Reason Cloud

[rootwheel]

Been thinking about the real future of Reason recently. Services like Stadia and technologies like Parsec (not the RE!) are now showing just how close we already are to multimedia network applications with low latency. Amazingly 'negative latency' could even be possible when combined with the right server-side machine learning; https://gizmodo.com/google-suggests-sta ... 1838928452

In virtual instrument sampler playback terms, working around unavoidable latency could perhaps take the form of clever client-side generated 'attack sounds'. These could be used as a trick to mask any unavoidable inherent minor latency in the rest of the sampler note being received over the wire. Perhaps an even more advanced solution would be a special USB MIDI keyboard which contains sensors to monitor where your hands are positioned at all times; the data from which is constantly sent to the server to help it 'guess ahead' before you even press down the note.

I really like the idea of a Reason Cloud, as it could finally realise the ambition Propellerhead had with Allihoopa but fell far short - that is a true cloud collaboration music service where anyone, anywhere and from any device can make music together in real-time.

It seems to me like this is where the industry is going to head eventually and I imagine is something Reason Studios have thought about - Reason as a true web app I'm pretty sure I saw a video a while back where the Korg REs were being shown in the browser and I guess we already have the Europa player https://www.reasonstudios.com/europa-player as a showcase for this too.

The technology isn't quite there yet but I'm more convinced than ever that it will get there much sooner than previously thought. I think it's going to be a really exciting time for music making across the web in the next decade.