MusicRadar Reason 12 Review out...

[stratatonic]

MusicRadar verdict: It’s debatable how essential an update this is for Reason 11 users but taken as a whole, Reason is looking the best it has in years.

https://www.musicradar.com/reviews/reas ... -reason-12

[jaeproduced]

Yeah it's not worth it if you're coming from Reason 11 or Suite especially with all the bugs that have been constantly reported. They didn't do any sequencer or chan mixer updates or even include a synth device like frikton or algoritm which would have made the upgrade more attractive. It feels more like a free point update then a paid upgrade in my opinion...

[Neo]

Review sounds about right.
Will be interesting to see what some YouTube Channels like Sonic TALK say about it.
At least we have updates to look forward to!.

[DaveyG]

So that's recent reviews of Ableton Live 11, Bitwig 4 and now Reason 12 all tending towards "not essential upgrades". It's painful to read those type of reviews where reviewers are struggling to find something to rave about.

[Loque]

So that's recent reviews of Ableton Live 11, Bitwig 4 and now Reason 12 all tending towards "not essential upgrades". It's painful to read those type of reviews where reviewers are struggling to find something to rave about.

Well, users are expecting a lot today and often for free and they forget, that even simple things can be a hard and long task. Its like, do you want to get payed for your job? Do you want to get payed good? Can you do your job in half of the time?

And developing software is quite complex. Just wrong bit and nothing works in the worst case. The more features, the more complex the software.

How long did the Americans need to send a man on the moon? 10 years? And they used already developed techniques. And in the end its "just" a tin can with fire coming out of one side. Does not seem to be so complicated, isnt it?

[exxx]

Users here are too company-friendly.

It's like a reason studio employee.

Such advocacy is rare.

Why are you defending the company so much?

[Heater]

Yeah. As a R11 owner who's not massively into samples I'm scratching my head wondering why I should buy the upgrade.

[Jackjackdaw]

I wasn't going to pay £129 for it but with the discount from JRR shop and PayPal pay in three it's £30 p/m for three months, as I get to own it at the end I thought it a better deal than R+ ! My biggest draw is the HD. The blur has been doing my head (and eyes) in for years since upgrading my laptop, but it's thin pickings.

[boesOne]

I came from R10 and bought the 11/12 upgrade for a reduced price a couple of months ago. I think that was a fair deal. I wouldnt have paid the full price for this. I would have expected a little more love for the daw part / sequencer for that price.

[Billy+]

The review is fair, I'm more surprised that Reason actually got a mention it's rear to ever see any news about Reason outside of the community.

I think the comments about mimic being able to fill a missing gap is a stretch as I've seen plenty of sample based devices in Reason for years and I still haven't got it out more than a play for a few days and got bored very quick, I assume that if you use devices like it then it probably works perfectly well for you but it's definitely not a device I can see myself using much.

My understanding of the new zoom is it's definitely better for RRP which they haven't really acknowledged

computer music didn't even mention Algorithm during a recent review of FM synths and the odd times I've seen Reason tutorials in the magazines is when they are recycling old tutorials

All in all it's a reasonable review from a company that generally ignores Reason.

[danc]

The review is fair, I'm more surprised that Reason actually got a mention it's rear to ever see any news about Reason outside of the community.

Well - Reason 12 might have got a mention because there are very few new products coming out and so it has very little competition in terms of press attention compared to previous years. This is likely due to Covid stalling company productivity and innovation. I think we are soon to hear about a lot of companies going under (like Roli) as they crash and burn.

ALSO - the music press are going through a very strange time, especially those based in the UK. It would appear that UK based journalists are off work (furloughed due to Covid) and so the amount of news/reviews/commentary being created has nearly stopped altogether.

Just take for example the latest edition of Computer Music - a quarter of the magazine (no joke) is dedicated to a tutorial on Traktion Waveform Free. Each page is simply 9 screenshots with comments underneath. For those who don't use Traktion the magazine is extremely light on other content. The reviews section, which used to be the highlight of that magazine now just seems to cover new Kontakt libraries (yawn) and a new pointless delay VST.

Lastly - I think the VST instrument and FX market is probably hitting a more serious problem... it's hitting a stagnant phase, because everyone has far too many VSTs already and sales of new products is generally down??? It's difficult to push the envelope forward and make money.

All my own speculation, I think there are many reasons why Reason got some attention in the non Reason community press.

[Billy+]

I'm not so sure it's down to covid and would assume most journalists would be quite well prepared to work from home and do remote interviews - I actually blame the marketing people shifting to social media for content and marketing delivery as far to many companies are now so reliant on influencers for creating a "buzz"

[danc]

I'm not so sure it's down to covid and would assume most journalists would be quite well prepared to work from home and do remote interviews - I actually blame the marketing people shifting to social media for content and marketing delivery as far to many companies are now so reliant on influencers for creating a "buzz"

They might be prepared to work from home and do remote interviews. But not if they've been Furloughed.

And yes - you are right... there has been a massive swing over to social media (YouTube etc). Maybe it's actually a bit of everything... but whatever the cause for media coverage changing, I still think product launches have massively slowed down allowing those that are launched to get a lot more attention than they once did.

[Neo]

Users here are too company-friendly.

It's like a reason studio employee.

Such advocacy is rare.

