Reason 3.5

zRoCkIsAdDiCtInG

zRoCkIsAdDiCtInG

HWF Guitar Freak
Reason 3.5 is one of the most powerful and sophisticated software packages available for a home recording or pc recording studio. Its availability with a surplus of editing power, powerful and crisp loop playback and a friendly user interface make it a high potential tool for solo artists and bands striving to achieve great recording at a friends house instead of realeasing thousands to rent a studio.

works amazingly with M-audio Studio Monitors and M-audio firewire recording devices, along with an audigy 2Zs for maximum sound clarity and amazing music


rock on dudes :good:
 
Can you get me a copy too Nic *wink* Uncle?;) I'd love to use Reason, my friend got his copy free from his Uncle oddly enough and has been saying he'd loan it to me for over a year, still nothing:/
 
Your review is good but to be honest it does need a little more detail, go deeper into the features, explain why YOU think it would be worth the large amount of money, it would have been an idea to say the price in your review then explain why the product is worth it.

Other than that, I don't need the software, got my own recording studio. *shrugs*
 
whats up, everyone.
i signed up here to correct some inaccuracies in zRoCkIsAdDiCtInG's initial post.

1- reason 3.5 does not exist yet. it is currently 3.0.5. its not such a minor issue as it sounds; propellerhead software is known for huge enhancements in 1/2 step version numbers. google for reason 2.5 and compare its feature set to 2.0. a full step is a bottom-up rewrite of the audio engine and sequencer. 2.5 was the first 1/2 step upgrade; 1.0 had no 1.5 or similar. 3.5 is RUMORED to be due this september from some source at reasonstation.net who says they have an in with m-audio.

2- "Reason 3.5 is one of the most powerful and sophisticated software packages available for a home recording or pc recording studio."

powerful, yes.

sophisticated, not particularly.
it has a fair amount of modularity and the cv-routing in particular is magnificent, but one of the major strong points of reason is its impossibly simple interface and ease in writing, even for novices. hence, there were omissions which are standard fare on other music software; no arpeggiator, no dynamic time signature/tempo shifting, and it lacks the ability to record audio, most notably, which brings me to point 3...

3- "...artists and bands striving to achieve great recording at a friends house instead of realeasing thousands to rent a studio."

REASON WILL NOT EVER RECORD AUDIO IN.

there are things it just can't do.

no vst support.

no rewire hosting.

reason is best viewed as an instrument rack. it can be rewired as a slave very nicely, but no audio through reason except what is contained in itself. obviously you can load a .wav or .aif sample recorded elsewhere, but you can NOT stream audio into reason and mess with it. conversely, there are programs such as petertools' hammer and asio4all v2's miniapp "rewuschel" which trick the rebirth rewire interface on reason (the ONLY audio in, and it's supposed to be hard-linked specifically to propellerheads' rebirth (303/808/909 emu)) into accepting live audio in from the mic/line in ports which CAN be toyed with in reason's effects, but cannot be recorded in another app or rewired again to a host. limitations of reason's audio engine, i guess.

anyway, in general, reason is a virtual instrument rack. it has 3 sample players (no recording facility,) one of which is a drum machine with 16-step sequencer. 2 synthesizers, a subtractive and a "graintable" synth- granular synthesis of wavetable samples. a device called the combinator allows modular creation of new instruments of sorts; effects are abundant and work quite well, mixer is straightforward and logical. v3 of reason also introduced the mclass devices with an emphasis on a more clean, polished, "pro" sound.

as far as the software itself is concerned, reason 3 is great, but all software has drawbacks. reason 2.5 was pure bulletproof; you can't crash it. reason 3 has definite flaws in the software architecture; it can crash, but it's pretty stable.

the audio engine has received upgrades with version 3; the sequencer is now completely sample accurate with timing, and minor enhancements to the rendering engine. however, there has always been an issue with rendered audio- any frequencies at 15khz and above are attenuated logarithmically -6db and further. it's severely irritating and rewiring for a final mix is highly recommended.

pros:
+ simple interface facilitates very low learning curve
+ combinator creates new modular possibilities and infinite new instrumentation
+ AMAZINGLY easy to make synth patches
+ easy-to-use sequencer
+ inexpensive in comparison to similar products (compare it to ± infinite devices)

cons:
- 15khz bug needs to be repaired
- minimal modularity, not particularly for synth-builders and the like.
- fairly involved process to make patches/mixes sound mixed well, hard to achieve "pro" sound within reason alone.
- not necessarily a bug or issue, but most users have big beef with the lack of vst support. i say, that's what you get live 5 or cubase or sonar for, but whatever.

anyway, i hugely recommend this software. its wonderful, even with its little foibles and missteps.
if you want some ideas of the kind of sound you can get with reason and dig on artists like squarepusher, the flashbulb, global goon and etc, you can check my stuff out at http://djabacus.net/ . :D

peace out, all.
 
Good call man. Thanks for correcting that, I guess it's been a off for quite a while now. But it's an easy mistake to make.
Thanks for the link too dude.
 
