Reason 1.0 vs 10.0 - visual comparison

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stephensmattlee
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25 Nov 2017

dustiraw wrote:I guess i'm one of the only users here that thinks reason is still as visually stunning as it's always been. The fact that the instruments and devices need an "overhaul" to me makes no sense since the devices themselves have not been updated in recent times. I feel like they are more concerned about upgrading the actual interface itself instead of the classic devices just for the fact that they are classic. If they were to add updates to the devices and instruments themselves an updated GUI would be great but they would also need to make other updates as well. IMO updating the GUI makes it new again, no longer being that classic piece of gear. IDK i guess im just looking at it from a hardware lovers point of view that would hate if I came back to the studio with my hardware "updated" visually with no new bells and whistles that update it to modern times.
That’s kind of what I mean, I don’t want them to drastically change the devices layouts and the way they work. But keep them so they remain familiar but just bring the look up to date like the render above of Subtractor for instance


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ZombieFightsShark
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01 Dec 2017

Carly(Poohbear) wrote:
stephensmattlee wrote:
25 Nov 2017
I guess if one day Reason is on par with Soundtoys, and can look similar visually, then the Props would be onto a real winner...

Image
Image


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Hmm, that Echoboy should have fallen out of that rack as not one screw lines up, so whats holding it in???
Studio magic.


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ZombieFightsShark
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01 Dec 2017

Reason is definitely looking dated, but a lot of things are IMO. I'm sure there's at least one guy over at Propellerhead's doodling away on a new GUI for Reason.
What I hope will happen (in all of the recording/DAW world) is a transition to something completely new. Now stay with me for a moment.

Reason looks the way it does because that's how studio gear has looked for a long time. The Interface does not need to have sliders and knobs, those are really just holdovers from old studio gear. I'm not saying that I know what the answer is, I’m just saying that there’s got to be a better solution for a faster, smoother workflow.


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chimp_spanner
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01 Dec 2017

Hey maybe it's just because I remember Reason from version 1 but the visuals make me warm and fuzzy haha. I like the visuals. It's a nice contrast to the flat, 2D style a lot of companies are going for these days and indeed skeuomorphism seems to be making a bit of a comeback now anyway. So Reason might find itself looking current by doing...nothing at all haha. Zooming and vector graphics would of course be fantastic. But that's a change that'd have to be rolled out across every device in the store. Not just ones made by PH. Unless you end up with a mish mash of vector and raster, in which case zooming would look and feel horrible. Interesting to see what they do in that regard.

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Noplan
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01 Dec 2017

I don't need that 21th century visual crap on old things.

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Psuper
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01 Dec 2017

ZombieFightsShark wrote:
01 Dec 2017
'm sure there's at least one guy over at Propellerhead's doodling away on a new GUI for Reason.
What I hope will happen (in all of the recording/DAW world) is a transition to something completely new.
I thought that for certain 10 years ago.

Had a thread that became gigantic on props forums, spent half a day designing the perfect interface in photoshop which kept that retro look/feel but *dramatically* would increase productivity. Had an unbelievable positive response from the community generating solid ideas. Should have made an impact with props to help their GUI... it didn't.

I've been paying attention to this for some time. I don't think Propellerhead has the expertise to positively impact the GUI, it's my opinion the people who could have are gone.
Reason needs to DAW.viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7504985

stephensmattlee
Posts: 144
Joined: 05 Feb 2015

01 Dec 2017

If they don’t change anything at all stylistically apart from updating to vector graphics, I hope at LEAST they do something about the horrible transport bar.
Wasn’t keen on the change from v7-8 with the current redesign and sadly it still looks an ugly and rushed redesign to me another 2 versions later.
Had hoped it would have grown on me but still hasn’t. Looks very out of place, especially when you bring up the ReGroove mixer.

