Propellerhead Software announced today that the updated Reason 9 software is now available for purchase. First introduced a month ago, the latest version of the music production software builds on the Reason platform by introducing new devices, sounds, and creative tools.
New Player Devices. Reason 9 introduces three Player devices that transform any MIDI input into “compelling music.” Note Echo creates rhythmic, pitched MIDI delays for melodies, drum rolls, and more. Scales & Chords “turns simple melodies into beautiful harmonies and chords.” The user can use this Player device to transpose notes to a selected scale and automatically generate chords for their song. Dual Arpeggio transforms chords into “intricate and inspiring” rhythms.
There’s a much deeper look at the Player Devices on Propellerhead’s YouTube channel, captured from a recent live stream:
New Pitch Edit mode. Reason 9’s new Pitch Edit mode helps the user produce “flawless” vocals. Users can fix out-of-tune notes, adjust vibrato, change the song’s timing, create new melodies from a recording, change the song’s dynamics, and more. Audio to MIDI lets the user convert their vocals to MIDI notes for “endless” sound manipulation possibilities.
New Sounds. Reason 9 also comes with a sound bank with one thousand new sounds. The Reason rack is also updated with key workflow improvements and “darker” theme options.
Pulsar now included. Reason 9 also now includes the Pulsar dual channel LFO, which was previously only available as a Rack Extension ($49) via the Propellerhead shop. Users can take advantage of Pulsar to introduce variation to your sounds, create entirely new ones using its “advanced and flexible” modulation, or load up any of the “masterfully crafted” presets.
Propellerhead have also put together a series of short demo/tutorial videos, using the updated Reason 9 software to create a track.
Pricing and availability. Propellerhead’s Reason 9 is available now as a direct download from the Propellerhead website, or from an authorized dealer. Suggested retail pricing for Reason 9 is EUR €405 / USD $449. Reason Essentials 9 has an MSRP of EUR €120 / USD $129. Users of previous versions of Reason can upgrade (from any previous Reason version) for EUR €129 / USD $129. Customers who bought Reason 8 after May 1 of this year can upgrade to the new version free of charge.
Best DAW on Earth. Thank you!
WORST daw on earth. It’ not a daw. It’s a trap. I left it, one year ago and I don’t regret it.
It’s a tool, and useful as such.
Reaper is a better tool really…
I reproduced pretty faithfully Reason inside Reaper. I mean, really, all the buttons, all the graphical elements, tracks layout, mixer, behavior of the sequencer, the mouse shortcuts, all the colours of everything etc etc.
Now it’s like a cute Reason with vst ;).
Reaper is incredible !!!!!
cheers
I don’t know, can this skeuomorph design in a digital domain be labeled as useful? I’ll patchbay my DAW the same day we start to pretend to change ink ribbons on word processors and pull out a virtual bottle of liquid ink instead of backspacing. I believe this may be a very good time for me to be doing some mike dropping.
Yeah. Or like the day when my iPad drum machine has rubber pads that “travel” visually when I touch them, or when my vst/au synths have piano keys displayed across the bottom and knobs and faders all over them and pitch/mod wheels, or when I have to move a graphical representation of a microphone around a graphical representation of an amplifier in a graphical representation of a space… Oh, wait…
But it’s not just that we already utilize “real-world” interfaces within a lot of great software. What you’re talking about is maintenance. You don’t have to replace virtual cables that ‘break’ arbitrarily, or virtually resolder parts in Reason. You just mimic a real-life workflow while daw/synth/etc. designers figure out new/better ways to interact with the sound.
