REASON 4 - Propellerheads finally announce!!

[forge]

Reason 3 is a tool

yeah man what a tool !

[thelocalhost]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't the whole rewire protocol an emulation of the top device in Reason? Thus very unlikely to change at all in the future.

No, it's something far more powerful, which to be honest nobody has fully taken advantage of. Rewire allows for:
* 256 audio channels
* 4080 MIDI channels
* Transport syncronisation
* Information transfer (e.g. patch/sample names from the slave to be transmitted to the host).

In terms of people taking advantage of this powerful protocol, my personal no.1 FR is for Ableton to sort out VST/AU hosting when Live is in slave mode (which is perfectly possible within the Rewire spec).

It's not 'powerful' in the right ways. Why is sending midi from the slave to the master forbidden? And why the fuck haven't they added audio support.

Using Reason as a rewire slave is just a clumsy workflow; I've replaced most of the devices I commonly use in Reason by AU versions (e.g., RMX as my rx2 player, Reaktor for any synths, and Battery as my Redrum).

If you use Reason as a rewire slave (this is mainly motivated by the inability to record your own audio into Reason), I think the new features are weak. The new sequencer improvements, the new arpeggiator, 'Regroove' feature becomes worthless as a rewire slave. To use the features, you have to have midi in the Reason sequencer and midi in the Rewire master. This makes for a clumsy workflow.

IMO, for the Reason 4 update, you're getting a new Synth and that's basically it.

[Oscar F]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't the whole rewire protocol an emulation of the top device in Reason? Thus very unlikely to change at all in the future.

No, it's something far more powerful, which to be honest nobody has fully taken advantage of. Rewire allows for:
* 256 audio channels
* 4080 MIDI channels
* Transport syncronisation
* Information transfer (e.g. patch/sample names from the slave to be transmitted to the host).

In terms of people taking advantage of this powerful protocol, my personal no.1 FR is for Ableton to sort out VST/AU hosting when Live is in slave mode (which is perfectly possible within the Rewire spec).

It's not 'powerful' in the right ways. Why is sending midi from the slave to the master forbidden? And why the fuck haven't they added audio support.

Using Reason as a rewire slave is just a clumsy workflow; I've replaced most of the devices I commonly use in Reason by AU versions (e.g., RMX as my rx2 player, Reaktor for any synths, and Battery as my Redrum).

If you use Reason as a rewire slave (this is mainly motivated by the inability to record your own audio into Reason), I think the new features are weak. The new sequencer improvements, the new arpeggiator, 'Regroove' feature becomes worthless as a rewire slave. To use the features, you have to have midi in the Reason sequencer and midi in the Rewire master. This makes for a clumsy workflow.

IMO, for the Reason 4 update, you're getting a new Synth and that's basically it.

Actually you are getting a modular synth with Phase Modulation, Wavetable , FM, Noise and one or two other synthesis methods also.
A new phaser/chorus and mod delay has been added to Thor also.
Thor has Audio inputs for processing so you also have access to 6 new filter types included a damn fine formant filter.
There have been tweaks to the combinator and NNXT for splits/layers/choke groups and the like.
The NewSequencer is IMHO a Godsend but what the fuck do I know.
At least is does multi time signature and tempo automation simultaneously.
The Groove Mixer is going to be alot more powerful than meets the eye me thinks and then some.
The whole app has been recoded from the ground up and the sequencer overhaul is way overdue to be honest.
If you bother too learn the who paradigm of CV/Gate, Spiders, Mergers cv spliters, Audio spliters and the like I think there is more than enough juice under the hood to justify the asking price.
Add to that the fact that you can probably combi-up a few Thor's in FX combinators and what not and the sum total of it's parts are looking damn good.
Reason has never technically been a VST/DX host so why people ask for DAW like features from a product that has never been marketed as one is beyond me.
You bitch about ease of use yet use Reaktor and Battery apparently which aren't the fastes of apps to learn unless you use others ensembles and preset snaps for example.
You seem to be looking for Reason's for you to keep Reason or justify using it.
If you don't use it then don't but stop friggin whinging about it.
I haven't ugraded to Live 6 for various reasons but don't sit here bitching about it either.
I could argue why the fuck does live not support multiple time signatures and why does in not allow you to rewire third party vst/vsti Like fruity and P5
do for example into another app if you want to .
Quite frankly it's looking like a pretty kick ass low CPU consuming self contained production center I can take on the go away from my studio and then some at the moment.
And I have still yet to find anything as damn near crash proof as Reason work wise on a notebook I might add.

[forge]

Thor has Audio inputs for processing so you also have access to 6 new filter types included a damn fine formant filter.
.

all the more insane then that they still wont allow audio in or full duplex rewire

so if you want to put anything of your own through those new filters you have to save it as a wav and load it into a sampler

[thelocalhost]

....
You seem to be looking for Reason's for you to keep Reason or justify using it.
If you don't use it then don't but stop friggin whinging about it.
...
Quite frankly it's looking like a pretty kick ass low CPU consuming self contained production center I can take on the go away from my studio and then some at the moment.....

