Has VST-support ruined Reason?

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BadMusic
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Joined: 26 Apr 2020

14 Jul 2020

There used to be arguments on Propellerhead's user-forum about whether Reason should support VST's. The consensus was (1) Reason will never support VST's, because Reason's CEO had once stated Reason would never support VST's, and (2) if Reason did start supporting VST's, it would be the ruin of Reason.

Have VST's ruined Reason as was predicted by the Propellerhead-forum regulars?

avasopht
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14 Jul 2020

Far from it.

VST has set Reason free.

The rack is pretty awesome. Now you can put VSTs in it.

What's there not to love? If you don't use VSTs it's not changed a thing for you.

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Loque
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14 Jul 2020

While technically the RE platform is better, but was not developed enough, VST is the defacto standard.

Its like MS Windows. A total crap OS, incredible slow, unsafe, full of sh!t nobody needs, worst multitasking and UI system, but most ppl use it... So everybody develops applications for it.
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Kalm
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14 Jul 2020

I don't think it ended Reason. It has curbed the Reason "sound" myth (again) and made peoples investments in plugins worthwhile.

I think the only drawback from VST's is the lack of RE developers. At this point, many of them have to develop products against VSTs now, especially in a market that couldn't possibly create something innovative. This could all turn around if Props come up with feature sets that's RE only besides whatever is inherent in their DAW. Think about how S1 runs ARA support with Melodyne, Console Shaper technology, music loops (like Logics very own loop file) etc. VSTs are either going to break the innovation of RE or seriously propel but I believe its going to be based on how innovative Props move with their DAW and SDK.
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antic604
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15 Jul 2020

It's been a - financial, I suspect - success for Reason Studios, but it's also been a death sentence for RE devs, unless RS are able to significantly modernise Reason and provide easy (automated?) way to convert VST/AU/AAX to fully fledged REs.
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DaveyG
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15 Jul 2020

I don't think Reason is ruined - it's pretty good.
It could be a whole lot better but that requires investment and an understanding of what rival products offer. Sadly I think RS have lost touch with the latter. It's like they live in a little bubble.

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chimp_spanner
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15 Jul 2020

Well without it I'd have nothing even closed to Superior/Getgood Drums, Nucleus orchestral library, Helix Native or any of the other plugins I rely on daily for my work. So from my perspective it's been great. Whether or not it's been good for the wider Reason ecosystem in terms of REs, I don't know. I feel like the RRP has the potential to reinvigorate that side of things. For however much people complain about RRP not having VST support, it's probably better for REs that it doesn't. Because people will naturally get curious as to what they can add to the plugin and hit up the store.

Anyway short answer, no I don't think it has :)

kinkujin
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15 Jul 2020

Change or die. I think it has reinvigorated the platform.

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Billy+
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15 Jul 2020

I have to say I was never that bothered about getting vst's in reason but once it happened was disappointed with the lack of midi support. I thought it would kill the rack extension market but now we have RRP I think we might see increased RE development especially after the NDA changes.

All in all I'm thinking RS knows what it's doing, it just does it backwards and slowly.

My only issue with Reason is the lack of midi routing, the players are good but I do think Cthulhu & MIK Captain are much more interesting

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James Bermingham
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15 Jul 2020

Reason Studios need to quickly become compatible to host VST3.
I'm an avid Reason user since its inception, but I've been using Ableton Live 10 so much more over the last 8 months to host certain VST3 plugins i use. And I have to say the switch has been fantastic as i'm loving the new work flow with Live10 and the PUSH2, and using Reason as a plug in. So I'm using Live a lot more.

In my opinion, If Reason Studios did something like what Ableton did with Push, and develop their own ultra tight integrated Hardware, that could be an innovative route to go. I've got a Nektar Panorama P6 which has fantastic integration with Reason, but no way near as tight as PUSH2 with Ableton. Just my opinion. But still loving reason, but it has to share the bed now. :D lol

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ljekio
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15 Jul 2020

Needed VST3 in R12, loading RRP into Reason DAW and works VST wrapper into RRP. Why not? :)

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Billy+
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15 Jul 2020

ljekio wrote:
15 Jul 2020
Needed VST3 in R12, loading RRP into Reason DAW and works VST wrapper into RRP. Why not? :)
I'm curious why you would want to load RRP into Reason, what's the point?

avasopht
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15 Jul 2020

Billy wrote:
15 Jul 2020
ljekio wrote:
15 Jul 2020
Needed VST3 in R12, loading RRP into Reason DAW and works VST wrapper into RRP. Why not? :)
I'm curious why you would want to load RRP into Reason, what's the point?
It allows you to have self-contained racks. It's what makes it so nice to use RRP in Live.

