Reason or FL?

[Nabeel Ansari]

By "track" I believe you are referring to a "pattern" or "PAT" in FL? Tracks in Reason, along with other DAWs, mean something different.

Tracks =/= patterns. Patterns are clips or "sections" of MIDI data.

Think clips in Ableton Live.

This is a "track" to me. Looks pretty similar to one in Reason (or everything else)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15510436/File%20Sharing/tracks.png

In FL Studio, it is possible to put patterns that have (different, editable sets of) MIDI data for any number of instruments or automation data you want in a track. In Reason, you are limited to one instrument for a track. You can put a Combinator and have multiple lanes, as you have said before, but does that not mean they all get controlled by the parameters on the Combinator? What if I don't want all of my synthesizers to be controlled simultaneously the same way? I am only asking for clarification.

[avaris]

In FL Studio, it is possible to put patterns that have (different, editable sets of) MIDI data for any number of instruments or automation data you want in a track. In Reason, you are limited to one instrument for a track. You can put a Combinator and have multiple lanes, as you have said before, but does that not mean they all get controlled by the parameters on the Combinator? What if I don't want all of my synthesizers to be controlled simultaneously the same way? I am only asking for clarification.

Reason has the same capability and logical outcome. It just does it in a different way. The workflow to get the end result is different.

An instrument or any device; not just a combinator; can have multiple lanes. A combinator won't control anything unless the user programs it to. If you don't want all of the instruments in the combinator to be controlled in the same way; then don't put the midi/automation data in the track for the combinator. Put it on the track for the individual instrument. Also in the combinator control panel located in the Rack Window you can choose which instruments/devices receive midi note data from the combinator.

[Frederic Petitpas]

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[liquid wind]

reason is more of a budget product, it's not cubase or protools where they have a lot of misinformed old people making ridiculous claims about it's "audio engine" being superior to its competitors. $2000 would be shooting themselves in the foot, even $500 is kind of questionable when you can get reaper, renoise, or FLS cheap and a few hundred dollars of VSTs...and most people find it necessary to buy such a host and rewire reason into it to begin with.

[Nabeel Ansari]

No you're not. It's unlimited.

I'm pretty sure if you create a Thor instrument track then that track is for Thor.

[Frederic Petitpas]

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[Nabeel Ansari]

You can have thor and all the others synths in a single track.

So you don't need a combinator.

So this entire exchange with Avaris was meaningless babble?

[Frederic Petitpas]

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[Nabeel Ansari]

yes you need a comb

so what ?

what's your point dude

I don't have a point, I left the conversation satisfied with learning a bit more about Reason and now you're being inconsistent with what you say (and what Avaris says) and starting up a meaningless conversation. You can have one device/instrument per track in Reason.

What if you want more? You have that device be a combinator. You can have 5 synths controlled by the combinator but it's still one combinator for that track. What's the issue here?

[Frederic Petitpas]

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[avaris]

In Reason the relationship between devices and the sequencer are:

- Device is located in the Rack Window

- There is a Track dedicated to the Device in Sequencer Window

- a Track contains one or many Lanes; and Automation data for any parameter

- a Lane contains multiple clips

- Clips contain midi notes and/or automation data

- you can have unlimited # of Lanes per track

An instrument or any device; not just a combinator; can have multiple lanes.

ANY device (combinator, instrument, effect) can have a track in Reason. And you can have unlimited number of devices. Therefore there are unlimited number of tracks. Here is a picture showing tracks for devices and multiple lanes:

Here is a Video showing:

[SapSpecial]

FL Studio. Why?

Complete Third Party VSTi compatibility

Drag and Drop Features make ease of audio sequencing and selecting audio files through your desktop

Keyboard as Midi Controller

ReWire with other DAWs and make a master DAW. Many suggest this.

Price range to fit your budget, then build on later.

Updates

Community that Shares

Brian Eno uses it

Dancing Anime Girl addon just for kicks

MPC lookalike VST Sampler

i did this in FL Studio using the samplers, stock synths and fx:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg5O1wc0nVc

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

Clearly the answer is to use Reason, rewired in FL Studio...

But, of course, the answer is to go out and try both and think critically about your first impression, because FIRST IMPRESSIONS MATTER. Feeling clunky about a workflow/UI is something that is possible to overcome...but will be a stumbling block; one that will demotivate you very subtly. Whereas if your interest is piqued by something, you'll naturally gravitate towards it anyways...

[Frederic Petitpas]

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[theshaggyfreak]

I must update my verdict.

REAPER is awesome and I will buy it. It's the perfect complement to Reason 6.

That's what I'm actually running now. I bought Reaper a little while back to replace Pro Tools and so that I could use a small handful of VSTi that I like. It's actually a damn nice program for the price.

[mickomoo]

Had a question, but rather than make a topic I'll use this. So I have reason anyway... I got it at no personal cost or whatever. Since reason takes up less memory than my current daw, and can quantize more freely, I'm thinking of using it for recording and transferring the midi to another daw to finish it. Is Reason decent for just recording, and will it take me a really long time of getting the hang of recording and quantizing within reason?

[SenPi]

I don't quite understand the point. Why would you just use reason to record midi just so you can export it to something else? Every other DAW out there can record and quantize midi just as well.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Symbio is right, that's a really unnecessary step because you might as well just do it in the DAW that you're "finalizing".

Come to think of it, what exactly do you mean by "finalizing"? Are you implying that Reason isn't capable of post production, which is why you're doing it elsewhere?

