Is Reason 11 unstable?

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Bman70
Posts: 38
Joined: 08 Jun 2020

27 Jun 2020

I'm a fan of Reason who has used the DAW off and on for a decade. But Reason 11 (Intro) is the first time it's felt a bit like a beta version. I'm on an iMac 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 with 8GB RAM and 300GB space left on my 1TB hard drive. Edit: Sierra 10.12.6.

After a few weeks of use, I'm noticing some things I wouldn't expect to see in a stable release of a professional DAW. For instance, twice in the last several days Reason has just blinked out of existence when I was mixing a project. i.e., completely crashed and vanished from the screen. Fortunately I save my work every few minutes.

Today, I've noticed a new issue: I will select Save from the menu, and it apparently saves but the little red circle in the upper left doesn't change to an X to indicate a saved document. And if I try to close the document, Reason asks if I want to save it first, when I just did. So I'm effectively left with a song I can't close because I can't save it.

Finally, for the duration I've used Reason 11, upon opening I will often get a message that some songs weren't closed correctly, and if I want to Export Song List or something. I just click OK instead of Import and it seems to open my songs fine. I save and close my songs normally, so not sure why this is a constant random popup.

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Benedict
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27 Jun 2020

I can't say I have had any of those issues. Or that R11 has behaved worse than any other version.

The issues you report could be the result of failing hardware. A failure developing in HDD, RAM, MB, or even video card can result in these sorts of things. I know, I have had it happen.

It is also possible that a you have a VST on-board that is totally up buggering Reason's ability to error manage.

:-)
Benedict Roff-Marsh
Completely burned and gone

Bman70
Posts: 38
Joined: 08 Jun 2020

27 Jun 2020

Benedict wrote:
27 Jun 2020
I can't say I have had any of those issues. Or that R11 has behaved worse than any other version.

The issues you report could be the result of failing hardware. A failure developing in HDD, RAM, MB, or even video card can result in these sorts of things. I know, I have had it happen.

It is also possible that a you have a VST on-board that is totally up buggering Reason's ability to error manage.

:-)
That's good to know if it's likely not the software itself. Now that you mention a VST, Reason did throw an error once a few days ago about my Relab LX480 Complete reverb. What do you do with buggery VSTs? Obviously for a $200 reverb I don't want to find a substitute.

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chimp_spanner
Posts: 2907
Joined: 06 Mar 2015

27 Jun 2020

Yeah pretty much never happens. I’d say start simple. Work only using built in plugins and see if it’s stable. If it is start introducing VSTs. You’ll soon find out if it’s one plugin in particular. Just need to be methodical about it.

As for song saving issue I’d say check that your scratch disk drive (available in preferences) has enough spare room, and also that there’s nothing that would lock the file such as antivirus software, file indexing or sync’ing/backup. It’ll be OS or app related but I’d be willing to bet not Reason.

Steedus
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Location: Melbourne, AU

27 Jun 2020

This has happened to me twice. I think it’s probably something to do with VSTs. For me it happened when I dropped a vst into the rack. Just in an instant - poof - back to the desktop. Everything’s gone. Pretty alarming.

Once was the Spitfire LABS vst (but has not happened with it since), I don’t recall the other.

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Benedict
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27 Jun 2020

Yes, as Mr Spanner said, remove all VST, make sure it is stable. Then intro them one at a time until it goes spring! Last monkey to the party needs to be shot.

OR

Take away the last VST installed and see what happens.

Some VST simply are not a good match for Reason (or any other particular host) so take care to test the Demo first (unless we are talking Falcon/Omnisphere :shakes fist in rage:).

:-)
Last edited by Benedict on 28 Jun 2020, edited 1 time in total.
Benedict Roff-Marsh
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PhillipOrdonez
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27 Jun 2020

The saving issue thing, I've noticed it happens with certain izotope plugins, where they just keep reporting a change on some parameter which isn't happening and doesn't affect anything but the save status, and the undo status. So I just save and then save again before closing. I don't how if the same happens to you, but could well be.

Regarding the crashing, none of that happens to me, but in on Windows 10.

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DaveyG
Posts: 2499
Joined: 03 May 2020

28 Jun 2020

I'm quick to criticise Reason when there is a problem but stability is something they have got right. You problem could be dodgy drivers, it could be a hardware issue (overheating or memory) or it could be a plugin.

Next time it does it, go right back in to the program and do exactly the same again to see if it is reproducible.

dmcghee
Posts: 73
Joined: 22 Jan 2015

28 Jun 2020

A lot of great ideas here. I’ve been using Reason exclusively since Reason 4 and had every update since then and never had any issues with crashes or performance. I’m currently on Reason Studios 11 Suite. I started on a PC and switch to Mac. I don’t use any free Plugins I’m sure there are some good ones I never wanted to take a chance with a Reason crashing. I sorry forvothers having issues. Now I do all my sequencing on the MPC X and I mix and master in Reason. I guess I’ve been lucky so far.

dmcghee
Posts: 73
Joined: 22 Jan 2015

28 Jun 2020

A lot of great ideas here. I’ve been using Reason exclusively since Reason 4 and had every update since then and never had any issues with crashes or performance. I’m currently on Reason Studios 11 Suite. I started on a PC and switch to Mac. I don’t use any free Plugins I’m sure there are some good ones I never wanted to take a chance with a Reason crashing. I sorry others having issues. Now I do all my sequencing on the MPC X and I mix and master in Reason. I guess I’ve been lucky so far.

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