I used to use Reason 5 with rewire into Cubase back in the 32bit era, but when I upgraded to 64bit and bought Cubase 10 stopped using reason. I've been using Steinberg products since the 80's so the workflow is second nature to me, I love the creativity that comes with experimenting with Reason rack however, so was mega happy to find out that it now is a plugin. Bought reason 12 and currently in the process of reworking old projects that previously used rewire. Thanks for the video, glad I stumbled across your channel. Subscribed :)
this is no exaggeration there's no other DAW that gives you this much creative potential. we've been begging for a Combinator upgrade for about a decade, but this update exceeded my expectations. I think I gotta admit at this point even though it's not my main DAW anymore, but I'm gonna be a Reason head for life.
This is the start of Reason treating their loyal license holders as second class. 12 license does not include Friktion. Going with Reason+ does. So the prior PR of choice for license vs subscription was false. I have Reason as a plugin in Logic.
The fact that 12 don't include Friktion is why I don't really want to buy it, Shame as I definitely would have bought it if it was included. I don't have good enough internet to really go online with the 15£ a month. If I was to use Reason plus, then I would not buy the £400 stand alone.
This was the one I was waiting for, thanks Evan. Had to chuckle a few times. You always know how to keep it light at the right time and it keeps things to a respectful tone even when it is criticism. I've decided to ultimately give Reason+ a go through EOY to see if RS is gonna put their money where their mouth is and curate any significant changes for the user base in this time (RE: outside the weekly sound packs). If they go ~3-4 mos. with no substantive improvements or updates besides *bug* fixes, it's definitely not worth the yearly fee IMO. @Reason Studios, if you're reading this man's comments and watching his content, pay attention and deliver. Evan provides a service to your user base and your developers. If you're not careful you're gonna lose the few power users actually curating content like this over the long haul. Too many updates are half baked or come too late in the development cycle as opposed to your competition. To be fair, other studios may have more resources at their disposal, but this doesn't change your mandate to remain relevant in sector progression unless you really have resigned yourself to this theory of an RRP focused development cycle where the core DAW and workflow focus eventually phases out of existence. You made some last minute upgrades to Mimic based on community feedback, that's what people want to see more of (kudos there)! Carry that momo with VST implementation, MIDI routing and MIDI editing / sequencer updates. Split some of that across Q4 2021 and Q1 2022. Provide guidance to your "investors". If it IS your intention to phase out the core DAW functionality, just call it out. Silence on this topic amidst a storm of user feedback just reflects poorly and is clearly creating a damaging affect to your marketing channels and likely, bottom line. Value your consumer bases' time, not just your own. In this highly volatile, unpredictable world, individual free time outside the average users daily grind is only going to get more and more restrictive as will their budget in the face of continued economic inflation accompanied by taxing hits to SaaS business models. Better to be up front with the business plans now then string people along and burn those relationships for good over a longer period of attritive user feedback / experiences. Don't risk your core DAW users becoming spiteful non-users, or RRP redundancies only. Perhaps carrying production overhead for both areas of development is cost prohibitive these days, but come out and own that if it's the case. People respect honesty and transparency in a time where we mostly get anything but that in many facets of our daily life. Liked and still subscribed. Great content Evan!
Travis thank you so much for your kind words and thoughtful response! Here's hoping that Reason 12 and Reason 11 laid the foundation for something great!
I’ve been watching your videos for years and this was one of the best videos you’ve done so far. Excellent review and honest information. I’ve been using Reason for 8 years and recently had been looking for other DAWs to migrate to because I’m trying to grow as a producer selling beats and mixing for artists, and I feel like I have grown so much where as Reason has not been able to catch up. I was hoping for VST3 support since some plugins are not available in VST2 and those that are sometimes crash the DAW. For example, I can’t use Autotune in Reason and my RX8 plugin sometimes crashes the software. Unless they address these upgrades by the end of the year, I’ll probably migrate to another DAW during a black friday sale. Thank you for having been a great source of information for Reason tutorials for all these years.
I can't believe Frikion and Algoritm aren't included in the Reason 12 Upgrade. Why isn't there a Suite 12 Upgrade? I'm trying it out but I think I'm gonna refund it.
Yes Friktion not being included is why I'm not buying it. I am probably going to sighn up to plus so I can use Friktion but only on a short term basis to put My midi from strings in songs I have already made to see how it sounds. Could make about 100 of My songs sound way better.
Because then 12 would be more attractive than plus for some, and the game plan is emphasis on the subscription. It’s obviously intentional not to include friktion and algoritm and what other rationale or strategy would they have to not include it in 12? Sure, you “can” still buy stand alone, and sure, they’ll “support” it. But they killed stand-alone as their flagship. And it’s little dumb moves like not including friktion and algoritm that will continue to direct customers away from stand alone and towards subscription. 🤷🏼♂️
I enjoyed Reason a lot back in the days until I jumped to Ableton Live 5 when it got released and I never looked back ever since. I'm still interested though how this software has held up all those times and this in-depth and critical review is perfect info. Thks!
You’re right I only use Reason to make beats in because I honestly feel it’s the best DAW to make beats in and not anything else.Right now they need to focus on making the DAW better. Fix the sequencer, add VST 3, update the piano roll, midi routing, and just general editing capabilities. I said I wasn’t going to update but I got tired of looking at a fuzzy screen. The combinator is great I can see them adding things to make it better. Mimic is good they added the key detection now just add temp sync. They’re at the point do they we really want are DAW to be good or we just trying to sell you a subscription.
You’ve pretty much nailed it there in the end. As an experimental synthesist, soundscapist , the reason DAW is not so bad. There are some experimental feature with cv cables, midi, and devices you cannot do with regular DAW, or just the reason plugin itself; reason Daw in itself is almost like a modular system. Saying that, using an additional DAW and reason as a plugin instead introduces a different level of complexity and experimentation. I love using the Reason DAW to do tons of unconventional setups and soundscapes , but also find myself using, in my case BitWig (which is fantastic btw), and reason plugins to introduce things bitwig can that reason can’t. I’m a big fan of Reason since day 1, lucky for me I don’t follow conventions in music making like most do, but even if I did , Stock musician is right... get another DAW and reason as a plugin is fantastic and very complete! The reason daw in itself is also a great learning tool if you want to start with the basics, but also powerful enough to be weird from a modular unconventional perspective.
The rack and the Daw are two seporate things. Reason studios has always treated and desighn the rack to be a endless vertaul hardware resource and can produce sound in one single Laptop what an entire house full off physical gear. I have a MiniNova synthesizer and was going through every sound and at least harf where on a basic Reason Subtractor or Melstrum and all the rest of the sounds can be made using reasons rack from reason 4. The rack has always been what reasons about.
I started using Reason for the first time in 20 years and I'm falling in love again. I switched to Ableton tired of waiting for audio tracks and Vst. I will give it a try and see how it goes
reason was the first DAW i ever tried and i was amazed that i could actually make music with it that easy. that was years ago im on the fence if i should buy it again as i would like to have a daw that i could make the whole song in. allot of people have commented like your self over the years about up dating the sequencer they must know this is a problem and yet they still haven't done any thing about it. i have FL studio and its much easier to use. great break down and have subbed.
Really sad that they've not kept the DAW aspect of Reason up to date. There are some crucial improvements that would make it much easier to continue using as a main DAW. I love Reason, been with it since the beginning and produced/written a lot of commercial music using it. Hope they're reading these reviews and taking user feedback onboard.
Reason has been my main DAW since the release of Reason 9 (a wide range of genres) & I'm satisfied, but I've only ever had Pro Tools 7-11 to compare. I guess since I'm used to the workflow, my only gripe is that there is no HUI support or crossfade features. I was a little disheartened that they basically confirmed bia marketing that they were not dedicated to improving the DAW at all.
Thank you for expressing your disappointments in Reason not keeping up with the times! I've been a long time Reason user. I used to update right away. However, for a while now I'll update after a few changes and only when I feel there's a worthwhile bang for buck.
From day one We used Reason as a Plug-in with Cubase. The DAW part just added some flexibility and creativity with MIDI tracks. We always looked for more content and instruments in an upgrade. What more can it do or allow you to do? That is what we looked for. Mimic, combinator upgrade, HD Graphics/Zoom 🤔, browser,,,, will probably wait until it gets an update.
would you share your experiences about overcoming problems (even by moving to other daws) that are related to the design of reason? I've only been using reason for years and I'm sure i got used to some complicated workflows because of how reason works. probably i don't even know about a lot of things reason forces me to do in a complicated way. shedding some light on these would be nice. i appreciate the honesty in your review, btw.
Excellent review! For me, sticking with ver 10 is as far as I care to go. But I've been using Reason since ver 3.0 and I know it inside and out and don't have the time and money to learn a new DAW.
I am also still on 10 (I don't even know which features were added in 11 aside from the plug-in, but since I don't use other DAWs (only Bandcamp for one VST 3 plug-in I accidentally bought and I cannot figure out how it truly works) and it's fine so far. I hope a reason 13 or hopefully a reason 12.1 with some sequencer updates comes along, then I might change.
I *looooove* the new Combinator except one thing -- the audio mixer/merger is eight stereo pairs instead of 16 mono channels. I tried making a big knob Redrum interface with just level, pan, solo, and mute, and when I routed Redrum's ten channels (just the left side), five sounded in the left speaker and five in the right. Even though Redrum's channel outputs offer L/mono, the new Combinator's inputs are stereo pairs only. A mild criticism in the face of all that Cmb2 offers.
I usually always agree with your review conclusions. Reason has some great things that I do use often as a VST in FL Studio, but I'm gonna skip this upgrade. Nice to hear your take on it.
@@StockMusicMusician Thanks Evan, I actually like using Reason in FL Studio better than using it natively. You can get some pretty cool effects by throwing it into Patcher with some native FL plugins and other VST's. The sky's the limit! Way better workflow for me. :)
I received an email from Reason telling me this, "If you've been sitting on the fence about upgrading to Reason 12, there is literally no time like the present. On October 1st the price to upgrade will increase to £199". I now regret all those Rack Extensions I have bought over the last few years, and I wonder how long they will work if I skip a year.
