I'm hoping they get their act back together for R9 and bring us some much needed editing tools. Your notes about Propellerheads is warranted too.
I agree about the loopback, you do have to be careful and master how to do it or you could get hurt or blow out a tweeter but I'd rather take that risk than have to screw around in other DAW's via rewire or bouncing out. I have Logic, used Reaper, Studio one, FL Studio & Ableton and Reason still for me has the best and easiest workflow for what I do. Reason just happens to have the easiest workflow for me personally, so incorporating VST's via the method highlighted in my video is the best of both worlds. (It's all a bit weird really).Įach DAW has it's pro's and con's but if you're looking for a host for Native Instruments ensembles, VST's ect, I wouldn't really recommend Reason for anyone going that route although it has to be said that many RE's which were originally VST's have made their way to the Reason rack but of course you're investment is locked to Reason forever but that's another whole kettle of fish.yada yada that banana is an adder.Īnyone who uses any DAW, has to use one that first and foremost does what they need it to do. Propellerhead's with their debacle that was Reason 8, their skewed marketing direction, closing of the forums has pretty much undermined any incentive to even open Reason nowadays and make properly make music with it like I use to. Exclusive pictures of a new version of Studio One, version 3 were revealed a month ago so is probably out due out sometime this year, if anyone's interested.) Using it simply as a beat creation tool to export wave files was about as far as it went.
I'm finding that since acquiring Presonus Studio One Professional 2 in the Black Friday deals back in December, I've not made any music in Reason as such.
However besides the 80+ ensembles included, the online user library for Reaktor is huge and there's lots of cool free ensemble stuff to check out and use with your music or if it excites you, modify/or build your own, which while is initially daunting is both rewarding and exciting and allows you to go much deeper than what you can in Reason without access to the RE-SDK.Ĭheck out this thread I created to which highlights some of these ensemble gemsĪs for the choice of Daws, well.for me. I bought a few of the really cool ensembles such as Razor, Skanner XT, Spark, and Kontour more recently and used them in one of my recent productions in another daw which I'll come to in a bit. £87 inc vat (watch out in May/June time this year in case they do it again). I stopped buying Rack Extensions 2 years ago as well, because Native Instruments gave Reaktor away for less than the price of a Reason upgrade.
The stuff is always there if I want to use it but the last time I actually composed any music with it was really about a year ago I feel.
Whilst being a long time experienced Reason user/composer myself since 2001, and also spent a considerable amount (probably around £240) on RE's to fill the gaps and update Reason's aging devices within Reason 6.5 / 7.0, I do feel that both myself and money is trapped in a hole with the program.
If you are using Loopback with Reason whilst using external sources, you must always be cautious of feedback loops which can blow out both your ears and possibly damage your speakers/monitors or both depending on your sound levels, so it's pretty critical in that you know the peak level input you need to set to prevent this, both on the Mix Control software (if using a Focusrite interface) and Reason's audio track. Whilst there are various ways to get VST /instrument sounds/ other sound sources into Reason, and using loopback capable hardware, it's not without issue's which other VST dedicated Daws are better suited in handling due to settings and automation parameters being saved much more easily on a per project basis and also having to jump through more hoops within Reason. Sorta like comparing apples and oranges as Reason is a dedicated DAW environment so logically you should be first comparing what DAW's are available and suited to your liking and adapting anything you want to add in the future to it.