...sorry to any fans of the current transport bar [emoji3]



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stephensmattlee
Posts: 144
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01 Dec 2017

Psuper wrote:
ZombieFightsShark wrote:
01 Dec 2017
'm sure there's at least one guy over at Propellerhead's doodling away on a new GUI for Reason.
What I hope will happen (in all of the recording/DAW world) is a transition to something completely new.
I thought that for certain 10 years ago.

Had a thread that became gigantic on props forums, spent half a day designing the perfect interface in photoshop which kept that retro look/feel but *dramatically* would increase productivity. Had an unbelievable positive response from the community generating solid ideas. Should have made an impact with props to help their GUI... it didn't.

I've been paying attention to this for some time. I don't think Propellerhead has the expertise to positively impact the GUI, it's my opinion the people who could have are gone.
Don’t suppose you still have any pics from those old photoshop designs you did?
Curious to see how they looked as sadly I missed on the Props forum years ago.

I know they’ve managed to get away without many visual updates over the years but surely the Props must be working on something now. Especially with larger and larger display resolutions becoming more and more the standard now (ie 4K, 5K and beyond).
I’m sure we’ll see a big redesign, or at least some more visual changes sooner rather than later.
I just thought v10 would have been a good time to make a few bigger changes to set Reason up for the next 10 versions.


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Last edited by stephensmattlee on 01 Dec 2017, edited 1 time in total.

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Psuper
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01 Dec 2017

stephensmattlee wrote:
01 Dec 2017
Psuper wrote:
I thought that for certain 10 years ago.

Had a thread that became gigantic on props forums, spent half a day designing the perfect interface in photoshop which kept that retro look/feel but *dramatically* would increase productivity. Had an unbelievable positive response from the community generating solid ideas. Should have made an impact with props to help their GUI... it didn't.

I've been paying attention to this for some time. I don't think Propellerhead has the expertise to positively impact the GUI, it's my opinion the people who could have are gone.
Don’t suppose you still have any pics from those old photoshop designs you did?
Curious to see how they looked as sadly I missed on the Props forum years ago


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I was certain I kept a backup of it however can't find it, and the comcast hosting was removed years ago where it was hosted for the forum display. I'm sure its on one of my 100s of backup CDs but so easy to miss and a pita to look through.
Reason needs to DAW.viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7504985

stephensmattlee
Posts: 144
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01 Dec 2017

Psuper wrote:
stephensmattlee wrote:
01 Dec 2017
Don’t suppose you still have any pics from those old photoshop designs you did?
Curious to see how they looked as sadly I missed on the Props forum years ago


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I was certain I kept a backup of it however can't find it, and the comcast hosting was removed years ago where it was hosted for the forum display. I'm sure its on one of my 100s of backup CDs but so easy to miss and a pita to look through.
Haha that’s okay, was just curious more than anything else :)

would be cool to get some comments and opinions from Matius or Ryan but know the Props don’t like discussing the future and what surprises they might have in the pipeline


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EnochLight
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01 Dec 2017

Psuper wrote:
01 Dec 2017
Had a thread that became gigantic on props forums, spent half a day designing the perfect interface in photoshop which kept that retro look/feel but *dramatically* would increase productivity. Had an unbelievable positive response from the community generating solid ideas. Should have made an impact with props to help their GUI... it didn't.
Wait... ScottyM?!!!! Where have you been, man! :puf_bigsmile: :lol:
Psuper wrote:
01 Dec 2017
I've been paying attention to this for some time. I don't think Propellerhead has the expertise to positively impact the GUI, it's my opinion the people who could have are gone.
Actually, I'm pretty sure the people who did the graphics for many of the original rack devices was Bitplant, a German company separate from Propellerhead. Their website is still going.
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

antic604

01 Dec 2017

stephensmattlee wrote:
25 Nov 2017
Image
I'd love that to happen, doesn't even has to be 3D with shadows, reflections, etc. - just increase the resolution & detail, leave the placement of controls, workflow & functionality.