I'm not sure what you mean by you can't finish a track in Reason - I've recorded and mastered 3 EPs and 2 albums. I've used VST's to supplement the Reason effects as the internal effects would not be up to the job for the most part, but then who doesn't in any other DAW? I'd be interested to know what you think other DAWs have in terms of being able to record and master tracks that Reason doesn't.
Hi Tony! I’ve also finished hundreds of songs in Reason. It’s great for some with less than ten or twelve tracks, but it quickly becomes less streamlined as you add more. Some reasons for this vs over daws: you can’t see what inserts are on each channel from a single view. You can add the same insert to multiple tracks simultaneously (ie tape emulation or an amp sim on multiple guitar tracks). Editing audio and MIDI in the sequencer is way slower. There’s way fewer hot keys in Reason. Lots more, but I’d say on average it takes 25% longer to finish a song in Reason than logic, and if it’s a massive project way longer than that.
@@StockMusicMusician Thank you for taking the time to reply and I take your point about the inability to to have an insert across multiple tracks. And I daresay there are other capabilities Reason doesn't have. However, the extra 25% longer it takes hasn't really been an issue for me. I do use Cubase for legacy recordings but much prefer Reason, even if the functionality isn't the same.
Thanks again for your excellent breakdown (on Reason 12, not mentally - although that intro leaves me wondering). I was expecting Friktion and Complex, etc, to be included in the release, as though it was a Suite version. Looks like there are no complete packages anymore, and their other instruments have to be bought seperately, which works out to be (in official monetary terms) SHEDLOADS of cash. Maybe down the track they'll be included?
Hi Thomas! I think the other instruments are unlikely to be bundled with Reason standalone. It's pretty clear they're trying steer everyone towards the subscription.
I agree that they have been standing still since reason 5 when it comes to sequencer features and the genomics of working with the separate sections. For that reason I am sticking to reason 10. I felt duped into upgrading from 8 to 10 and don't see much difference from reason 6.
I hear what you’re saying and there’s nothing wrong with your opinions…great points even, except I side with Reason being it’s own music creation software. I don’t think any D.A.W. Can do it all and that probably has something to do with business permissions than anything else. To me it seems like you’re trying to turn a Ford in to a BMW. I’ve never had a problem with Reason because I know what it is and what it isn’t. It’s not the only D.A.W. I use. Production is so much like carpentry no one tool can always get the job done.
Good stuff sir.. I just upgraded to 12 this morning.. I was part of the beta test so I already knew it wasn't going to be much to the upgrade, pretty much like how 11 was.. I purchased 11 because of the plugin aspect of it; I upgraded to 12 because I like the possibilities of mimic and the combinator... my justification is basically $129 for the plugin and future software upgrades lol.. with that being said, I also use Maschine as well which has kinda been my go to of late because of the work flow.. I will continue to use Reason but if Native Instruments EVER add vst3 suppport for plugins, and I can use reason within Maschine, I will probably never use reason again as a DAW!
@@StockMusicMusician What i've done several times is build the track in Maschine and export the stems and then import the audio into Reason and go from there.. I've think I've opened Maschine as a DAW inside of reason ONCE and at the time, it put too much pressure on my CPU but I've sense upgraded so i may try it again but we shall see.. Export and importing works well for me though for the most part.
Serious question I still use Reason 8 and I like it, it sounds good to me, I have never needed more tracks, why would bother upgrading. I've been using reason since v1
Logic Pro with Reason as a plug-in. I got tired of how hard simple things were in the Reason DAW. In Logic, they’re easy and intuitive. Still love the Reason Rack.
Thanks for a very objective appraisal of Reason as a DAW in 2021. Truth be told, the vast majority of Reason enthusiasts are using the software as a VST rack in their first choice DAW. That said, the most valuable tool in the otherwise outdated Reason sequencer arsenal is the regroove mixer which to date, no DAW has yet been able to replicate. This feature on its own would ship sh*tloads if released as a VST plugin
I use Reason for composing, but when people ask why it's usually just because it's the DAW I've always used and learning a new one is hard and expensive. When I see workflow things that other composers are able to do in their sequencers it makes me wanna switch to something else. The features in the last two updates haven't really given me the WOW reaction I was hoping for or that FINALLY I was hoping for.
They are finally catching up with other samplers like studio ones sampler like time stretch..it's about time that was my biggest gripe now they need to have kong and redrum be able to explode the tracks into individual tracks verses having route that crap manually
I agree. It almost seem like RS limit their devices on purpose. Redrum was actually a pretty neat device when it came out. Why they never modernized it (???). It didn't even need every feature to mankind but a GUI like the drum sequencer Player would be dope (why was Drum Sequencer only one bar).
Hate to be negative, but they still haven't addressed the core problems with reason, they just gave new features to the SAME problematic DAW (that's coming from a Reason Lover, from R3 to 10), they still haven't put in Auto Save (where the DAW can automatically save the file every 1,5,10 or15 mins) I HATE Reason crashes!!! 3rd party VST control implementation (where a 3rd party VST can control another VST o the actual DAW itself) 3rd party VST implementation in general (some 3rd party VST just don't work with reason) the subscription service is indefinite (they should have it as a Rent to Own plan, as what you pay goes to the actual full price of the program and actually have an END, and a very cheap 7 USD a month Optional Subscription for samples etc.) But Great Videos, Keep up the Good Work.
Great points about the Auto Save! I think the Reason it doesn't have that is because the file sizes are so large that it can't just make new copies, but it also doesn't have the ability to efficiently save versions.
@@StockMusicMusician don't know if you read it, but the CEO of Reason Studios sent out an E mail to all of us about their road map...... VST 3 support December2021..... there is also M1 Apple support before that also.
I feel if you're brand new to making music, or are in another field (like film or games) and want a one-stop tool to make music with but not with the aim to become a professional musician, Reason is sorta the perfect first DAW, specifically because it's not concerned with the things that other DAWs are. This means that it falls behind as an editor and is a pretty lousy mixer, but it has literally everything you need to make a wide variety of music in a fast and creative way. I have used Pro Tools and Audition professionally, and both are far better than Reason at a lot of things, but I'm not a professional audio person or musician, so I don't really care about the state of the art or the current production trends, I just want something I can compose in and play like a toy as much as like an instrument. Of course, this makes Reason+ particularly unattractive to me. I don't hate subscription apps (I used to upgrade the Adobe Master Suite every 12-18 months so I'm actually paying Adobe *less* these days), but since I don't make music every day, it's hard for me to justify a subscription that will get more expensive than an upgrade in just 10 months.
it seems like the performance has gotten a bit better. I opened older heavier songs with 16 audio tracks and 12 instrument tracks, busses etc and it was working really well even at 64 buffer setting.
I really respect your honesty in this review. I feel like Reason Studios as a whole has been perhaps the slowest of all DAW software companies to upgrade the more modern features found in other DAWs. The fact that VST compatibility has only been available for 5 years or so with Reason - this really speaks to the slow implementation of the features we'd find today in Ableton or Logic. The combination of Reason and NI's plugins is fantastic, but if you have anything other than a high grade i7 processor, you will have freezes and snags. You're absolutely right about the intensive abilities of NI's VSTs - they are mind-blowing. Also, I have to add that because Logic is only available for Mac, it is the reason I will be upgrading to a Ryzen or i9 on the Windows end, and an M1 Mac as well. Beyond that, sadly, the need for yet another iPad Pro is there too simply because some of the best music making tools are only made for the iPad Pro only and not the Mac. But between Logic and Reason, I feel the workflow is closest to what I have been comfortable with for many years. Before Reason was ACID Pro by Sony, and so the timeline sequencer works best for me, even though in Reason, this really needs some upgrading because of its tedious switching back and forth between windows. Solid review. I know I would also not recommend Reason as a first DAW to create music digitally with. In fact, I might actually choose ACID Pro by Magix or Fruity Loops.
Hey dude... love this video and your style of speech.. very easy to listen to ....... you mentioned that you wouldn't recommend Reason to a new user. What would you recommend?
If you're on a Mac, I'd recommend Logic without hesitation. I haven't used Cubase, but folks seem to love it. Ableton is also great if you're of a certain mindset and have the associated hardware.
Thank you. I think you have good points. I have v10 and have not produced seriously for years. But I hope to reverse that soon. Getting the 12 upgrade would be a very nice booster.
It seems like Reason is better for sound design & as an instrument than a DAW. I hope reason studios works on playing catch up. Like you said I’ve been using Reason since version 4 & I don’t want to learn a new DAW & / or pay for one.
Great review but can you tell me if I can use my (old) Refills like the Orchestral and Drum Kits Refills in the Reason 12 plugin? I still really love the sound of the Orchestral Refill. The strings are so much more organic than the stock strings in the new Logic Pro.
I dont agree with it being hard to add a plugin to every channel. You can just add it to the masteringchannel (which will add it to effects too ofcourse) but you can pretty quickly add a bus and route everything to it
It's different running everything through one bus versus doing something unique on every channel. Let's say you wanted to use a fancy EQ plugin on every channel and dial in unique EQ setting for every channel. A bus can't replicate that.
@@StockMusicMusician That is true but then just adding it to the channel wont take a lot of time if you are gonna work on that eq anyway. I get your point though but to me its kind of a non issue then
haven't upgraded since 10....... spent tons of money on refills and and rack extensions. I regret not spending the extra and getting Ableton live. Id say ive spent about 800£ on reason in total over 4 years and if i had of spent about £500 id have twice the power with ableton suite. Anyone wanna buy my licence?????
And your dead on point with what you said around 23:50...i been using reason since 2.5 as well and before record i used cool edit(audition) parallel, but i also learned on analog first, and everything in reason ESPECIALLY the mixer just has made sense to me from jump, n i think thats reasons core customer base our gen and they know it n i dont see them making any changes toward being more like current daws till our gen dies off lol, but i cud also see it becoming a cool “vintage” thing n having a resurgence with a future gen before they even get to that point lol
I'm going through a couple reviews on Reason 12 to see if I should upgrade... I want to find an excuse to do so, but I'm not so sure. I've also started my laptop music-making journey with Reason 2.5, but I was an Akai MPC2000 user and Ensoniq ASR-X before that. I've been an Ableton Live user exclusively for the past several years and have both NI Komplete 13 and Arturia Analog Lab(instead of the more comprehensive V Collection), but I now find myself always on my new MPC Live 2 in standalone-mode. I really enjoy using the MPC Live 2... I had similar enjoyment with Reason and that's why I keep looking towards upgrading... decisions... decisions!
