Cakewalk vs Reason

[reddust]

This is a feature I wonder why Reason and other DAWs haven't implemented yet, I don't get the point of limiting the color palette to a short list.

I understand the point. To me, the list is better than the whole color space to pick from. I can remember the color name or its position in the list, otherwise I would have to keep in mind what colors I already used look like.

yes, I can understand that, what most companies do is to give a set of preset colors and an additional option to add your custom colors as well, that way everyone can choose the right option. I think it shouldn't be hard to implement either but Reason is not the only DAW that only offers a small color palette so I guess there might be additional reasons not to implement it

[Proboscis]

I understand the point. To me, the list is better than the whole color space to pick from. I can remember the color name or its position in the list, otherwise I would have to keep in mind what colors I already used look like.

You don't think it's poorly implemented though ? To me, the using the dark colors makes it difficult to read the mix channel titles in the rack, and some of the bright colors in the sequencer make it almost impossible to see the grid lines. 'Lime' & 'Lemon' are unusable for this, and I find myself having to change the (automation) clip colors to gray when I'm working manually in this section.

For me, using Reason I find the use of colors to be very valuable for navigating tracks, and I also 'group' similar instruments by color. My drums are always a shade of blue (probably because I use OctoRex a lot), my electric guitars are orange (because that kinda resembles my main guitar, with a sunburst finish), acoustic guitars are wheat (because it sort of reminds me of the light wood color of my Ibanez nylon), my bass is always red (my electric bass is red, even though I mostly use MIDI bass), piano or electric keys are yellow (for no reason), vocals are pink (as when I occasionally use a vox sample, it's always female), orchestral strings are ochre and brown (loosely resembling the finish of instruments in the viol family) and synths are random colors (the greens would be the obvious choice, not sure why I don't use them).

That said, I feel that a lot of the colors are NASTY and make me feel uncomfortable to look at. Plus, if I have three electric guitars, it would be nice to have slight color tone variations, such as rhythm being the darkest of orange, lead being a bit lighter etc.

Here's a quick example of how I might use custom colors if I have the opportunity to do so, set around a set of 'rules' to group specific instruments by color shading, increasing luminosity by 30 each time from one of the 48 base colors. To me, the groups of the same type of instrument then become obvious, and the stronger the color, the more prominent each one is in a track, while still maintaining the overall same color rule as outlined in an earlier paragraph. While it may be a bit of fooling around, it's only a one-time thing that makes the rest of the process of composing & mixing more intuitive.

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cakewalk_color_shades.PNG (109.84 KiB) Viewed 4125 times

[Proboscis]

I've noticed also that for easy visual identification, Cakewalk also allows you to insert icons that appear in each sequencer track control panel. There are plenty of categories to choose from, and within each there are plenty of variants. For acoustic guitar alone, there are 60 !

Although I'm not sure I would use this myself, it feels a bit cheesy.

EDIT: These are bitmap images, so users could take photos of their actual gear and create custom icons. Or screenshots of synth plugins. Still.... not sure I would use this feature, but some may find it helpful - and it's another example of 'Cakewalk vs Reason'........

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cakewalk_track_icons.PNG (17.96 KiB) Viewed 4122 times

[Proboscis]

Cakewalk has AUTOSAVE, with customizable time/changes, and version control

>

cakewalk_autosave.PNG (4.6 KiB) Viewed 4117 times

[Proboscis]

Well, my serious Bro-Love for Cakewalk may have reached the end of the Honeymoon period after a few short days.

I decided to give it a run on a new music project, to see what I might achieve with the limited instruments onboard, plus a handful of VSTs I own. Not content with losing my other love, the OctoRex, I thought I would pipe the drums in via ReWire. Cakewalk make it dead simple to do this, I didn't need to RTFM it was that straightforward.

So here I am, controller & guitar to hand, and laid down a nice little phrase with a vintage Rhodes. Added some bass, and a touch of guitar. How about some effects ? Sticking to the included suite, I threw on a digital delay unit and an amp head/cab combo. Sounds good. A little disorienting to navigate and move notes around, since the shortcut keys aren't intuitive to me. I then decided to see what would happen when I dragged an audio clip onto a MIDI lane. Processing, processing, processing.... all good

But then. the screen goes gray. I get the ' Cakewalk is not responding ' message. Bummer, I've crashed the DAW.

No problem, I think, I'll just start a new session. But, I hadn't yet set up the auto save, I knew that the moment it froze. No problem, I can play it again. However, when Cakewalk crashed, it hung my whole computer ! No access to the sound card settings. I cannot relaunch Cakewalk. Everything's dead, I can't even restart my computer, so I do a hard reset.

