Has VST-support ruined Reason?

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fullforce
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21 Jul 2020

EnochLight wrote:
20 Jul 2020
Curious - how so?
Haha, funny guy.
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EnochLight
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21 Jul 2020

fullforce wrote:
21 Jul 2020
EnochLight wrote:
20 Jul 2020
Curious - how so?
Haha, funny guy.
Legit question.
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fullforce
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21 Jul 2020

EnochLight wrote:
21 Jul 2020
Legit question.
There's been more written about that than 7 bibles on this forum alone. Go read it.
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EnochLight
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21 Jul 2020

fullforce wrote:
21 Jul 2020
There's been more written about that than 7 bibles on this forum alone. Go read it.
Ah, just more salt. Got it.
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chaosroyale
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21 Jul 2020

Well, guilty as charged for being a tweaker-snob! But I don't think anyone needs to "qualify" as a "true Reason user", and I apologize if anyone thought I was implying that. Anyone who uses Reason, for any style of music, is a true Reason user. But you have to agree it is a bit weird to ask someone if they like the Reason Rack on a Reason forum.
hurricane wrote:
21 Jul 2020
This whole legacy mindset of needing to be a tweaker, CVer, and a patcher to qualify as a true Reason user is completely outdated. I get a chuckle when one of the Reason Karens jumps in with the "if you don't use REs and don't use cables then why are you here, you don't belong here, why do you use Reason?". Well check this out Reason Karens - when I used Acid waaaay back in the day, I NEVER USED LOOPS. :o

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hurricane
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21 Jul 2020

chaosroyale wrote:
21 Jul 2020
Well, guilty as charged for being a tweaker-snob! But I don't think anyone needs to "qualify" as a "true Reason user", and I apologize if anyone thought I was implying that. Anyone who uses Reason, for any style of music, is a true Reason user. But you have to agree it is a bit weird to ask someone if they like the Reason Rack on a Reason forum.
hurricane wrote:
21 Jul 2020
This whole legacy mindset of needing to be a tweaker, CVer, and a patcher to qualify as a true Reason user is completely outdated. I get a chuckle when one of the Reason Karens jumps in with the "if you don't use REs and don't use cables then why are you here, you don't belong here, why do you use Reason?". Well check this out Reason Karens - when I used Acid waaaay back in the day, I NEVER USED LOOPS. :o
Enochlight is the one who was like "Genuinely interested as to why you stick around here or use Reason, when the devices you dismissed are literally part of its core functionality."

Check this out Enochlight - I also use Pro Tools but never record any audio into it. Rarely mix with it too, ha.
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Goriila Texas
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21 Jul 2020

:lol: :thumbs_up: :mrgreen:
selig wrote:
20 Jul 2020
Goriila Texas wrote:
18 Jul 2020
If I was BigAnt on that forum and was notorious for getting banned by Mathias for arguing with most of the Mods on this forum who most were on the other team against the growth of Reason. That team runs this forum that's why any negativity about Reason is not tolerated.
I STILL think Reason need SO many more "DAW" features that are standard on other DAWs, so I'm guessing I'm not one of "those mods"! ;)
I don't think I know of anyone here who is an honest to God "fan boy" for everything Reason. In my experience, everyone here has things they want added to Reason that will probably never happen.

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21 Jul 2020

:thumbs_up: :mrgreen:
QVprod wrote:
20 Jul 2020
chaosroyale wrote:
18 Jul 2020
Even if Reason Intro is free - why would anyone want to to download a big heavy "wrapper" just to use RE's which are, as another user put succinctly - mostly shit. They can already use VSTs without a wrapper, and VST versions of plugins are almost always superior in performance, CPU and price.

*Don't get me wrong- Selig's stuff and a few others are great, but in 20 years of professional sound engineering I have never met a single client or colleague who has even heard of "coloring EQ" or "Expanse".

EDIT - obviously RE's have only been out for 8 years, and I don't mean specifically only those 2 RE's.
The main point is that nobody has ever said to me "Hey, how about that awesome new RE!" when talking shop about music production.
There was never anything to talk about before because other DAW users couldn’t use REs, especially effects REs, up until less than a year ago. I stopped buying them myself as I started using Studio One more often. That may very well change now. They’ve certainly become a more attractive option for me than before. Reason Rack isn’t the first with a wrapper plugin. People have been using stuff like Amplitude for years. It’s the same concept.
Goriila Texas wrote:
18 Jul 2020
That team runs this forum that's why any negativity about Reason is not tolerated.
...It’s so the opposite. viewtopic.php?t=7513588&start=575

Majority of mod posts are just participating in discussIons like anyone else here. Don’t count that as “moderation”

