Reason 2.5 & Cubase SX3 HELP

[DeaneColeman]

Gang,

Thanks for considering this...I historically rewired Cubase SX3 to Reason 2.5 within Windows XP but put Cubase SX3 and Reason 2.5 to sleep some years ago and now hope to wake them up again. Why? see further below. I'm currently using Windows 10. So far Cubase SX3 has installed and will open in Windows 10 but I haven't tried operating it. Reason 2.5 has installed but wont open. I've tried using Windows Compatability Mode running XP service packs 2 and 3 but no joy. With that background in mind, some questions:

- will Cubase SX3 and/ or Reason 2.5 launch and operate on a PC running Windows XP or Windows 7 Professional? If YES can I do that on a PC running Windows 10, using a bootable thumbdrive with either Windows XP or 7 i.e. second OS not installed on main hdd?

- what other workaround/s can u offer?

- will songs I authored in Cubase SX3 (using Reason 2.5 synths n samplers) open and run normally in more recent versions and on Windows 10?


Why would I want to run such ancient platforms - simply because my incomplete originals were written using them and I wish to try and finish the originals without having to fork out money for more recent versions - if possible. Those platforms served me well back then and have no need for more advanced technology (I think)


Thanks for your patience and I look forward to your wisdom...(note I have posted the same to Steinberg Forum)

[robotgard]

[EpiGenetik]

Old Reason stuff should still work, but I would seriously doubt that Cubase SX3 files would still work this far down the line.

Your best bet is to just try it and see how you get on, but I'm surprised that R2.5 doesn't work on W10 with compatibility mode active.

Should you wish to continue using ReWire, note that R10 is the last version of Reason to use it, it got ditched in R11 in favour of using the VST3 Reason Rack Plugin - which is a hell of a lot better than using ReWire, but that doesn't help your situation should you wish to work on older music spread between the platforms.

In your situation, what would I do? If possible, I'd be tempted to install XP if I still had access to it, open up the old versions and bounce everything down to audio that I want to keep a reference of. I'd then kill the lot of it, install W10 and install the current versions of Cubase and Reason. Why? The current version of Reason is far more advanced, and the current version of Cubase is far more stable - let's tell the truth here, the SX era of Cubase was an endless horrifying bug shitstorm that crashed constantly. I gave up on it entirely during this period. I rejoined Cubase in the Pro era, and I have still to see a crash in it. There's also the fresh start factor - you're probably better off allowing the older music to stay where it is, and reinterpreting it. Otherwise you run the risk of getting hung up on sticking rigidly to old decisions that sounded good but made it more difficult to manouevre elsewhere in the track, if that makes sense.

The disadvantage to doing this is the extra learning curve, of course.

You owe it to yourself to have a good long think about this.

Cheers,
B

[DeaneColeman]

many thanks robotgard

[DeaneColeman]

Many thanks EpiGenetik

the SX era of Cubase was an endless horrifying bug shitstorm that crashed constantly

Can't recall Cubase SX3 ever crashing but take your point regarding improvements since then.

...I'd be tempted to install XP if I still had access to it, open up the old versions and bounce everything down to audio that I want to keep a reference of

That's what I am aiming to achieve but first I wish to 'complete' the originals in the old versions. So it seems I should a) purchase an authentic copy of XP Pro from ebay (cheap enough) b) install that onto a spare PC dedicated to Cubase SX3/ Reason 2.5; c) install those programs d) ensure XP does not try to update. Thoughts?

[Jackjackdaw]

Running old software on new computers is never great. Better off having a dedicated old system with XP on and your old software. Probably be the most stable.

[DeaneColeman]

Running old software on new computers is never great. Better off having a dedicated old system with XP on and your old software. Probably be the most stable.

Jack thanks for the input - my research is beginning to realize this e.g. XP on a modern laptop will have driver issues. I'm currently also looking into Oracle VirtualBox running XP (32-bit). Do you recommend avoiding such a pathway? Noting Adam Fielding's post viewtopic.php?t=7494204, which seems to have had success with Reason 2.5 at least.

[EpiGenetik]

a) purchase an authentic copy of XP Pro from ebay (cheap enough)

This is the way to do it if you are doing it that way, but I'm now not sure if you can still activate WinXP. I found a Stack Overflow post which had some enquiries on it, but nothing I would say was concrete. You might want to investigate this first before shelling out.

Note that the standard page for doing this yourself on MS is now only showing 7 and 8, both XP and Vista look to be gone completely now.

Cheers,
B

[robotgard]

[adfielding]

Just to chime in here as someone mentioned my old Reason Museum - the version I referenced in my old thread is super old, and has since been replaced with a Win7 x64-based VM. I ended up using Sandboxie to maintain all of the different Reason versions (from 1-5) using a single user account, and it all works - of course, if you're just using the one version then you probably don't need to bother with Sandboxie. I've also since switched from VirtualBox to VMWare as I experienced better performance with the latter. If you want to just get Reason 2.5 running, you should be able to install it in a Win7 x64 VM with zero issues.

I have absolutely no idea if Cubase SX 3 will work in a VM with its dongle authentication, and if you're planning on using ReWire then that's also something I haven't tried.

I see no practical reason to use an XP VM with Reason though as all of the old versions work in Win7, even from a purist/aesthetic point of view you can just set Win7 to Classic Mode for that true early 00s feel In any case, I would strongly recommend disabling network access in your VM once you get it up and running/to your liking so as to mitigate any potential vulnerabilities that may arise from running an old OS.

edit: this thread inspired me to fire up my VM and it turns out I'm using ASIO4ALL in there, which I totally forgot about. Latency is still pretty poor but I get no dropouts or hitches.

[Jackjackdaw]

Rather than buy a copy of XP surely there are a ton of cheap PCs available with XP already installed.

[DeaneColeman]

I see no practical reason to use an XP VM with Reason though as all of the old versions work in Win7

Adfielding - again, many thanks for your wisdom and, I intend to follow the Win7 pathway in the first instance...

[DeaneColeman]

Rather than buy a copy of XP surely there are a ton of cheap PCs available with XP already installed.

Jackjackdaw - thanks again for your wisdom - per Adfielding, I'm going to try Win7 first (have an authentic of that one) clean installed on a separate laptop. My mate is going to give me his XP in case I run into any issues with Win7. Any other thoughts on this pathway?