Reason 12.2.9 Release Notes

[Billy+]

I admire your persistence in hoping for an answer on this

That they have avoided giving an answer to this so far, it suggests to me that it's not going to happen or will be added later - but maybe I'm just a pessimist and will be proven wrong

At this point it's almost comical.

I'm rooting for you Billy!

I'm a believer in positive action so although I'm not entirely confident it will happen in this version R12 I shall continue to use the opportunities presented as a gentle reminder

And in the meantime I will continue buying Live upgrades until such a time that Reason standalone offers features I'm willing to pay for....

[MattiasHG]

But in much more fun news: things are going really well and we're steaming ahead!

What vst midi support can we expect, please tell me we will at least see a basic pass through mode?

It's still on our list but it's not the highest priority. With VST3 you can likely expect the same level of support as our VST2 implementation, i.e. not much. Lots to do!

[Billy+]

What vst midi support can we expect, please tell me we will at least see a basic pass through mode?

It's still on our list but it's not the highest priority. With VST3 you can likely expect the same level of support as our VST2 implementation, i.e. not much. Lots to do!

Thanks for the response and I very much appreciate the honesty even if it is somewhat disappointing.

[xylyx]

It's still on our list but it's not the highest priority. With VST3 you can likely expect the same level of support as our VST2 implementation, i.e. not much. Lots to do!

Thanks for the response and I very much appreciate the honesty even if it is somewhat disappointing.

So, pessimism for the win

After all this time the best we can get is another half implemented version of VST support. At least I now know that I need to move on using RRP, as Reason as a host will not fulfil my usage needs going forward...very disappointed.

[Billy+]

Thanks for the response and I very much appreciate the honesty even if it is somewhat disappointing.

So, pessimism for the win

After all this time the best we can get is another half implemented version of VST support. At least I now know that I need to move on using RRP, as Reason as a host will not fulfil my usage needs going forward...very disappointed.

Yeah unfortunate but R10 was a must buy for newer devices, R11 was worth the extra cost to buy suite but R12 finally convinced me to buy Live 11 suite and honestly it's not where I want to be but at least it's got the missing features that I'm sick of waiting for - I'm just glad I bit the bullet right at the start of R12 release rather than buying into the long forgotten original roadmap.

[Pepin]

Any chance we'll be able to directly automate parameters above 249?

[mimidancer]

So, pessimism for the win

After all this time the best we can get is another half implemented version of VST support. At least I now know that I need to move on using RRP, as Reason as a host will not fulfil my usage needs going forward...very disappointed.

Yeah unfortunate but R10 was a must buy for newer devices, R11 was worth the extra cost to buy suite but R12 finally convinced me to buy Live 11 suite and honestly it's not where I want to be but at least it's got the missing features that I'm sick of waiting for - I'm just glad I bit the bullet right at the start of R12 release rather than buying into the long forgotten original roadmap.

Reason is not Live. It is better than live. No one wants VST3 support more than me. But TBH using bluecat in reason to host VST3 is not difficult. With each instrument, there is an added step of setting up the controllable parameters. But you only have to do that once per plugin. Features not yet added are not missing. As for slamming the roadmap. The reason most companies don't post one is that programmers are not perfect and sometimes what seems like a small project at first can start a myriad of small fires that must be contained before moving on to the next project. As for this upgrade, mimic and the new combinator alone was worth it for me. Enjoy Live I'm sure they never have issues.

[MattiasHG]

Any chance we'll be able to directly automate parameters above 249?

There's very much a chance.

[Pepin]

Any chance we'll be able to directly automate parameters above 249?

There's very much a chance.

Excellent! That would make my day/year

[EnochLight]

Enjoy Live I'm sure they never have issues.

Lol! Yeah, Ableton Live is awesome (I don’t regret buying it one bit) but it has its own form of problems. Can’t believe I still have to resort to Symlinks just to point Live to all of my VST folders. It’s like they want to piss their users off on purpose - LOL!

If VST3 support works the same as VST2 support in Reason, I won’t be mad about it. Not exactly thrilled, but… it is what it is. Just hoping they continue to focus on the standalone DAW portion more if that’s the case.

[Billy+]

Reason is not Live.

You're right and I also said in all honesty it's not where I want to be - but Reason is missing half the vst implementation of every other daw because they haven't yet implemented midi device support.

Bluecat is not a solution it's not especially even a good workaround and given that RS is actively working on the vst code it would be nice to see it fully furnished which definitely means midi support as well.