Jay, based on your workflow, I'm not sure Reason would be the best place for your next money. But with Reason+ you can always just sign up for a month, see if it jives with you, and cancel if it doesn't. If you like it then buy the full version. It's low risk!
The combinator upgrades are biggest selling point for me, i mean the way u can easily customize the appearance and knobs n all now is going to get overlooked by alot of people i feel like at first, but over time as u make n tweak n save new patches, theyve now made it so anyone can easily just create your own rack extensions out of it, i plan to make a few templates for different sound types n purposes n load them up over time n projects with patches n eventually they will basically become self made rack extensions full of my own presets...thats the tits lol
much respect for the in depth review - except mimic which for my ears sounds less good on any of the algorithms compare to serato sample, maschine... (I'd like to see more control on the loop section - fades reverse (basic stuff for 2021). now after owning reason plus for a year - I've found that I dont use that much in the packs - I wonder how much will I need to pay to just own reason 12. and another issue I have is that I couldnt find a key command for changing the resolution of the grid... there are many thing I'd like to see reason making some shortcuts commands or stuff that u dont need to use the mouse...
I upgraded to reason 11 for the ..."Reason VST RACK"... for Cubase pro 11... Reason 12 was automatically added to my account...... Cubase 11 Pro is the best DAW IMO..... Had Reason from version 3... When 11 came along it was welcomed to work in Cubase with out Rewire which was a pain in the A......
Due to the change in registration mechanism I feel sortof forced to upgrade from 11 to 12. Will my own patches for the different tools still be available?
I have and still use Reason v8 on my 10 year old laptop. I make music on the side, so I’m not using a DAW for a full time job, that’s why I haven’t worried about upgrading. I’m planning on getting a new laptop soon, and I’m considering moving off Reason as my main DAW. I’m willing to learn a new program if it will be better in the long run. My job doesn’t depend on it, so it’s fine if it’s hard for me to make tracks for a few months. Do you have any recommendations as to which DAWs I should look at, or should I just stick with Reason.
@@StockMusicMusician I’m in government IT, so Windows is mandatory for my line of work unfortunately, and I don’t have the money for both a Mac and a PC laptop, so I’d prefer to just stay with Windows. I’ve heard good things about Cakewalk recently. Is it good enough to use as a main DAW even though it’s free? I’m obviously not going to be using it to make tons of money, but I still want it to be high quality.
Hi and thanks for the informative video. I've got probably a dumb question - why do you need an internet connection for reason 12 (it says on the site you need stable internet). Is wifi ok, or does it need to be hardwired? I know for one thing, the upgrade is a direct download and you'd want to download plugins/machines but is internet essential for the functioning of the program otherwise?
Hi Lindsay! That's a great question - you need an internet connection in order to verify that you're running an authorized version of Reason. It's purely about copyright protection, not about features. Wi-fi works just fine.
I've had Reason since version 9... how do I uninstall the previous version and should I or should I keep them? or which version should I keep and which ones should I erase? they don't have an uninstall in Mac...
Hi Juan, you can just delete the old version in a Mac and it will uninstall. If you're happy with the performance of 12, there's no reason to keep the older version, unless you use it for Rewire, which was discontinued in Reason 11.
when i stumbled over your channel a few videos ago i cant tell really why it was abit like i donno i dont like this .. but i kept watching somehow or let say part of because i couldnt really point out WHY i did not like the video .. maybe some comment you made anooyed me without me noticing my own bias .. i really dont care so .. i kept watching the following videos .. and at this point i just can admit ... i donno why but i slowly but surly grew into watching your vids so .. something about what and how you aproach things is worth watching and like befor i cant really point out why :D and i struggle to see the value in my comment if i cant even tell you what i dont like and what i like .. maybe i can come up with something close to a productive comment in the future but for the moment i thought i just let you know ... i like your videos .. dont ask me why i have no idea :D ... its kinda like reason+ and reason12 i suppose .. i like it but i cant really point out why .. i never liked the subscribtion model but then again i felt forced to go with reason+ i might even get reason 12 on top of it and run it on a 2nd computer at some point who knows for the moment one thing that annoys the hell out of reason for me is im forced to run windows 10 to even install it .. ive heard in some forums people having errors while starting reason 12 on win 7 ... i asked how they even manage to get it installed on a win 7 machine because that i would prefer by miles but no answer there yet so if anyone has a clue how to get reason12 or reason+ installed and running on a win7 machine let feel free to let me know. i also wrote to propellaheads about it that its not nice selling a product like this and not even mentioning the fact that it wont work on win7 and that it requires win10 to install also the launcher is very anoying .. i wanna run reason not yet another launcher of something that launches what i wanted to start in the first place its like start steam to play halflife why not run halflife directly .. like start blizzard bnet browser to start wow or heartstone why not start heartstone directly wtf ... what i would love would be just switch on the computer .. no windows at all just reason showing up and thats it :) like a super nintendo or amiga did back in the days .. hell LOAD REASON ,8,1 ..... RUN ... :D
I was in the beta, and was so focused on test driving Mimic that I didn't mess with the new Combinator much, and only noticed the extra CVs. So when I got the update and saw their promo for the new combinator 'make your own device front end' I was kinda blown away. The new Combinator is everything I always wished Combinator would be, and actually more than I ever thought I would get. Combinator and Mimic justify the upgrade for me all by themselves. The QHD graphics update was what convinced me to upgrade, though. I have astigmatism and use a WQHD 4K curved display, and Reason was almost unusable since I got the monitor. Now, it's a pleasure cruise. I read somewhere they're gonna do a VST3 update for Reason 12 in the next year, and that will also be very welcome, even though I use Reason as the Rack plugin in Cubase. lol. Cubase has a great crossgrade offer, and it comes with a stellar plugin suite with instruments, samplers, yada yada. Pairs extremely well with the Reason Rack plugin!
I'm absolutely gutted. Tried to install reason 12 as I've got it now for a free upgrade, however my computer isn't compatible. You have to have windows 10! Unfortunately I'm still in the retro age and have windows 7! Was absolutely gutted when I couldn't install it. Absolute bollocks 🙄
The new versions are way better than Reason 6. If you purchased a previous version of Reason, you might be able to download it from your products page on their website.
Can you help me fix it my Reason 12 by TeamViewer ? Because I cannot open Reason 12 and always show me this unexpected error also need promession for Propellerhead Software
I hope to god reason 13 brings out a whole sequencer and vst3 support be nice o update the themes to .. reason is innovative with there ideas and they are very innovative the future reason is bright the daw not going eneywere 🔥💯
I came from the analog days of recording and producing. I’m definitely pushing 40 lol and I dislike wearing glasses during music production. I bought FL studio and enjoy the work flow however quantizing, finding more than just one instrument with decent sounds, and a poor mixer, it collects dust in my computer. I no longer mix and master publicly so Reason serves its purpose. What we as musicians has to understand with these DAW’s is there’s a difference between Audio Recording DAW’s (Protools, Logic, etc.) with beat making components and Music Production DAW’s (Reason, Fruity Loops etc.) with audio recording components. Understanding that alone will allow those watching reviews like this and understand the point of view your making and can agree to disagree and vice versa. Yes, it’s worth $129. I spend that for dinner daily now day’s. Anything enhancing my workflow is a plus. However, I agree that changes are very slow to keep up with the latest technology. I am not sure if I want Reason to do anything drastic. In most cases, they only repair new features but not common to remove an update.
Totally fair points Kevin! I do see most DAWs starting to converge though towards all-around-excellence, and I'm concerned that Reason Studios chose a different path.
If you are new to Reason, this is definately a great buy. But If you have a lot of plugins or even Reason 12 and you need a really powerful DAW, then Reaper seems to me like a no brainer. It is the opposite of Reason, no plugins, but in my eyes the most powerful DAW at any price at the moment, and really easy on the CPU and is small in size and you can run it on almost any computer like PC, Apple, Linux and so on.
Ok ,so they basically ''force'' you to upgrade because there is no way you can do music offline and I prefer not to have internet on my computer for production. So even if I'm very happy with my Reason 11, I have to pay 200USD for upgrade. Not to mention that it looks like the price is the same if I was upgrading from Reason 5 or 11?! And what epochal am I getting from upgrading from 11 to 12 - an upgraded sequencer to the degree that I can actually be fast and happy with workflow? hmm not really. They should work a little bit more on sequencer and only then I would consider those 200 USD might pay off. Its the most panful sequencer I've ever seen. That was the reason I swapped to Studio One. And now this...really disappointing..
I upgraded from Reason 11 Suite yesterday. I was close to being drunk at the time. I think that I made a mistake. Ableton Live 11 Suite with Reason 11 Suite as a plug-in is the best way to go, (in my sober opinion). Actually, I recommend Ableton Live 10 Suite with Reason 11 Suite as a plug-in because Live 11 glitches like crazy on my AW15 R3 7700HQ GTX 1060 6GB laptop.
… sounds like you’re glitching problem might be laptop hardware specific or an issue with your audio interface drivers. To be honest, it could be a slew of things. It could be that the power management settings in Windows was changed via a previous update.
I'd say they need to hire more personnel and really go into this DAW too bring it to modern times but I think this has been the plan all the while, especially after the rack extension shop was opened up to make up for lack of true innovation and devlopment. I'm surprised it even releases as a DAW today. Should really just be a plug-in only. Most folks like myself who are Reason only are on 10 are divorcing Reason in the near future., as painful as that is. That being said the new combinator is incredibly impressive.
I agree with other comments. R12 is a good beat maker, great sound design tool etc, poor DAW due to editing, lack of VST3 etc, my tuppence worth is this. I open Bitwig4 and its ready for both. Its quick, meaty, fluid, clear, clean and quick. An abundance of modulating that even R12 envies, but...I do love Reason, it has a lot of fans. ReasonStudio loves minium effort, maximum coin. So whatever quick bolt on they can do, they will. I believe that RS want Reason 12 to be the ultimate plugin itself. But you cant be asking £400 for a plugin, so they sell it as a versitile DAW. That how I see it anyways, but as someone already said, I bl**dy love Reason, I just hope RS does too. I think its worth £100+ upgrade fee for sure.