Finally I'm back in business. Record my phrases, add some effects, this time stacking a few into a single channel. Hello error message, nice to see you again. Cakewalk's crashed a second time. Once again, whole computer is kaput.

Then I got all nostalgic about the time when I first started exploring digital recording many years ago. A trial version of Cubase, a cracked version of Fruity Loops (it wasn't 'FL Studio' back then) and was reminded of that awkward time. A time when those too furnished me with that sweet little evil error message. It was an old computer, that by today would have been re-absorbed by the earth from which it came, and I almost gave up. But something, or perhaps someone, suggested Reason 4.

And behold, beautiful, uninterrupted music-making. I forfeited my ability to record guitar, but it didn't matter to me. I was making music on the computer ! And this vast array of rack devices was something I could relate to, at least a little. Audio comes out of there, and goes into here. So began my love affair with Reason.

Since Reason 4, I've worked on over 500 projects, and in that time I only recall a handful of crashes. One handful, really. And in two of those cases the file corrupted, and the songs were irretrievable. Not bad odds. I've had a dozen fatal exceptions with the A-List drums , which I put down to using them in a way they were not intended, but they never crashed the DAW. A quick save/close/relaunch and I was back in business. And a couple of errors with a free pitch shifting VST that was fixed soon enough (by uninstalling said VST and never using it again), and that's it. That's the grand total of problems I've had in over 10 years with Reason.

But here we are, into the second decade of my familiar and comfortable DAW relationship, and I'm looking to move on from my one true love. And it's here, my friends, where I am reminded of the futility in cheating on my lover with a fresh new young model. The passion has been growing, but there's some inconsolable issues. This new fling, she just can't operate with me, in a stable, trusting manner. The invigorating tryst on our first few dates was exciting, but alas, it's time for me to go, my lovely Cakewalk. Time for me to return into the open arms of the old draft horse that's gotten me through many an otherwise lonely night. She doesn't care how much I drink, or sit around in my underwear, unwashed and unshaven for entire weekend, together, alone, while I lovingly manipulate her buttons, arrange her rack, nor does she complain about how many items I try and shove into her to make the magic happen, just the way I like it.

So I ask of you, dear old Reason, will you please forgive me for leaving the nest for my brief fling ? I need a stable relationship, and just as I discovered when I was playing the field before we met, others cannot be relied upon. I am yours, dear Reason, and never shall I stray again.


_____________________________________________

TL;DR: Cakewalk doesn't play nicely with my mid-spec'd computer. It's also randomly over-riding the sample rate. Maybe by the time R12 is released, I'll have upgraded. Until then, I'm not interested in troubleshooting when I have a stable, reliable DAW to use. Although I am going to compile a comparison list of what's missing, and might send it to the RS CEO.

[PhillipOrdonez]

^ lol

Live crashes way more than Reason ever has, but fortunately it crashes better than cakewalk and actually auto saves so you don't lose everything and are back in business rather quickly.

[Jackjackdaw]

Lol, you see? Reason is not shit. Seems that needs pointing out on this forum more than anywhere else!

[guitfnky]

Reason is great. I don’t think many of us would be here if we didn’t think so. it’s inspiring, and as deep as you want it to be—in the Rack. the reason people question its place in the DAW world (especially since R11) is that its future as a DAW is in question.

like it or not, R11 was primarily aimed at users of other DAWs, NOT at users of Reason as their main DAW. that’s not really arguable (at least not if one is being honest with themselves)—using Reason as a VST is THE flagship feature they’re touting, as the main focus of their marketing.

the sequencer and workflow of the DAW are not as deep as many of us want them to be. they’re getting extremely long in the tooth, and the low-res GUI is right there too. those are the things that we DAW users care about right now. we’ve mostly got enough devices already (and the ability to buy anything we don’t already have from third parties).

if the direction of R11 is any indication of where RS’ focus will be going forward, we have reason to be concerned about the Reason DAW. of course, we can’t know what their focus is going to be until they announce something, so we can only speculate, and make educated guesses. too early for worry, not too early for concern, IMO.

[Jackjackdaw]

I know all of that is true but all the other DAWs have just as much jank and baggage and shit to complain about. The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence!

[rgdaniel]

...Time for me to return into the open arms of the old draft horse that's gotten me through many an otherwise lonely night. She doesn't care how much I drink, or sit around in my underwear, unwashed and unshaven for entire weekend, together, alone, while I lovingly manipulate her buttons, arrange her rack, nor does she complain about how many items I try and shove into her to make the magic happen, just the way I like it.