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esselfortium
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15 Jul 2020

VST in Reason has allowed me to expand into orchestral composing without leaving the DAW environment I'm accustomed to. Without it, I wouldn't still be here. Opening Reason up to the wider plugin market also curbed the flow of scammers like Softphonics who made their business illegally repackaging inferior knockoff versions of other developers' sample libraries to sell to Reason users who had no other options. Win-win.
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Creativemind
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15 Jul 2020

DaveyG wrote:
15 Jul 2020
I don't think Reason is ruined - it's pretty good.
It could be a whole lot better but that requires investment and an understanding of what rival products offer. Sadly I think RS have lost touch with the latter. It's like they live in a little bubble.
Bubble, that's a good way of putting it. It does feel like that sometimes. They don't seem to compete or take notice of how often other daw's update and how much they put into updates.

As for VST's, I for one am glad they added VST support. Opened up Reason to a lot more. Very innovative how they did it too.
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Creativemind
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15 Jul 2020

chimp_spanner wrote:
15 Jul 2020
For however much people complain about RRP not having VST support, it's probably better for REs that it doesn't. Because people will naturally get curious as to what they can add to the plugin and hit up the store.
I really wish they would put VST3 support in Reason and the RRP though. I would love to put VST's into Combinator patches in Reaper but I can't. 😥

It could as you say, not be helpful for Re's to add it to the RRP but Re's do have the back cabling and they should offer some incentives for other daw users to purchase some Re's somehow.
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jaeproduced
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15 Jul 2020

If it wasn't for VST support I would have left Reason and moved on to something else. The samplers in Reason are waaaay outdated & I'm tired of chopping in recycle without it being able to tell me the key of the sample. In comes Serato Sample with key finder, auto chop, timestretch, etc which sped up my work flow tremendously. Plus all the other great VST's I have access too that makes Reason even better...You either Adapt or you Die

groggy1
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15 Jul 2020

VST hasn't ruined it for me, at least. Getting VST in Reason has been a dream

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Boombastix
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15 Jul 2020

chimp_spanner wrote:
15 Jul 2020
For however much people complain about RRP not having VST support, it's probably better for REs that it doesn't. Because people will naturally get curious as to what they can add to the plugin and hit up the store.
I think it is the other way around. Because the more you use the RRP the more interest you get in buying new REs. But now it is limited to REs only and if your want to make a cool fx patch you probably need to put some VSTs there, but your can't, so you just do your VST chain as normal, not getting to use the benefits of the RRP. Less RRP use = less RE sales. I have the Waves and Soundtoys racks as well, but barely use them because they have this limitation.

I think the first company to open up their rack for VSTs and offer additional fx for purchase will have a big advantage. I actually think Reasons RRP and Waves are the two with the biggest potential.

Unless kHs comes out with a VST Snap-in wrapper that does midi cc modulation, that would be great too, as they do modulation pretty well.
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zoidkirb
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15 Jul 2020

VST support is likely what saved Reason DAW from a slow obscure death.

Without VST hosting, I would guess the RRP would be 99% of Reason Studios focus. This might have led to a few extra improvements to the RE SDK and the rack itself.

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kuhliloach
Posts: 880
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15 Jul 2020

The functionality is incredible now that it's here but looking at beautiful hi-res VST's makes the antiquated lo-res appearance of Reason more obvious.

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Loque
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16 Jul 2020

kuhliloach wrote:
15 Jul 2020
The functionality is incredible now that it's here but looking at beautiful hi-res VST's makes the antiquated lo-res appearance of Reason more obvious.
When i see some tiny VSTs, i am happy the rack is bigger..
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fieldframe
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16 Jul 2020

VST support in Reason actually encouraged me to continue investing in Rack Extensions. Knowing that any REs I'd purchased could now be used alongside VSTs made them more valuable.

chaosroyale
Posts: 728
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16 Jul 2020

VST support is the only thing that keeps me using Reason. Would have given up on it completely otherwise.

Agree 100% with the "bubble" comments. The devs and the community need a dose of reality. When the RRP came out all I could think was "why would anyone spend all that money for a bunch of outdated plugins when they could get VPS Avenger and still have change for some more plugins too".

Likewise the idea that anyone will buy the RRP to use REs in another DAW. Nobody is going to spend 470 bucks just so they can use Selig Leveler. And nobody needs a bunch of CV utilities if they were not using Reason in the first place. Nobody is going to buy Reason to use the rack version of the Legend when they can just buy..The Legend VST.

avasopht
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16 Jul 2020

chaosroyale wrote:
16 Jul 2020
Likewise the idea that anyone will buy the RRP to use REs in another DAW. Nobody is going to spend 470 bucks just so they can use Selig Leveler. And nobody needs a bunch of CV utilities if they were not using Reason in the first place. Nobody is going to buy Reason to use the rack version of the Legend when they can just buy..The Legend VST.
You can use Reason Intro for that. I wouldn't be surprised if RS released a free RRP mainly for accessing REs. That stripped-down Reason Lite (with all those devices removed) looks like a good candidate for it. Maybe the PluginBoutique freebie was a trial run ;)

RRP works really well as an effect ... even with just RRP Lite and a few REs.

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