Announcing Reason 13

[luckygreen]

The blue thing is just down to inflationary pressures. The price of blue pixels has increased way more than the average price rise for intangible things. There is a severe shortage of blue, mostly caused by the tendency of AI art generators to draw too much sky and ocean. I don't think it's fair to blame RS for a problem that is world wide.

Hahaha ..

No really, they take away my blue theme? It is just a color, no additional graphic assets to design or something .. How much work could it be to adapt the old blue theme to new GUI elements like the new editor window?

To me it feels sometimes like there is no stringent direction behind the big project that is called Reason. In one version they add a feature and it works well. Just to remove it a few versions later. Like a nutshell floating on the sea: one time one direction, the other time the other direction.

Being a fan means suffering.

*switched to dark mode in R12 to get used to it*

[djsmex]

Reason has a lot going for it, as to my knowledge, I don't know of another DAW that can open and play a v1 file in v12.

You can open Ableton v1 sets with v12
But ProTools is another story

Anyway I just hope they give RRP some love in 13

Didn't know live had any backwards compatibility, good to know.

[robussc]

Your experience indeed, but not mine. I'm running the rack on a dedicated, vertically oriented screen, and opening the browser messes with the rack position on that screen.

This also drives me crazy, I have it set so a single rack fits the screen width perfectly and then the browser opens and I'm back to horizontal scrolling or constantly managing the browser.

[Liimusic]

Still no open beta available? Reason 13 will come out in less than 30 days. What exactly do you want to test in 30 days, does a open beta still make sense?

[robussc]

No, the mixer still has the same color scheme. It's not quite part of the general UI, more a skeumorphic "mega device", but I've made note of the request!

Please underline that twice.

Especially as SSL has dark mixer designs, so it's not like it would be breaking the skueomorphic design.

Monosnap SSL BiG SiX - Studiospares 2024-05-21 07-35-47.png (1000.91 KiB) Viewed 1566 times

[spacepluk]

I would be happy just switching to the dark one but I'm sure someone will hate it

[DaveyG]

The blue thing is just down to inflationary pressures. The price of blue pixels has increased way more than the average price rise for intangible things. There is a severe shortage of blue, mostly caused by the tendency of AI art generators to draw too much sky and ocean. I don't think it's fair to blame RS for a problem that is world wide.

Hahaha ..

No really, they take away my blue theme? It is just a color, no additional graphic assets to design or something .. How much work could it be to adapt the old blue theme to new GUI elements like the new editor window?

To me it feels sometimes like there is no stringent direction behind the big project that is called Reason. In one version they add a feature and it works well. Just to remove it a few versions later. Like a nutshell floating on the sea: one time one direction, the other time the other direction.

Being a fan means suffering.

*switched to dark mode in R12 to get used to it*

Just be glad your forum nickname isn't luckyblue. You wouldn't be able to afford to post here.

But, yes, I think it would not be much work for them to keep the blue and, yes, sometimes the features do seem somewhat ill-thought out with regards to fitting with everything that is already here. Try explaining to a newbie why recording audio in a loop results in multiple takes but doing the same with MIDI does not.

[chimp_spanner]

Please underline that twice.

Especially as SSL has dark mixer designs, so it's not like it would be breaking the skueomorphic design.

Monosnap SSL BiG SiX - Studiospares 2024-05-21 07-35-47.png

I mean there are RE's that have alternate skins. Can't remember the names off the top of my head but it's definitely possible. So even if they're not part of the GUI, we could have a switch that toggles light/dark mode somewhere on the mixer. Like on the master section perhaps.

[spacepluk]

Especially as SSL has dark mixer designs, so it's not like it would be breaking the skueomorphic design.

Monosnap SSL BiG SiX - Studiospares 2024-05-21 07-35-47.png

I mean there are RE's that have alternate skins. Can't remember the names off the top of my head but it's definitely possible. So even if they're not part of the GUI, we could have a switch that toggles light/dark mode somewhere on the mixer. Like on the master section perhaps.

I would like that.

[jklok]

I can help but think that mono is still necessary to work with all the boomboxes that young people seem to like and crank to maximum power when the sun comes out.

[stratatonic]

No, the mixer still has the same color scheme. It's not quite part of the general UI, more a skeumorphic "mega device", but I've made note of the request!

Please underline that twice.

Almost FIVE YEARS AGO, Mattias replied to this question:
"For instance, the themes decision to omit the mixer from getting the blue/dark themes perplexes me."

with this:
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"Regarding the dark themed mixer, that was a time issue because the themes were added in the very last stages of development."
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DarkThemedMixer.png (57.74 KiB) Viewed 1392 times

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Looks like the underlining missed and it was crossed out instead.

[huggermugger]

Goodbye blue. Goodbye Reason.

[selig]

Please underline that twice.

Especially as SSL has dark mixer designs, so it's not like it would be breaking the skueomorphic design.

It's not just that - the SSL J series console, as well as the E and G series (I've worked on all of these) was a dark grey color. Not sure why they went with the light color scheme in the first place…

[Pepin]

I mean there are RE's that have alternate skins. Can't remember the names off the top of my head but it's definitely possible. So even if they're not part of the GUI, we could have a switch that toggles light/dark mode somewhere on the mixer. Like on the master section perhaps.