I'm not entirely sure what is required for a player style pass through implementation for vst midi devices but it's definitely missing and currently a limitation that as a long time customer has turned me into a Live customer that has been purchasing vst's instead of buying rack extensions,

in fact I haven't purchased a single product for Reason since R12 was released.

[MuttReason]

Enjoy Live I'm sure they never have issues.

Quite. The Ableton road has been pretty damn rocky at times over the years. RS are not unique in releasing a major upgrade that turns out to be… problematic. I’ve used Live almost as long as I’ve used Reason and there have been some absolute horror shows in the past that only got close to stability after at least half a dozen point releases.

Thinking about it, I reckon the timing interval between initial release of a major Live upgrade and the point at which subsequent fixes stabilise the product and (most) internet forum complaints subside is about the same as we’ve seen for Reason 12. Somewhere between 9 and 16 months in other words.

I may be misremembering but Live 10 (the previous version) was one of the worst, it took many months and something like a dozen point releases before it was truly stable for most people. If it wasn’t Live 10 it was 9, these things fade from memory over time!

Seeing the same thing with Akai on MPC as well, the latest OS update was pretty bad at launch, it’s being fixed now but each subsequent point release seems to break something that worked before which is really annoying. Usual rule of thumb with Akai seems to be it takes about a year for an OS update to be stable.

[EnochLight]

Thinking about it, I reckon the timing interval between initial release of a major Live upgrade and the point at which subsequent fixes stabilise the product and (most) internet forum complaints subside is about the same as we’ve seen for Reason 12. Somewhere between 9 and 16 months in other words.

I may be misremembering but Live 10 (the previous version) was one of the worst, it took many months and something like a dozen point releases before it was truly stable for most people. If it wasn’t Live 10 it was 9, these things fade from memory over time!

Yeah, it was either Live version 9 or 10 - I remember hearing the horror stories and user rage all over the forums (which is one reason it took me so long to finally pick up Live Suite). That said, while Reason Studios is not unique in that regard, at least Ableton added a massive slew of core DAW features to Live over 9, 10, and 11!

Seeing the same thing with Akai on MPC as well, the latest OS update was pretty bad at launch, it’s being fixed now but each subsequent point release seems to break something that worked before which is really annoying. Usual rule of thumb with Akai seems to be it takes about a year for an OS update to be stable.

I've been along for the ride with Akai MPC (and now Force) since 2017. Indeed, there's been some questionable releases in there, but 2.10 was mostly fixed 4-6 months after release - at least for me there wasn't any show stopping bugs. 2.11 has this damn MP3 playback/import bug, but they've got a fix planned and incoming soon. I'm a little miffed it took them a year+ to fix Splice on MPC (and it's still busted on Force), but I know it's just a matter of (short order) time before the Force is brought up to speed as well.

[MuttReason]

Thinking about it, I reckon the timing interval between initial release of a major Live upgrade and the point at which subsequent fixes stabilise the product and (most) internet forum complaints subside is about the same as we’ve seen for Reason 12. Somewhere between 9 and 16 months in other words.

I may be misremembering but Live 10 (the previous version) was one of the worst, it took many months and something like a dozen point releases before it was truly stable for most people. If it wasn’t Live 10 it was 9, these things fade from memory over time!

Yeah, it was either Live version 9 or 10 - I remember hearing the horror stories and user rage all over the forums (which is one reason it took me so long to finally pick up Live Suite). That said, while Reason Studios is not unique in that regard, at least Ableton added a massive slew of core DAW features to Live over 9, 10, and 11!

Seeing the same thing with Akai on MPC as well, the latest OS update was pretty bad at launch, it’s being fixed now but each subsequent point release seems to break something that worked before which is really annoying. Usual rule of thumb with Akai seems to be it takes about a year for an OS update to be stable.

I've been along for the ride with Akai MPC (and now Force) since 2017. Indeed, there's been some questionable releases in there, but 2.10 was mostly fixed 4-6 months after release - at least for me there wasn't any show stopping bugs. 2.11 has this damn MP3 playback/import bug, but they've got a fix planned and incoming soon. I'm a little miffed it took them a year+ to fix Splice on MPC (and it's still busted on Force), but I know it's just a matter of (short order) time before the Force is brought up to speed as well.