If we're sticking with the girlfriend metaphor, calling her an "old draft horse" to her face may not be the best idea...

[Proboscis]

Lol, you see? Reason is not shit. Seems that needs pointing out on this forum more than anywhere else!

I know all of that is true but all the other DAWs have just as much jank and baggage and shit to complain about. The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence!

This thread was never intended to be a 'Reason is shit' thread, but instead to investigate an alternative to Reason, due to what I perceive to be a lack of serious development to core DAW features. That I've discovered SO MANY shortcomings in this comparison exercise is a reflection of the facts. Perhaps that is what needs pointing out more on these forums, rather than users' blind allegiance to a product that's close to stagnant. I would prefer NOT to change DAWs, but when the grass IS greener elsewhere, it's a backwards step to insist that Reason is adequate.

I'm going to tally up what I've posted here, but at a guess it's been what... 15 features ? And in only one instance has someone responded with a correction that Reason can do the same/similar (Orthodox pointed out shortkeys for loop regions).As for everything else.... Quincy mentioned auto panning... this can be done within the rack, with one of Selig's tools that allow panning, and applying an LFO there. And your mentions of LFP, modulation and drum sequencing, again, that's all within the rack, right - rather than part of the sequencer or console (the two factors that make a DAW different from a plugin. And that's how we might want to look at Reason in 2020. As a plugin. All the incredible things that make Reason what it is, while no longer being crippled by workflow shortcomings.

As to my passionate post, intended to be tongue-in-cheek..... behind those words is a little parody of the obsession some Reason users have about the software. To those who insist that RS are doing their best, despite only a feeble handful of workflow rollouts at every release. To those who have such an obsession to demand that the CEO engage with the community. To those who think RS staff chiming in once in a blue moon to say 'oh yea, we're reading all your suggestions, and will pass it up to the boss', and believing this is something more than empty lip service to keep us on the hook.

This thread discussion branched out for a while (I don't mind, as I don't believe veering 'off topic' is ever a bad thing) between Guitfnky, Figg & QV about comparisons between Balndlab's focus on development & RS's development. And I can tell you this. On Cakewalk's forum, representatives from the company are very active in addressing users' needs and questions. Things do get sent off to development very quickly. The consensus among users seems to me like pre-exisiting SONAR users are very happy about all the changes and bug fixes that have been addressed in the short 18 months since the acquisition. In their time, the have completely re-written the 1700 page manual. They have a rolling changelog for all the updates, fixes & feature additions they have done, and its a 34 page document with THOUSANDS of entries.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aFO ... 3OjlA/edit

This to me seems like night & day when comparing Reason Studios. One company is passionate and dedicated to doing the most they can to improve their product, while the other company is doing the least they can.

As the performance issues I encountered (and what seemed to be a 'look, reason is GREAT after all response), I'll address that in my following post.

[Proboscis]

Live crashes way more than Reason ever has, but fortunately it crashes better than cakewalk and actually auto saves so you don't lose everything and are back in business rather quickly.

There's some clarification required on my part here, to be fair to Cakewalk.

1. I am using a pretty old PC that's barely spec'd enough to get the job done. To give you an idea, I can't even do basic video editing with simple FX without my PC crying out for help. Reason also falters when I have projects with a lot of components & tracks. The only difference here is that Reason becomes unplayable due to overload, rather than crashing. This is not any DAWs issue, but mine.

2. Cakewalk does have auto-save, as I mentioned in an earlier thread. I just hadn't set it up. But I love the autosave options of how many minutes/how many changes/how many versions etc. Version control as part of this is a brilliant feature

3. There are issues with my sound interface that I've been aware of for a long time, it's something that's made it impossible to use other software as well (OBS screen capture), whereby the settings on my PC randomly change themselves, and are unable to be fixed from the driver dialogue box. This is problematic with my early Cakewalk experience, where the rate will change to 96k despite t he song project set at 48k. But from their forums, this seems to have been answered by a staff member, and is quite likely a driver conflict which I'll need to investigate. Again, this is my problem, not theirs.

4. I also discovered a thread discussion in which the topic was about AAS plugins causing crashes. Other Cakewalk users' dump files were examined by Cakewalk staff, and seems to conclude that the crash issue is with AAS, and also corroborated by other users with the same issues. And wouldn't you know it - I too was running AAS plugins on every instrument track when I experienced the same problem.

All of these points considered, from my early research into troubleshooting, none of this may be a symptom of Cakewalk's stability at all, but the fault of other factors.