Great video! I've been using Reason since version 6 (after coming from the world of live bands and pro-tools and moving into electronica) and I'm strugglin' with the notion of getting another DAW. I've been looking at switching to Ableton or Cubase. My workflow is about half out of the box with synths, bass guitar direct-in, and a mic for guitars and half in the box with everything a DAW has to offer. Routing MIDI and Audio channels in Reason is a pain in the booty. I wish micro-tuning was a standard feature in DAWs. The only one that offers it native is Cubase which has a micro-tuner plugin and even a Hermod tuning feature, but I hear that they glitch out and stop working after about a half hour and revert back to equal temperament, and sometimes even when they do work through a whole production, it bounces the song in equal temperament. Can anyone confirm this? I can't find any useful information on it in their forums and the rumor is that Cubase hasn't supported their microtuning features for about 8 years. Reason, in my opinion, has the best sounding synths and effects out there. Has anyone here ever used Reason as a plugin in either Ableton or Cubase? How did it perform? Was the workflow ok? Another question for anyone: Has anyone used Elektron's Overbridge (or even just the core audio soundcard of an elektron device like the Analog Rytm) with Cubase? Their free trial version doesn't allow multiple audio-inputs so I can't try it out to see how or even if it works. Again, I haven't gotten any help on their forums. Does anyone have any opinions on the comparisons among Reason, Ableton and Cubase? Anyway, awesome video. I still can't decide if I want to upgrade to 12 or jump ship and learn a new DAW.
I might be able to help you, however I will try and expand a little on 2 other options too. I went on a journey where I tried all of them for a good few months diving into each. Ableton is a solid option. Most popular, decent enough features, good MIDI controller support, simple interface and also good live performance options, good support for hardware instruments, and external cv stuff, has solid built in instruments and effects. I don't know about microtonal capabilities. Their updates are around 300 USD for old users, but their updates don't come out as often as Reason (longer release cycle), and they actually give you a lot of stuff between versions, and listen to their users. Every company tries to make their stuff work with Ableton first. It is the easiest recommendation. Given that, FL studio is equally powerful, but has a certain workflow, which is not for everyone. They give you free lifetime updates, so you will never need to pay again for it which is huge, and they update often. Reason fits in perfectly as a plugin within FL where you can open it up on the channel rack. FL also has the best piano roll by a mile and a half, if you like to work more with MIDI, has decent built in instruments and effects, which are very powerful, but they can look a little dated. The recording/tracking system is a bit weird, but is super powerful too in some ways. I would also like to mention Reaper. It looks like crap when you open it (literally my reaction), however I feel it is the most powerful. Literally the definition of don't judge a book by its cover. There are no built in instruments and the effects are dated but good, and you are almost expected to bring your own stuff, but it costs only 60 bucks (and has long release cycles). The customizability is insane, you don't have to learn to work with it as it suit you however you want, and it literally has almost everything. It can pretty much do anything you want. It's a little overwhelming at the start (literally need to google everything, but there are amazing help videos for everything too). You are blown away when you discover something new and was always possible to do. I'm pretty sure it has microtonal stuff, even without looking it up. It also works well with reason as a plugin. Long term it is the one that saves you time, as you can automate a lot of the tedious stuff (like coloring tracks by name or sorting them, organizing, manipulating audio etc, and even your own custom actions). Its good for people like mixing engineers where a lot of their process in each project is the same, but making music is usually a slow experimental process, so it may not matter much for musicians unless you have a formulaic way of doing things, when it can be amazing. It is also the best for working with audio files (the other two don't even compare), and is solid at MIDI stuff. Very stable and also frequent updates. If you are not too bothered with the old timey appearance and appreciate workflow, speed and stability, nothing can come close. If you are looking for the most polished, go with Ableton. Most inspirational? stick with reason. Best of both worlds? use reason for composing ideas and then go to FL or Reaper to finish it out tracks. It has always been slow to work with reason, however, I don't mind it as it forces more experimentation, you know patching stuff, etc, it is kinda fun. Nothing works as seamless as Reason (Maybe ableton), however, the shortcomings make it tedious, and I don't have hope for the future of the software. The answer was much longer than I expected, but hope it helps.
Thanks for your videos! What about Reason and mixing/mastering? I am not a professional, I use Logic as my DAW and I subscribed recently to Reason+. With a quick look (I am doing something else for living) I saw a more "traditional" an "powerful" and linear/logical arrangement of the mixing/mastering path and tools, with the traditional mixer and all needed on the mixer. It seems to me that all these things that are surely in Logic, there are deeper hidden inside Logic, the learning path is steeper. Again, I am not a profi. A profi engineer (not a creator) would use Logic or Reason for these purposes?
Nikos- Mixing is actually what I think Reason does worst, because it does not make it easy to manage insert effect. I think Logic is much easier for mixing. Beacause you can just get to your inserts so much faster and have a better sense of what's going on.
Reason 12 proves what I have been saying for a while, it is now all about the money. I predict that there will not be any standalone version of Reason 13 or might never be any Reason 13. It seems like they now only have focus on the instruments and effects. The 4K was expected in 2021, and the combinator is very powerful, but the Mimic is not my cup of tea, I have way more powerful samplers than this. Even more intuitive and creative samplers than Mimic. The fact that Reason does not have the option of getting it all in one bundle, tells me that this is definately only for the money or the shareholders. I am so dissapointed, that this is going to be the last version I will ever buy of Reason.
I began using reason since 3.0 came out. Then 5.0 came out and I upgraded.. I AM STILL using 5.0! Last year I veered off for a while and used Pro Tools. I kept coming back to Reason for that feeling of “home”, and I ditched Pro Tools. Every single release of mine was produced with Reason. I have never felt stifled or limited with 5.0, but it is sooooo time to upgrade. I seriously am dying to be able to record vocals in Reason together with my session so I can finally AT LAST ditch the worst program in the world, Acid Pro, which I’ve been using since 2005 🤦🏻♀️
What daw would you recommend for finishing songs completely? I would say I am a reason power user. I released two projects. But I honestly had to have the songs mixed in pro tools and logic. I really don't like logics work flow. I love the speed of reason. What's your work flow like? I would love to get some ideas? I am on a p.c. right now so I couldn't use logic.
Studio One Ableton Reaper All three are capable but very different. Studio One is the most Reasonish IMO with a similar sequencer to Reason. It almost feels like they took Reason's sequencer and made many of the improvements Reason users been requesting. That said for creating I like Ableton. It is not as geared for finishing songs like Studio One or Reaper but not impossible. It has a more simpler sequencer but simpler in a good way. Reaper is probably the most powerful DAW but it has so many features, it can be overwhelming. Studio One strikes a good balance between simple and powerful.
Reaper is a good option. You'll need to buy good plug-ins for mixing mastering (if only to get a half decent UI) but the core DAW is excellent. Runs RRP very well too.
True - and those effects are great! But at that point you're talking about $1,000 worth of plugins, which I don't feel is comparable to Reason's price.
This should have been a free 11.5 update. Nothing about it is worth $130.
Exactly. And besides that, it's full of bugs.
totally agree
@@DNGMaestro like Mimic taking up 60% of CPU on some PCs.
I agree. Price is to steep, even with the "discount". After a period it will be $200.
@@dgwvjhth Reasons on the money grab. Reason plus was £13.45 in the UK now it's £19.99.
I used to use Reason 5 with rewire into Cubase back in the 32bit era, but when I upgraded to 64bit and bought Cubase 10 stopped using reason.
I've been using Steinberg products since the 80's so the workflow is second nature to me, I love the creativity that comes with experimenting with Reason rack however, so was mega happy to find out that it now is a plugin.
Bought reason 12 and currently in the process of reworking old projects that previously used rewire.
Thanks for the video, glad I stumbled across your channel. Subscribed :)
this is no exaggeration there's no other DAW that gives you this much creative potential. we've been begging for a Combinator upgrade for about a decade, but this update exceeded my expectations. I think I gotta admit at this point even though it's not my main DAW anymore, but I'm gonna be a Reason head for life.
That's kind of my feel too right now. Wish it would continue to grow! But still love it for what it does.
This is the start of Reason treating their loyal license holders as second class. 12 license does not include Friktion. Going with Reason+ does. So the prior PR of choice for license vs subscription was false. I have Reason as a plugin in Logic.
The fact that 12 don't include Friktion is why I don't really want to buy it, Shame as I definitely would have bought it if it was included. I don't have good enough internet to really go online with the 15£ a month. If I was to use Reason plus, then I would not buy the £400 stand alone.
You're the Jimmy Kimmel of music production.
He is 😳🤭 creepy 😁
yea but this guy’s face is more symmetrical tho
hahahaha
This was the one I was waiting for, thanks Evan. Had to chuckle a few times. You always know how to keep it light at the right time and it keeps things to a respectful tone even when it is criticism. I've decided to ultimately give Reason+ a go through EOY to see if RS is gonna put their money where their mouth is and curate any significant changes for the user base in this time (RE: outside the weekly sound packs). If they go ~3-4 mos. with no substantive improvements or updates besides *bug* fixes, it's definitely not worth the yearly fee IMO.
@Reason Studios, if you're reading this man's comments and watching his content, pay attention and deliver. Evan provides a service to your user base and your developers. If you're not careful you're gonna lose the few power users actually curating content like this over the long haul. Too many updates are half baked or come too late in the development cycle as opposed to your competition. To be fair, other studios may have more resources at their disposal, but this doesn't change your mandate to remain relevant in sector progression unless you really have resigned yourself to this theory of an RRP focused development cycle where the core DAW and workflow focus eventually phases out of existence. You made some last minute upgrades to Mimic based on community feedback, that's what people want to see more of (kudos there)! Carry that momo with VST implementation, MIDI routing and MIDI editing / sequencer updates. Split some of that across Q4 2021 and Q1 2022. Provide guidance to your "investors".
If it IS your intention to phase out the core DAW functionality, just call it out. Silence on this topic amidst a storm of user feedback just reflects poorly and is clearly creating a damaging affect to your marketing channels and likely, bottom line. Value your consumer bases' time, not just your own. In this highly volatile, unpredictable world, individual free time outside the average users daily grind is only going to get more and more restrictive as will their budget in the face of continued economic inflation accompanied by taxing hits to SaaS business models.