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selig
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22 Jul 2020

DaveyG wrote:
21 Jul 2020
There are some intelligent and clever people on here who love to come up with interesting ways to connect and interconnect equipment, and that's great, but I don't for a minute believe that they make up the majority of Reason users. You may well find that they only reason most users press TAB is to either see the cables wobbling (which I still love) or to try to fix something when the auto-wiring has not quite done what they expected. That's pretty much me. I occasionally follow a tutorial or copy of one of the aforementioned clever people to try something but mostly the CV stuff leaves me cold.
I totally agree most do not wire up their own Combinators, but what I feel is important to remember is that there are quite of few of those folks who never wire stuff up BUT that use Combinators made by those "wire heads" that DO wire stuff up.

Meaning, if the advanced capabilities of Reason didn't exists, these folks wouldn't be able to take advantage of the work of those sound designers who ARE able to build cool stuff, both for the factory sound bank, third party designers, and those building for the general community.

I'm suggesting maybe it's not important on its own to count how many folks actually wire up stuff themselves when advocating for the benefits of such a wiring scheme. The more important question IMO is to ask if those same folks benefit from the approach in other ways, which I suggest they do. Hopefully what I have written makes sense… ;)

BTW, I will admit to be one of those folks who never hits Tab in the course of 90% of my music work, while I'm ALSO one of those folks who builds crazy CV stuff for the FSB or my own devious purposes. Go figure…
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EnochLight
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22 Jul 2020

hurricane wrote:
21 Jul 2020
Enochlight is the one who was like "Genuinely interested as to why you stick around here or use Reason, when the devices you dismissed are literally part of its core functionality."
Well, in retrospect - I was genuinely interested, otherwise I would have skipped your diatribe and threw on Netflix instead.
hurricane wrote:
21 Jul 2020
Check this out Enochlight - I also use Pro Tools.
My condolences. :lol: I kid, I kid..
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mcatalao
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22 Jul 2020

DaveyG wrote:
21 Jul 2020

I think you might be surprised how little use the cables get from the majority of users. Fact is, you don't need to touch them for most stuff. The auto wiring means you can drag an instrument, a player, and a couple of effects units into the rack and it will connect them up in the "normal" way then away you go.
I've always said that. You can make a complete song without going to the rack a single time, just adding stuff from the browser and let reason do all the cabling for you, and the app has come clever and clever doing that in each version, "knowing" what it has to do in the case of different device types. Everything well integrated with the mixer. If anything is still lacking a bit is when you add sends, that sometimes it gets a bit odd. Other than that, you can stay out of the rack for the whole work.

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hurricane
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22 Jul 2020

mcatalao wrote:
22 Jul 2020
DaveyG wrote:
21 Jul 2020

I think you might be surprised how little use the cables get from the majority of users. Fact is, you don't need to touch them for most stuff. The auto wiring means you can drag an instrument, a player, and a couple of effects units into the rack and it will connect them up in the "normal" way then away you go.
I've always said that. You can make a complete song without going to the rack a single time, just adding stuff from the browser and let reason do all the cabling for you, and the app has come clever and clever doing that in each version, "knowing" what it has to do in the case of different device types. Everything well integrated with the mixer. If anything is still lacking a bit is when you add sends, that sometimes it gets a bit odd. Other than that, you can stay out of the rack for the whole work.
Every other DAW does this exact signal routing behind the scenes, so Reason isn't more clever, it's just more accessible. Most of the time though, it should be a hands-free experience if everything is working correctly (hi, Exponential Audio). We shouldn't be amazed at Reason's automatic connectivity because it's how it should work and how it does work in every single DAW, and like, I don't praise the gods when I add a midi plugin to my Logic channel and everything connects how it's supposed to. So update your DAW, Reason Studios - your jiggly cables don't impress me anymore.
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mcatalao
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22 Jul 2020

I don't know really what the OP refers too, and the thread is too long to grasp what he is saying... so I'll add my thoughts on this, in 2 aspects, vst2.4 support introduced in R9.5 and Reason RRP...

In the mid 2009 I made an investment in East West Composers Gold, a 1000+ eur package with premium sounds (at the time) for almost any imaginable music style.
At the time I used Cubase and Reason, but in the end of 2009, round october, Propellerhead released Record. I did a couple of more songs in Cubase, using East West, but the next month i was back using Record with reason and ditched 1000 eur of plugins for about 7 or 8 years until Reason 9.5 got vst support.
For me the level and easiness of usage and the workflow using the daw was important, and record's way made a big difference for me, so much that when i had work thad needed East West orchestral stuff, i would do it in Cubase and then mix it in reason. I almost ignored 1000 eur of sounds because i am 10+ more creative with Reason than any other daw i tried.

