i was messing with reason for many years and i was a huge fun of the program until the release of version 4 which made me realize many obvious things which i didnt want to admit in the first place.

reason came out in 2000, and although it wasnt designed to support vst technology, almost every user in propellerhead forum was asking desperately for vst support.
its quite obvious why reason users wanted that. from 2000 till now vst technology became very powerful and cutting edge technology in music industry. all reason synths and effects sound quite weak comparing to what is out today!

but propellerheads keep ignoring what their users want and keep adding some good or less good devises to make reason more update or appealing.

whats the point to add mastering suite when there are extremely good mastering effects out there with precise controls like izotopes ozone or waves ssl among many others?

other users need more complex delays or filters or gates or synths or guitar amps or audio recording, etc.
So what is going to be? wait 10 more years to see these features as updates in reason? all these problems should have been solved by adding vst technology.

some they may say that you can have all these features by rewire, but composing and arranging music in 2 applications simultaneously is quite frustrating!

from version 3 to 4, we’ve waited more than a year to see props destroying the sequencer. this update found some supporters but many users also found the new sequencer quite frustrating and slowing down their work flow (including me). the old tested sequencer was actually the power of reason! its simplicity and directness was the power that attracted thousands of users.
now that magic is gone!

in version 4 props added thor and thay’ve announced it as the ultimate synthesizer but it still sounds pretty weak compare to what vsti’s are out today! even though, you have to know really good programming to get rich sounds in thor.

so… after messing and adoring reason for 8 years i finally realize that reason is never going to be a pro music application.
for hobbyists and music learning schools is an awesome program, but for pro music making still sound weak and limited.

If you buy a Porsche 911 would you take it off road? No you would’nt!!

If you want .wav’s to work then ReCycle will do the job, however i find it’s only good for beats and not synth loops…maybe i’m doing something wrong?

I love Acid loops so i have bought Acid Pro 6 and Reason 4 to get the best of both worlds. loops in Acid and the rest from Reaon via ReWire. Both Acid and Reason are low CPU users so hopefully i shouldn’t have a problem.

Can’t get my head roun Live but alot of people seem to like it. Must have more of a fiddle!!

Reason is what it is and as said if you take the time to learn it properly then it will be very rewarding.

Enjoy!

1/ the dreadfull mixer display
2/ the signalprocessing devices

the synths are fine the effect modules are fine the drum machine fine now the seqwencer is fine but the signal processing and mixer are NOT! if ne props read this please please improve these issues make the mcomp and meq the true compressor and eq they deserves to be and sort the gui out on the mixer

Sounds Fantastic though, love the Devices. the gripes with sound quality is utter bunkum. i exported a pure sine wave from various music making software & spectrum analysed the sound & there was no difference from the orig & the exported versions. just reason was quieter than the others, a 0db peak to peak normalise & it was fine . just set the device to high quality export.

All of these complaints i hear just strike me immediately as coming from lazy people that don’t want to spend the time needed to figure things out… You spent time figuring out VST’s and other programs… why not spend a little time figuring out an entirely different piece of software that in the end… is ALL you will ever need…

I’ve got tracks for days that i’ve made on Reason over the years… and i’ve spent 200 bucks on a midi controller.. now someone please tell me the downside to that?
Since i started using Reason.. I Refuse to buy a workstation.. there is no need for one, or an MPC for that matter.. DR Rex and Recycle do it all…and then some…

And another thing lol… I don’t know what the deal is with all these people complaining about the sound quality…
Sounds to me like you can hear something wrong but just don’t know the first step to take to fix it… You can COMPLETELY mix down and engineer all of your tracks WITHIN reason… What the recording studio does to it is up to them, but i can garuntee if you know what your doing, it will save the Studio engineers a LOT of time… it’s saved me plenty…

To conclude…
BUY THIS SOFTWARE!!!
since we all know time = $, and if your serious about making quality music, saving time, saving money, and making it too… You will

It’s elegant, simple and works very well for what it’s intended to do. An amazing tool which most producers should own. With that said, most producers should own a host of software. Reason wasn’t intended to be everything to everyone and clever producers understand this ergo the stacks of equipment that Trevor Horn, Snoop Dogg and Timberland own.

Live it, Love it and use them all especially Reason!

And what will i need to sample my own sounds strait in to Reason 4?
ie sound card recomendations if thats what i need? i am on budget.

Thanks
Matthew

If you have to reWire to other apps that DO use a lot of cpu in order to get the job done, isn’t it kind of useless to make a point of how little CPU Reason uses? If it needs other applications, then by inheritance it actually IS using all of the CPU, because it is the application that is calling the others in order to work (parasite relationship, eh?). So unless your using Reason all by itself and not calling any other apps (or whatever via rewire) it is nonsensical to portray it as this all-in-one, low resource using application.

I went out and purchased it today, and its a great program, no doubt, but I really hate this limited screen space thing they have going on. I want to be able to use all my screen, not 1/3 of it. I want to be able to stretch it a bit and work with it that way, not have to keep scrolling etc or trying to maximise to do something else. If this version had a proper “maximise” feature I’d be over the moon.

I went out and purchased it today, and its a great program, no doubt, but I really hate this limited screen space thing they have going on. I want to be able to use all my screen, not 1/3 of it. I want to be able to stretch it a bit and work with it that way, not have to keep scrolling etc or trying to maximise to do something else. If this version had a proper “maximise” feature I’d be over the moon.

I was really hoping they sorted it out in this release

I’ve been using Reason–pretty much daily–since v1.0 (Feb 2001). I just bought the update and am happily discovering its power.

Some folks need to drop their illusions. I really don’t care to change minds that are already made up–use what makes you happy, and please, feel quite free not to use this wonderful tool–your loss–it makes no nevermind to me.

But I’m writing this for you folks who may have never used it or are considering getting it…

–”sound engine issues”: Myth. If you don’t understand audio, mixing, eq, compression, effects…I really don’t know what to say–other than: stick to something safe, like golf. If you can’t figure out how to make your stuff sound good, no app is going to Save You. Reason sounds great. If you’re buying into the “neg-meme” trope of the sound engine not sounding good, well, you’re a whiny lemming, in my opinion. If you hate it, and your ears are really that offended, use something else, and go with God. (Questions for further study: what’s your monitor situation? Soundcard? Listening space? Experience level? Creativity quotient? Ability to creatively problem solve?)

–VST/VSTi stuff: The Props have, since Day 1, intended Reason to be a “virtual synth studio”. If you think about it like that–Lordy, it does almost everything else! If you want the whole VST experience, use ReWire–I have both Cubase SX 3 and Live 6, though I almost always use Live these days. When I want to add NI stuff (Massive, Reaktor, Absynth, Guitar Rig, Elektrik Piano, Kontakt, etc) I just ReWire it all up and go nuts. Next question…

–Audio (wav/aiff editing) support/mp3/blahblahblah: This doesn’t have it. It’s not supposed to. It’s rock-solid, and low on CPU. If your Grandmother had balls…she’d be your Grandfather. See what I mean?

–ReCycle: I’ve had it almost as long as I’ve had Reason. Want easy to manipulate audio in Reason? Make a REX file. I do almost all my vocals that way. Once you’ve sliced it, it’s way easier to manipulate than an audio file, anyhow.

So, kids, if you’re thinking Reason is useful for what you do, go get the demo, try it–then buy it. It’s a fantastic value in my (and many, many people’s opinions.) If you don’t like it–go buy what you think you need. I love Reason, and it changed how I made music. As I said, I almost always ReWire it to Live, and it’s the basis of 90% of my tracks.

Now go play nice.

Nick
millionVALVE