Propellerhead today announced its first VST/AU plugin, Europa.
Propellerhead’s wavetable synth was originally only available in Reason. Now it’s available as a plugin and as a free browser-based web synth.
Here’s what Propellerhead CEO Ernst Nathorst-Böös has to say about it:
Today Propellerhead released our first VST/AU. We’ve been doing plugins for six years, and DAW instruments and effects since long before that, so what’s the big deal?
Well, this one works in Ableton Live, Apple Logic, Image Line FL Studio, Presonus Studio One, Cubase and many other DAWs (I hate that word. Can’t we just call them music making apps?!), not just in Reason. What does that mean?
First of all it means that all you loyal Reason users (thank you!) can use one of your favorite synths in any other DAW (naturally) that you also have installed. A free Europa by Reason license just got injected into your user account.
But secondly it means that those of you who have chosen some other music making app as your favorite, now finally can get some Reason goodness into your life. Europa is a killer beast of a synth. It sounds absolutely amazing, it’s mind-blowingly powerful and it’s straight forward to get around. There’s a demo version to try if you don’t believe us, but we really think you’ll find it’s true.
Some of you might wonder if there’s a longer thought behind this release and if it indicates a change in how we think about Reason, how much resources we put into it, if there’s a shift to how we think about updates etc? The answers is no. We can do multiple things at a time. We’ve created this VST/AU. We’re working on a mobile app. And we’re working on Reason just as always, adding features as I write this. Reason stays what it is. We already announced that there will be no paid update this year but we promise to bring you more of what you love anyway, as soon as we are able to.
The other thing you should note is that we also released Europa on the web today. From a futuristic and tech standpoint, that’s actually an even bigger deal than the VST/AU. What you are seeing there is an actual Rack Extension instrument running in a web browser. We didn’t recompile Europa or adapt it to the web to make this work, we made the web adapt to us. This is to a large extent possible thanks to some really exciting efforts by a very smart team at Google. And you can reap the benefits of their and our work right here.
So please enjoy Europa in whatever format you run it in. It really sounds equally amazing and inspiring in all its guises.
Pricing and Availability:
Propellerhead Europa is available now for US $99/99 Euro. (Normally $149). It’s free for Reason 10 owners.
Uhhh! i like that web-based synth…pretty much anything you need…thanks for that one!
and remember…don´t be evil… 😉 …because of that cooperation…is that good or bad?
Good stuff! I would love to see Matrix and ReDrum in my current DAW. They’re so beautifully simple, fast to work with, and highly effective. Propellerheads, please save me from Ultrabeat. 😛
I love the web synth, it is great to figure out everything and learn about it. Especially good for beginners on synthesis. Are there other web browser based synths out there?
Yes, there are a number of web synths but Europa is first commercial one to become free in a browser I believe. https://www.google.ca/search?q=web+synthesizer&rlz=1C1GGRV_enCA751CA752&oq=web+synthe&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j69i65j0l4.7517j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
dxi fm, an ios synth has a browser version of it
http://www.taktech.org/takm/WebFMSynth/
This is great. Now how about Grain in VST? Or even better all of Reason’s man synths and fx. Just like
Imageline is doing with the FL fx and synths.
I thought the plugin would also be freeware 😛
The AU/VST is freeware… If you own Reason 10!
Beginning of the end for Rack Extensions?
People said that about VSTs in Reason, which had a certain logic to it. But what does making a VST out of a Reason synth have to do with Rack Extensions?
Love Europa. Glad I got Reason when I did i.e. now/recently not years ago.
I would buy Reason at it’s current price if it was a vst. I like the idea of a DAW in a DAW. Imagine using Reason in your chosen DAW software.
You can if you use Rewire.
This is exactly what I’m doing with Reason, but you can’t run VSTs while in Rewire mode. Reaper can load VSTs when it’s a Rewire slave though. With FL Studio, you can run it as a VST (in Windows) and there’s always Maschine as a VST which can also load VSTs.
This is something I was advocating for years ago. I would like to see the lot of Reason effects and synths made available as VSTs. I would love to drop in the Malstrom to some of my projects with out the use of rewire, but even more cool would be the use of Reason effects, like the Scream distortion in my preferred DAW, that would just be amazing! Hope this formula is successful and we see more from Propellerhead in this direction!