This video offers up a first look at Reason 5 and the Dr. Octo Rex Loop Player:
The upgraded Dr. Octo Rex loop player loads eight REX loops into one player and lets you switch between them on the fly. This is designed to make arranging a breeze – load the drum loops into one player, the guitars into another and use the sequencer to select what loop to play in a pattern-like fashion.
With eight loops to switch between, the new Rex also comes ready for the experimental minded. Set the player to retrig the loops on the beat, on the bar or on the 16th note. Or program the loops manually like in the original rex player.
For each of the eight loops, the new rex player also comes with an expanded set of per-slice settings. Set pan, pitch, filter frequency and level, reverse slices, use multiple outputs, create alternating groups of slices and much more.
Propellerhead says that this is the first peek at Reason 5, but that they’ll have more Reason 5 and Record 1.5 previews throughout this week.
Now, I'm not a Reason user myself (have demo'd it quite extensively. Although its not for me I do see its potential) but after looking at the video I cannot help wonder if this is actually a step forward or backwards…
Sure; using individual components may indeed clutter up a modular system, I can see that. But at the same time they can also provide you with a lot of flexibility. I'd say this goes double with a system such as Reason where you can do a lot of weird routing in the patch section. While the movie shows a specific routing going on, I'm pretty sure you're not limited to that.
So I can't help wonder how they managed to solve this? Are those 8 loop slots available to be routed separately or can you only patch the device as a whole ? You do see a quick shot from the back at around 1:40 which shows 8 outputs (which seems to go into another audio input) but you /also/ see that the device has a main audio output.
I don't exactly know how this is going to work for me (if this is the big feature in Reason 5 I'm going to stick with 4) but it is interesting as I'm a big ReCycle user and this will only expand what I can do A LOT from what the video shows.
They have more to announce from what the website says. What I would really like to see (what I would pay for an upgrade for) is Record-like time stretch and/or the ability to work with Audio. With Logic and Cubase coming way down in price it's not fair for Reason users to have to buy Record just to have these features that are staples in all it's competitors.
Each loop can be routed to its own audio output in the little LED screen on the front. So yes, 8 loops, 8 separate outputs going to effects, the audio in on Thor or Maelstrom so you can use their filters and LFOs, or if you have Record 8 mix channels meaning 8 loops on 8 separate tracks being controlled from one device. Not sure if there are 8 separate CV controls but that surely would be nice.
You can also edit each loop at the slice level with Pan, Pitch, Filter Freq., Level, Decay, REVERSE 🙂 controls.
All of this equates to, in my humble opinion, a major improvement over the old Dr. Rex player.
I've been using Reason for quite a while, I love it. But indeed its not for everyone. Maybe you can demo Reason 5 when it comes out 😀 Perhaps you'll change your mind.
Peace
From the looks of it, I think it's suppose to be like Spectrasonics Stylus RMX. If that's the case I think this is going a fun new feature to play with and it will probably be less CPU intensive than Stylus. Not only that but it's much easier to find sounds that will work with Dr.REX or Dr.OctoREX than it is to get sounds for Stylus. Homemade/Roll Your Own Dr.REX loops don't always play back that well in Stylus for whatever reason (pardon the pun). I'm looking forward more from Reason.
Thanks for your explanation. And no; although I might demo Reason5 to check it out I'm pretty sure it won't change my mind. I'm pretty hooked onto Live & M4L / Max/MSP.
Um… for a music software program the audio soundtrack to this video is pretty cheesy, like 1980s corporate training video cheesy.
Actually I like the music from the McDonald's custodial training video better. [youtube UoBc-eNZO6khttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoBc-eNZO6k youtube]
not sure if the link worked http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoBc-eNZO6k
cant play more than one loop at a time (8 slots 8 seperate loops but cannot hear them all at the same time to test funky combinations? This is definately NOT cool (unless I missed something here as Ive been trying all night to blend more than one loop together in One Dr. Octo Rex player)
Nope… Ur right… Doesn't do it… Def not cool… Propheads keeps holding on to their proprietary Rex file format for dear life, at the expense of their customers…
They should have at the very least included a way for people to create their own Rex files without having to open a second program. That is sooo late 1990s…
No u can not send separate loops to separate output, u only can send slices to effect unit….
sending a whole independent loop to a fx unit is not an option…..
Addition—–> u can do it but u need to select each slice output and send…but if a loop is big and has more sliced parts it will take ages. thats bad.
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