[Proboscis]

If we're sticking with the girlfriend metaphor, calling her an "old draft horse" to her face may not be the best idea...

Indeed, we wouldn't want to insult her many other lovers, the cuckolds who refuse to acknowledge her refusal in self-improvement

[orthodox]

If we're sticking with the girlfriend metaphor, calling her an "old draft horse" to her face may not be the best idea...

Indeed, we wouldn't want to insult her many other lovers, the cuckolds who refuse to acknowledge her refusal in self-improvement

A true gentleman always has something to tell another gentleman.

[Jackjackdaw]

I'm just winding you up pal. I just don't care about the development decisions of RS and all that stuff. Reason does what I want and when it doesn't I use something else. I'm always checking out other software to see what works better for me but all my best work gets done in Reason so I vouch for it being great.

[Creativemind]

I know that Reaper, at $60 for a licence, is coming out with updates and features all the time, and that's a two-man operation.

Didn't know it was a 2 man operation. I'm just learning it atm and it is a very powerful daw.

[Proboscis]

Didn't know it was a 2 man operation. I'm just learning it atm and it is a very powerful daw.

I've used Reaper a lot for a specific service I was offering, so I don't count that as much exposure to other DAWS, but what impressed me was that I could set up Reaper within 1/2 hour of first installing, create custom shortkeys in a flash, and navigate around audio tracks like a champion. There was never any need for instruments, MIDI tracking, FX or mixing. I'm not quite sure why I never explored it further for music making. Maybe it's that the control parameters and features are pretty old fashioned in their design, and Cakewalk is rather sexy. But for a workhorse utility in the specific production environment I was using it for, it gets 10/10.


According to Wikipedia:

Cockos currently has two programmers. Justin Frankel, the company founder, probably best known for his work on the Winamp media player application, and John Schwartz, who joined Cockos in 2008 and is the author of many audio plug-ins, notably a virtual analogue synthesizer called Olga.

It's also stated elsewhere that updates are released every few days. Frankel seems to be a passionate programmer, and he made mega-millions when AOL acquired his software Winamp, and associated company Nullsoft. It is also suggested that at the time of Winamp, under a $10 donation model, he was getting 'tens of thousands of dollars a week'. So Reaper is a passion project, from a dedicated programmer whose interest lies not so much in direct profit, but to make a brilliant product available. Much like the wealthy Meng Ru Kuok, who is throwing a LOT of resources towards making Cakewalk a brilliant DAW. I am seriously impressed by their exhaustive list of fixes and feature rollouts since taking over, and the sheer attentiveness and detail the staff go to to help users on their forum.

Makes me wonder WTF Propellerhead staff do through any given year, when we get what.. 4.... workflow enhancements between versions.

[Creativemind]

Export to whatever format you want, rather than the developer deciding we only want WAV.

Choices.. how about that !

>
cakewalk_export_options.png

ALAC is missing haha!

[Creativemind]

This is a feature I wonder why Reason and other DAWs haven't implemented yet, I don't get the point of limiting the color palette to a short list.

the crazy thing is, AFAIR the Reason palette we have now *is* expanded. before, it was even more limited. can’t remember which version they added the new colors, but it might have been version 8.

It was 8 point something. It went from 24 to 32. 12 colours were added. I think graphite was one.

[guitfnky]

the crazy thing is, AFAIR the Reason palette we have now *is* expanded. before, it was even more limited. can’t remember which version they added the new colors, but it might have been version 8.

It was 8 point something. It went from 24 to 32. 12 colours were added. I think graphite was one.

ah yeah, that sounds right. and yeah, I remember getting the grey options and thinking it was weird how I was excited about that.

[Creativemind]

It was 8 point something. It went from 24 to 32. 12 colours were added. I think graphite was one.

ah yeah, that sounds right. and yeah, I remember getting the grey options and thinking it was weird how I was excited about that.

[Proboscis]

There are some tragedies through a person's lifetime, where we remember the precise time we discovered the great injustice that has unfolded in the universe

Kurt Cobains suicide. Princess Diana's fatal accident. The 9/11 attacks. The Indian Ocean Tsunami. That time when the numbskulls at Propellerheads gave us 'Neon Violet' as a color choice.

[Yonatan]

Reason's lack of Auto-save is a bit cocky, it is like not locking the door to to the house as burglery is so seldom. Or not locking the bike.
And Reason has been that trusted. One can work very far and then suddenly, oh I should maybe save this untitled document!