Better to be up front with the business plans now then string people along and burn those relationships for good over a longer period of attritive user feedback / experiences. Don't risk your core DAW users becoming spiteful non-users, or RRP redundancies only. Perhaps carrying production overhead for both areas of development is cost prohibitive these days, but come out and own that if it's the case. People respect honesty and transparency in a time where we mostly get anything but that in many facets of our daily life.
Liked and still subscribed. Great content Evan!
Travis thank you so much for your kind words and thoughtful response! Here's hoping that Reason 12 and Reason 11 laid the foundation for something great!
Spot on. Thank you Travis.
I’ve been watching your videos for years and this was one of the best videos you’ve done so far. Excellent review and honest information. I’ve been using Reason for 8 years and recently had been looking for other DAWs to migrate to because I’m trying to grow as a producer selling beats and mixing for artists, and I feel like I have grown so much where as Reason has not been able to catch up. I was hoping for VST3 support since some plugins are not available in VST2 and those that are sometimes crash the DAW. For example, I can’t use Autotune in Reason and my RX8 plugin sometimes crashes the software. Unless they address these upgrades by the end of the year, I’ll probably migrate to another DAW during a black friday sale.
Thank you for having been a great source of information for Reason tutorials for all these years.
Thanks so much Marcel - I put a lot of work into trying to make this balanced and entertaining!
I can't believe Frikion and Algoritm aren't included in the Reason 12 Upgrade. Why isn't there a Suite 12 Upgrade? I'm trying it out but I think I'm gonna refund it.
PRECISELY my thinking!
Yes Friktion not being included is why I'm not buying it. I am probably going to sighn up to plus so I can use Friktion but only on a short term basis to put My midi from strings in songs I have already made to see how it sounds. Could make about 100 of My songs sound way better.
@@cryptoholica72 Contact Reason studios customer service.
Because then 12 would be more attractive than plus for some, and the game plan is emphasis on the subscription. It’s obviously intentional not to include friktion and algoritm and what other rationale or strategy would they have to not include it in 12? Sure, you “can” still buy stand alone, and sure, they’ll “support” it. But they killed stand-alone as their flagship. And it’s little dumb moves like not including friktion and algoritm that will continue to direct customers away from stand alone and towards subscription. 🤷🏼♂️
What @hyphenification said!
I enjoyed Reason a lot back in the days until I jumped to Ableton Live 5 when it got released and I never looked back ever since. I'm still interested though how this software has held up all those times and this in-depth and critical review is perfect info. Thks!
You’re right I only use Reason to make beats in because I honestly feel it’s the best DAW to make beats in and not anything else.Right now they need to focus on making the DAW better. Fix the sequencer, add VST 3, update the piano roll, midi routing, and just general editing capabilities. I said I wasn’t going to update but I got tired of looking at a fuzzy screen. The combinator is great I can see them adding things to make it better. Mimic is good they added the key detection now just add temp sync. They’re at the point do they we really want are DAW to be good or we just trying to sell you a subscription.
Totally agree with all these points amigo!
You’ve pretty much nailed it there in the end. As an experimental synthesist, soundscapist , the reason DAW is not so bad. There are some experimental feature with cv cables, midi, and devices you cannot do with regular DAW, or just the reason plugin itself; reason Daw in itself is almost like a modular system. Saying that, using an additional DAW and reason as a plugin instead introduces a different level of complexity and experimentation. I love using the Reason DAW to do tons of unconventional setups and soundscapes , but also find myself using, in my case BitWig (which is fantastic btw), and reason plugins to introduce things bitwig can that reason can’t. I’m a big fan of Reason since day 1, lucky for me I don’t follow conventions in music making like most do, but even if I did , Stock musician is right... get another DAW and reason as a plugin is fantastic and very complete! The reason daw in itself is also a great learning tool if you want to start with the basics, but also powerful enough to be weird from a modular unconventional perspective.
The rack and the Daw are two seporate things. Reason studios has always treated and desighn the rack to be a endless vertaul hardware resource and can produce sound in one single Laptop what an entire house full off physical gear. I have a MiniNova synthesizer and was going through every sound and at least harf where on a basic Reason Subtractor or Melstrum and all the rest of the sounds can be made using reasons rack from reason 4. The rack has always been what reasons about.
Thank you! appreciate ur time and comments
My pleasure!
I started using Reason for the first time in 20 years and I'm falling in love again. I switched to Ableton tired of waiting for audio tracks and Vst. I will give it a try and see how it goes
reason was the first DAW i ever tried and i was amazed that i could actually make music with it that easy. that was years ago im on the fence if i should buy it again as i would like to have a daw that i could make the whole song in. allot of people have commented like your self over the years about up dating the sequencer they must know this is a problem and yet they still haven't done any thing about it. i have FL studio and its much easier to use.
great break down and have subbed.
Thanks! If you’re enjoying FL, I’d recommend just sticking with it.
Really sad that they've not kept the DAW aspect of Reason up to date. There are some crucial improvements that would make it much easier to continue using as a main DAW. I love Reason, been with it since the beginning and produced/written a lot of commercial music using it. Hope they're reading these reviews and taking user feedback onboard.
Agreed Mark!
Reason has been my main DAW since the release of Reason 9 (a wide range of genres) & I'm satisfied, but I've only ever had Pro Tools 7-11 to compare. I guess since I'm used to the workflow, my only gripe is that there is no HUI support or crossfade features. I was a little disheartened that they basically confirmed bia marketing that they were not dedicated to improving the DAW at all.
Thank you for expressing your disappointments in Reason not keeping up with the times! I've been a long time Reason user. I used to update right away. However, for a while now I'll update after a few changes and only when I feel there's a worthwhile bang for buck.
If Friktion was in Reason 12 I'd buy it.
From day one We used Reason as a Plug-in with Cubase. The DAW part just added some flexibility and creativity with MIDI tracks. We always looked for more content and instruments in an upgrade. What more can it do or allow you to do? That is what we looked for. Mimic, combinator upgrade, HD Graphics/Zoom 🤔, browser,,,, will probably wait until it gets an update.
I have Reason Studio 11 I do not see any benefit to upgrade now. Also thanks for the great review
Happy to help!
would you share your experiences about overcoming problems (even by moving to other daws) that are related to the design of reason? I've only been using reason for years and I'm sure i got used to some complicated workflows because of how reason works. probably i don't even know about a lot of things reason forces me to do in a complicated way. shedding some light on these would be nice. i appreciate the honesty in your review, btw.
I go to workflow short comings a lot of detail in this video: studio.czcams.com/users/videoeeaQiVq7JfE/edit
Excellent review! For me, sticking with ver 10 is as far as I care to go. But I've been using Reason since ver 3.0 and I know it inside and out and don't have the time and money to learn a new DAW.
I am also still on 10 (I don't even know which features were added in 11 aside from the plug-in, but since I don't use other DAWs (only Bandcamp for one VST 3 plug-in I accidentally bought and I cannot figure out how it truly works) and it's fine so far. I hope a reason 13 or hopefully a reason 12.1 with some sequencer updates comes along, then I might change.
Thanks!
I *looooove* the new Combinator except one thing -- the audio mixer/merger is eight stereo pairs instead of 16 mono channels. I tried making a big knob Redrum interface with just level, pan, solo, and mute, and when I routed Redrum's ten channels (just the left side), five sounded in the left speaker and five in the right. Even though Redrum's channel outputs offer L/mono, the new Combinator's inputs are stereo pairs only. A mild criticism in the face of all that Cmb2 offers.
Wow - that's a really good point!!! I hadn't gotten that deep with the new Combi, but is totally an issue. Guess we gotta keep the 14:2 mixer around.
I usually always agree with your review conclusions. Reason has some great things that I do use often as a VST in FL Studio, but I'm gonna skip this upgrade. Nice to hear your take on it.
Thanks Katy! How do you like Reason in FL Studio?
@@StockMusicMusician Thanks Evan, I actually like using Reason in FL Studio better than using it natively. You can get some pretty cool effects by throwing it into Patcher with some native FL plugins and other VST's. The sky's the limit! Way better workflow for me. :)
I received an email from Reason telling me this, "If you've been sitting on the fence about upgrading to Reason 12, there is literally no time like the present. On October 1st the price to upgrade will increase to £199". I now regret all those Rack Extensions I have bought over the last few years, and I wonder how long they will work if I skip a year.
The Rack Extensions should continue to work just fine.
Upgrading to 12 from 11 Suite is wotrh 129€? 😂🤣 It is a joke.
Wait for BF
@@imoinanimo9746 🤣rather for 13 if there will be this company yet
It’s not a bug, it’s a “feature”. They want plus users, so they made it a joke.
I'm not sure what you mean by you can't finish a track in Reason - I've recorded and mastered 3 EPs and 2 albums. I've used VST's to supplement the Reason effects as the internal effects would not be up to the job for the most part, but then who doesn't in any other DAW? I'd be interested to know what you think other DAWs have in terms of being able to record and master tracks that Reason doesn't.
Hi Tony! I’ve also finished hundreds of songs in Reason. It’s great for some with less than ten or twelve tracks, but it quickly becomes less streamlined as you add more. Some reasons for this vs over daws: you can’t see what inserts are on each channel from a single view. You can add the same insert to multiple tracks simultaneously (ie tape emulation or an amp sim on multiple guitar tracks). Editing audio and MIDI in the sequencer is way slower. There’s way fewer hot keys in Reason. Lots more, but I’d say on average it takes 25% longer to finish a song in Reason than logic, and if it’s a massive project way longer than that.
@@StockMusicMusician Thank you for taking the time to reply and I take your point about the inability to to have an insert across multiple tracks. And I daresay there are other capabilities Reason doesn't have. However, the extra 25% longer it takes hasn't really been an issue for me. I do use Cubase for legacy recordings but much prefer Reason, even if the functionality isn't the same.
