Reason 4 sucks, an unbiased review.

[Sengin]

The sound quality of Reason sounds great in Reason, and it sounds great when you Rewire it to other software. When you export a wav/aif file in Reason (no matter what options you use) the sound quality simply doesn't reflect what you could 'hear' when the song is played through Reason. There is a number of reasons this is the case, and I understand that the algorithms are increasingly complex with regards to making the sound 'perfect' for every user.

Can you (or someone else) please elaborate on this? I have used Reason 3 and 4 and have not noticed any quality changes from within Reason and after exporting the song as a 24-bit 44.1KHz wave.

[The Vagrance]

I have never seen so much ignorance in a thread. AS, Knives and Fishy are the only ones that know what the hell they're talking about.

As I've mentioned many times before (and burnt-out many threads before this one with my rants), vst support in Reason is like giving a $3 hooker a retarded step-brother named Warren and then spot-welding him to her face. Its completely un-necessary and not what Reason is used for. Reason is meant to be STAND ALONE! That means everything you could ever want can be used in Reason to some extent. The ReWire support is for when you want another kind of effect or synthesizer added to the output of Reason. That is also why Reason only takes up as many cpu cycles as a softsynth; because its meant to be the end-all softsynth/sampler module.

However, I do agree that the new sequencer in Reason is the sole reason (no pun intended) I haven't upgraded to R4 yet. If they gave the term "fucktardspacklestation with an anus-colored coat of un-needed fluff-paint" a definition, it would be that sequencer. Its the bastardized version of every other sequencer on the market vomited into one shitty envelope. And speaking of envelopes, its impossible to automate a damn envelope without making about 14 mouse clicks to get you there. Needless to say, I really do hate the new sequencer; and for that matter, I couldn't understand why everyone hated the original so strongly. You click on the track you want to edit, you click on the edit button, and then write in the little notes and automate with that straight-line tool. Its not difficult.

Anyway, not to get off on a tangent, but I suppose I may just skip this update and grab R5 when it comes out. I now use Live and love it and would highly recommend it to anyone.

Just now reading this thread and loving how pitch-perfect this describes m as well.

[tweex]

Through my experience with Reason, Logic, Pro Tools, Cubase, and all the others, what I've genuinely found is that Reason is a great Rewire application. It offers such versatility and open ability to do whatever you need with just a fraction of the CPU power needed. While the the default sample libraries with R4 are good, they don't match up to Stylus RMX, EWQLSO, B3, etc. Using Reason a LOT as a rewire slave has been one of the most rewarding situations to have put myself in recently.

Is Reason a good stand alone product? Yes, no question. It can easily produce professional quality sound by ONLY using it. But BT said it best in an interview when he said that "by using other products and programs, you keep your mind thinking outside of the box." No arguments and I encourage EVERY musician who makes music electronically to adopt this thinking. You will be utterly amazed by how much your music quality will change!

[stormfrontrecords]

The sequencer in 4 is a little awkward. I have been using it for 2 weeks and still have a lit of

issues, such as quantizer now quantizing properly. I hate have to double click within and

grouped section in order to add new notes. Maybe, one day all these problems will become

a thing of the past.

Reason almost has every thing I need to compose. I have an amazing orchestral library that

sounds good, but not great. I am sure most of you know about the Miroslav reason refill. Don't

get me wrong, you can get great results with Miroslav, but it does not come near the quality

of the East/West orchestral sounds. I do wish Reason would allow virtual instrument plugins.

Then, it could do it all as a stand alone, and not re-wired.

Other than that, Reason is by far my favorite program to compose in. For everything else, I

leave it to Pro-Tools.

[Salluz]

I don't know... when I use a program, I understand it in 30 min - 2 hours, regardless of complication. Well, I'll check out the demo first.

[-RK-]

Reason 4 is really the only version I do like.

I mean, i pretty much just use it as a big plug-in for FL Studio or Logic, but it's still quite useful.

[DwREK]

Reason Is Not A VST Host! It is an instrument/FX rack & a sequencer! That is all! ReWire it as it should be if you got the virtual resources & use all the VST your heart can handle! Let those who need to reserve some cpu have their basic-wicked Reason rack as is. Seems to me your biggest problem is that you are having a hard time telling your songs apart. I use song titles!