So seldom Reason crasches, and offcourse things takes a bit longer time to implement functionw when making sure it is so stable.
But since vst etc, it would still be handy with an Autosave option.
But imagine other DAWs not having it, ppl would abandon them since long, as so often there is some bug crashing it.

Would be handy with more color options in Reason.

[EdGrip]

ah yeah, that sounds right. and yeah, I remember getting the grey options and thinking it was weird how I was excited about that.
[/quote]

When I set up my template, I put in four drum mix channels - kick, snare, clap, HH. They are all grey - like a 909.

[mcatalao]

Well, my serious Bro-Love for Cakewalk may have reached the end of the Honeymoon period after a few short days.

I decided to give it a run on a new music project, to see what I might achieve with the limited instruments onboard, plus a handful of VSTs I own. Not content with losing my other love, the OctoRex, I thought I would pipe the drums in via ReWire. Cakewalk make it dead simple to do this, I didn't need to RTFM it was that straightforward.

So here I am, controller & guitar to hand, and laid down a nice little phrase with a vintage Rhodes. Added some bass, and a touch of guitar. How about some effects ? Sticking to the included suite, I threw on a digital delay unit and an amp head/cab combo. Sounds good. A little disorienting to navigate and move notes around, since the shortcut keys aren't intuitive to me. I then decided to see what would happen when I dragged an audio clip onto a MIDI lane. Processing, processing, processing.... all good

But then. the screen goes gray. I get the ' Cakewalk is not responding ' message. Bummer, I've crashed the DAW.

No problem, I think, I'll just start a new session. But, I hadn't yet set up the auto save, I knew that the moment it froze. No problem, I can play it again. However, when Cakewalk crashed, it hung my whole computer ! No access to the sound card settings. I cannot relaunch Cakewalk. Everything's dead, I can't even restart my computer, so I do a hard reset.

Finally I'm back in business. Record my phrases, add some effects, this time stacking a few into a single channel. Hello error message, nice to see you again. Cakewalk's crashed a second time. Once again, whole computer is kaput.

Then I got all nostalgic about the time when I first started exploring digital recording many years ago. A trial version of Cubase, a cracked version of Fruity Loops (it wasn't 'FL Studio' back then) and was reminded of that awkward time. A time when those too furnished me with that sweet little evil error message. It was an old computer, that by today would have been re-absorbed by the earth from which it came, and I almost gave up. But something, or perhaps someone, suggested Reason 4.

And behold, beautiful, uninterrupted music-making. I forfeited my ability to record guitar, but it didn't matter to me. I was making music on the computer ! And this vast array of rack devices was something I could relate to, at least a little. Audio comes out of there, and goes into here. So began my love affair with Reason.

Since Reason 4, I've worked on over 500 projects, and in that time I only recall a handful of crashes. One handful, really. And in two of those cases the file corrupted, and the songs were irretrievable. Not bad odds. I've had a dozen fatal exceptions with the A-List drums , which I put down to using them in a way they were not intended, but they never crashed the DAW. A quick save/close/relaunch and I was back in business. And a couple of errors with a free pitch shifting VST that was fixed soon enough (by uninstalling said VST and never using it again), and that's it. That's the grand total of problems I've had in over 10 years with Reason.

But here we are, into the second decade of my familiar and comfortable DAW relationship, and I'm looking to move on from my one true love. And it's here, my friends, where I am reminded of the futility in cheating on my lover with a fresh new young model. The passion has been growing, but there's some inconsolable issues. This new fling, she just can't operate with me, in a stable, trusting manner. The invigorating tryst on our first few dates was exciting, but alas, it's time for me to go, my lovely Cakewalk. Time for me to return into the open arms of the old draft horse that's gotten me through many an otherwise lonely night. She doesn't care how much I drink, or sit around in my underwear, unwashed and unshaven for entire weekend, together, alone, while I lovingly manipulate her buttons, arrange her rack, nor does she complain about how many items I try and shove into her to make the magic happen, just the way I like it.

So I ask of you, dear old Reason, will you please forgive me for leaving the nest for my brief fling ? I need a stable relationship, and just as I discovered when I was playing the field before we met, others cannot be relied upon. I am yours, dear Reason, and never shall I stray again.


_____________________________________________

TL;DR: Cakewalk doesn't play nicely with my mid-spec'd computer. It's also randomly over-riding the sample rate. Maybe by the time R12 is released, I'll have upgraded. Until then, I'm not interested in troubleshooting when I have a stable, reliable DAW to use. Although I am going to compile a comparison list of what's missing, and might send it to the RS CEO.