Future purchase: RE or VST equivalent.

[Proboscis]

From my perspective as a developer, it would allow folks to use my plugins in any DAW without me porting to VST/AU etc. Some suggested $99 (for Reason Intro) was not much to pay for the privilege of using my plugins, but I totally disagree, as I don't feel my products should "hide" behind a paywall of any sort other than the initial cost, which should be the same for every user IMO. I guess we'll have to wait and see, but this is another case of me "not holding my breath"!

That's what I've always disliked about Kontakt. Over the years, I would have spent plenty on instrument sample packs with them, as I like to use a lot of organic instrumentation rather than synths, but paying hundreds of dollars to buy a device just to get started is not cool.

[eXode]

Yeah dat me lol. But I'm not against a free, empty rack, I just think $99 is very reasonable.

...

But again, not against the idea of a free, empty rack. I just don't think $99 for Intro is a tough sale, unless you make it one. And I'd much rather my friends have the included devices for a really great price.

Yeah, but if you're selling a RE for $49 USD, then $99 USD is an additional threshold/pay wall.

I agree that Reason Intro is priced very attractively, but it does very little for RE developers, and I just wished that props would have seen the added benefit for allowing a customer/user to purchase just the RE with the RE Player Rack. I think such a RE Player device would have (probably) required very little effort on their part, and provided an extra source of income for them, as well as added (much needed) exposure for RE developers. Either a person trying just a RE through the RE Player will get hooked into trying more, which will become added revenue for Reason Studios, or they'll settle with one or two RE's, which will still earn Reason Studios extra revenue compared to no sale at all.

This is one of the examples where I think that Reason Studios don't think of/view RE developers as business partners.

The RE platform has great potential, from a technical viewpoint, but if you cannot help developers grow their business, or indirectly hinder them, then the platform will not grow. Regardless of how amazing and competent the platform is.

[eXode]

And you know I too supported this idea, but others have mentioned possible workarounds by creating new accounts every 30 days. Not being into that approach myself I haven't tested it to see how much work is involved, but it may be one reason it was not considered in the first place.

...

I guess we'll have to wait and see, but this is another case of me "not holding my breath"!

Yeah, thanks.

I'm not holding my breath either.

[joeyluck]

Yeah dat me lol. But I'm not against a free, empty rack, I just think $99 is very reasonable.

...

But again, not against the idea of a free, empty rack. I just don't think $99 for Intro is a tough sale, unless you make it one. And I'd much rather my friends have the included devices for a really great price.

Yeah, but if you're selling a RE for $49 USD, then $99 USD is an additional threshold/pay wall.

I agree that Reason Intro is priced very attractively, but it does very little for RE developers, and I just wished that props would have seen the added benefit for allowing a customer/user to purchase just the RE with the RE Player Rack. I think such a RE Player device would have (probably) required very little effort on their part, and provided an extra source of income for them, as well as added (much needed) exposure for RE developers. Either a person trying just a RE through the RE Player will get hooked into trying more, which will become added revenue for Reason Studios, or they'll settle with one or two RE's, which will still earn Reason Studios extra revenue compared to no sale at all.

This is one of the examples where I think that Reason Studios don't think of/view RE developers as business partners.

The RE platform has great potential, from a technical viewpoint, but if you cannot help developers grow their business, or indirectly hinder them, then the platform will not grow. Regardless of how amazing and competent the platform is.

Well I'm not sure if that means it won't happen? Actually I don't think many companies would have done such a thing right out of the gate. Reason sales are certainly the main focus with the release of R11, and the RRP one of its biggest selling points.

NI requires either the customer (a new one owning no NI Kontakt libraries) to pay $399 for Kontakt full version (from them directly as its not available by itself through other vendors except with a larger purchase of Kompkete) or for the developer to pay a $1000 encoding fee and buy serials in bulk up front to sell Kontakt Player versions; including licensing costs as well. I don't know if there is a similar compromise that a RE dev would be willing to make to have a RE that can run in a wrapper or a free RRP. Maybe they surrender more of their cut? I'm not sure what is necessary, but just throwing the thought out there.

[eXode]

Well I'm not sure if that means it won't happen? Actually I don't think many companies would have done such a thing right out of the gate. Reason sales are certainly the main focus with the release of R11, and the RRP one of its biggest selling points.

It might happen, but it might not holding my breath.

It's hard to speculate about other companies as none really offers a plugin format that is tied to a specific host in the same way, for better or worse. But you can still see that there's conflict in interests.

NI requires either the customer (a new one owning no NI Kontakt libraries) to pay $399 for Kontakt full version (from them directly as its not available by itself through other vendors except with a larger purchase of Kompkete) or for the developer to pay a $1000 encoding fee and buy serials in bulk up front to sell Kontakt Player versions; including licensing costs as well. I don't know if there is a similar compromise that a RE dev would be willing to make to have a RE that can run in a wrapper or a free RRP. Maybe they surrender more of their cut? I'm not sure what is necessary, but just throwing the thought out there.

I think that the current fee of 30% from net sales is more than enough to cover this, to be honest (quick example: 100 sold units @ $100 USD would land Reason Studios about $3000 USD) . Also, I think that comparing the RE platform to Kontakt is an apples to oranges comparison, they are different beasts really.