:thumbs_up:

stephensmattlee
Posts: 144
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01 Dec 2017

antic604 wrote:
stephensmattlee wrote:
25 Nov 2017
Image
I'd love that to happen, doesn't even has to be 3D with shadows, reflections, etc. - just increase the resolution & detail, leave the placement of controls, workflow & functionality.

:thumbs_up:
Absolutely. Only change I wish they’d have made years ago was to be able to load your own audio samples into Malstrom


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househoppin09
Posts: 536
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01 Dec 2017

stephensmattlee: Just out of curiosity, what emulator did you use to run MacOS 9?

On topic, I agree with a lot of the critiques (especially as relates to Reason's current "mishmash" of styles, the disjointedness of the current transport bar combined with the older raster graphics, etc. - yuck). I just really hope that, if and when they start overhauling the UI, they double down on the skeuomorphism. I mean, come on, it's Reason, the skeuomorphism is kind of the whole point! They need to back away completely from the whole "flat"/minimalism visual trend. I was very disappointed to see them go that route with the new transport. There's no way that look will ever be appropriate for a UI that's as necessarily "physical" as Reason's is always going to be. And as far as overhauling the old devices like SubTractor--I really hope they don't. Vectorize maybe, improve resolution/scalability definitely, but any major overhaul of the actual look of those devices would be a real shame. Kind of like rewriting history. Those devices are what they are, and as long as their sound and feature set isn't changing then their look shouldn't change either.

EdGrip
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01 Dec 2017

I definitely prefer the new transport. Clean and clear.
The most obvious thing with GUI design is to maximise the surface area of every control as far as sensibly possible in the space they're sharing, in order to minimise the amount of mouse (or touchpad!) precision, and fine motor control, required. One of my pet hates in Reason is the tiny, tiny arrow button for expanding and minimising devices in the rack. Even in 2001 that must have been the idea of a total sadist, and it's still there! "Click on this particular pixel to perform this common task!" There are plenty of elements in the Reason UI that I feel are needlessly fiddly, especially the older devices - that particular button just epitomises it.
I would say general fiddly-ness is the main thing to address, and that's related to an overhaul for today's massive monitors.

stephensmattlee
Posts: 144
Joined: 05 Feb 2015

01 Dec 2017

househoppin09 wrote:stephensmattlee: Just out of curiosity, what emulator did you use to run MacOS 9?

On topic, I agree with a lot of the critiques (especially as relates to Reason's current "mishmash" of styles, the disjointedness of the current transport bar combined with the older raster graphics, etc. - yuck). I just really hope that, if and when they start overhauling the UI, they double down on the skeuomorphism. I mean, come on, it's Reason, the skeuomorphism is kind of the whole point! They need to back away completely from the whole "flat"/minimalism visual trend. I was very disappointed to see them go that route with the new transport. There's no way that look will ever be appropriate for a UI that's as necessarily "physical" as Reason's is always going to be. And as far as overhauling the old devices like SubTractor--I really hope they don't. Vectorize maybe, improve resolution/scalability definitely, but any major overhaul of the actual look of those devices would be a real shame. Kind of like rewriting history. Those devices are what they are, and as long as their sound and feature set isn't changing then their look shouldn't change either.
Was dabbling around with SheepShaver on the intentions of trying to limit myself to using Reasons original 1.0 feature set and instruments/devices. (was then whilst I had Reason 1 and 10 open side by side with the same devices that I saw how little had changed in almost 20 years).

Is a little bit long long winded to get OS 9 running properly through it, but managed to get there in the end once I got my head around it.

Very good points about Reasons current visuals too, absolutely agree. Wouldn’t want them to change anything too drastically but rather just give the devices a new lick of paint, possibly adding a few features to the old instruments too without changing their functionality.


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miscend
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02 Dec 2017

How about CPU usage, did you compare them?

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full-of-life
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03 Dec 2017

At first glance DirectX API - Here’s the thing DirectX 7.0 (Reason 1.0 ) vs. DirectX 12 (Reason 10.0 ) visual comparison

In fact, DirectX 12 people upgrading their computers on Windows 10, Microsoft’s latest operating system.

