As somebody who has used both Ableton Live and Reason for several years (since versions 2 in both cases) I think you are wrong on several counts:fhyio wrote:Reason 6 is going to smash ableton. I'm actually thinking of selling ableton and getting reason 6 or just keeping both. Propellerheads have been in the game for years. Also, ableton can't even write a stable program that dosen't crash, and its only become fully professional since version 7. Reason is lightweight and dosen't crash at all. Unless ableton do something pretty damn good, they are going to make the same mistake emagic did with logic just before apple bought them, which is complacency. Personally, I haven't got that much time and dedication to follow companies and Ableton haven't really rewarded their users for spending their hard-earned bucks. They offer a few free racks, but thats about it. This is just my personal opinion, but I think its pretty right.
1) Reason 5/Record has crashed for me more than Live 8. Also those crashes have been far more serious, because Reason has no crash recovery options built in. On the few occasions I have had crashes in Live, it has saved some/all of my work, logged what caused the crash so I can report back to Ableton, and worked just fine after a reboot. In the case of Reason none of this exists - no crash recovery, no reporting system, and after crashing it often won't work at all. Upon trying to reopen the programme you can get a "Bad File Format" error message, in which case the only option you have is to completely uninstall all Propellerhead products from your computer (including removing lots of hidden registry files) and reinstall from scratch. I lost three major projects (and several hours of my time) in the last year due to crashes in Reason. It's "legendary stability" is a myth put about by fanboys. Check their forum - right now it is awash with people having problems installing, authorising and using Reason 6. Search for "Bad File Format" on their user forum and you will see the nightmares many users have had.
2) As kitecrazy says, Ableton has rewarded users by concentrating on getting the current version stable rather than releasing a new one. I wish Propellerhead had done the same with R5/R1.5. Also though, Ableton have given us Amp, a bunch of Livepacks and just recently the awesome Retro Synths. I think they have done their best to keep users happy through what has obviously been a difficult period for them, and a disappointing one for some users.
3) Ableton cannot be described as complacent. In just over ten years they have created one of the best selling DAWs in the world, and changed the way many people make music! And I guarantee they are presently working very hard indeed on their products.
4) Reason is lightweight in the wrong ways: no MIDI output to address your synths/workstations/beatboxes/etc. No support for any type of plugin. Small sample library. Etc. As for being professional, the vast majority of Pro users have Reason as a scratch pad before doing their finished projects in Logic/Pro Tools/etc using hardware or better sounding RTAS/AU/VST instruments. The orchestral/acoustic samples are very poor compared to Kontakt libraries/etc, and their synths are way behind the likes of Alchemy/Massive/etc. Good for mock-ups, but certainly not very versatile or high quality for doing professional work. As for the effects... need I say it? The Reason effects aren't going to replace Waves/etc any times soon
5) Reason's dongle is horrible. Enough said.
By all means try Reason 6 and use what works for you. I would say that in the years I have used both, they have each evolved into powerhouse programmes with considerable overlap, and I no longer really need both. Ableton is so far superior on so many levels (although Reason IS better at a few things, as noted in my previous posts) that Reason only has limited use for me at this point.
