Reason VST3 and Linux

This forum is for discussing the Reason Rack Plugin, the version of the Reason rack that runs as a VST3, AU, AAX in other DAWs.
jjrh
Posts: 36
Joined: 19 May 2019

30 Jun 2020

zebbleganubi wrote:
21 May 2020

if you want to access the menu bar at the top then press the alt key then press the down key separately and use left and right to go to the other menus.
Cheers that did the trick :)

Can't seem to access the filesystem but that's probably again some weird configuration issue on my part.

Seems like i'll be stuck keeping a windows machine around for the foreseeable future.

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zebbleganubi
Posts: 33
Joined: 15 Oct 2017

17 Feb 2021

some good news. yabridge added vst3 support a few days ago (see this post for more info) and the reason rack plugin is finally (partly) working now! (im running pop os 20.04 and wine 6.0)

i only messed around with it for a quick minute but it was relatively easy to setup up and the sound is coming through ok. the rack opens up directly like any normal vst (not like with carla where you had to open up the carla vst and then the reason rack). automations from bitwig to the rack work no problem too

Screenshot from 2021-02-17 23-22-48.png
Screenshot from 2021-02-17 23-22-48.png (864.29 KiB) Viewed 11963 times

unfortunately you cant access the file system (which is the same problem that standalone reason has when running in wine). also when you save the bitwig project and open it back up, all the stuff that was in the rack will be gone. so thats a bit of a bummer. i still think its pretty amazing that this much is working though and im hopeful that these bugs might get fixed at some point in the future



heres how i installed it if anyone else is interested:
- download and extract "yabridge-3.0.0.tar.gz" from the releases page
- move the "yabridge" folder to: /home/yourusername/.local/share/
the full path should look something like this: /home/yourusername/.local/share/yabridge/README.md

- in the terminal, change to the yabridge folder:

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cd /home/yourusername/.local/share/yabridge
- add the wine vst3 folder to yabridge

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./yabridgectl add "/home/yourusername/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Common Files/VST3"
- make yabridge search for new vsts

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./yabridgectl sync
- then just make sure your daw is searching for vsts in this folder "/home/yourusername/.vst3"

avasopht
Competition Winner
Posts: 3931
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

18 Feb 2021

Nice one!

Mauricio Duarte
Posts: 44
Joined: 11 Aug 2015

04 Mar 2021

zebbleganubi wrote:
17 Feb 2021
some good news. yabridge added vst3 support a few days ago (see this post for more info) and the reason rack plugin is finally (partly) working now! (im running pop os 20.04 and wine 6.0)

i only messed around with it for a quick minute but it was relatively easy to setup up and the sound is coming through ok. the rack opens up directly like any normal vst (not like with carla where you had to open up the carla vst and then the reason rack). automations from bitwig to the rack work no problem too


Screenshot from 2021-02-17 23-22-48.png


unfortunately you cant access the file system (which is the same problem that standalone reason has when running in wine). also when you save the bitwig project and open it back up, all the stuff that was in the rack will be gone. so thats a bit of a bummer. i still think its pretty amazing that this much is working though and im hopeful that these bugs might get fixed at some point in the future



heres how i installed it if anyone else is interested:
- download and extract "yabridge-3.0.0.tar.gz" from the releases page
- move the "yabridge" folder to: /home/yourusername/.local/share/
the full path should look something like this: /home/yourusername/.local/share/yabridge/README.md

- in the terminal, change to the yabridge folder:

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cd /home/yourusername/.local/share/yabridge
- add the wine vst3 folder to yabridge

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./yabridgectl add "/home/yourusername/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Common Files/VST3"
- make yabridge search for new vsts

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./yabridgectl sync
- then just make sure your daw is searching for vsts in this folder "/home/yourusername/.vst3"
Fantastic news! Thanks a lot for sharing, I will jump to the pool this weekend and upgrade my Reason 10 in order to try this workaround :puf_smile:

Edit: so I managed to config yabridge and load the VST3 reason rack plugin. The issue I am having now is that when I try to run reason plugin without any "RE" I get another error "Missing soundbank "Factory soundbank.rfl could not be found.. etc" and the plugin just shuts down. Tried reinstalling Reason 11 again but no luck..
That's all for now, I get the same error message when I try to launch Reason 11 standalone after i log in. So It may be something related to my system/Wine..

