In addition to introducing Reason 6, Propellerhead has announced Balance with Reason Essentials.
Propellerhead Balance and Reason Essentials is a hardware/software combination designed to offer everything you need for basic music making.
Here’s what Propellerhead has to say about it:
We’ve taken care of all the tedious stuff — calibration, setup, the works. You can concentrate on having fun instead: making music.
With two channels of pristine audio recording, and with inputs for all your gear, your instruments are always connected and you are always ready to record.
Propellerhead Balance with Reason Essentials will be available Sept 30th. Details below.
Note: Reason and Record owners that purchase Reason Essentials with Propellerhead Balance will receive a free upgrade to Reason 6.
Features:
- Clip Safe records your take on two channels, one at a lower volume. If your recording clips, it lets you substitute it for the other one.
- Reason Essentials’ Recording Meter lets you tune your guitar and set the levels from across the room.
- Two microphone preamps with phantom power, high impedance guitar and bass inputs with pads, and four line inputs.
- Use the buttons on the front panel to select the active inputs.
- When a Reason Essentials audio channel is active and armed for recording, the Ready LEDs light up. Just hit record and play. The software will take care of the rest.
- Large main output and headphone level controls
- Output muting and Direct Monitoring
- Hit the Mute button once to mute the main outs. Press and hold the button to activate direct monitoring of the input channels, for latency free recording or standalone use.
- Powerful headphone amp offers ‘ear shattering volumes with even the quietest of headphones’.
- Plug and play – Balance is powered through the USB port. On the Mac, no drivers are required. On Windows, the drivers come pre-installed with Reason Essentials.
Specifications:
- 2-in by 2-out audio interface
- USB 2.0 – bus powered
- Hi-end pre-amplifiers
- Hi-end 24-bit ADC/DACs, 44.1 to 96kHz
- Low latency design
- Clip Safe — Never again a lost take because of inadequate level settings. The “built-in recording engineer” watches over your session and automatically heals any clipped recordings.
- Mac OS class compliant (no driver on Mac OS). ASIO drivers for Windows installed with the software.
- Built-in Propellerhead Ignition Key
- Direct monitoring (for stand-alone or DAW use)
- Two XLR microphone inputs w. 48V phantom power
- Two 1/4″ guitar inputs with padding
- Four 1/4″ line inputs (two stereo pairs)
- One 1/4” headphone output
- Two 1/4″ TRS balanced main outputs
- Hardware input source selection
- Input level control
- Separate output and headphone level control
- Output muting
You go Propellerheads!!! :^/ Sell sell sell!!!!!
Hmmm, I was waiting for one of them to describe it as "magical"…
or a "Game Changer", at least.
Hey next time you do a promo video, drop the background music noise, it is more than distracting and considering your are discussing audio and mixing…………..mix it better!! Your product will maybe get taken more seriously.
It is really good to hear the reason people say how difficult people find installing software etc……,
They need to play down that !!!!! for their own sake!!!
Midi boy
Could not aggree more. These promos are getting ridiculous. Not sold on this at all.
So, wait, Propellerhead has created an "Audio Interface" that will allow me to plugin and record instruments onto my computer?? Innovation!
So now using Reason will take up both my laptop's USB ports. Does Balance need a USB dongle too?
They should release another piece of hardware, "Hubris" which will allow to plugin multiple USB devices into the computer. A USB "Hub" if you will. They should design it like they think it should work. And put it inside a pretentious casing, like it was designed by IKEA. And they should make a promo video on how special and smart they are.
Balance has a built in dongle, so no need for an extra usb port, but not sure what it has that my old maudio card dosent. must be targeting people without anything, sort of startpackage with software and hardware. well I dont get it 🙂
Basing your buying on your opinion of the video instead of hands on functionality seems rather odd.
USB dongle………..$0
USB hub……………. $10
Shutting down pirating and retaining the value of your purchase…………………….
PRICELESS
No MIDI input = NO SALE!!!
it says in the article that the dongle is built in to the interface man..
Who doesn't own USB midi anyway?
Plus midi USB ports are cheap too, seems like a rather odd reason not to buy an AUDIO interface.
They need to make it record more than 2 instruments at a time.
Probably more aimed at the singer & songwriter. Who's multitracking a band with this?
Who plays two instruments at once anyways? Bob Dylan, guitar and harmonica?
u should educate yourself more on a product before writing about it. balance has a built-in authorization key for reason, u don't need the dongle. it looks like a great piece of equipment i am looking forward to getting one.
"Your license is stored on your interface. When you're at your friend's house, authorize the software through Internet Verification. Or bring Balance – it fits in your laptop bag."
Dude, I lol'd!
"It fits in your laptop bag" – whoa, cool. It could've been worse: you could've need a pickup truck or something. Legit companies trust their customers, and Propellerhead tells you that you could easily have additional few pounds in your bag and not boil over.
So…Avid FINALLY gave up on the “interface as dongle” scheme, because it was hurting sales, and now Propellerheads are going to adopt it? What? Ugh…I’m so…glad I sold all of my Props stuff! This company gets weirder and more idiosyncratic by the day! I couldn’t face another day of ReWire and finally just ditched all of my Props stuff and used that money to buy some dedicated, EASY TO WORK WITH vsti’s!
With the exception of some of the sounds on a single third party refill, there’s really nothing I miss from Reason/Record. Double project files, launching ReWire, closing Reason first…blah, blah…don’t miss that hassle!
If they want to do something to sell more product and make more money, Instead of introducing yet another interface to an already flooded market, why don’t they just do the TWO things people have been begging them to do for YEARS?
1. Either make Reason a plugin OR add plugin support.
2. MIDI Out.
I mean, they’ve lived with DROVES of people begging for these two things for YEARS! What do they decide to give to the people? Another prosumer interface? WHO was asking for this? This company is so…odd!
If the product doesn’t do what you want, then don’t buy it. No need to demonstrate your nerd rage by bashing something just because it doesn’t fit your needs.