REASON 4 - THE SHIT or just shit??

Seems to be a lot of debate over the latest incarnation of the famed Propellerhead product of late.

Well.... I got my hands on a copy last night.

Now, I've never been a massive Reason fan, I much prefer Ableton LIVE, but I have to say the new THOR synth is quite tuff sounding. The arpeggiator is fun to use. Seems theyve done a fair bit of under the hood tinkering in this version. Simple little things like the device overview in the sequencer lanes really help with identifying the right device easily. Didn't get much time to play, have a good ol' go tonight....


Reason fans have a reason (nice pun) to get excited. 

i learnt using reason and love it, its just a bit limited at times.  Def keen to check out R4, Thor & rewire may come in handy

Yep REWIRE definitely rox. The very few times I actually do fire up Reason its to REWIRE it to Ableton Live. Until recently Live had no REX file support, so REWIRE'ing a Dr.Rex thru Reason was the only way. (edit - or using a VST like Phatmatik PRO)

LIVE 7 release is any day now....they've just announced full REX support in their new DRUM RACK - w00t !

Very keen for Ableton 7 too, but still learning sx 3/plugins...  Just had a look at Ableton 7, looks impressive...

Had a better play with it last night. 

ReGroove mixer is friggin' wikkid. Haven't quite worked it out proppa yet but it certainly adds to your percussion nicely.

Sequencer lanes got the big overhaul, editing is muuuuuch more intuitive....about time really. I think Reason has struggled in this department imo....

THOR is awesome, i made a short track with 3 of em and a beatloop. CPU usage is VERY low, I run a Core2Duo and the DSP light didnt even light up one notch....

image not archived: propellerhead_reason4_thor_thumb.jpg

Didn't get to play with the RPG-8, but it certainly is fully featured I think the matrix pattern sequencer just got left for dead.....

The preferences window didn't appear to hold much more, my CME Pro MIDI keyboard wasn't in the list of manufacturers but it picked up fine on a standard setting. Didn't hook the BCF2000 up but that had support in the last version anyway. Still, a wide variety of manufacturers supported so that's good.

Drawing automation seems a whole lot easier, but on the flipside managing clips is a whole lot messier....or maybe i'm just stuck on the "old" way. Still...i had some initial probs getting my head around some of the new sequencer features.

I didn't actually turn the rack around at all so i don't kno of any new shizz on the back of the rack... oh well.

Over the weekend I hope to put it thru its paces Rewired to LIVE and see how it handles it all. From what i hear Rewire has had some bugfixes too....

I was going to post some more shit about Reason 4 and stumbled across this beauty while at the Propellerheads website, and since I started the LIVE thread I thought there is probably going to be some peepz out there who could use this.

The kind people over at Ableton have made a PDF doco about using Reason and LIVE together via Rewire. Some handy tips for those of you who don't use Rewire very often. Particularly important for those users who don't have an über computer to work on.

Check it out here -> Tips Tricks Reason.pdf
If anyone else has questions regarding using Reason with LIVE feel free to ask in the LIVE thread. 

 





edit:this doco was made for LIVE 3 but the majority of the info is correct for all versions.

Last night I noticed something on the back of the rack that impressed me a bit. The Hardware interface now has a "More audio" button which doubles the amount of inputs on the back of the rack from 32 to 64! Good news for hardcore routing. Also has an "Advanced MIDI" feature which lets you route MIDI signals alot more easily.

These features wont even rate a mention with Reason n00bs but seasoned music nerds will appreciate it as it allows alot more flexibility when using Reason with Logic or Pro tools etc.