Reason is great! I found myself playing with the drum machine for like 1/2 an hour before doing propper work with it. Its really good and i love the way by pressing tab you can rewire all the systems.
 
yeah, the sequencer is a bit love-it-or-hate-it, with the grand majority on the "hate-it" side. i personally can hardly sequence on anything else except ableton live... of course, reason's sequencer definitely has notable omissions (specifically the lack of a tempo track and time signature adjustment) but it really seems to be the most straightforward and easy to get used to, especially for non-musicians. before reason, i had done next to nothing in the realm of electronic music, except for stringing together .wavs in acid and cool edit... i guess, all i'm trying to say is that if you need an exquisitely advanced sequencer, reason will probably let you down, but for the immediate gratification aspect, linearity, and the less knowledgeable to midi sequencing, its the freakin' cream of the crop. if you look for reason forums (notably reasonstation.net) and search out all of the n00bs that arent actually there for serial numbers or being yelled at to RTFM already (and you'll hear that a lot on rs.net :P ) almost everyone mentions how magically easy it is to bang out an idea on reason.

man, i ramble forever about this software. sorry :O
 
zero01101 said:
whats up, everyone.
i signed up here to correct some inaccuracies in zRoCkIsAdDiCtInG's initial post.

1- reason 3.5 does not exist yet. it is currently 3.0.5. its not such a minor issue as it sounds; propellerhead software is known for huge enhancements in 1/2 step version numbers. google for reason 2.5 and compare its feature set to 2.0. a full step is a bottom-up rewrite of the audio engine and sequencer. 2.5 was the first 1/2 step upgrade; 1.0 had no 1.5 or similar. 3.5 is RUMORED to be due this september from some source at reasonstation.net who says they have an in with m-audio.

2- "Reason 3.5 is one of the most powerful and sophisticated software packages available for a home recording or pc recording studio."

powerful, yes.

sophisticated, not particularly.
it has a fair amount of modularity and the cv-routing in particular is magnificent, but one of the major strong points of reason is its impossibly simple interface and ease in writing, even for novices. hence, there were omissions which are standard fare on other music software; no arpeggiator, no dynamic time signature/tempo shifting, and it lacks the ability to record audio, most notably, which brings me to point 3...

3- "...artists and bands striving to achieve great recording at a friends house instead of realeasing thousands to rent a studio."

REASON WILL NOT EVER RECORD AUDIO IN.

there are things it just can't do.

no vst support.

no rewire hosting.

reason is best viewed as an instrument rack. it can be rewired as a slave very nicely, but no audio through reason except what is contained in itself. obviously you can load a .wav or .aif sample recorded elsewhere, but you can NOT stream audio into reason and mess with it. conversely, there are programs such as petertools' hammer and asio4all v2's miniapp "rewuschel" which trick the rebirth rewire interface on reason (the ONLY audio in, and it's supposed to be hard-linked specifically to propellerheads' rebirth (303/808/909 emu)) into accepting live audio in from the mic/line in ports which CAN be toyed with in reason's effects, but cannot be recorded in another app or rewired again to a host. limitations of reason's audio engine, i guess.

anyway, in general, reason is a virtual instrument rack. it has 3 sample players (no recording facility,) one of which is a drum machine with 16-step sequencer. 2 synthesizers, a subtractive and a "graintable" synth- granular synthesis of wavetable samples. a device called the combinator allows modular creation of new instruments of sorts; effects are abundant and work quite well, mixer is straightforward and logical. v3 of reason also introduced the mclass devices with an emphasis on a more clean, polished, "pro" sound.

as far as the software itself is concerned, reason 3 is great, but all software has drawbacks. reason 2.5 was pure bulletproof; you can't crash it. reason 3 has definite flaws in the software architecture; it can crash, but it's pretty stable.

the audio engine has received upgrades with version 3; the sequencer is now completely sample accurate with timing, and minor enhancements to the rendering engine. however, there has always been an issue with rendered audio- any frequencies at 15khz and above are attenuated logarithmically -6db and further. it's severely irritating and rewiring for a final mix is highly recommended.

pros:
+ simple interface facilitates very low learning curve
+ combinator creates new modular possibilities and infinite new instrumentation
+ AMAZINGLY easy to make synth patches
+ easy-to-use sequencer
+ inexpensive in comparison to similar products (compare it to ± infinite devices)

cons:
- 15khz bug needs to be repaired
- minimal modularity, not particularly for synth-builders and the like.
- fairly involved process to make patches/mixes sound mixed well, hard to achieve "pro" sound within reason alone.
- not necessarily a bug or issue, but most users have big beef with the lack of vst support. i say, that's what you get live 5 or cubase or sonar for, but whatever.

anyway, i hugely recommend this software. its wonderful, even with its little foibles and missteps.
if you want some ideas of the kind of sound you can get with reason and dig on artists like squarepusher, the flashbulb, global goon and etc, you can check my stuff out at http://djabacus.net/ . :D

peace out, all.
Click to expand...
long enough post there bud? lol, j/m
 
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