Reason can't record audio, therefore it's not a "self contained production center".

I would like Reason to evolve. As I've stated before. Current limitations of Reason stifles the creative process; it doesn't appear they will be fixed in version 4.

Furthermore, you never mentioned, or responded to my fundamental point. If you are using Reason as a rewire slave, then many of the new features aren't going to useful.

[robtronik]

reason doesn't need to be "fixed" in any way.

It doesn't record audio. If it said that it was supposed to record audio and it didn't then it would need to be "fixed", but it has never been that type of application.

Your perception of what it is is all wrong - the very fact you use the word fixed, as though it was broken, means that you don't understand that the app is a music instrument not a recording machine.

rob.

[thelocalhost]

reason doesn't need to be "fixed" in any way.

Oh... jesus christ.

Come on. Anyone who has used Reason in standalone for any amount of time has had that "I wish I could just record some vocals, or Bass, external synth, ... just this little part right here"

Maybe the next version they'll put it in there.

You don't think the Sequencer in Reason 3.0 was a big piece of shit?

[headquest]

IMO, for the Reason 4 update, you're getting a new Synth and that's basically it.

If you use Reason exclusively as a synth rack within Live then that is obviously the headline addition, though not the only new benefit

Even if it were, Thor can only be described as awesome. Many of the NI synths cost well over £100 in the UK, and the Reason 4 upgrade is well below that. So it would STILL be an amazing bargain.

However, for those of us lucky enough to use both Live and Reason, it would be stupid imho to ONLY use the programmes hooked up permanently. It is perfectly possible to use Live standalone for some projects, and Reason standalone for others, all as well as being able to tap into the combined power of both

You don't think the Sequencer in Reason 3.0 was a big piece of shit?

Personally no I don't. but after a few hours putting R4 through its paces, I do definitely think that the sequencer in Reason 4 is WAY ahead of the one in Live 6 Beyond that I probably can't discuss this though, as I'm a beta tester (and unlike most of the people posting idiot hate stuff, I've actually tried out this update). So I'm outta here...

Parting point though: most of the points made by Reason haters in this thread (and in the ones I have seen on KVR etc) are pure BS. It's hillarious just how wide of the mark some of the comments are, and how dumb they sound to those of us who have actually had the benefit of running Reason 4 for a few hours/days. Why don't you guys wait till it's released, try the demo, and see for yourselves. Then if you don't like it, fine. But at least your comments will then be informed ones rather than uninformed whining [shrug].

[hoffman2k]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't the whole rewire protocol an emulation of the top device in Reason? Thus very unlikely to change at all in the future.

No, it's something far more powerful, which to be honest nobody has fully taken advantage of. Rewire allows for:
* 256 audio channels
* 4080 MIDI channels
* Transport syncronisation
* Information transfer (e.g. patch/sample names from the slave to be transmitted to the host).

In terms of people taking advantage of this powerful protocol, my personal no.1 FR is for Ableton to sort out VST/AU hosting when Live is in slave mode (which is perfectly possible within the Rewire spec).

There's a good example. Before anybody attacks me by saying that "I dont get reason"... You're right, I don't.

So the rewire spec is capable of doing those things like allowing audio to enter reason. But the only argument for not making that possible is that reason will never record audio..
Newsflash: they own rewire.
Its not possible to use Live as the recorder and Reason as a fully integrated instrument and effects unit?

In this case, I just don't get it. They got a chance to improve the functionality of their application and they remain to keep the ability to stubbornly deny the request for vst support and audio recording.

Its supposed to be an emulation of a hardware studio

Anyway. I'm not judging reason because I used to have my fun with it.
But i do have some gripes with the fact that the only thing stopping the propellerheads from making better use of rewire, is the propellerheads.
You never wanted to send a track from Live thru the scream effect unit?

[headquest]

So the rewire spec is capable of doing those things like allowing audio to enter reason. But the only argument for not making that possible is that reason will never record audio..

No, the audio streams in one direction. Rewire requires what they call a "Mixer" application (i.e. the one where the audio is recorded, mixed, etc, and a "Synth" application. The synth application is hosted in the mixer application in much the same way as a VST is hosted, except with far more options in terms of MIDI from the mixer to the synth, and audio returns.

Its not possible to use Live as the recorder and Reason as a fully integrated instrument and effects unit?

Yes it is. If I understand you correctly, that is exactly it.

In this case, I just don't get it. They got a chance to improve the functionality of their application and they remain to keep the ability to stubbornly deny the request for vst support and audio recording.

In fairness those requests seem to me to come from people who don't use Reason anyway, and don't *get* its original concept. I don't see these requests on the registered users forum, only the general one and elsewhere.