Oh shit. Damnit… I dropped the mic 😉
The rack is the only thing that I have not been able to recreate in Reaper ; of course you can’t patch vst chain the same way you do with Reason modules… Honestly I don’t miss it that much, you’re right about the skeuomorphic design thing. With reaper i can for example use a Virus Snow and make complex patch within its Matrix. With Reason you can use the lfo of a synth to modulate another synth parameter, but what’s the point ? You will not get the sound of a modular synth… Reason is a complex and well thought-out toy. I owe it a lot, because in order to create good music with it, paradoxically you have to think outside of the box.
xxxx
We have better methods than skeuomorph design. Rubber pads on a drum machine with travel is a good example. It is nice that it looks like the real thing but isn’t helpful, just clutter. It would be better to have clean square boxes that light up in a meaning expression of light and colour to express all the dynamics at play. We see modern drum/samplers doing this, and not just apps but physical tools. With colourful LED design, why? Because it is more useful than just having a grey rubber pad. So in the real physical world, if we are going beyond the limited technology of the past then we need to be asking why even consider such limits in a DAW, it is that silly. This is a classic skeuomorph design debate, one side sees the fun and easy access of replicating the limited real world, and the other side sees it as useless clutter, that quickly is just nonsense that gets in the way, of work, function and expansion. And likewise, is it best for a app to have a piano roll, or the option to replace it with a meaningful grid layout?
Also, look at the new elements of Reason. They aren’t following that skeuomorph design principle. They are also trying to get away from it, they know it was a wrong turn. But that is their market, so it looks like they have to slowly evolve this with updates rather than say, OK we are now going to do it like the big boys do.
I think really the question is how much skeuomorphism is too much and is the ornamentation or design functional or just for looks? Both can be valid, as looking like a familiar tool can greatly improve UX.
Let’s look at Audulus’ modern minimalist design, very little of it is skeuomorphic, but it’s there. Dials, cables connecting modules, pop up keyboard. However the rest of the app cuts away the “useless clutter” and gives you bare bones GUI. I personally would still rather build a synth in a Reason Combinator than in Audulus.
Partially because it’s easier to keep track of connections (to my eyes/brain) and I feel that the interface allows me to work faster, despite Audulus being *infinitely* more powerful and capable than the collection of instruments in Reason
But mostly I just wanted to give you a hard time about the typewriter/word processor analogy, because while I thought it was funny, it just doesn’t apply to Reason.
I would look at stuff like Madrona Labs Aalto/Kaivo. Clean and simple, the rivets don’t help, and patch cables are lines of colour..Easy and low cost on processing.
I’ve always meant to play with them. If I recall correctly they were designed based off of inspiration from Buchla and some other modulars?
I certainly will take a look at them.
Did anyone actually manage to download this thing and get it to work with the copy protection on El Capitan?
Ok, finally downloaded it, and it worked without any problems despite it saying all kinds of “unauthorized” crap yesterday. Still ,would it have killed them to use a more robust cloud host for the launch, oh well.
What a boring update for a major number revision.
Actually, I think Reason is a very interesting DAW. I just think they should be an even more closed system. I tell you why: some of the plugins made for their rack system (not made by Propellerhead) are bad and won’t bring anything new to the world. A more strict rules for making plugins for Reason would be nice.
I had Reason from the start. It’s a nice idea. Or it was when there was nothing else like it. I kept it around as I became more proficient with other apps that gave me real freedom. I came back to play with Reason last year to see how it had evolved and I discovered its major flaw. It’s workflow dictates how you think. I immediately found myself making the same music I was doing 15 years ago because it is hard to break free of how it is laid out. It is a closed system and it closes your mind.
It isn’t exactly “closed” as you can basically utilize Reason as a supplement to any other DAW. I very often have an instance of Reason rewired into Logic. I’ve always despised the sequencer in Reason and have never had a need for audio recording into Reason.
Reason is a tweakers paradise and I kinda treat it as (one of) the world’s biggest plugins. Patch stuff in weird ways, make massively complex sounds that shape and bend and mold each other, send the audio to your preferred DAW and continue on with your normal workflow.
But, yeah, creating entirely within the sandbox of Reason can be a challenge and often produces results that are quintessentially Reason-esque.