From my standpoint, having VST in reason was a really huge value for me in the long run. I invested a lot in Re's, and i really like the re format and the way it integrates flawlessly with the rack but having reason opened for VST's from a costumer standpoint is a really great value, specially if you consider there are stuff that will take time or will never be available as a RE unless porting to the
format starts to be a one click solution.

So in that regard, and imho, VST support did not ruin reason, it made it a better application and opened the amount of stuff you can do in and with reason.

As for the RRP, the thing is more or less the same. But in this year that passed, there always have been something that bugged me. I'd like to see the reason DAW evolve and most of the last year effort was to develop the RRP and the same for most of the marketing. Reason Studios is even getting a bit away of the term DAW, and calling it the standalone app (which IMHO is a bit reductive because most standalone plugins are very narrow featured... really most of us don't even instal the standalones).
What i think about the RRP is that it's a great way to recal a lot of people that had any of reason's version from 1 to 4, and get these people again on board with all the things that are new in the rack since those days, from new sound toys to effects. It leverages Re's that don't have counterparts as VST's ( there aren't many) and allows people that from 6 to 10 decided to go other way, to look at reason again. All these people that stopped using and having the need to upgrade, now had a reason (pun more or less intended) to upgrade to reason 11.

I'm fine with this, and while in the beginning i looked at this a bit suspiciously i now see that the RRP, turns reason into an ecosystem where people, no matter what they want to use, can make music using it with the Reason DAW or with any other daw that supports VST 3.

My hope is that, now that all flavours of daws can have the reason Rack, we will see some more improvements to the mixer, the daw and new functionality in the rack. From now i see it as a win-win situation, where when a new device is added, both Reason daw and Reason Rack benefit from it. A fine balance between devices and functionalities must be added in new versions, but I'm sure the product manager and specialists are on top of that.
Last edited by mcatalao on 22 Jul 2020, edited 1 time in total.

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mcatalao
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22 Jul 2020

hurricane wrote:
22 Jul 2020


Every other DAW does this exact signal routing behind the scenes, so Reason isn't more clever, it's just more accessible. Most of the time though, it should be a hands-free experience if everything is working correctly (hi, Exponential Audio). We shouldn't be amazed at Reason's automatic connectivity because it's how it should work and how it does work in every single DAW, and like, I don't praise the gods when I add a midi plugin to my Logic channel and everything connects how it's supposed to. So update your DAW, Reason Studios - your jiggly cables don't impress me anymore.
I beg to differ, auto cable routing in reason does a lot more than connecting stuff to the mixer channels as in other daws, it also connects stuff correctly inside combis when you add devices into them, and in the rack without context, grabbing the context of the nearest device. It also grabs context of players and cv devices, so that when you drop them over other devices they manage to find the correct cv input for that (a matrix on top of an nnxt or a synth).

It also manages all connections inside a combinator when you load it (look at Reason Drums huge patches with more than 20 devices inside of them), and "knows" how to connect players to devices in an out of combinators, and it manages connections between devices and effects, in a free way, which on other daws, are always added in the context of an insert or a send.

Seem to me a lot more scenarios to manage than in other daws.

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hurricane
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22 Jul 2020

mcatalao wrote:
22 Jul 2020
[Seem to me a lot more scenarios to manage than in other daws.
I don't give Reason that much credit because I see what Logic is doing when having to deal with its version of "combinators" and "players" and its collection of complex multi-patches, where dragging and dropping or swapping things out for other things connects things correctly and even automaps some macro controls without having to do a thing. In my opinion, Reason isn't doing anything mindblowingly different.
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DaveyG
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22 Jul 2020

mcatalao wrote:
22 Jul 2020
hurricane wrote:
22 Jul 2020


Every other DAW does this exact signal routing behind the scenes, so Reason isn't more clever, it's just more accessible. Most of the time though, it should be a hands-free experience if everything is working correctly (hi, Exponential Audio). We shouldn't be amazed at Reason's automatic connectivity because it's how it should work and how it does work in every single DAW, and like, I don't praise the gods when I add a midi plugin to my Logic channel and everything connects how it's supposed to. So update your DAW, Reason Studios - your jiggly cables don't impress me anymore.
I beg to differ, auto cable routing in reason does a lot more than connecting stuff to the mixer channels as in other daws, it also connects stuff correctly inside combis when you add devices into them, and in the rack without context, grabbing the context of the nearest device. It also grabs context of players and cv devices, so that when you drop them over other devices they manage to find the correct cv input for that (a matrix on top of an nnxt or a synth).