Thanks for the review I've been using reason since 2.5 too. I think I'm going to upgrade to 12
Happy to help with your decision
Thanks again for your excellent breakdown (on Reason 12, not mentally - although that intro leaves me wondering). I was expecting Friktion and Complex, etc, to be included in the release, as though it was a Suite version. Looks like there are no complete packages anymore, and their other instruments have to be bought seperately, which works out to be (in official monetary terms) SHEDLOADS of cash. Maybe down the track they'll be included?
Hi Thomas! I think the other instruments are unlikely to be bundled with Reason standalone. It's pretty clear they're trying steer everyone towards the subscription.
The free patch for me!!!! You got my sub!!! Let’s goooo!!!
:)
Reason+ for me. I've been using it for a while now - and I'm pretty happy with what it offers. The Quad Note Generator is too much fun.
It’s not a terrible deal if you’re starting from scratch!
I agree that they have been standing still since reason 5 when it comes to sequencer features and the genomics of working with the separate sections. For that reason I am sticking to reason 10. I felt duped into upgrading from 8 to 10 and don't see much difference from reason 6.
I hear what you’re saying and there’s nothing wrong with your opinions…great points even, except I side with Reason being it’s own music creation software. I don’t think any D.A.W. Can do it all and that probably has something to do with business permissions than anything else. To me it seems like you’re trying to turn a Ford in to a BMW. I’ve never had a problem with Reason because I know what it is and what it isn’t. It’s not the only D.A.W. I use. Production is so much like carpentry no one tool can always get the job done.
Good stuff sir.. I just upgraded to 12 this morning.. I was part of the beta test so I already knew it wasn't going to be much to the upgrade, pretty much like how 11 was.. I purchased 11 because of the plugin aspect of it; I upgraded to 12 because I like the possibilities of mimic and the combinator... my justification is basically $129 for the plugin and future software upgrades lol.. with that being said, I also use Maschine as well which has kinda been my go to of late because of the work flow.. I will continue to use Reason but if Native Instruments EVER add vst3 suppport for plugins, and I can use reason within Maschine, I will probably never use reason again as a DAW!
I love Maschine too, but have never been able to get it to play well with anyother DAW. It's workflow is just too tight!
@@StockMusicMusician What i've done several times is build the track in Maschine and export the stems and then import the audio into Reason and go from there.. I've think I've opened Maschine as a DAW inside of reason ONCE and at the time, it put too much pressure on my CPU but I've sense upgraded so i may try it again but we shall see.. Export and importing works well for me though for the most part.
You should do a tutorial on the new Combinator, and how you did what you did with the front panel!
I've got one planned!
I’m coming back to reasons I love the quality of the music
really ? The sound engine is horrific !!
Hi Evan. I'm using the Reason Rack Plug-In in Reaper. A good pairing.
Nice Simon! I've never been inspired by Reaper, but it sure is powerful!
@@StockMusicMusician Great daw but the gui not too inspirational. There are tons of great themes you can download for it though such as Logic 3.80.
Serious question I still use Reason 8 and I like it, it sounds good to me, I have never needed more tracks, why would bother upgrading. I've been using reason since v1
Reason 12 doesn't add new tracks. There's just more instruments and effects, more features, like VSTs, and modest workflow improvements.
Logic Pro with Reason as a plug-in. I got tired of how hard simple things were in the Reason DAW. In Logic, they’re easy and intuitive. Still love the Reason Rack.
Totally agree. It’s my setup now too
Thanks for a very objective appraisal of Reason as a DAW in 2021. Truth be told, the vast majority of Reason enthusiasts are using the software as a VST rack in their first choice DAW. That said, the most valuable tool in the otherwise outdated Reason sequencer arsenal is the regroove mixer which to date, no DAW has yet been able to replicate. This feature on its own would ship sh*tloads if released as a VST plugin
Great review thank you. Particularly appreciated the comparisons with other products.
You’re welcome Philip!
I use Reason for composing, but when people ask why it's usually just because it's the DAW I've always used and learning a new one is hard and expensive. When I see workflow things that other composers are able to do in their sequencers it makes me wanna switch to something else. The features in the last two updates haven't really given me the WOW reaction I was hoping for or that FINALLY I was hoping for.
The power of convenience can't be denied!
They are finally catching up with other samplers like studio ones sampler like time stretch..it's about time that was my biggest gripe now they need to have kong and redrum be able to explode the tracks into individual tracks verses having route that crap manually
I agree. It almost seem like RS limit their devices on purpose. Redrum was actually a pretty neat device when it came out. Why they never modernized it (???). It didn't even need every feature to mankind but a GUI like the drum sequencer Player would be dope (why was Drum Sequencer only one bar).
Best Intro ever 😂😂😂 And thanks for the review :)
Glad you liked it!
Hate to be negative, but they still haven't addressed the core problems with reason, they just gave new features to the SAME problematic DAW (that's coming from a Reason Lover, from R3 to 10),
they still haven't put in Auto Save (where the DAW can automatically save the file every 1,5,10 or15 mins) I HATE Reason crashes!!!
3rd party VST control implementation (where a 3rd party VST can control another VST o the actual DAW itself)
3rd party VST implementation in general (some 3rd party VST just don't work with reason)
the subscription service is indefinite (they should have it as a Rent to Own plan, as what you pay goes to the actual full price of the program and actually have an END, and a very cheap 7 USD a month Optional Subscription for samples etc.)
But Great Videos, Keep up the Good Work.
Great points about the Auto Save! I think the Reason it doesn't have that is because the file sizes are so large that it can't just make new copies, but it also doesn't have the ability to efficiently save versions.
@@StockMusicMusician don't know if you read it, but the CEO of Reason Studios sent out an E mail to all of us about their road map...... VST 3 support December2021..... there is also M1 Apple support before that also.
Many thanks. I really appreciated the honest review. It really helped me make a decision on whether to go for Reason 12 or not.
Your oppinion is very honest thank you very much for do that for us.
You’re welcome!
I feel if you're brand new to making music, or are in another field (like film or games) and want a one-stop tool to make music with but not with the aim to become a professional musician, Reason is sorta the perfect first DAW, specifically because it's not concerned with the things that other DAWs are. This means that it falls behind as an editor and is a pretty lousy mixer, but it has literally everything you need to make a wide variety of music in a fast and creative way.
I have used Pro Tools and Audition professionally, and both are far better than Reason at a lot of things, but I'm not a professional audio person or musician, so I don't really care about the state of the art or the current production trends, I just want something I can compose in and play like a toy as much as like an instrument.
Of course, this makes Reason+ particularly unattractive to me. I don't hate subscription apps (I used to upgrade the Adobe Master Suite every 12-18 months so I'm actually paying Adobe *less* these days), but since I don't make music every day, it's hard for me to justify a subscription that will get more expensive than an upgrade in just 10 months.
it seems like the performance has gotten a bit better. I opened older heavier songs with 16 audio tracks and 12 instrument tracks, busses etc and it was working really well even at 64 buffer setting.
That's how I feel too, but I've been seeing reports from others that are taking a performance hit. Probably some more optimizing to do :(
I really respect your honesty in this review. I feel like Reason Studios as a whole has been perhaps the slowest of all DAW software companies to upgrade the more modern features found in other DAWs. The fact that VST compatibility has only been available for 5 years or so with Reason - this really speaks to the slow implementation of the features we'd find today in Ableton or Logic.
The combination of Reason and NI's plugins is fantastic, but if you have anything other than a high grade i7 processor, you will have freezes and snags. You're absolutely right about the intensive abilities of NI's VSTs - they are mind-blowing.
Also, I have to add that because Logic is only available for Mac, it is the reason I will be upgrading to a Ryzen or i9 on the Windows end, and an M1 Mac as well. Beyond that, sadly, the need for yet another iPad Pro is there too simply because some of the best music making tools are only made for the iPad Pro only and not the Mac.
But between Logic and Reason, I feel the workflow is closest to what I have been comfortable with for many years. Before Reason was ACID Pro by Sony, and so the timeline sequencer works best for me, even though in Reason, this really needs some upgrading because of its tedious switching back and forth between windows.
Solid review. I know I would also not recommend Reason as a first DAW to create music digitally with. In fact, I might actually choose ACID Pro by Magix or Fruity Loops.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment! I'm definitely in a Logic w/ Reason workflow these days.
who make music with acid pro
@@partlysimpson5154 caveman and Indian make music with acid pro now
Hey dude... love this video and your style of speech.. very easy to listen to ....... you mentioned that you wouldn't recommend Reason to a new user. What would you recommend?
If you're on a Mac, I'd recommend Logic without hesitation. I haven't used Cubase, but folks seem to love it. Ableton is also great if you're of a certain mindset and have the associated hardware.
@@StockMusicMusician hey thanks for the fast reply. Yeah. I’ve been using Reason for about 10 years and have a hankering for something different
Thank you. I think you have good points. I have v10 and have not produced seriously for years. But I hope to reverse that soon. Getting the 12 upgrade would be a very nice booster.
Yea, there will be a noticeable difference.
It seems like Reason is better for sound design & as an instrument than a DAW. I hope reason studios works on playing catch up. Like you said I’ve been using Reason since version 4 & I don’t want to learn a new DAW & / or pay for one.
You nailed it!
Great review but can you tell me if I can use my (old) Refills like the Orchestral and Drum Kits Refills in the Reason 12 plugin? I still really love the sound of the Orchestral Refill. The strings are so much more organic than the stock strings in the new Logic Pro.
Yes you can!
I dont agree with it being hard to add a plugin to every channel. You can just add it to the masteringchannel (which will add it to effects too ofcourse) but you can pretty quickly add a bus and route everything to it
It's different running everything through one bus versus doing something unique on every channel. Let's say you wanted to use a fancy EQ plugin on every channel and dial in unique EQ setting for every channel. A bus can't replicate that.
@@StockMusicMusician That is true but then just adding it to the channel wont take a lot of time if you are gonna work on that eq anyway. I get your point though but to me its kind of a non issue then
Very very excellent evaluation! Thank you!
Thanks Greg!
Bro I started on reason 2.5 back in 2004 that's crazy
2.5 was legit for the time!
Hahaha, i like the intro! 😁👏
:)
haven't upgraded since 10....... spent tons of money on refills and and rack extensions. I regret not spending the extra and getting Ableton live. Id say ive spent about 800£ on reason in total over 4 years and if i had of spent about £500 id have twice the power with ableton suite. Anyone wanna buy my licence?????