Any ideas?
Thanks a lot

Edit: I can finally open the reason rack plugin in bitwig, sadly I still can't navigate/open my rack extensions. I am getting an error. "Unknown exception". For now I am limited to the stock instruments. At least is something but having the chance of using the RE would be best best case scenario.
Also each time I open Bitwig and load the rack, I have to update my licenses using companion.
Same problem when I run Reason 10 and try to navigate to my soundbanks/Rack extensions, same error.
Reason 11 standalone crashes when trying to launch. But well at least the plugin rack works (kinda) :)
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Zerosity
Posts: 133
Joined: 18 Jun 2015

05 Mar 2021

I wished Reason Studios would port RRP to LV2 (https://lv2plug.in/) so we could have native plugin support rather than having to deal with WINE/bridges. Doubt it will ever happen, but I will keep wishing.

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zebbleganubi
Posts: 33
Joined: 15 Oct 2017

25 Oct 2021

ive made a bit of progress (with reason standalone) where im now able to use all of my RE's (86 of them). before i was getting the "unknown exception" warning if i had more than 5 or so in the RackExtensions folder. unfortunately im still getting that same error message when i try to open the rack plugin (with 5+ rack extensions. it works ok with stock devices only) but i have a feeling it might* be close to working and that the problem is yabridge is looking in the wrong place

so what im using now is a program called Crossover which is basically just a modified version of wine that focuses on making it easier to install certain productivity programs like office (kind of similar to how Lutris or playOnLinux or focuses on installing games by having scripts that install dependencies along side the installer). its paid software but theres a trial version that works for two weeks, after that its £48/€60 for a licence. the people who make crossover also do most of the development of wine so at least its possibly supporting it in a way

there arent any crossover scripts for reason yet and i havnt been able to figure out what its doing differently compared to wine but:

- RE's are working with standalone version, like i mentioned

- everything in the sidebar (soundbanks, favourites, the file system) can now accessed without any error messages

- when i save a project in reaper that is using the reason rack plugin, all the devices are still there when i open up the project again. when i tried with bitwig that last time it would just open up empty. (i cant test with bitwig right now because i only have 8-track and i think i reached the device limit)

- saving projects and patches is mostly working**. it seems as long as you save things to your linux folders (ie. anywhere thats not the .wine folder) that things will save ok. this might have been the case all along actually, even with wine. last time i was just trying to save into the .wine folder because i thought that was the only place you could save

how to setup crossover:
- download and double click the crossover deb file to install it, or "sudo apt install /path/to/crossover.deb"
- when in crossover, click "install windows software"
- "browse available applications" and choose "unlisted applications"
- choose the "installer file" option and select the reason.exe using the file browser
- name the bottle "reason" or whatever and choose "windows 10 64-bit"

my current info:
reason suite 11.3.9d22
crossover 21.0.0
wine 6.0.1
pop os 21.04




*
about RE's not working in the rack plugin:
for some reason, crossover sets things up using the username "crossover". when i setup yabridge it uses a folder based off your username

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/home/yourusername/.cxoffice/drive_c/users/crossover
/home/yourusername/.cxoffice/drive_c/users/yourusername
when i was using wine before, it would set things up in "yourusername" as well (in the .wine folder), so i think what is going on is that standalone reason is using crossover and whatever modifications they have added, but the rack plugin might be still going through wine in some way. i might try to get in touch with with the yabridge dev at some point see if anything can be done about that.

one good thing at the moment about have a separate "crossover" and "yourusername" folder is that you can have all your RE's in the crossover profile for running standalone reason, then put 5 or less RE's in the other yourusername profile so you can use the RRP with another daw without having it crash, and just mostly use the stock devices

