Ive never developed but can it be that hard?

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zoidkirb
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02 Nov 2019

If anyone wants to see in action a daw where the devs cram in every feature under the sun, have a look at cubase . It works, and it's powerful but certain use cases are plagued by bugs, sometimes for years as new features come in and bugs are created in the ageing code. It's also a rather dense program, with so much going on it can be rather daunting.
Personally I really enjoy the more streamlined, hassle free Reason experience. Im glad they didn't cave into every wild demand (video, scoring, 'be ableton live') but at some point hoping these types of glaring , long standing issues like gui, hotkeys, punch ins) get addressed.
They seem to be on the right path with the sequencer updates to 11.

EdGrip
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03 Nov 2019

This thread reminds me of a time, years ago, a chap we knew - a Rockist who sang in a guitar covers band - was at a party we were having. We put on Daft Punk's "Alive 2007" album. He listened for a while, his irritation turning to anger, and then eventually he said

"It's just shit. Because it's so easy. If you guys were musicians, you'd understand just how easy this music is to make. It's just a beat - that's all it is. It's just a beat. And then they stop one beat, and they start another one!"

To this day, if we are having a particularly rich shared moment listening to something electronic - maybe a particularly good drop, somewhere around midnight - one of us will inevitably remind the group:

It's just a beat.

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miyaru
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03 Nov 2019

EdGrip wrote:
03 Nov 2019
This thread reminds me of a time, years ago, a chap we knew - a Rockist who sang in a guitar covers band - was at a party we were having. We put on Daft Punk's "Alive 2007" album. He listened for a while, his irritation turning to anger, and then eventually he said

"It's just shit. Because it's so easy. If you guys were musicians, you'd understand just how easy this music is to make. It's just a beat - that's all it is. It's just a beat. And then they stop one beat, and they start another one!"

To this day, if we are having a particularly rich shared moment listening to something electronic - maybe a particularly good drop, somewhere around midnight - one of us will inevitably remind the group:

It's just a beat.
Daft Punk ain't just a beat, it is done short of what they deserve!!!! I like them very much, it can be not your style but it is musical though!!!!

What shortsighted by the rockist!!!!!
Greetings from Miyaru.
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Korg N1, Yamaha RM1x :thumbup:

danc
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03 Nov 2019

EdGrip wrote:
03 Nov 2019
This thread reminds me of a time, years ago, a chap we knew - a Rockist who sang in a guitar covers band - was at a party we were having. We put on Daft Punk's "Alive 2007" album. He listened for a while, his irritation turning to anger, and then eventually he said

"It's just shit. Because it's so easy. If you guys were musicians, you'd understand just how easy this music is to make. It's just a beat - that's all it is. It's just a beat. And then they stop one beat, and they start another one!"

To this day, if we are having a particularly rich shared moment listening to something electronic - maybe a particularly good drop, somewhere around midnight - one of us will inevitably remind the group:

It's just a beat.
'It's shit because it's easy' - classic quote!

Having said that... it has become easy to make electronic music. But it's bloody difficult to make great electronic music. In the same way that it's much easier to make video games in 2019 than in the 90's as you don't need to write a 3D engine from scratch. But you need to have a master's touch to make a great game, however many great tools you now have to achieve it.

When you cook a meal, you don't need to grow all the ingredients yourself. You still have to be a good cook to make a great meal. Who should get the credit when you make an amazing lasagne... you or the farmers???

Anyway - back to making Reason better. It can't be that hard can it? Probably not. It's easy. It'll only take a few months to sort it! However... there are many many many things to consider here. How hard it is to code is only a small part of the equation. The economics of it... as in... how much it will cost and will they get their money back is of greater concern. I can guarantee that even if they had to re-write Reason from scratch they would do it if the money was there.
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EdGrip
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03 Nov 2019

Of course - just as it is easy to bang out some power chords on guitar, but yet it's not so easy to writeTeenage Kicks.

EdGrip
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03 Nov 2019

danc wrote:
03 Nov 2019

'It's shit because it's easy' - classic quote!
I've always thought "And then they just stop one beat ......... And they start another one" would make a great drop.

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chimp_spanner
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04 Nov 2019

zoidkirb wrote:
02 Nov 2019
If anyone wants to see in action a daw where the devs cram in every feature under the sun, have a look at cubase . It works, and it's powerful but certain use cases are plagued by bugs, sometimes for years as new features come in and bugs are created in the ageing code. It's also a rather dense program, with so much going on it can be rather daunting.
Personally I really enjoy the more streamlined, hassle free Reason experience. Im glad they didn't cave into every wild demand (video, scoring, 'be ableton live') but at some point hoping these types of glaring , long standing issues like gui, hotkeys, punch ins) get addressed.
They seem to be on the right path with the sequencer updates to 11.
Cubase is definitely bloated at this point. I mean it can be simple if you want it to be but even to this day - having used Cubase literally since the very beginning - I still can’t find things easily in its preferences because there are SO many categories. And if I’m honest I probably use about 25% if what Pro 10 can actually do.