There is software out there that already does what you expect reason to do with out focusing on mic tracking. That market is not open for Reason! Logic or Ableton will fix you up with all your virtual composing needs! My Reason 4 rack sits beautifully, right next to my virtual piano, my virtual drum-sets, my virtual guitar rig (GO NI) & a plethora of synths/samplers in my Ableton Live studio! I hardly ever even pull the "clanky-slave" out any more!

[SenPi]

umm... the last post was on september 3rd 2008... I think this convo was already done with way back then.

[Hy Bound]

I'd just like to say, I have spent a lot of time with Reason the past couple weeks and I have completely changed my mind about it.

I've been known to poo on Reason's quality of sounds. And while I hold the same opinion about the samples, the synths and other such pieces of the program are actually quite incredible. Its amazing what a bit of know-how on my part can do.

I'll try and post a song or two in the near future that I've created exclusively with Reason's sounds

[Siamey]

Holy cow! What an immature asshole I was, even less than 2 years ago! Reading this thread totally blows my mind!

UPDATE: I love Reason 4 now. I use almost everything they added in 4 and I love it.

Personality Update: I am no longer this annoying sack of shit, probably because I have been born again in the eyes of our glorious lord and savior Jesus Christ. All hail Jesus Christ. Let his light cleanse us of sin and

[Arcana]

Holy cow! What an immature asshole I was, even less than 2 years ago! Reading this thread totally blows my mind!

UPDATE: I love Reason 4 now. I use almost everything they added in 4 and I love it.

Personality Update: I am no longer this annoying sack of shit, probably because I have been born again in the eyes of our glorious lord and savior Jesus Christ. All hail Jesus Christ. Let his light cleanse us of sin and

Okay are you being serious? One reason why I didn't go for Reason 4 is partly because of your review, so if you've actually changed your mind I'd be interested in hearing about it.

[Siamey]

Thor rocks my socks, plus the new sequencer is pretty cool once you get used to it. Sorry for injecting you with shit oppinions

[avaris]

Thor rocks my socks, plus the new sequencer is pretty cool once you get used to it. Sorry for injecting you with shit oppinions

Yaaaaaa damn right

http://www.tindeck.com/listen/cwqv

(although that was done in Record)

[Gario]

Stick around for the next couple months and watch me completely start to love R4 or some shit :/ LOWL

UPDATE: I love Reason 4 now. I use almost everything they added in 4 and I love it.

Insert irony here. I'm still stuck with Reason 3.0, though... sadness.

[WillRock]

Tbh, I can see where you are coming from with that first review. I think the problem with reason 4 is that its a big change to reason 3, in terms of the sequencer mostly. I actually had several people I know warning me away from it when it first came out and they swear by it now

I have to say with reason 4, give it a chance, you might not like the changes at first but it grows on you.

That's come about a year or 2 too late, but judging from gario's post, there are people have haven't upgraded yet who might plan on it.

[Brandon Strader]

Getting pissed about updates is a pretty common thing I think. I've never used Reason so I'm not referencing that at all. But I know upgrading from Audition 1.5 to version 3.0 in the past was a huge change for me. Upgrading from FL 7 to 9 is a big change. Some stuff is completely different, and some things seem needlessly complicated. But in the end, you just mess with it a while, and you learn to love it and appreciate the new features.

[wesl]

Seriously if you want to use say Sytrus in Reason for example. Find or create a nice sound in Sytrus. Play 7 notes all up and down the ranges. Just press and hold. Then rip to seperate Wav's each of the 7 notes. Open up Reason and the NN-XT. Expand the NN-XT. Click on the folder icon to where you can select wav files to drop into the NN-XT. Highlight the 7 notes you just made from Sytrus. Then highlight all 7 Wavs in the NN-XT's browser right click and there is an option to detect the pitch of the notes and then map them across the keyboard in order.

Frankly a middle ground to end this whole thing would be to add Audio In and Midi Out. Then Reason could act as a Rewire Host. Or act as an FX unit when in slave mode.

I like the way you think. And it looks like R5 has got audio in with a nifty autotune type thing. It's called Neptune...I'm sort of disappointed that it's not called ReTune xD

I think most people probably hated R4 at first. I basically went from Garage Band and Orion Platinum to R4 and I thought it was the biggest piece of bullshit I ever saw. But after crunching some deadlines for some projects in my Music Tech class, I realized, "Wow...Reason is fucking awesome!" And now I can sketch songs out everyday, quickly AND easily.

It just takes some time. And Reason+Live=God.