**
saving a project a second time doesnt work. when you save a new project the first time it saves ok, but making a change and then saving again will throw up an error saying the file cant be found. with patches you can save new changes as you normally would just by overwriting the previous file. when you try to overwrite a project it wont let you since its open and locked, so the only thing you can do is save it as "document1.1.reason" and increment the number every time you make a change, or make a file called "document-tmp.reason" and alternate between saving to that or the original depending on which one isnt locked. its kind of annoying either way

but anyway, overall im happy enough that RE's are working now in the standalone version. its means that its now possible to open a project to listen to it or make some minor changes, and its quicker than having to open reason in a VM or switch to windows dual boot

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zebbleganubi
Posts: 33
Joined: 15 Oct 2017

19 Nov 2021

finally :D
Brosefski wrote:
25 Jan 2020
will Reason VST3 plugin work?
i found a program called bottles, similar to crossover but its completely free and things are working a lot better

+ the rack plugin is fully working and all RE's can be added without getting any error messages. sweet!
+ file saving in the standalone program now works like normal
+ no missing ui text. before "keys", "snap" and other things were just showing as blank buttons

~ im still having issue with the wrong windows focusing
~ im getting "program slow" warnings a few times when i open the RRP, but it goes away after a second or two

i don't have a clue what fixed all of this in the end. it could be that i updated pop to version 21.04, or a newer version of yabridge, bottles or wine, i dunno, but who cares! its working! heres what you need to do if you are still interested:



install bottles:

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flatpak install --user flathub com.usebottles.bottles
(for anyone new to linux, the paste hotkey in some terminals is ctrl + shift + v)


create a bottle:
- give it a name, "reason" or whatever
- select "software"
- click on "wine config" and change the windows version to "windows 10"
- in the dependencies tab, download "all fonts" and "dotnet48" if it hasnt done so already
- in the preferences tab, uncheck "use dxvk" and "use vkd3d"

install reason:
- move reason's installer files inside the bottle by clicking on "browse C:" and put the files anywhere in there.
- click "run executable"
- when the file picker opens, press ctrl + L and paste in the following path at the top, and then find the reason .exe installer

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~/.var/app/com.usebottles.bottles/data/bottles/bottles  
- when the installer is done, restart the bottles program and you should see a play icon in the section beneath "run executable" that you can use to launch reason

pro tip! switch to the dark theme in reason. it makes those black missing ui bits on the transport look less ugly


yabridge setup:
- install wine first. "sudo apt install wine" usually installs an older version of wine so use this to get the latest:

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sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386  
wget -O - https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo apt-key add -  
sudo apt-add-repository "deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ $(lsb_release -cs) main"     
sudo apt update  
sudo apt install winehq-stable    
- install yabridge

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RELEASE=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/robbert-vdh/yabridge/releases/latest | grep -oP '"tag_name": "\K(.*)(?=")')  # get latest release number, eg: 3.6.0  
URL=https://github.com/robbert-vdh/yabridge/releases/download/${RELEASE}/yabridge-${RELEASE}.tar.gz  
wget -c "$URL" -O - | tar -xz -C $HOME/.local/share  # download and extract the tar file  
- change to the yabridge folder

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cd $HOME/.local/share/yabridge
- add the VST3 folder to yabridge. (change "reason" in the following command to whatever you named your bottle)

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./yabridgectl add "$HOME/.var/app/com.usebottles.bottles/data/bottles/bottles/reason/drive_c/Program Files/Common Files/VST3"
- then the following two commands and if everything works you should see something like "Reason Rack Plugin.vst3 :: VST3, bundle, 64-bit, copy"

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./yabridgectl sync 
./yabridgectl status
- then go try out the rack plugin!



accessing files:
bottles is running everything in a sandbox which means its not able to access any files outside of a bottle. to fix that install flatseal:

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flatpak install --user com.github.tchx84.Flatseal
- open flatseal and select "bottles" in the sidebar
- in the filesystem section, check "all user files" to allow access to your home folder or add a custom path in the "other files" section
- in reason's sidebar you can now click on "my computer" and your files should show up in Z:home/yourusername

document folder softlinks:
when saving a file, reason/wine uses an old file picker that only has shortcuts at the side for the "desktop, documents and my computer" which means you have to navigate to the files in the Z drive every time you want to save something.
to get around that problem you can create a softlink/symlink that will show up in the documents folder. in my case a have a folder called "musik" in my home folder so the command would look like this: (just change "reason" to whatever you named your bottle)