I wish they would update the sequencer.
Amen
And your dead on point with what you said around 23:50...i been using reason since 2.5 as well and before record i used cool edit(audition) parallel, but i also learned on analog first, and everything in reason ESPECIALLY the mixer just has made sense to me from jump, n i think thats reasons core customer base our gen and they know it n i dont see them making any changes toward being more like current daws till our gen dies off lol, but i cud also see it becoming a cool “vintage” thing n having a resurgence with a future gen before they even get to that point lol
Great point about it becoming a "vintage" thing!
I'm going through a couple reviews on Reason 12 to see if I should upgrade... I want to find an excuse to do so, but I'm not so sure. I've also started my laptop music-making journey with Reason 2.5, but I was an Akai MPC2000 user and Ensoniq ASR-X before that.
I've been an Ableton Live user exclusively for the past several years and have both NI Komplete 13 and Arturia Analog Lab(instead of the more comprehensive V Collection), but I now find myself always on my new MPC Live 2 in standalone-mode. I really enjoy using the MPC Live 2... I had similar enjoyment with Reason and that's why I keep looking towards upgrading... decisions... decisions!
Jay, based on your workflow, I'm not sure Reason would be the best place for your next money. But with Reason+ you can always just sign up for a month, see if it jives with you, and cancel if it doesn't. If you like it then buy the full version. It's low risk!
@@StockMusicMusician … thanks for the video and the solid advice.
Thank You for this video.
You're welcome
The combinator upgrades are biggest selling point for me, i mean the way u can easily customize the appearance and knobs n all now is going to get overlooked by alot of people i feel like at first, but over time as u make n tweak n save new patches, theyve now made it so anyone can easily just create your own rack extensions out of it, i plan to make a few templates for different sound types n purposes n load them up over time n projects with patches n eventually they will basically become self made rack extensions full of my own presets...thats the tits lol
Gracias por su informacion estaremos pendiente de su creacion
De nada!
much respect for the in depth review - except mimic which for my ears sounds less good on any of the algorithms compare to serato sample, maschine... (I'd like to see more control on the loop section - fades reverse (basic stuff for 2021). now after owning reason plus for a year - I've found that I dont use that much in the packs - I wonder how much will I need to pay to just own reason 12. and another issue I have is that I couldnt find a key command for changing the resolution of the grid... there are many thing I'd like to see reason making some shortcuts commands or stuff that u dont need to use the mouse...
Thanks Roy - agreed that Reason could use WAY more hot keys!
what i really need help is using reason vsts in abelton 9.7
It should load right up in Ableton. Maybe your old version doesn't support VST 3?
good review and important points you did mention.
Thanks Caelo!
I upgraded to reason 11 for the ..."Reason VST RACK"... for Cubase pro 11... Reason 12 was automatically added to my account...... Cubase 11 Pro is the best DAW IMO..... Had Reason from version 3... When 11 came along it was welcomed to work in Cubase with out Rewire which was a pain in the A......
Been hearing great things about Cubase!
Reason’s the most fun and its a joy to use! 27:50👍🏼👍🏼I hope it never becomes like the other DAW’s
It is a lot of fun to use, no doubt.
Due to the change in registration mechanism I feel sortof forced to upgrade from 11 to 12. Will my own patches for the different tools still be available?
Yea, everything should transition smoothly
I haven't looked at Reason in many years, tbh I sort of forgot about it. Thanks for the truthful review, I can see it's not really for me.
Glad I could help!
I have and still use Reason v8 on my 10 year old laptop. I make music on the side, so I’m not using a DAW for a full time job, that’s why I haven’t worried about upgrading. I’m planning on getting a new laptop soon, and I’m considering moving off Reason as my main DAW. I’m willing to learn a new program if it will be better in the long run. My job doesn’t depend on it, so it’s fine if it’s hard for me to make tracks for a few months.
Do you have any recommendations as to which DAWs I should look at, or should I just stick with Reason.
I’d personally recommend logic if you’re on a Mac. I hear great things about studio one, but haven’t used it
@@StockMusicMusician I’m in government IT, so Windows is mandatory for my line of work unfortunately, and I don’t have the money for both a Mac and a PC laptop, so I’d prefer to just stay with Windows.
I’ve heard good things about Cakewalk recently. Is it good enough to use as a main DAW even though it’s free? I’m obviously not going to be using it to make tons of money, but I still want it to be high quality.
Hi and thanks for the informative video. I've got probably a dumb question - why do you need an internet connection for reason 12 (it says on the site you need stable internet). Is wifi ok, or does it need to be hardwired? I know for one thing, the upgrade is a direct download and you'd want to download plugins/machines but is internet essential for the functioning of the program otherwise?
Hi Lindsay! That's a great question - you need an internet connection in order to verify that you're running an authorized version of Reason. It's purely about copyright protection, not about features. Wi-fi works just fine.
Wish I could use reason as a vst plug-in in maschine for pc....
I'm not sure if that's a Maschine issue or a Reason issue TBH
This is amazing thank you man😍
You’re welcome
I've had Reason since version 9... how do I uninstall the previous version and should I or should I keep them? or which version should I keep and which ones should I erase? they don't have an uninstall in Mac...
Hi Juan, you can just delete the old version in a Mac and it will uninstall. If you're happy with the performance of 12, there's no reason to keep the older version, unless you use it for Rewire, which was discontinued in Reason 11.
when i stumbled over your channel a few videos ago i cant tell really why it was abit like i donno i dont like this .. but i kept watching somehow or let say part of because i couldnt really point out WHY i did not like the video .. maybe some comment you made anooyed me without me noticing my own bias .. i really dont care so .. i kept watching the following videos .. and at this point i just can admit ... i donno why but i slowly but surly grew into watching your vids so .. something about what and how you aproach things is worth watching and like befor i cant really point out why :D and i struggle to see the value in my comment if i cant even tell you what i dont like and what i like .. maybe i can come up with something close to a productive comment in the future but for the moment i thought i just let you know ... i like your videos .. dont ask me why i have no idea :D ... its kinda like reason+ and reason12 i suppose .. i like it but i cant really point out why .. i never liked the subscribtion model but then again i felt forced to go with reason+ i might even get reason 12 on top of it and run it on a 2nd computer at some point who knows for the moment one thing that annoys the hell out of reason for me is im forced to run windows 10 to even install it .. ive heard in some forums people having errors while starting reason 12 on win 7 ... i asked how they even manage to get it installed on a win 7 machine because that i would prefer by miles but no answer there yet so if anyone has a clue how to get reason12 or reason+ installed and running on a win7 machine let feel free to let me know. i also wrote to propellaheads about it that its not nice selling a product like this and not even mentioning the fact that it wont work on win7 and that it requires win10 to install also the launcher is very anoying .. i wanna run reason not yet another launcher of something that launches what i wanted to start in the first place its like start steam to play halflife why not run halflife directly .. like start blizzard bnet browser to start wow or heartstone why not start heartstone directly wtf ... what i would love would be just switch on the computer .. no windows at all just reason showing up and thats it :) like a super nintendo or amiga did back in the days .. hell LOAD REASON ,8,1 ..... RUN ... :D
Thanks for continuing to watch, even if you're not sure why!
I was in the beta, and was so focused on test driving Mimic that I didn't mess with the new Combinator much, and only noticed the extra CVs.
So when I got the update and saw their promo for the new combinator 'make your own device front end' I was kinda blown away. The new Combinator is everything I always wished Combinator would be, and actually more than I ever thought I would get. Combinator and Mimic justify the upgrade for me all by themselves.
The QHD graphics update was what convinced me to upgrade, though. I have astigmatism and use a WQHD 4K curved display, and Reason was almost unusable since I got the monitor. Now, it's a pleasure cruise.
I read somewhere they're gonna do a VST3 update for Reason 12 in the next year, and that will also be very welcome, even though I use Reason as the Rack plugin in Cubase. lol.
Cubase has a great crossgrade offer, and it comes with a stellar plugin suite with instruments, samplers, yada yada. Pairs extremely well with the Reason Rack plugin!
Thanks for the review.
My pleasure!
I'm absolutely gutted. Tried to install reason 12 as I've got it now for a free upgrade, however my computer isn't compatible. You have to have windows 10! Unfortunately I'm still in the retro age and have windows 7! Was absolutely gutted when I couldn't install it. Absolute bollocks 🙄
yes I have same problem, I have win 7 :/ maybe know how instal to win 7 ?
Dang. Sorry to hear that!
Is reason 6 still available? All these newer versions of reason look too complicated...
The new versions are way better than Reason 6. If you purchased a previous version of Reason, you might be able to download it from your products page on their website.
Fantastic video, thanks!!!!
Can you help me fix it my Reason 12 by TeamViewer ? Because I cannot open Reason 12 and always show me this unexpected error also need promession for Propellerhead Software
I’d contact Reason Support.
aer you from India?
I hope to god reason 13 brings out a whole sequencer and vst3 support be nice o update the themes to .. reason is innovative with there ideas and they are very innovative the future reason is bright the daw not going eneywere 🔥💯
I came from the analog days of recording and producing. I’m definitely pushing 40 lol and I dislike wearing glasses during music production. I bought FL studio and enjoy the work flow however quantizing, finding more than just one instrument with decent sounds, and a poor mixer, it collects dust in my computer. I no longer mix and master publicly so Reason serves its purpose.
What we as musicians has to understand with these DAW’s is there’s a difference between Audio Recording DAW’s (Protools, Logic, etc.) with beat making components and Music Production DAW’s (Reason, Fruity Loops etc.) with audio recording components. Understanding that alone will allow those watching reviews like this and understand the point of view your making and can agree to disagree and vice versa.
Yes, it’s worth $129. I spend that for dinner daily now day’s. Anything enhancing my workflow is a plus. However, I agree that changes are very slow to keep up with the latest technology. I am not sure if I want Reason to do anything drastic. In most cases, they only repair new features but not common to remove an update.
Totally fair points Kevin! I do see most DAWs starting to converge though towards all-around-excellence, and I'm concerned that Reason Studios chose a different path.
i have reason 5 still listed under my products on my account, will the upgrade work? sorry haven't upgraded in awhile and want to make sure.
Yep, it should! If it doesn't, there's always a 30-day money back guarantee.