It does do a lot of things very well though. I just find it hard to navigate and focus sometimes. Reason is just way more direct and inspiring to me, even with the things it’s currently missing.

That’s not to say I’m not having a tonne of fun using the rack in it now but I still much prefer to write in Reason.

sdst
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04 Nov 2019

I don't know if it's hard to develop

But Reaper, I think it's just two people working, and that DAW kill all the others DAW in minutes

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Oquasec
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04 Nov 2019

Reason is if cubase lost 75% of it's features but had a fast workflow.
Producer/Programmer.
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jlgrimes
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04 Nov 2019

kimothebeatmaker wrote:
31 Oct 2019
Some of the feature requests i've seen be ignored by Propellerhead...don't seem that hard to implement...

This is my ignorance talking, but how hard is it to implement things like customizable hotkeys? I see "Additional Overrides" and if they could just add the rest of the commands to that, it would be lovely.

Or HiDpi Scaling? Is it not just re-imaging the GUI image files and replacing them with hi resolution vectors? Am I over simplifying this?

I think at the very minimum, Reason 11 should have supported hi resolution monitors, working in low res mode is painful...but maybe im just a wuss lol. Ok no maybe, I AM a wuss.

iMacs for the most part come with 4k these days, and Macbooks are all in hi res retina screens...
HiDpi scaling probably is a lot more complex than it sounds. Ableton, Studio One, and FL Studio all support HiDpi scaling. All three programs support it differently though.

Not only must Reason get it to work with their native graphics, but it also must allow plugins to play well.

All of this also uses performance bandwidth as well so audio streams probably will need to have the highest priority, hence there could be performance issues.


Someone mentioned that by Reason using a bunch of bitmaps for its graphics makes the scaling issue more difficult for them.


I would think it is definitely doable but not necessarily easy and something they could whip up in one month. It would take time and they probably do have to balance resources with other feature priorities and market/business related agendas.

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zoidkirb
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05 Nov 2019

chimp_spanner wrote:
04 Nov 2019
zoidkirb wrote:
02 Nov 2019
It does do a lot of things very well though. I just find it hard to navigate and focus sometimes. Reason is just way more direct and inspiring to me, even with the things it’s currently missing.

That’s not to say I’m not having a tonne of fun using the rack in it now but I still much prefer to write in Reason.
Strongly agree with this. Reason is my go to place to get creative. Cubase is great for melodic connect/editing and of course mixing but I don't find it inspiring, it's more of a utility for me.


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diminished
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06 Nov 2019

joeyluck wrote:
06 Nov 2019
An entire week and not a single puberty joke :thumbs_up:
Puberty was never reached :cool:
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Sargie
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06 Nov 2019

Disclaimer: I’ve been working in professional software development (mostly video games) in various capacities for 30 years.

Compared to the past, it is relatively easy to do a a course and learn the basics of programming but like most other worthwhile activities it takes a long time to get truly proficient at it.

Also, to make a good piece of software you are going to place in the hands of an end user requires a lot more than just programming skills.

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Creativemind
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08 Nov 2019

danc wrote:
03 Nov 2019
EdGrip wrote:
03 Nov 2019
This thread reminds me of a time, years ago, a chap we knew - a Rockist who sang in a guitar covers band - was at a party we were having. We put on Daft Punk's "Alive 2007" album. He listened for a while, his irritation turning to anger, and then eventually he said

"It's just shit. Because it's so easy. If you guys were musicians, you'd understand just how easy this music is to make. It's just a beat - that's all it is. It's just a beat. And then they stop one beat, and they start another one!"

To this day, if we are having a particularly rich shared moment listening to something electronic - maybe a particularly good drop, somewhere around midnight - one of us will inevitably remind the group:

It's just a beat.
'It's shit because it's easy' - classic quote!

Having said that... it has become easy to make electronic music. But it's bloody difficult to make great electronic music. In the same way that it's much easier to make video games in 2019 than in the 90's as you don't need to write a 3D engine from scratch. But you need to have a master's touch to make a great game, however many great tools you now have to achieve it.

When you cook a meal, you don't need to grow all the ingredients yourself. You still have to be a good cook to make a great meal. Who should get the credit when you make an amazing lasagne... you or the farmers???