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ln -s "$HOME/musik" "$HOME/.var/app/com.usebottles.bottles/data/bottles/bottles/reason/drive_c/users/${USERNAME}/Documents/musik"

when saving a file in the reason rack it seems to use your default documents folder and not the documents folder in the bottle (do try to keep up), so for consistency ive created a link to my the musik folder there as well

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ln -s "$HOME/musik" "$HOME/Documents/musik"


my details for reference:
pop os: 21.04
bottles: 2021.11.14-treviso-3
yabridge: 3.6.0
wine: 6.0.2
reason: 11.3.6d3 (suite)
reaper: 6.15


donating:
if anyone ends up getting a lot of use from any of this software and you have any spare change you want to get rid of, im sure some of these devs would be happy to get something for the great work they are doing
https://github.com/robbert-vdh/yabridge (the donate links are on the right)
https://usebottles.com/funding
https://www.codeweavers.com/wine#support-wine


update:
- in the preferences tab of bottles, uncheck "use dxvk" and "use vkd3d" otherwise everything will start glitching out after a few minutes
- turns out a lot of things are now working in normal version of wine as well, which wasnt the case a few months ago. using bottles is still the best option overall but if you want to use only wine then the command to install reason is just: wine "/path/to/reason.exe"
Last edited by zebbleganubi on 21 Nov 2021, edited 1 time in total.

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willy_dinglefinger
Posts: 44
Joined: 18 Jun 2020
Location: Scotland

20 Nov 2021

Nice one Zebbleganubi! Thanks for all the info, testing and how-to steps.

I use Linux (Debian) and some native software like Renoise and Reaper and Ardour, with no real desire to go back to Reason to be honest, but I do sometimes miss the RS instruments so may try your process one rainy day.
Hypernormalise forum signatures :reason:

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zebbleganubi
Posts: 33
Joined: 15 Oct 2017

21 Nov 2021

willy_dinglefinger wrote:
20 Nov 2021
Nice one Zebbleganubi! Thanks for all the info, testing and how-to steps.

I use Linux (Debian) and some native software like Renoise and Reaper and Ardour, with no real desire to go back to Reason to be honest, but I do sometimes miss the RS instruments so may try your process one rainy day.
youre welcome!

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Brosefski
Posts: 86
Joined: 08 Oct 2018
Location: Up north somewhere

19 Dec 2021

zebbleganubi wrote:
19 Nov 2021
i found a program called bottles, similar to crossover but its completely free and things are working a lot better
Hey guys, thanks so much for keeping this thread going and giving your valuable feedback. :D. I got a new mac, mini mac actually, that replaced my old school mac book pro that was starting to barf on me. For now, I'll keep using Reason on the mac, but I will be building a linux machine as a server and gaming machine, and want to plug around with some linux music stuff on it as well (kinda like a tinkering toy) so I'm gonna reference back to this in the coming months. Thanks a lot zebbleganubi for your valuable input!
:reason: :recycle: :re:

Lex_P
Posts: 1
Joined: 28 May 2022

28 May 2022

I have successfully installed and am using Reason 12 without any problems. The only thing that I could not solve was the lack of fonts. Does anyone know how to solve?

Found the same screenshot from Windows 10
Image

Mauricio Duarte
Posts: 44
Joined: 11 Aug 2015

11 Dec 2022

Does anyone had any new updates regarding this? I managed to install Reason but I can't load any saved files and I also didn't manage to use any of my purchased RE's. The authenticator never check for the licenses

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Zerosity
Posts: 133
Joined: 18 Jun 2015

23 Mar 2023

So I've recently gotten R12 running pretty well with the latest Wine builds and even use the Rack Plugin with Linux DAWs using yabridge. I too am still having issues getting my REs downloaded. Not sure what the Authorizer needs and the website doesn't seem to see the Authorizer. I am running Bottles from a Flatpak for Reason, so maybe I need to look at some of the permissions for Browser->Authorizer to work.

