I never used Reason for two basic reasons:
1 -- abhorrent interface style. nothing irks me more than software designers who for some INSANE reason thinks that software should look like the physical object it represents. Tell me, oh wise plugin designers -how exactly does the action of twisting a pot translate to rotating a circular graphic on screen with a mouse incapable of circular motion? Its fucking ridiculous. Software is at an initial disadvantage, interface wise, purely for not being tactile. But at least it has the potential to do away with the bad points of hardware control surfaces to help compensate. Such as always displaying an exact value -- always allowing you to simply type in the exact numeric value, etc. But what do I end up doing? Moving the mouse up and down as gently as I can to make a virtual knob turn a microscopic amount. Then moving to the next plugin and moving it sideways to do the same thing. INSANITY!
Reason takes this to the ultimate extreme as far as I can see. Its obsessed with "looking just like a rack of PRO synths and fX!" This is the sort of publicity line aimed at total idiots. Lets face it PROs!! dont actually have large racks of hardware these days anyhow. (And if they did, they'd make sure there reverb was actually true stereo in the first place *ahem*)
Besides which anyone with any sense isnt interested in their software looking elite and shiny and just like the real thing, to impress their mates. I mean for crying out loud... the fucking cables... the instant I saw those cables I uninstalled it and never thought about it again. I use software to ESCAPE from bloody cables, I dont want their tangled mess modelled for me! And I certainly dont want to waste my resources by modelling their bounce! What on earth would be wrong with a diagrammatic depiction of my routing and connections, with at-a-glance clarity the top priority? Oh yeah.... it wouldnt look like the "real" thing, so it wouldnt be "cool"...
Oh well...
2 -- missing features. No VST support: well, like Ott says (and like the guys from Propellorheads explained in a SoS article), this has a good justification. But I've already learned my VSTs, I know them inside out, I know which one is best for what, and I wont throw that away. Audio recording: its nothing but a chocolate teapot to me, without it. MIDI output: ditto.
Most people just say: "well if you want vsts just rewire it". I say: if I've got Nuendo + NI + Waves + Ohmforce + etc, etc all loaded anyway, then what the hell do I need Reason for?
The only tempting justification I've heard for it so far is how fast + easy it is to sketch out ideas with. I'm almost tempted by that but ultimately I'd still have to invest time before I was as quick with it as I already am with what I've got, so there's no point.
Dont get me wrong. If I knew I wasnt working with any live instruments or hardware synths, and I was a newcomer with no existing investments, it would be very appealing. But from where I stand right now its just really useless to me.
That rant was purely because I've just got in from work and felt like it, it had no real relevance or value to anyone here that I can think of
@AlternateContinuum - yeah, I've heard many people say they get an audible improvement in quality just by rewiring. ie not rewiring and then doing something, like putting high quality VSTs on channels... Just plain old rewiring. Apparently as soon as its mixed in Cubase (etc) instead of Reason it sounds a bit better... I can believe that.
And do u mean the logic native plugins? If you think they're a bit crap I think you're in a minority of about one... Most people i come across, including myself, are of the opinion that Logic ships with the strongest selection of native plugins of any sequencer out there. I'd buy some of them as VSTs if I could!
1 -- abhorrent interface style. nothing irks me more than software designers who for some INSANE reason thinks that software should look like the physical object it represents. Tell me, oh wise plugin designers -how exactly does the action of twisting a pot translate to rotating a circular graphic on screen with a mouse incapable of circular motion? Its fucking ridiculous. Software is at an initial disadvantage, interface wise, purely for not being tactile. But at least it has the potential to do away with the bad points of hardware control surfaces to help compensate. Such as always displaying an exact value -- always allowing you to simply type in the exact numeric value, etc. But what do I end up doing? Moving the mouse up and down as gently as I can to make a virtual knob turn a microscopic amount. Then moving to the next plugin and moving it sideways to do the same thing. INSANITY!
Reason takes this to the ultimate extreme as far as I can see. Its obsessed with "looking just like a rack of PRO synths and fX!" This is the sort of publicity line aimed at total idiots. Lets face it PROs!! dont actually have large racks of hardware these days anyhow. (And if they did, they'd make sure there reverb was actually true stereo in the first place *ahem*)
Besides which anyone with any sense isnt interested in their software looking elite and shiny and just like the real thing, to impress their mates. I mean for crying out loud... the fucking cables... the instant I saw those cables I uninstalled it and never thought about it again. I use software to ESCAPE from bloody cables, I dont want their tangled mess modelled for me! And I certainly dont want to waste my resources by modelling their bounce! What on earth would be wrong with a diagrammatic depiction of my routing and connections, with at-a-glance clarity the top priority? Oh yeah.... it wouldnt look like the "real" thing, so it wouldnt be "cool"...
Oh well...
2 -- missing features. No VST support: well, like Ott says (and like the guys from Propellorheads explained in a SoS article), this has a good justification. But I've already learned my VSTs, I know them inside out, I know which one is best for what, and I wont throw that away. Audio recording: its nothing but a chocolate teapot to me, without it. MIDI output: ditto.
Most people just say: "well if you want vsts just rewire it". I say: if I've got Nuendo + NI + Waves + Ohmforce + etc, etc all loaded anyway, then what the hell do I need Reason for?
The only tempting justification I've heard for it so far is how fast + easy it is to sketch out ideas with. I'm almost tempted by that but ultimately I'd still have to invest time before I was as quick with it as I already am with what I've got, so there's no point.
Dont get me wrong. If I knew I wasnt working with any live instruments or hardware synths, and I was a newcomer with no existing investments, it would be very appealing. But from where I stand right now its just really useless to me.
That rant was purely because I've just got in from work and felt like it, it had no real relevance or value to anyone here that I can think of
@AlternateContinuum - yeah, I've heard many people say they get an audible improvement in quality just by rewiring. ie not rewiring and then doing something, like putting high quality VSTs on channels... Just plain old rewiring. Apparently as soon as its mixed in Cubase (etc) instead of Reason it sounds a bit better... I can believe that.
And do u mean the logic native plugins? If you think they're a bit crap I think you're in a minority of about one... Most people i come across, including myself, are of the opinion that Logic ships with the strongest selection of native plugins of any sequencer out there. I'd buy some of them as VSTs if I could!
). I always thought that ReWire effectively ditched Reason's dithering engine in favour of the host sequencer, but I could always be wrong. I wouldn't use Redrum if you paid me to do it though.