Anyway - back to making Reason better. It can't be that hard can it? Probably not. It's easy. It'll only take a few months to sort it! However... there are many many many things to consider here. How hard it is to code is only a small part of the equation. The economics of it... as in... how much it will cost and will they get their money back is of greater concern. I can guarantee that even if they had to re-write Reason from scratch they would do it if the money was there.
Yeah, quite a lot of electronic music isn't breaking any musical boundaries but in the realms of production and structure, that's where it excell's. The choosing of the right sounds and samples is more difficult that people give it credit for too.
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mcatalao
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08 Nov 2019

kimothebeatmaker wrote:
01 Nov 2019
I didn't think it would be easy per say, but complicated to the point where they ignore user requests for years and multiple versions? Especially for engineers who are familiar with the code, assuming they do have inhouse engineers and don't outsource their work everytime they update?
I'm sorry, but you're seeing things at the wrong perspective. A software company usually does not ignore user requests (at least if they are'nt absurd and if they are in context of the application's scope).

There's a great difference between ignoring and prioritising. Reason Studios not only makes marketing, usability research and they research their user base through questionnaires they send to the users, and some of their employees not only lurk on these forums as also participate on some discussions about feature enhancements.

However, think that for a company to keep being viable, it has to have a regular cash flow. So for a B2C (business to client) software company like them (a product software company, not a service, or B2B company), they have to get some cash in from time to time, from sales and other ways. So, there must be a balance between feature set, user base need, stuff to get new clients, stuff to retain older users that might or not get the updates. All this alongside marketing strategies, partnerships, and product diversification.

As for if it is hard to do it, believe me it is. Have you ever asked yourself why there are so few IT guys? Well, it's because it's hard, near scientific. Specially regarding audio, and the simplest feature set could be a nightmare to implement if it impacts over the building blocks of the application. Putting reason working with vector based gui, is most certainly one of the case.

esefelipe
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08 Nov 2019

Let’s just get that AU plugin going though, yeah?

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kimothebeatmaker
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12 Nov 2019

EdGrip wrote:
03 Nov 2019
This thread reminds me of a time, years ago, a chap we knew - a Rockist who sang in a guitar covers band - was at a party we were having. We put on Daft Punk's "Alive 2007" album. He listened for a while, his irritation turning to anger, and then eventually he said

"It's just shit. Because it's so easy. If you guys were musicians, you'd understand just how easy this music is to make. It's just a beat - that's all it is. It's just a beat. And then they stop one beat, and they start another one!"

To this day, if we are having a particularly rich shared moment listening to something electronic - maybe a particularly good drop, somewhere around midnight - one of us will inevitably remind the group:

It's just a beat.
Im sorry, but i never said Reason was shit...never once did I mention it to be near garbage. So...yea...no.
"Cocaine and Prostitutes"

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kimothebeatmaker
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12 Nov 2019

mcatalao wrote:
08 Nov 2019
kimothebeatmaker wrote:
01 Nov 2019
I didn't think it would be easy per say, but complicated to the point where they ignore user requests for years and multiple versions? Especially for engineers who are familiar with the code, assuming they do have inhouse engineers and don't outsource their work everytime they update?
I'm sorry, but you're seeing things at the wrong perspective. A software company usually does not ignore user requests (at least if they are'nt absurd and if they are in context of the application's scope).

There's a great difference between ignoring and prioritising. Reason Studios not only makes marketing, usability research and they research their user base through questionnaires they send to the users, and some of their employees not only lurk on these forums as also participate on some discussions about feature enhancements.

However, think that for a company to keep being viable, it has to have a regular cash flow. So for a B2C (business to client) software company like them (a product software company, not a service, or B2B company), they have to get some cash in from time to time, from sales and other ways. So, there must be a balance between feature set, user base need, stuff to get new clients, stuff to retain older users that might or not get the updates. All this alongside marketing strategies, partnerships, and product diversification.

As for if it is hard to do it, believe me it is. Have you ever asked yourself why there are so few IT guys? Well, it's because it's hard, near scientific. Specially regarding audio, and the simplest feature set could be a nightmare to implement if it impacts over the building blocks of the application. Putting reason working with vector based gui, is most certainly one of the case.
Fair points!
The thing I see, that makes "this is too hard" argument moot, is when 3rd party companies with limited funding come up with way better ideas, with less resources than PH....
or am I seeing it wrong there too?
"Cocaine and Prostitutes"

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bitley
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13 Nov 2019

I quite enjoyed basic and superbasic programming on sinclair machines back in the day. Can this knowledge be used somewhere today; are there any cool basic / somewhat similar programming environments u could recommend? It has to be solid and great for me to not lose inspiration; no kids stuff, no simplified things - needs to be able to create applications & only mac ideally.