@Psuper Reason 2017-????: GUI 1.0 Clunky yet too small on 4k viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7504446
R10 msi gt72 windows10 abluesky mediadesk 2.1 CME WaveIdea Bitstream 3X/Xkey37 4filegate YT ▢▢ allihoopa

stephensmattlee
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03 Dec 2017

miscend wrote:How about CPU usage, did you compare them?
Didn’t compare the CPU but would imagine 1.0 would be a lot more efficient.
Can also run ReBirth as well using SheepShaver, like I say the most awkward thing is getting it set up and installed.


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Creativemind
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03 Dec 2017

stephensmattlee wrote:
25 Nov 2017
Yeh I think Reason 5-7 everything looked coherent enough, did prefer the transport bar from then as well.
Reason 8s new style transport bar just seemed out of place visually and stylistically


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I agree. I'm used to it now but after upgrading to 8 it did take me a while to get used to it. The old one before 6 was great. I like the way on version 1 that the transport lights up. Always like that effect on anything. Like the LED type display of the time on the Robotic Bean TS-1 Time Slider Re etc.

Wasn't the Reason 8 transport the 4th different one or 5 actually if you include the dark themed one in 9 or 6 as there presumably is a blue one too.
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Raveshaper
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03 Dec 2017

Reason has somewhat of an identity crisis in that it wants to be the way young people make new music but it has built its brand on feeling old and looking the same. In many ways it can not be modernized without sacrificing its current qualities. But without change or compromise, it will only continue to appeal to current users and long time enthusiasts.

I think a middle ground would be to leave the rack unchanged, but convert it to a flow chart of sorts that acts like a spread of thumbnails that can be clicked to reveal larger interfaces in a floating layer.

Let's be real for a second. Reason uses simulated masking tape for its labels. Imitation tape and sharpied letters turned 90 degrees. Kids are learning on gear that has segmented displays and visual feedback. Whoever has actually labeled a mixing board with masking tape and sharpie since the late 90s, raise your hand.

Gotta modernize.
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avasopht
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03 Dec 2017

Trends become outdated.

Better to have a bland style that stands the test of time.

EdGrip
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03 Dec 2017

In creativemind's pic, I like the first and last transports best!

I think the thing Raveshaper's saying is that the "trend" of Reason's entire selling point is becoming outdated.
With every year that passes, new music makers become generationally further and further removed from anyone who ever wrote masking-tape labels on a 19" rack sampler. It's like a mobile phone camera making a shutter noise that's just an abstract historical sound effect for most young users.

Now, I love the whole rack-and-cables thing, it's literally why I chose Reason as my first DAW. Before that I played guitar, used lots of pedals, so I knew the rack in Reason would help me understand what was going on.

But I think it's a UI concept that might have a finite lifespan. Actually: I think the rack, as the visual overview of devices and grabbable connections between them, is a good idea and always will be. But if it stopped pretending to be actual physical hardware, I'd be okay with that, and it might help Reason to do that.
I like the vintage knobs and scratches and the pretend hardware (though not the saggy cables, as noted in another thread.) But I wouldn't mind if things changed.

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EnochLight
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03 Dec 2017

Raveshaper wrote:
03 Dec 2017
Let's be real for a second. Reason uses simulated masking tape for its labels. Imitation tape and sharpied letters turned 90 degrees. Kids are learning on gear that has segmented displays and visual feedback. Whoever has actually labeled a mixing board with masking tape and sharpie since the late 90s, raise your hand.
Depends. Perhaps there should just be the "Reason X: Hans Zimmer Mixer Edition"? :puf_bigsmile:


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stephensmattlee
Posts: 144
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03 Dec 2017

Would never want the Props to change Reasons main approach to making music, for me it emulating a hardware studio is what makes it so inspiring and unique compared to other Daws, not only that it’s educational too :)


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