Better create effect

This forum is for discussing Reason. Questions, answers, ideas, and opinions... all apply.
Post Reply
ebai101
Posts: 3
Joined: 02 May 2019

18 May 2020

Hey all,

I've been lurking here for ages, but I've just made something cool I thought would be good to share. I have been spending some more time in Ableton lately for work, and I really love the Command-F feature for adding instruments and effects, namely how keyboard friendly it is. I tried to replicate that for Reason using a Keyboard Maestro macro, and I think I succeeded!

Here's a link to the thing, I call it "Better Create Effect."
https://github.com/ebai101/better-create-effect

Basically, when you hit the keyboard shortcut (I use Command-F) it pops up a search bar, where you can type in the name of whatever device you want to add (with autocomplete) and it'll create it for you. Makes it much easier to add several devices quickly.

It requires Keyboard Maestro to work, so macOS is inherently required. I laid out some instructions in the Github page, hopefully that'll be enough for some people to try it out. Would love to hear what you guys think!

User avatar
Seckin
Posts: 120
Joined: 09 Apr 2016

19 May 2020

This sounds great, thanks! I'm on a PC so I can't use it, but it actually inspired me to make a Windows version and I'll post it once it's done.
If you can't make a hit with Malstrom, Subtractor and Redrum, you can't make a hit at all.

ebai101
Posts: 3
Joined: 02 May 2019

19 May 2020

Sure thing, glad you dig it. I'm guessing you'd use AutoHotKey?

The way I go about compiling the list of plugins is a bit cumbersome; it uses an Apple JXA script to read the menus and build a JSON file from that. I think there's a way to read menus in AHK but I'm not positive, I haven't used it in a while lol. If you can get that working it should be pretty smooth going from there to set everything else up.

Even if it does work on PC, scraping the menus is definitely not ideal - a better method would be to read the __PluginDatabase.dat or __PluginCache.dat files, but I haven't been able to decode those files into a usable format (that might be against TOS too?)

User avatar
esselfortium
Posts: 1456
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Contact:

19 May 2020

This is a great idea, nice work!
Sarah Mancuso
My music: Future Human

User avatar
Despondo
Competition Winner
Posts: 1030
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: Charlotte, NC
Contact:

19 May 2020

This should be a feature request to be added into the software by default. Thanks for sharing! Going to get a lot of use out of this!

User avatar
Despondo
Competition Winner
Posts: 1030
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: Charlotte, NC
Contact:

19 May 2020

FYI, I had to modify the script line 3 to change the name to 'Reason Suite 11', as I have that version instead of 'Reason 11'. Just sharing this for others that might have this issue.

User avatar
Despondo
Competition Winner
Posts: 1030
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: Charlotte, NC
Contact:

19 May 2020

Sorry, one more thing....

Is it possible for you to create an additional copy of your script with some modifications?

I am looking for an easy way to generate a list of all of my devices, especially VSTs, so I can add them to a spreadsheet in Google Docs? I have created one up there to keep track of purchases, trials, freebies, etc. and make sure I have the ones I use installed on both my iMac and my MBP.

Right now, I load up the Manage Plugins window and go through the list manually. Very tedious and not easy to sort alphabetically.

I wish there was an export to CSV button, but a script like yours would help immensely. :-)

User avatar
Despondo
Competition Winner
Posts: 1030
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: Charlotte, NC
Contact:

20 May 2020

I found out a way to do this. I was able to parse the json file into a csv and import that to excel. Works like a charm!

ebai101
Posts: 3
Joined: 02 May 2019

21 May 2020

Despondo wrote:
19 May 2020
FYI, I had to modify the script line 3 to change the name to 'Reason Suite 11', as I have that version instead of 'Reason 11'. Just sharing this for others that might have this issue.
Yeah, you have to make sure the name in getPluginDb.scpt matches the name of your Reason application. Should be that simple for any version.
Despondo wrote:
19 May 2020
Sorry, one more thing....

Is it possible for you to create an additional copy of your script with some modifications?

I am looking for an easy way to generate a list of all of my devices, especially VSTs, so I can add them to a spreadsheet in Google Docs? I have created one up there to keep track of purchases, trials, freebies, etc. and make sure I have the ones I use installed on both my iMac and my MBP.

Right now, I load up the Manage Plugins window and go through the list manually. Very tedious and not easy to sort alphabetically.

I wish there was an export to CSV button, but a script like yours would help immensely.
I guess you figured out a solution :D but I still hope that a faster/more automatic option might exist. Reason does keep a database of all the plugins it knows in some proprietary format. I've poked around in there trying to do exactly what you describe, and haven't been able to make sense of it. I guess that's par for the course with Reason (in my experience they like to keep data tied up pretty tight!)

User avatar
Despondo
Competition Winner
Posts: 1030
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: Charlotte, NC
Contact:

22 May 2020

Looks like the players list created by the script just lists 'None' as the vendor and the vendor name as the plugin.

User avatar
Mmj85
Posts: 87
Joined: 28 Jan 2015

22 May 2020

Wow this look very interesting, this would increase my workflow greatly.
The only issue is that i am a musician with no computer skills unfortunately. :(

Would someone be able to create a video that would walk the process to install it?

Doesn't hurt to ask i guess ;)

Thanks in advance.

Post Reply
  • Information
  • Who is online

    Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 22 guests