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mcatalao
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13 Nov 2019

kimothebeatmaker wrote:
12 Nov 2019
Fair points!
The thing I see, that makes "this is too hard" argument moot, is when 3rd party companies with limited funding come up with way better ideas, with less resources than PH....
or am I seeing it wrong there too?
Well... Your talking about different things... One is being able to cope with users requests. The answer to that is prioritisation. So propellerheads prioritises and adds some features trying to develop what is asked from the most users.

The other is creating something new and fresh. For a company to create something new it will probably something from the ground up. Like reason was 20 years ago right? But ideas everyone can have but implementing them it's another talk, specially when the company and application have reached a certain maturity.

Having companies creating fresh and new stuff with supposedly less resources than RS (this is questionable because though a company like rs might have a lot of people, they are assigned to different areas, different projects and different products and in case of reason different parts of functionalities of the product) is not wrong doing of propellerheads and rather merit of those companies. Right?

Once a product reaches maturity, the iterations start being smaller and smaller, its something well studied.

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kimothebeatmaker
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13 Nov 2019

mcatalao wrote:
13 Nov 2019
kimothebeatmaker wrote:
12 Nov 2019
Fair points!
The thing I see, that makes "this is too hard" argument moot, is when 3rd party companies with limited funding come up with way better ideas, with less resources than PH....
or am I seeing it wrong there too?
Well... Your talking about different things... One is being able to cope with users requests. The answer to that is prioritisation. So propellerheads prioritises and adds some features trying to develop what is asked from the most users.

The other is creating something new and fresh. For a company to create something new it will probably something from the ground up. Like reason was 20 years ago right? But ideas everyone can have but implementing them it's another talk, specially when the company and application have reached a certain maturity.

Having companies creating fresh and new stuff with supposedly less resources than RS (this is questionable because though a company like rs might have a lot of people, they are assigned to different areas, different projects and different products and in case of reason different parts of functionalities of the product) is not wrong doing of propellerheads and rather merit of those companies. Right?

Once a product reaches maturity, the iterations start being smaller and smaller, its something well studied.
I think im speaking on the samething. When you say, creating something new and fresh? I mean...all of the requests are "new and fresh" for Reason...because they don't exist in Reason. Since when has PH created something new and fresh? Adding VST ability? Not new and fresh...automation curves? Not really new and fresh...but if we're talking new and fresh to Reason, then yes...new and fresh :). PH hasn't innovated anything in a while, if anything they are still failing to even keep up with the tech we have now...

"Having companies create something fresh with less resources is a merit..." Yeah, it is...but it also moots the argument that "coding is hard...thats why these things take years to implement"...there has to be other reasons rather than "coding it really hard"...which was the original question of the post. Can it really be THAT hard? If these smaller companies are doing it? I feel like PH has lost their small company motivation and drive, and are now just out to make a profit...

Also, when a product reaches maturity, the iterations start being smaller? Well, what iterations? Do you mean like .1 updates? Because full on 1.0 updates/upgrades aren't meant to be "small" at all...especially if they are charging money. For instance, Logic 9 was a very mature product...Logic Pro 10, was no small upgrade. Logic 10.3 to 10.4 wasn't very small either.

Pro Tools 10/11 wasn't small...it was quite significant, as they introduced a whole new plugin type with AAX. So when you say iterations, do you mean the 0.1 updates? Because I was meaning 1.0 upgrades, so we may be speaking on different things.
"Cocaine and Prostitutes"

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bitley
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13 Nov 2019

Oh stop guessing about company policies!

Did I ever get a reply?

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Delora Software
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13 Nov 2019

bitley wrote:
13 Nov 2019
I quite enjoyed basic and superbasic programming on sinclair machines back in the day. Can this knowledge be used somewhere today; are there any cool basic / somewhat similar programming environments u could recommend? It has to be solid and great for me to not lose inspiration; no kids stuff, no simplified things - needs to be able to create applications & only mac ideally.
Take a look at the Swift language (https://developer.apple.com/swift/) and Apple's Xcode development environment (https://developer.apple.com/xcode/). Apple makes these tools available to everyone, and Swift has Playgrounds, which are an interactive programming environment you can use to rapidly prototype and test ideas. Swift is positioned as a "first programming language", much like Basic was 40+ years ago. There is a lot of educational material available, and a vibrant development community active at sites like Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/questions .

Swift and Xcode are powerful, professional development tools. You can create commercial quality software that runs natively on MacOS and iOS with Swift and Xcode. There are many open source code libraries available, including ones for audio and MIDI development. Those libraries can greatly accelerate creating custom applications.
Doug

Douglas Kraul
Delora Software
Developer of rsTouch Pro for Reason, and rsRemote for Reason

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bitley
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13 Nov 2019

Most kind of you Douglas! I will take a look for sure :-) Excellent reply sir!

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