[mickomoo]

Protools for mixing probably and whatever other DAW for switching tracks to my 3rd party instruments. My current DAW mixcraft can't support like more than 15 tracks without my CPU bringing down my entire system. With effects, probably I can only do like 7 10-12 if I'm lucky. So since reason is self-contained I'm assuming its a lot easier on the memory. I have Kontakt (and possible EastWest later this year) Vsts so I'd like to use them, but I guess I'll just be doing that post recording outside of reason.

I'm aware that record/quantize isn't what makes reason special, but compared to other daws it is a lot easier on the memory and CPU right?

[Nabeel Ansari]

I'm aware that record/quantize isn't what makes reason special, but compared to other daws it is a lot easier on the memory and CPU right?

That makes absolutely no sense. Why would recording MIDI be less on memory than another DAW?

Protools for mixing probably and whatever other DAW for switching tracks to my 3rd party instruments.

This is the most convoluted workflow I've ever heard of. :/ Having 3 DAW's open is going to have more memory and CPU footprint than just one.

Get Cubase (or the like), record the MIDI in Cubase, and have all your VST's loaded in Cubase. You only need one DAW.

Switching to another DAW isn't going to save your computer from underruns. If you're overspending resources on your VST's, you're overspending resources on your VST's. The method in which you get the MIDI data to the VST's is absolutely negligible.

You either use the sounds in Reason's self contained library or you don't. There's no reason to record MIDI in there, save it, then put it in another DAW. You're going to end up spending the exact same amount of computer resources in the end, you might as well do it faster by recording it in the DAW you have the VST's in.

Or just get a new computer, which you can for the price of those two extra DAW's you wanted.

[SenPi]

I have this feeling that mickomoo is getting his terms wildly mixed up :S

Or he just thinks that recording midi and quantizing actually has *any* sort of performance hits

[Nabeel Ansari]

Or he just thinks that recording midi and quantizing actually has *any* sort of performance hits

That's what I was trying to clear up for him.

[mickomoo]

My bad I don't think I'm explaining this properly. You'll have to forgive me I'm still new to audio recording and engineering

My problems are during playback in other DAWs using libraries like Kontakt that take up a lot of memory on their own. I felt that using reason to record will give me the freedom to experiment and playback without having to worry about the program constantly crashing, a friend of mine told me he had like over 17 tracks playing in reason and had no problems. I apparently can't do that with my current setup.

If I don't like some of the instruments in Reasons self contained library I'd just transfer that track to a DAW that would allow me to access my 3rd party vsts. Essentially I want the flexibility to not have lag/crash on my playback (which my friend told me reason is ] good at conserving memory compared to my current setup) and the flexibility to switch libraries if I really want to. Which I expect I might. I also like reason's block section recording function.

[Nabeel Ansari]

My problems are during playback in other DAWs using libraries like Kontakt that take up a lot of memory on their own. I felt that using reason to record will give me the freedom to experiment and playback without having to worry about the program constantly crashing, a friend of mine told me he had like over 17 tracks playing in reason and had no problems. I apparently can't do that with my current setup.

This isn't really how computers work in terms of audio workstations.

The reason that you have playback problems is SOLELY BECAUSE of the VST's and plugins you use. It has nothing to do with "how a DAW records and quantizes".

The reason you get more resource headroom in Reason is because the instruments themselves are less taxing on computer resources, not because of its MIDI track recording system. You can record 99 tracks of MIDI on an old Pentium 4 if they're not being sent to plugins, because there are no plugins to be processed.

Should you record in Reason simply to save the MIDI and export it elsewhere? Absolutely not. That's unnecessary and convoluted.

But, should you use the instruments in Reason because of their lower resource usage? Absolutely, as long as you like how they sound.

You were asking a valid question, you just worded it in a way that made you sound like you were asking a weird question.

Your friend doesn't really know what he's talking about, though. There's no lower resource usage "because it's Reason". He's seeing the correlation and claiming causation. If Reason's library had instruments has heavy powered as plugins like zebra and PLAY, you'd have just as many playback problems. Reason has a light-on-power sound library is the main reason why you can fit a lot of instruments. Doesn't mean they're not as good, the synths could just be coded better or what have you. I'm not an expert, I'm sure Anosou could give insight on why the synths are so awesome yet so light on CPU.

[mickomoo]

This isn't really how computers work in terms of audio workstations.

The reason that you have playback problems is SOLELY BECAUSE of the VST's and plugins you use. It has nothing to do with "how a DAW records and quantizes".

The reason you get more resource headroom in Reason is because the instruments themselves are less taxing on computer resources, not because of its MIDI track recording system. You can record 99 tracks of MIDI on an old Pentium 4 if they're not being sent to plugins, because there are no plugins to be processed.

Should you record in Reason simply to save the MIDI and export it elsewhere? Absolutely not. That's unnecessary and convoluted.

But, should you use the instruments in Reason because of their lower resource usage? Absolutely, as long as you like how they sound.

You were asking a valid question, you just worded it in a way that made you sound like you were asking a weird question.

Your friend doesn't really know what he's talking about, though. There's no lower resource usage "because it's Reason". He's seeing the correlation and claiming causation. If Reason's library had instruments has heavy powered as plugins like zebra and PLAY, you'd have just as many playback problems. Reason has a light-on-power sound library is the main reason why you can fit a lot of instruments. Doesn't mean they're not as good, the synths could just be coded better or what have you. I'm not an expert, I'm sure Anosou could give insight on why the synths are so awesome yet so light on CPU.

Sorry, the only reason I mentioned quantizing was because I like Reasons quantizing functionality. Mixcraft's quantize sucks so that's why I was emphasizing that. And I know it's specifically the library and effects that tax the system, but it's only during playback in the DAW so I can actually afford to mix in my current daw if I can record elsewhere. If I record else where I won't have to worry about playback when I use my 3rd party vsts. I was asking it in a weird way I realize, I apologize for that lol.