Right, Combinator 2 has tons of different skins, so I don’t think skins for the SSL go against Reason’s design philosophy. When it’s described as a “mega device,” I think that just means skins would be independent of the UI theme.

[robussc]

Especially as SSL has dark mixer designs, so it's not like it would be breaking the skueomorphic design.

It's not just that - the SSL J series console, as well as the E and G series (I've worked on all of these) was a dark grey color. Not sure why they went with the light color scheme in the first place…

Interesting. It’s weird that they’ve done done it yet. It’s just some art assets after all, no massive DSP magic needed. Talk about low hanging fruit.

[EnochLight]

Interesting. It’s weird that they’ve not done it yet. It’s just some art assets after all, no massive DSP magic needed. Talk about low hanging fruit.

I'd wager that it's far more complicated than just some art assets, else we would have seen it by now. And count my name in as one who has asked for a proper main mixer dark theme for like... well - since Record came out. That's like - Reason 5??! Lol And now that the bulk of Reason "proper" has a dark theme, it makes the main mixer even more painful to look at. Here's hoping for a 13.x update that finally addresses the main mixer. Not holding my breath, though.

[Noplan]

Interesting. It’s weird that they’ve not done it yet. It’s just some art assets after all, no massive DSP magic needed. Talk about low hanging fruit.

I'd wager that it's far more complicated than just some art assets, else we would have seen it by now. And count my name in as one who has asked for a proper main mixer dark theme for like... well - since Record came out. That's like - Reason 5??! Lol And now that the bulk of Reason "proper" has a dark theme, it makes the main mixer even more painful to look at. Here's hoping for a 13.x update that finally addresses the main mixer. Not holding my breath, though.

The color of the console is baked so deeply into the code that it creates the typical Reason sound.

[Pepin]

I would say introducing a dark SSL skin is actually trickier than it might initially appear when you consider the impact on the design of the rack.

For visual consistency, a dark SSL skin would probably require dark Mixer Channel and Audio Track devices in the rack (and the Master Section too).
Those are the bare minimum, but you could also argue that the "Reason Classic" devices would need a dark skin.

And once those are in, some other bright areas of the UI might stick out badly. I'm mainly thinking about the Players header and the first party Players, which have a consistently bright white design language. Same goes for the VST devices.

Ideally all of those would get a dark skin, if it happened.

[crimsonwarlock]

Here's hoping for a 13.x update that finally addresses the main mixer. Not holding my breath, though.

Here's another perspective: having both the blue and dark layout (besides the light one) meant they had to make two new color versions for the mixer to honor this request. So, taking out the blue theme makes the appearance of a dark version mixer down the road a lot more plausible

[stratatonic]

And now that the bulk of Reason "proper" has a dark theme, it makes the main mixer even more painful to look at. Here's hoping for a 13.x update that finally addresses the main mixer. Not holding my breath, though.

Less is more, Enoch. The lower your track count the blacker mixer mode is.

The color of the console is baked so deeply into the code that it creates the typical Reason sound.

Things that are half-baked are usually lighter in color.

[EnochLight]

Here's another perspective: having both the blue and dark layout (besides the light one) meant they had to make two new color versions for the mixer to honor this request. So, taking out the blue theme makes the appearance of a dark version mixer down the road a lot more plausible

Lol! I mean, that's very true.

Less is more, Enoch. The lower your track count the blacker mixer mode is.

[spacepluk]

I've been thinking: How does multilane editing work in R13? The lanes/tracks used to be where the tool panel is now.

[ab459]

The most desirabe thing for me as for RRP fan would be ability to VST hosting inside RRP, dang would be really good. Otherwise, amazing modulation tricks topic (for VST) just not covered with rrp, unfortunately. Only inside Reason.

Up until now I try to use Reason as a DAW to get more used to it. Every now and then I have tried the RRP inside of Ableton Live. One thing that confuses me with the RRP and maybe you and/or other RRP fans could shed some light upon: I haven't been able to activate the right sidebar (rack overview) in the RRP like in the Reason DAW. So I have to crank and crank the mouse wheel to navigate inside the RRP.
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Rack_overview_sidebar.jpg
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Am I doing something wrong? Or is that an issue that's adressed with R13?

Hm frankly i never thought about additional horizontal rack column in RRP, single pretty enough for my needs (in RRP).
I still at v12 though, not sure if something was changed in v13 with rack plugin design.

[SebAudio]

I've worked making software for a long time so I have a rough idea of how easy it is to underestimate a task.

Just iterating until they are happy with the final look would take quite a bit of time I think. Then putting the thing in the app, testing it, making sure the change didn't break anything else, etc. Plus all the other stuff I don't know.

It always takes longer.

Exactly.
I wonder if they collect usage information ? If so, they know the blue theme is used by a very small part of users, so they can get rid of it. Surely the same for Blocks

[Steedus]

Why on earth would they get rid of one of only three colour options that was already there? Geez it's baffling sometimes, what companies decide to do. I know they're small but if it was a cost thing of "we can only allocate enough budget to redo 2 colours, not 3" then that would be pretty worrying ..

Ok I posted this while at work and couldn't watch the video. After watching the video finally, they did explain it somewhat, which sure, does make sense. Will have to see the dark colour to judge, but it is disappointing as for the longest time I was all "light" mode until I tried the blue and loved it and have been using since. Oh well.