If you are new to Reason, this is definately a great buy. But If you have a lot of plugins or even Reason 12 and you need a really powerful DAW, then Reaper seems to me like a no brainer. It is the opposite of Reason, no plugins, but in my eyes the most powerful DAW at any price at the moment, and really easy on the CPU and is small in size and you can run it on almost any computer like PC, Apple, Linux and so on.
Ok ,so they basically ''force'' you to upgrade because there is no way you can do music offline and I prefer not to have internet on my computer for production. So even if I'm very happy with my Reason 11, I have to pay 200USD for upgrade. Not to mention that it looks like the price is the same if I was upgrading from Reason 5 or 11?! And what epochal am I getting from upgrading from 11 to 12 - an upgraded sequencer to the degree that I can actually be fast and happy with workflow? hmm not really. They should work a little bit more on sequencer and only then I would consider those 200 USD might pay off. Its the most panful sequencer I've ever seen. That was the reason I swapped to Studio One. And now this...really disappointing..
I upgraded from Reason 11 Suite yesterday. I was close to being drunk at the time. I think that I made a mistake. Ableton Live 11 Suite with Reason 11 Suite as a plug-in is the best way to go, (in my sober opinion). Actually, I recommend Ableton Live 10 Suite with Reason 11 Suite as a plug-in because Live 11 glitches like crazy on my AW15 R3 7700HQ GTX 1060 6GB laptop.
… sounds like you’re glitching problem might be laptop hardware specific or an issue with your audio interface drivers. To be honest, it could be a slew of things. It could be that the power management settings in Windows was changed via a previous update.
Reason 12 should at least look sharper in Ableton!
I'd say they need to hire more personnel and really go into this DAW too bring it to modern times but I think this has been the plan all the while, especially after the rack extension shop was opened up to make up for lack of true innovation and devlopment. I'm surprised it even releases as a DAW today. Should really just be a plug-in only. Most folks like myself who are Reason only are on 10 are divorcing Reason in the near future., as painful as that is. That being said the new combinator is incredibly impressive.
I agree with other comments. R12 is a good beat maker, great sound design tool etc, poor DAW due to editing, lack of VST3 etc, my tuppence worth is this. I open Bitwig4 and its ready for both. Its quick, meaty, fluid, clear, clean and quick. An abundance of modulating that even R12 envies, but...I do love Reason, it has a lot of fans. ReasonStudio loves minium effort, maximum coin. So whatever quick bolt on they can do, they will. I believe that RS want Reason 12 to be the ultimate plugin itself. But you cant be asking £400 for a plugin, so they sell it as a versitile DAW. That how I see it anyways, but as someone already said, I bl**dy love Reason, I just hope RS does too. I think its worth £100+ upgrade fee for sure.
Some great points mate!
Great video!
I've been using Reason since version 6 (after coming from the world of live bands and pro-tools and moving into electronica) and I'm strugglin' with the notion of getting another DAW. I've been looking at switching to Ableton or Cubase. My workflow is about half out of the box with synths, bass guitar direct-in, and a mic for guitars and half in the box with everything a DAW has to offer. Routing MIDI and Audio channels in Reason is a pain in the booty.
I wish micro-tuning was a standard feature in DAWs. The only one that offers it native is Cubase which has a micro-tuner plugin and even a Hermod tuning feature, but I hear that they glitch out and stop working after about a half hour and revert back to equal temperament, and sometimes even when they do work through a whole production, it bounces the song in equal temperament. Can anyone confirm this? I can't find any useful information on it in their forums and the rumor is that Cubase hasn't supported their microtuning features for about 8 years.
Reason, in my opinion, has the best sounding synths and effects out there. Has anyone here ever used Reason as a plugin in either Ableton or Cubase? How did it perform? Was the workflow ok?
Another question for anyone: Has anyone used Elektron's Overbridge (or even just the core audio soundcard of an elektron device like the Analog Rytm) with Cubase? Their free trial version doesn't allow multiple audio-inputs so I can't try it out to see how or even if it works. Again, I haven't gotten any help on their forums.
Does anyone have any opinions on the comparisons among Reason, Ableton and Cubase?
Anyway, awesome video. I still can't decide if I want to upgrade to 12 or jump ship and learn a new DAW.
Sorry I don't really have much experience with either!
I might be able to help you, however I will try and expand a little on 2 other options too. I went on a journey where I tried all of them for a good few months diving into each. Ableton is a solid option. Most popular, decent enough features, good MIDI controller support, simple interface and also good live performance options, good support for hardware instruments, and external cv stuff, has solid built in instruments and effects. I don't know about microtonal capabilities. Their updates are around 300 USD for old users, but their updates don't come out as often as Reason (longer release cycle), and they actually give you a lot of stuff between versions, and listen to their users. Every company tries to make their stuff work with Ableton first. It is the easiest recommendation.
Given that, FL studio is equally powerful, but has a certain workflow, which is not for everyone. They give you free lifetime updates, so you will never need to pay again for it which is huge, and they update often. Reason fits in perfectly as a plugin within FL where you can open it up on the channel rack. FL also has the best piano roll by a mile and a half, if you like to work more with MIDI, has decent built in instruments and effects, which are very powerful, but they can look a little dated. The recording/tracking system is a bit weird, but is super powerful too in some ways.
I would also like to mention Reaper. It looks like crap when you open it (literally my reaction), however I feel it is the most powerful. Literally the definition of don't judge a book by its cover. There are no built in instruments and the effects are dated but good, and you are almost expected to bring your own stuff, but it costs only 60 bucks (and has long release cycles). The customizability is insane, you don't have to learn to work with it as it suit you however you want, and it literally has almost everything. It can pretty much do anything you want. It's a little overwhelming at the start (literally need to google everything, but there are amazing help videos for everything too). You are blown away when you discover something new and was always possible to do. I'm pretty sure it has microtonal stuff, even without looking it up. It also works well with reason as a plugin. Long term it is the one that saves you time, as you can automate a lot of the tedious stuff (like coloring tracks by name or sorting them, organizing, manipulating audio etc, and even your own custom actions). Its good for people like mixing engineers where a lot of their process in each project is the same, but making music is usually a slow experimental process, so it may not matter much for musicians unless you have a formulaic way of doing things, when it can be amazing. It is also the best for working with audio files (the other two don't even compare), and is solid at MIDI stuff. Very stable and also frequent updates. If you are not too bothered with the old timey appearance and appreciate workflow, speed and stability, nothing can come close.
If you are looking for the most polished, go with Ableton. Most inspirational? stick with reason. Best of both worlds? use reason for composing ideas and then go to FL or Reaper to finish it out tracks. It has always been slow to work with reason, however, I don't mind it as it forces more experimentation, you know patching stuff, etc, it is kinda fun. Nothing works as seamless as Reason (Maybe ableton), however, the shortcomings make it tedious, and I don't have hope for the future of the software.
The answer was much longer than I expected, but hope it helps.
@@anupjsebastian Thanks so much for taking the time to respond! You've given me some good stuff to think about. I really appreciate it.
Thanks for your videos! What about Reason and mixing/mastering? I am not a professional, I use Logic as my DAW and I subscribed recently to Reason+. With a quick look (I am doing something else for living) I saw a more "traditional" an "powerful" and linear/logical arrangement of the mixing/mastering path and tools, with the traditional mixer and all needed on the mixer. It seems to me that all these things that are surely in Logic, there are deeper hidden inside Logic, the learning path is steeper. Again, I am not a profi. A profi engineer (not a creator) would use Logic or Reason for these purposes?
Nikos- Mixing is actually what I think Reason does worst, because it does not make it easy to manage insert effect. I think Logic is much easier for mixing. Beacause you can just get to your inserts so much faster and have a better sense of what's going on.
Reason 12 proves what I have been saying for a while, it is now all about the money. I predict that there will not be any standalone version of Reason 13 or might never be any Reason 13. It seems like they now only have focus on the instruments and effects. The 4K was expected in 2021, and the combinator is very powerful, but the Mimic is not my cup of tea, I have way more powerful samplers than this. Even more intuitive and creative samplers than Mimic. The fact that Reason does not have the option of getting it all in one bundle, tells me that this is definately only for the money or the shareholders. I am so dissapointed, that this is going to be the last version I will ever buy of Reason.
I think it would have been better if you could chose your upgrade price.
That ship sailed when they got bought by a private equity firm.
I began using reason since 3.0 came out. Then 5.0 came out and I upgraded.. I AM STILL using 5.0! Last year I veered off for a while and used Pro Tools. I kept coming back to Reason for that feeling of “home”, and I ditched Pro Tools. Every single release of mine was produced with Reason. I have never felt stifled or limited with 5.0, but it is sooooo time to upgrade. I seriously am dying to be able to record vocals in Reason together with my session so I can finally AT LAST ditch the worst program in the world, Acid Pro, which I’ve been using since 2005 🤦🏻♀️
Wow, that sounds like an insane way of producing in 2023! Upgrade to something! Anything!
What daw would you recommend for finishing songs completely? I would say I am a reason power user. I released two projects. But I honestly had to have the songs mixed in pro tools and logic. I really don't like logics work flow. I love the speed of reason. What's your work flow like? I would love to get some ideas? I am on a p.c. right now so I couldn't use logic.
Studio One
Ableton
Reaper
All three are capable but very different. Studio One is the most Reasonish IMO with a similar sequencer to Reason. It almost feels like they took Reason's sequencer and made many of the improvements Reason users been requesting.
That said for creating I like Ableton. It is not as geared for finishing songs like Studio One or Reaper but not impossible. It has a more simpler sequencer but simpler in a good way.
Reaper is probably the most powerful DAW but it has so many features, it can be overwhelming. Studio One strikes a good balance between simple and powerful.
Reaper is a good option. You'll need to buy good plug-ins for mixing mastering (if only to get a half decent UI) but the core DAW is excellent. Runs RRP very well too.
IF they dont care, why they dont sell it further to some company
I'll just wait until cyber Monday or black Friday.
With the price hike about to happen to Reason, I'd be surprised if you'll ever find it lower than the current price.
Arturia has a separate effects bundle.
True - and those effects are great! But at that point you're talking about $1,000 worth of plugins, which I don't feel is comparable to Reason's price.