@Mauricio Duarte -> To get access to the menu bar, you'll need to press and release ALT-key once and then press the Arrow Down key. That should expand the menu items and let you get to everything you need for song loading. You can also press CTRL-O for the Song Open shortcut. But the ALT and down arrow will get you access to the full menu, even the manage content option so you can grab the extra packs.

It's too bad there there's no official support for Reason on Linux and I will have to leave it behind, because I am no longer going back to Windows or Mac for my OS needs. I guess I'll have spent way too much money on Rack Extensions that I can no longer use or sell (which I knew about that part, so not batch, just voicing my frustration that ReasonStudios doesn't have Linux builds).

avasopht
Competition Winner
Posts: 3931
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

23 Mar 2023

Zerosity wrote:
23 Mar 2023
So I've recently gotten R12 running pretty well with the latest Wine builds and even use the Rack Plugin with Linux DAWs using yabridge. I too am still having issues getting my REs downloaded. Not sure what the Authorizer needs and the website doesn't seem to see the Authorizer. I am running Bottles from a Flatpak for Reason, so maybe I need to look at some of the permissions for Browser->Authorizer to work.

@Mauricio Duarte -> To get access to the menu bar, you'll need to press and release ALT-key once and then press the Arrow Down key. That should expand the menu items and let you get to everything you need for song loading. You can also press CTRL-O for the Song Open shortcut. But the ALT and down arrow will get you access to the full menu, even the manage content option so you can grab the extra packs.

It's too bad there there's no official support for Reason on Linux and I will have to leave it behind, because I am no longer going back to Windows or Mac for my OS needs. I guess I'll have spent way too much money on Rack Extensions that I can no longer use or sell (which I knew about that part, so not batch, just voicing my frustration that ReasonStudios doesn't have Linux builds).
What's the latency like?

User avatar
Zerosity
Posts: 133
Joined: 18 Jun 2015

23 Mar 2023

avasopht wrote:
23 Mar 2023
Zerosity wrote:
23 Mar 2023
So I've recently gotten R12 running pretty well with the latest Wine builds and even use the Rack Plugin with Linux DAWs using yabridge. I too am still having issues getting my REs downloaded. Not sure what the Authorizer needs and the website doesn't seem to see the Authorizer. I am running Bottles from a Flatpak for Reason, so maybe I need to look at some of the permissions for Browser->Authorizer to work.

@Mauricio Duarte -> To get access to the menu bar, you'll need to press and release ALT-key once and then press the Arrow Down key. That should expand the menu items and let you get to everything you need for song loading. You can also press CTRL-O for the Song Open shortcut. But the ALT and down arrow will get you access to the full menu, even the manage content option so you can grab the extra packs.

It's too bad there there's no official support for Reason on Linux and I will have to leave it behind, because I am no longer going back to Windows or Mac for my OS needs. I guess I'll have spent way too much money on Rack Extensions that I can no longer use or sell (which I knew about that part, so not batch, just voicing my frustration that ReasonStudios doesn't have Linux builds).
What's the latency like?
I haven't tested extensively on latency (no controller hooked up), but I am able to play both demo songs at buffer size 1024 samples without pops.

Image

I'm probably going to give up on trying to make the full DAW useful at this point and focus on the rack. I really want to get the REs downloaded, but not sure that will work. I wonder if I can authorize/download and windows and if a simple copy/paste of the REs will work. Might try that later.

Image

avasopht
Competition Winner
Posts: 3931
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

23 Mar 2023

Zerosity wrote:
23 Mar 2023
I'm probably going to give up on trying to make the full DAW useful at this point and focus on the rack. I really want to get the REs downloaded, but not sure that will work. I wonder if I can authorize/download and windows and if a simple copy/paste of the REs will work. Might try that later.
Highly doubt it (given the copy protection and all).

I think the only way we'd see Reason running natively on Linux is if RS released a standalone hardware device like the Maschine+ and the MPC line.

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