The Props have always been absolutely clear about what Reason is, and I can assure everyone that they have no intention of replacing software hosts like Cubase/Live/Logic/etc. Reason can be used standalone for electronic music creation, or be hosted in a recording application such as Live. It's a very simple concept

Its supposed to be an emulation of a hardware studio

It's an emulation of the type of electronic music studio used for dance music creation, etc (and other styles of course). It is not meant to be an emulation of Abbey Road Studios

I do think that in their early marketing efforts they caused some confusion on this point though.

You never wanted to send a track from Live thru the scream effect unit?

Well there are ways of doing this

In some respects I think audio recording in Reason would be ace, and the new sequencer provides a context where I can more easily see that happening. The real problem though is that as soon as audio recording were added, there would be thousands of people screaming for better audio recording features, editing, etc. If the Props were constantly steered by those demands then within the next couple of updates Reason would deterioriate into another Cubase/Logic type bloat programme. And chances are it would not be as good as those programmes anyway in that area.

As it is I think the Props have found a successful niche market for Reason that allows it to be useful in its own right as well as a great add-on to other software. The fact that it is not overtly competing against all these other products no doubt helps it more than hinders it's success

[hoffman2k]

Again, I understand why there's no audio recording and vst support.

I don't understand why they don't improve the spec to work in more then a 2-way system. You said yourself its never been properly used.
Then why not split the capacity in order to double the ability?
Like Rewire A and Rewire B...

You never wanted to send a track from Live thru the scream effect unit?

Well there are ways of doing this

How?
How do i send the audio output of a synth i'm playing in Live to Reason, so i can add reason's audio effects?

[headquest]

How do i send the audio output of a synth i'm playing in Live to Reason, so i can add reason's audio effects?

Without using other software you would have to do the old fashioned thing of bouncing, then bringing the audio into Reason's samplers.

In this sense though you are obviously wanting to use Reason as the "mixer" application. Given how great the new Reason sequencer is, I would also like to see them enable Reason to be a Rewire host. This is a feature request that makes far more sense to me than the common ones others have dragged up

Even then though, I would still want Ableton to properly implement rewire slave features in Live, i.e. allow VST/AU hosting. The ball really is in Ableton's court to get that one fixed right

I belive there are other ways to bring audio into Reason though. Hammer allows for some audio input to Reason and is said to be a very good utility programme for Reason users (though I've not tried it).

[3rdordertrauma]

OK I didn't read every single post here yet... but I can see its got lots of you firing!

My take?
Who has listened to the Thor demos? Haven't read any post yet commenting on the sound of this so called synth god of thunder. I feel the demos SUCK strait up! If this is a true indication to what is possible in Thor then I sure don't hear anything special AT ALL! In fact I have freeware that sounds this good... or better.

I was excited when I got the email about Reason 4; been curious to see if the will release a breakthrough product again. and they might some day... I just don't feel v4 is.

[hoffman2k]

How do i send the audio output of a synth i'm playing in Live to Reason, so i can add reason's audio effects?

Without using other software you would have to do the old fashioned thing of bouncing, then bringing the audio into Reason's samplers.

In this sense though you are obviously wanting to use Reason as the "mixer" application. Given how great the new Reason sequencer is, I would also like to see them enable Reason to be a Rewire host. This is a feature request that makes far more sense to me than the common ones others have dragged up

Even then though, I would still want Ableton to properly implement rewire slave features in Live, i.e. allow VST/AU hosting. The ball really is in Ableton's court to get that one fixed right

I belive there are other ways to bring audio into Reason though. Hammer allows for some audio input to Reason and is said to be a very good utility programme for Reason users (though I've not tried it).

For me it all boils down to being able to hear how ABL sounds coming out of scream 2. But with the ability to tweak ABL instead of just playing back a sample

I'm pretty well set in the synth department. Depending on what Ableton plans to do with racks, the need for more modular effects from a tool like reason will either increase or decrease.
Max/msp, reason, bidule,...
Its the child in me calling out for the modern day music equivalent of "Lego's".

[rikhyray]

I use Reason as workstation- sketch pad and would not like it to compromise reliability. The synths dont cut it for me, specially that I do lots of music where the sound quality is essential factor ( music therapy kind of stuff) Malstroms is annoying, subconsciously irritating and Subtractor is too poor - not simple but simply thin. I hardly use VSTs anyway probably only one that sounds good enough for me is Korgs Legacy.
It was interesting to learn that I am not the only one to use Reason this way, sketching and then replacing with real synths (the Prodigy story).
The point is Reason with hardware like Korgs, works 10x better then Motif or Triton, can sound better no need for cart to move around with it.
The Thor from what I heard might take Reason to another level, I am impressed indeed, sounds like something.I wouldn't have to replace with anything.
If they would introduce audio same way as Ableton did midi, half ass, hardly usable, unreliable pseudo feature it would be disappointing.
Actually Props and Ableton should marry, it is the best working rewire couple. and weakness of one is the others strengh

Reason 4 and "Live classic" based on Live 4- the last reliable Ableton version but with Dual Core support, would be my ideal portable solution.