The Akai process seems to be the most grating TBH, there is so little communication from them (eg updates released with no patch notes at all… bizarre really) and they keep on breaking something that was working before whenever they squash a bug. It’s all pretty inept. It’s got to the point that I’ve put my MPC in a cupboard for a bit, almost every time I worked on a project and went to save the machine locked up which was pretty frustrating.

[EnochLight]

I’ve put my MPC in a cupboard for a bit, almost every time I worked on a project and went to save the machine locked up which was pretty frustrating.

Yikes! That's not good, but also - not normal. Sounds like hardware failure actually. I've never had my MPC Live II lock up while saving a project, like ever. Are you saving to user attached storage? Don't want to derail the thread, but was curious.

[MuttReason]

I’ve put my MPC in a cupboard for a bit, almost every time I worked on a project and went to save the machine locked up which was pretty frustrating.

Yikes! That's not good, but also - not normal. Sounds like hardware failure actually. I've never had my MPC Live II lock up while saving a project, like ever. Are you saving to user attached storage? Don't want to derail the thread, but was curious.

It’s weird. I’ve done all the right things… not messing with internal storage, preferences reset every time there’s an OS update. All the stuff that’s recommended on the MPC Forums (where I see you’re a regular poster BTW). And my MPC Live 2 was solid as anything before the latest OS update so not a hardware issue. All so annoying. That plus all the other bugs (pad perform, MP3 previews etc) got me to the point where I’ve decided to park the MPC for a while and stick to Reason (and Reason and Live only) until such time as Akai fix this mess (which TBF on past form they will, eventually).

[mimidancer]

Reason is not Live.

You're right and I also said in all honesty it's not where I want to be - but Reason is missing half the vst implementation of every other daw because they haven't yet implemented midi device support.

Bluecat is not a solution it's not especially even a good workaround and given that RS is actively working on the vst code it would be nice to see it fully furnished which definitely means midi support as well.

I'm not entirely sure what is required for a player style pass through implementation for vst midi devices but it's definitely missing and currently a limitation that as a long time customer has turned me into a Live customer that has been purchasing vst's instead of buying rack extensions,

in fact I haven't purchased a single product for Reason since R12 was released.

I;m not sure i knowwhat you mean by player style pass through. Please explain. Can DM if you want, or I am happy to read it here.

I have used bluecat for a long time. it does the job for me. I also use it to run the reason rack plug-in and the Roland cloud stuff when I just want to dive into one synth in stand alone mode. Great for sound design session. in addition to that, it runs the vst3s for me in reason. I own Live as well. I absolutely hate the workflow. Thats why i use reason. And never once have I posted on an Ableton board how much more I like Reason. Because the people that use Live could give AF. Just like I could care less that someone is dropping reason for live. Again I never posted my feeling once on an Abelton board.

[EnochLight]

And never once have I posted on an Ableton board how much more I like Reason. Because the people that use Live could give AF. Just like I could care less that someone is dropping reason for live. Again I never posted my feeling once on an Ableton board.

That's because you're not an Ableton Live user who uses Reason as an alternative because Live is missing core DAW features that Reason has. Billy+ (and many other people here) prefer to use Reason DAW as our primary, we WANT to use Reason DAW as our primary, but have gone to other DAW because of core DAW features still missing in Reason. So when we see a new Reason update or know that a new long-awaited feature is in development (such as VST3 support), we get our hopes up that it's done right, and perhaps the original VST2 implementation is also fleshed out (or at least everything that was missing in VST2 support appears in VST3 support). And we moan about it here, because that's what the Internet does. I don't see Billy+ going on about how much more he likes Ableton Live. He's lamenting the fact that he HAD to go to Ableton Live because Reason just wasn't adding the features he needs.

Trust me - for similar reasons (but slightly different), I also picked up Ableton Live. I still prefer to use Reason DAW as my primary, but... well - read above.

[Billy+]

As it stands a player device simply passes the midi data through to the device below it, no mess no fuss 100% perfect and if you want you can use player tap to route elsewhere it's so elegant that I really don't see any other way to improve on it.

Wouldn't it be just perfect if the same principle could be applied to vst based midi devices, simply drag in the player shell (like an empty combinator) then drop in the vst device and the midi data is just passed through.

Simple elegant would work well within the current scheme.

[Billy+]

And never once have I posted on an Ableton board how much more I like Reason. Because the people that use Live could give AF. Just like I could care less that someone is dropping reason for live. Again I never posted my feeling once on an Ableton board.