[JdA57]

If there is a RE and VST format, I'll allways prefering / buy the RE. All I needed I got in RE and never missing something (ok, bought nearly each RE we can buy ). I like the very fast and simple installation- / reinstallationprocess and how to backup all the RE'S, so I have not to download all again, if I've to reinstall or a new computer. (Y).

If there is only vst-format, I'll buy / bought this vst's only if the copyprotection is working without any challenge-response, hardware-key or somethig like that (like UHE, waldorf etc). Prefering activation via serialnumber or fix keyword etc.

(deleted all this waves, NI, steinberg etc- shit ... )

[Yonatan]

At some point, it would seem natural that anyone buying a RE would get a empty Rack as an option (as it would open up the potential market). If that were the case at R11, I guess many Reason users would pass the upgrade to R11 and the Suite. So as always RS makes the moves in a certain order to increase the revenue.

[Loque]

At some point, it would seem natural that anyone buying a RE would get a empty Rack as an option (as it would open up the potential market). If that were the case at R11, I guess many Reason users would pass the upgrade to R11 and the Suite. So as always RS makes the moves in a certain order to increase the revenue.

Somehow i like the idea and everybody could start with the many free RE. Maybe there could be some kind of "Rack Player" too, wich would be good for IDT/Gorilla sound libraries. All this is not for me, but for marketing and market perspective it sounds good.

[Brosefski]

Hmm... I've been thinking about this. I guess for me it would depend on what I'm getting. I would prefer some beast synths from outside companies to be a VST (like MassiveX). Personally I don't want RE to go away though. I like the tightly coupled interface with the rack. But I would prefer to get some synths as VST's even if they were a RE. And I'd rather get all reason made synths by RE. IF there was a gaurantee that REs would have the same level as the VST by said outside manufacturer, I would then buy the RE instead of the VST because of its integration with the DAW.

[Brosefski]

But also keep in mind, I have no desire now to work with other DAWs. NONE. Accept maybe Ardour because it's free, open source, I can look at the code and compile it myself and add to it if I wanted to. That's about it though, otherwise Reason is my goto. I worked with logic and ableton a bit, but am so glad to be back in home country with VST support in reason.

[Jackjackdaw]

I just bought decimort 2 as Re rather than VST. But then I also just bought Arturia V collection instead of Parsec 2 and PX7, entirely because of Arturia's aggressive BF prices though.

I love Re utilities and like having the choice to use VST when I want to. I hope both get continued development and support in Reason.

[Nirude]

My two last boughts: Spire and Dune3 VST. And the one that I am waiting for: Reason 11 suite upgrade discount

[reddust]

My two last boughts: Spire and Dune3 VST. And the one that I am waiting for: Reason 11 suite upgrade discount

Haha almost the same here, last purchases were Spire (VST) and ANA2, Dune3 is still on the list. Waiting for Reason 11 suite upgrade sale as well.

[reddust]

I personally do prefer VST over RE if I have the choice between the two. I only buy REs if there is no VST version of them.

My main reasons for this were that until Reason 11 it wasn't possible to use REs outside Reason itself, so if I decided to use another DAW I wouldn't be able to use my REs at all. Now with the Reason 11 upgrade it is possible, but as I haven't upgraded myself and read much about it, I am still not sure how smooth do these REs run in other DAWs through the plugin rack.

There is also the question about MPE/midi multichannel support. I know many VST plugins already support this but if I am correct Reason REs do not, also as part of the plugin rack, am I right?

And if that weren't enough, I think the re-sell market is also better for VST plugins than it is for rack extensions. I know you can sell your license for many VST plugins, sometimes it costs a little bit of money sometimes you just transfer your license to the new buyer. I am not sure if that is possible at all with REs and if it is I don't think the market is as big as it is for VST plugins making it harder to sell your license if you're no more interested in a concrete plugin.

[dezma]

I personally do prefer VST over RE if I have the choice between the two. I only buy REs if there is no VST version of them.

My main reasons for this were that until Reason 11 it wasn't possible to use REs outside Reason itself, so if I decided to use another DAW I wouldn't be able to use my REs at all. Now with the Reason 11 upgrade it is possible, but as I haven't upgraded myself and read much about it, I am still not sure how smooth do these REs run in other DAWs through the plugin rack.

I do have R11 and use it as a rack since I switched from reason to studio one, yet I'd still buy VST. Next to the non existing resell policy, another big drawback is performance. RE in the rack has a much bigger CPU impact than VST

I'm pretty sure it's also more supportive for the developer's business to buy the VST version vs RE.

Here's some documentation on the cpu usage.. first one is predator RE vs VST, second one is RP distortion RE vs VST. I have a consistent 5-6% difference in advantage of VST.

Predator patch: bank 05 / patch SynCato




Even Europa has significant higher usage (hypersaw lead patch). The rack overhead has a high cpu price.

[reddust]

Great, thanks for sharing those stats. This reinforces my opinion that the Reason 11 update is for me interesting only in case I want to use REs I like and are not available as VST plugins.