate all that in the DAW's sequencer.
The reason why I prefer this method over simply selecting an audio channel is to reduce any possible overhead.. when an instrument doesn't receive any MIDI it also doesn't have to process said MIDI thus gobbling up unneeded resources.
So yah... I think it's fair to say that the RRP doesn't provide the same kind of flexibility with regards to setting up the rack as Reason itself does and I can easily see how this can confuse people. But having said that... this is still Reason and there are very few issues which it cannot solve. Heck... in a way this kinda brings me back to the good ole days of Reason 4 where the only way to use some filter types was to (ab)use Thor as an audio processor
Hope this can give some ideas.
Oh well... I'm a Live user first and foremost and have been using Reason alongside Live for most of the past decade, however things cooled down for me ever since the Props dropped ReWire and only provided the rack to their plugin; these days I use RRP very sporadically; but I still love the player devices. Another thing is that I also bought into synths like The Legend & Antidote as rack extensions back in the day and although they may be a bit dated they're still pretty awesome. Especially in addition to previously mentioned player devices.
First.. performance. I'm still using Reason 11, but even so: I fail to see a problem here. Because of the above I ended up replacing Reason with FL Studio as my #2 sequencer and I always keep taps on performance issues (Live has dedicated indicators for that). I've set up some crazy sets in both environments and I speak from personal experience when I say that the RRP provides a solid performance. It's noticeably better when compared to FL Studio's VSTi for example (which basically brings in the whole DAW 'inside' another).
Heck, when I use Live + RRP I get much better performance than in the past then I ran both DAW's side by side through ReWire.
As for optimizing... I can easily see how this could become an hassle if you're used to Reason's multiple rack space, but using combinators and a bit of custom routing can be of great help here; also don't forget about the mergers & splitters.
However, you need to be careful with incoming MIDI. It's my main gripe with the plugin: not having any dedicated MIDI control, instead all devices in the rack get triggered "just like that" which I think is kinda dumb. Fortunately you can work around that. Either rely on multiple audio outputs and only enable a channel whenever you need it, or do what I prefer: use a combinator, some custom signal routing and combinator programming after which you expose some of the controls back into your DAW.
For example... let's say I want to play both Thor & Europe in Live. I drag in a combinator and add both instruments as well as a spider audio merger. I combine both audio outputs, open the combinators programmer after which I dedicate buttons 1 & 2 to the "Receive notes" option for both instruments. So now I have my instrument toggles. I also rename the buttons right away, but that's personal preference.
Well, now it's easy: go back to Live, enable configure mode on the VST device and then click both buttons in order to expose them. Unfortunately this will show another (small) issue with the plugin: it falls back to the default name values. Annoying, but whatever. Even so, you now have full access to an on/off switch for both instruments, thus giving you full remote control. Now you can automate all that in the DAW's sequencer.
The reason why I prefer this method over simply selecting an audio channel is to reduce any possible overhead.. when an instrument doesn't receive any MIDI it also doesn't have to process said MIDI thus gobbling up unneeded resources.
So yah... I think it's fair to say that the RRP doesn't provide the same kind of flexibility with regards to setting up the rack as Reason itself does and I can easily see how this can confuse people. But having said that... this is still Reason and there are very few issues which it cannot solve. Heck... in a way this kinda brings me back to the good ole days of Reason 4 where the only way to use some filter types was to (ab)use Thor as an audio processor

Hope this can give some ideas.
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