That's because you're not an Ableton Live user who uses Reason as an alternative because Live is missing core DAW features that Reason has. Billy+ (and many other people here) prefer to use Reason DAW as our primary, we WANT to use Reason DAW as our primary, but have gone to other DAW because of core DAW features still missing in Reason. So when we see a new Reason update or know that a new long-awaited feature is in development (such as VST3 support), we get our hopes up that it's done right, and perhaps the original VST2 implementation is also fleshed out (or at least everything that was missing in VST2 support appears in VST3 support). And we moan about it here, because that's what the Internet does.

100% agree with everything said.. I've used Reason standalone since the first version and R12 is the only version I haven't purchased, if RRP wasn't a thing or midi support was added I probably wouldn't have purchased Live

[Pepin]

VSTs can support both MIDI and audio out from the same device (e.g. a synth sending MIDI from its sequencer or arpeggiator).

Since Players cannot output audio, I'd rather see a "MIDI Receiver" Player device.
It would have a dropdown for selecting any VST instance from the project.
And it would simply forward any MIDI received from that VST to the attached rack device.

[Billy+]

VSTs can support both MIDI and audio out from the same device (e.g. a synth sending MIDI from its sequencer or arpeggiator).

Since Players cannot output audio, I'd rather see a "MIDI Receiver" Player device.
It would have a dropdown for selecting any VST instance from the project.
And it would simply forward any MIDI received from that VST to the attached rack device.

So long as we can agree that anything is better than nothing

[joeyluck]

As it stands a player device simply passes the midi data through to the device below it, no mess no fuss 100% perfect and if you want you can use player tap to route elsewhere it's so elegant that I really don't see any other way to improve on it.

Wouldn't it be just perfect if the same principle could be applied to vst based midi devices, simply drag in the player shell (like an empty combinator) then drop in the vst device and the midi data is just passed through.

Simple elegant would work well within the current scheme.

How many of these VST MIDI plugins aren't available as standalone?

For me, one of the better ways to use MIDI effect software would be assigned as a MIDI controller in the DAW.

So you would assign your physical controller to that external MIDI software and assign that software as your controller in your DAW.

Then there's none of the add this, then print that, then remove this... Your DAW would just record the MIDI data as it's received.

[Billy+]

As it stands a player device simply passes the midi data through to the device below it, no mess no fuss 100% perfect and if you want you can use player tap to route elsewhere it's so elegant that I really don't see any other way to improve on it.

Wouldn't it be just perfect if the same principle could be applied to vst based midi devices, simply drag in the player shell (like an empty combinator) then drop in the vst device and the midi data is just passed through.

Simple elegant would work well within the current scheme.

How many of these VST MIDI plugins aren't available as standalone?

For me, one of the better ways to use MIDI effect software would be assigned as a MIDI controller in the DAW.

So you would assign your physical controller to that external MIDI software and assign that software as your controller in your DAW.

Then there's none of the add this, then print that, then remove this... Your DAW would just record the MIDI data as it's received.

There's lots of devices available.

Originally I had hoped companion was a midi style host that would work standalone and allow virtual channels to be assigned locked and routed via the advanced midi interface but alas no.

[mimidancer]

That's because you're not an Ableton Live user who uses Reason as an alternative because Live is missing core DAW features that Reason has. Billy+ (and many other people here) prefer to use Reason DAW as our primary, we WANT to use Reason DAW as our primary, but have gone to other DAW because of core DAW features still missing in Reason. So when we see a new Reason update or know that a new long-awaited feature is in development (such as VST3 support), we get our hopes up that it's done right, and perhaps the original VST2 implementation is also fleshed out (or at least everything that was missing in VST2 support appears in VST3 support). And we moan about it here, because that's what the Internet does.

100% agree with everything said.. I've used Reason standalone since the first version and R12 is the only version I haven't purchased, if RRP wasn't a thing or midi support was added I probably wouldn't have purchased Live

I guess what I disagree with is that the features are missing. Live has features that reason does not. And the other way too. That does not mean that either is missing features. They are different products. You can't say you are happy with the way you have to collect files to save a project in live. It's not hard but it sucks. No? But it is not reason.

Mostly I feel many people online have been overly critical of something I really love as is. More would be nice, but Reason has already made me happy. Even if I can't fold tracks into a folder. But I have never seen an SSL console fold up either.

I am likely being overly sensitive, but Reason is like my big brother. Sure he a kinda a dork. But I love that dork.