Ive got feeling that every daw out there does it (traditional instruments are much worse in this manner :-))… or their types at least like
Renoise
Reason
Fl Studio
Classic linear daws like cubase, tracktion, sonar etc…
Everything pushes you to different music if you got no clear plan in your head before you start composing. It is reason why i partly left renoise, i love it but i dont like the music i do in it :-). I prefer songs from Tracktion that is much worse daw imho. Or the analog synth, i think absolutely different when i work with them.
I don’t see how the workflow is different from any DAW to be honest. Maybe your real problem is you couldn’t load your FM8 Skrllex preset pack…
…
I am not talking about VSTi plugins (i am on the linux btw)
I am talking about daw and its gui and user-friendliness that inspires you during the process.
Here’s the thing I’m talking about. I thought maybe I’d jumped the gun…. too quick to judge. These days I make soundtracks for a living and for fun folky, guitar blues. I use Logic. I start with a blank template and because I know where I’m going, it doesn’t take long to lay down a bed. Now, the new Reason. I pulled up some of the basic elements for a song. Happily telling myself, that sounds nice…. oooooh, that’s a cool rhythm and bass and after a while, as I pointed out earlier it was back in the 90’s. I took myself to Props website to see what they had to show me. I watched a video that was exactly the type of music i was making a long time ago. That’s why I say it’s components and their associated presets lead you you in a specific direction. And that’s great if its where you want to be, but despite its evolution it’s still feels liike a “how to make EDM without breaking a sweat” application.
What you say is true as long as you don’t flip the rack and start nerding. To me Reason is about making unusual stuff. I think a lot of people use it for that, but props need more customers than just the geeks out there. So they started their “make music without knowing anything about anything” campaign. But the truth is that Reason is great for experimantation, more than ever
Not a bad update if you have waited a couple of versions to upgrade until now. Not so great if you are coming from V8. I think Reason is quality software. If you can’t be creative with it and make great music with it then something is very wrong. A lot of us have more than one DAW anyway. I like how FL studio can be run as a VST inside other DAWs. If I like something that only runs in FL Studio and I want to use BitWig, I simply run FL Studio as a VST inside BitWig. I would love to see Reason be able to do this without messing around with Rewire and Reason Midi devices. I have lots of stuff inside Reason that I would love to have access to inside BitWig but BitWig does not support Rewire as of yet. A better solution would simply be to able to run Reason as a VST inside other DAWs….
They should sell individual modules as VST too, could be great !
If you have an older license (mine is 6.5) Reason as a sort of modular device rack is effective using Rewire architecture.
But I use it less and less since Logic has evolved to do some of that function (Track stacks vs. Combinator.)
I also have never warms up to the RE paradigm. But that’s me.
Blaming the DAW for a lack of creative thinking is stupid. I don’t use reason but have in the past and it’s awesome.
its a shame they haven’t put recycle as the edit window
a shame and pretty lame.
I miss Reason a lot. Mainly because of Mälstrom and Subtractor, a happy accident synth if there ever was one and a quick fix for analog sounds, respectively. I also liked Thor a lot. I switched to Logic Pro three years ago and I wouldn’t want to have to deal with the clunky sequencer or the incomprehensible sample editing on NN-XT, but there’s a lot I miss in the simplicity of the instruments (try programming a simple self-oscillating filter sweep on ES2, even if it is a far better-sounding synth, and call me when you’re done, like, maybe in two years).
Not sure I’d wanna fork over 400 bucks just for those two, though.
I have liked Reason since it’s beginning. However – the last years I’ve been using it more sparingly (currently on 7,5 here). I do not need the DAW, but the rack is still pretty cool – apart from the fact that it’s still not a scalable GUI. Why? Editing synths like Thor in the rack on large screens is almost impossible. I don’t have good enough eyes anymore. Arturia did it – they made all their synths GUI’s scalable. But still the Props haven’t adressed this issue.
Version 9 and the piano roll/sequencer is STILL completely pants to use. I cannot understand why improving it has not been a priority.
Admin: Personal attack deleted. Keep comments on topic and constructive.
I feel sorry for this company. I hope one day I can come back to this DAW cus Reason really is attractive. I’m afraid it might not be possible or too late now.