Why are you defending the company so much?

Its that long term relationship thing, you know.. the one you invested in. (not having a personal dig* just saying in-case)
That said Its hard to be optimistic when you've just had another error that's crashed another project.
Hoping for some sorta patch soon. 12.2d36

[Billy+]

Aren't most journalists self employed?

Furlough is an excuse, my brother used to do music software reviews he did it for years and ultimately his reward was free software that he would then use for web based tutorials specific to that product

the company he did the articles for would contact developers who interested them and would ask for free copies early release access etc and would then contact people like my brother to do the actual write ups

he gave it up when they stopped giving him free licenses and insisted content was pushed in a particular direction i.e. Journalistic integrity was interfered with as the site was told the article MUST be positive, he always believed that honesty was better for the consumer and the developer but the marketing teams need to justify giving away free licenses with increased sales.

[Billy+]

Users here are too company-friendly.

It's like a reason studio employee.

Such advocacy is rare.

Why are you defending the company so much?

I don't think we the community behave like employees, there's plenty of very honest negative and positive comments about Reason and Reason Studios and has been since day one of Reason Talk.

What you should consider is that most people here are Reason user and have been using Reason for years.

[guitfnky]

So that's recent reviews of Ableton Live 11, Bitwig 4 and now Reason 12 all tending towards "not essential upgrades". It's painful to read those type of reviews where reviewers are struggling to find something to rave about.

I dunno about Bitwig, but Live 11 has some huge improvements (which are largely why I switched from Reason as my primary DAW). I imagine most using Live for audio tracking/mixing before that must've thought 11 was a hugely essential upgrade. maybe less exciting for electronic-heavy musicians, but I wouldn't be surprised if they broadened their user base significantly with 11.

[plaamook]

So that's recent reviews of Ableton Live 11, Bitwig 4 and now Reason 12 all tending towards "not essential upgrades". It's painful to read those type of reviews where reviewers are struggling to find something to rave about.

Well, users are expecting a lot today and often for free and they forget, that even simple things can be a hard and long task. Its like, do you want to get payed for your job? Do you want to get payed good? Can you do your job in half of the time?

And developing software is quite complex. Just wrong bit and nothing works in the worst case. The more features, the more complex the software.

How long did the Americans need to send a man on the moon? 10 years? And they used already developed techniques. And in the end its "just" a tin can with fire coming out of one side. Does not seem to be so complicated, isnt it?

Exactly.
But you know, if they’d implemented just a few sequencer updates, simple ones (like some decent friggin zoom function) along side it all I’d just update and support the mission. As it is, bugs included, I can’t justify it. Not yet anyway. And I always just update.

The sequencer is a blaring mess of poor implementation and out dated never got around to junk that I’m just used to.
Roll on R13...

Also, the moon race...when they started they could fly and they had rockets, basic ones. They had to invent everything else on the fly. Not so simple I think.

[Neo]

Users here are too company-friendly.

It's like a reason studio employee.

Such advocacy is rare.

Why are you defending the company so much?

I don't think we the community behave like employees, there's plenty of very honest negative and positive comments about Reason and Reason Studios and has been since day one of Reason Talk.

What you should consider is that most people here are Reason user and have been using Reason for years.

+1

[Arrant]

Users here are too company-friendly.

It's like a reason studio employee.

Such advocacy is rare.

Why are you defending the company so much?

I don't think we the community behave like employees, there's plenty of very honest negative and positive comments about Reason and Reason Studios and has been since day one of Reason Talk.

What you should consider is that most people here are Reason user and have been using Reason for years.

I agree with Billy+, I think you'll find all kinds of opinions on here, as it should be on an internet message board.
The community as a whole are probably the first to criticize Reason Studios if we're not happy.
That said I agree that some very active members can be overly defensive of Reason Studios in trying to play down legimitate concerns from other sections of the user base.
In the end debate is good, echo chambers are not, which makes this forum a lot better than following similar discussions on social media.

[PhillipOrdonez]

I think music radar has consistently covered Reason releases for ages though. Them and create digital music always cover Reason release news.

[PhillipOrdonez]

Oh, and just because a person doesn't see the value of a tool, it does not mean that such tool does not fill a missing gap.

Some people

[joeyluck]

It's always interesting to see reviews from different points of view.

For instance, this one focuses a bit on the RRP user and Mimic. The cons are both regarding Mimic—asking if the upgrade is worth it to an RRP user who already has a simple sampler like Mimic in their DAW...And then the opinion about Mimic's root note detection being hit or miss.

Users rallied for that feature and got it and I've had good experiences using it. I dunno. We're happy we have it now. But looking at this forum, I wouldn't guess that those would top the cons list here.

So it just shows that people care about different things. Different people place weight on different things.

[Billy+]

Oh, and just because a person doesn't see the value of a tool, it does not mean that such tool does not fill a missing gap.

Some people

I don't believe that my comments about mimic had any real bias in either direction and was more about the article saying that Reason had a gap which would be true if Reason didn't already have a load of sample based devices. I would definitely assume that it has value for those who are using it but it's not a tool for me

[PhillipOrdonez]

Obviously you don't have any use for such tools cause for you all samplers are the same. That doesn't mean there's no gaps, just cause there's several samplers and to you they are all the same. Your opinion comes from a place of ignorance.