It also manages all connections inside a combinator when you load it (look at Reason Drums huge patches with more than 20 devices inside of them), and "knows" how to connect players to devices in an out of combinators, and it manages connections between devices and effects, in a free way, which on other daws, are always added in the context of an insert or a send.

Seem to me a lot more scenarios to manage than in other daws.
Combis are not unique to Reason either. Studio One has FX chains where you can split and combine the signals at a block diagram level and you can also combine more than one instrument with MIDI Fx in a track. Other DAWs have the equivalent. I'm afraid there is nothing magical or unique about Reason Combis. Examples:

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hurricane
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22 Jul 2020

DaveyG wrote:
22 Jul 2020
I'm afraid there is nothing magical or unique about Reason Combis.
Exactly. :thumbs_up:
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bxbrkrz
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22 Jul 2020

BadMusic wrote:
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?
No.
Some of the "regulars" were not happy with Reason in general, pre-VST time, regardless anyway.
Some producers were born using Garage Band and a laptop.
Other people remember the name "publison infernal machine", or keeping channel 24 muted because of smpte bleeding. "Should I print on 23? Nah!"
Just like amber heard and johnny depp; some people need to move on.

Either way, plenty of entertainment for me :puf_smile:

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WOO
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22 Jul 2020

Selig after having met with them why are they reluctant to listen and respond to feature requests in your opinion? Money, lack of direction, too difficult, not enough developers or talent or just laziness?

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selig
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22 Jul 2020

WOO wrote:
22 Jul 2020
Selig after having met with them why are they reluctant to listen and respond to feature requests in your opinion? Money, lack of direction, too difficult, not enough developers or talent or just laziness?
They are just slow moving! I believe the basic philosophy may be "quality over quantity, or so it has appeared over the years.
But they DO respond to feature requests, they do market research as any company does. And it should also be said, despite not wanting to hear it, most of the popular requests don't always line up with the hard core forum-visiting user requests. I take it as a trade off with solid bug free operation. Also, until they introduced VST and the RRP, bugs were far fewer with one reason given for NOT adding those features sooner being the inevitable increase in bugs due to increase in variables. So careful what you ask for…
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mcatalao
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23 Jul 2020

hurricane wrote:
22 Jul 2020
DaveyG wrote:
22 Jul 2020
I'm afraid there is nothing magical or unique about Reason Combis.
Exactly. :thumbs_up:
It would be innocent from me to believe other daws don't have effects arrays and the features That combinator provides after so many years but what Is special About it is its coherence with the rest of the environment and the fact that it's completely independent of the mixer while the fx/instrument arrays in other daws are bound to a channel. This makes the combinator a pretty nice sound developing tool used and abused for years for sound development.

The other thing is the graphic representation and amount of clicks to build a combinator. Adding something to a combinator and having it visible without a Uml representation is a better display format, imho than a block chart (I'd like to let blockcharts and Uml style representations for my IT work, thanks).

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DaveyG
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23 Jul 2020

mcatalao wrote:
23 Jul 2020


It would be innocent from me to believe other daws don't have effects arrays and the features That combinator provides after so many years but what Is special About it is its coherence with the rest of the environment and the fact that it's completely independent of the mixer while the fx/instrument arrays in other daws are bound to a channel. This makes the combinator a pretty nice sound developing tool used and abused for years for sound development.

The other thing is the graphic representation and amount of clicks to build a combinator. Adding something to a combinator and having it visible without a Uml representation is a better display format, imho than a block chart (I'd like to let blockcharts and Uml style representations for my IT work, thanks).
Once again, look beyond the Island of Reason and you'll find FX Chains that can be saved and loaded as if they were a single Fx, can be shared with other users and can even chained together with other Fx Chains. And I only showed you the routing view of Studio One. It also has a macro control view where you can assign anything to knobs, buttons and x-y pads. 8 knobs, 8 buttons and 2 x-y pads. Um, did someone say super combinator?

In reality both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses. After all, I must still be here for some reason, and that reason is Reason. But the whole Combinator/weird wiring thing is very much a niche part of Reason rather than the mass appeal part.

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bxbrkrz
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23 Jul 2020

Concepts like "weird wiring", or "mass appeal" are in a constant fluid state, based on a personal experience.
"Weird wiring" in Reason is the Raison d'être for me.
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EnochLight
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23 Jul 2020

I also have Studio One (4.x), and unless they changed how building "Combi" works in 5.0, I find it a convoluted mess compared to Reason. But that's just me - I'm a RS "apologist" :roll: :lol: fanboy :lol: apparently.
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23 Jul 2020

EnochLight wrote:
23 Jul 2020
... But that's just me - I'm a RS "apologist" ...
Well, at least you're not afraid to admit it :twisted:

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