For those of us in electronic music, Propellerheads' Reason has been one of the most eagerly anticipated software releases of recent memory. It's ambitious goal is nothing less than to be an entire studio full of gear (synths, samplers, mixers, fx, sequencers and all). It's taken quite a while to come to the market, and the big question on everyone's mind is this:

"Is Reason still as jaw-droppingly cool as it first seemed when it was introduced almost a year ago at Winter NAMM 2000?"

The Answer: Your jaw is about to come completely off!

I'll even go as far to say that Reason is as much of a milestone event in the development of electronic music as the ADAT and the VS-880 were for personal recording.

Why? Simply this:

There has never been such an unparalleled integration of all the components of a modern electronic music studio into one elegant and power program before. The user interface is clearly designed by not just brilliant software engineers, (there are plenty of those these days), but by guys who are first and foremost musicians that know and love the process of making electronic music.

The attention to detail is stunning. The "money-shot" is that the rack even flips around and you can patch all the cables in the rack with more detail and precision than in a real studio! Of course, the graphics are amazing, but get past the bells and whistles and you realize what a quantum leap forward this program is in user interface design. It is extremely friendly and intuitive. For example, when you create a new device, it is rack mounted for you, patched into the mixer with masking tape labels, and even auto-routed into the system in ways that make it seem like that Reason almost knows what you're thinking. Using Reason is truly inspiring because our familiar studio tools and instruments are so easy to access, and your creative flow keeps moving.

Most of the time, there is a necessary tradeoff made in instrument/software development between either "ease-of-use" OR "power-user" features. Reason is the ultra-rare exception to the rule in that it accomplishes both goals brilliantly. Because of the rear rack patching, the simplicity of the interface doesn't hamper its flexibility. It is enormously powerful, but at the same time very easy to use.

I could go on and on about the incredible interface, but I want to get into more detail about the individual components of the studio, since I'm sure you are wondering how well they stack up to their respective competition on the market:


THE SUBTRACTOR SYNTH




This is a great synth in the analog modeling mode. It has a clear character that is a bit Nord-like, but it is actually much more versatile. It is also slightly reminiscent of the Roland Jupiters, Junos and SH series. It isn't as beefy or aggressive as the Moog or Virus sound, but it still works well for Basses and Leads. (...maybe this is because the Swedes aren't as usually beefy and aggressive as most Germans and Americans?)

Subtractor has a couple of trick little things that dramatically increase its sound creation possibilities. One is a huge array of waveforms that go far beyond the standard analog waves, deep into PPG territory and beyond. It even does some very convincing DX-like FM synth colors. Another innovation is that the phase of each Oscillator can be modulated. This doesn't seem that sexy until you hear it. It's like having PWM on steroids for every wave! Very interesting possibilities are there for combining this with Ring Mod and FM techniques. Add to that a second LFO with Key tracking and two really good multimode filters that can be linked and you've got one of the most powerful and musical sounding synths out there. It has many advantages over some of the current crop of soft synths too. There is a very nice selection of creative and musically useful factory patches too....not something you see too often on most software synths.


THE FX MODULES




The reverb, delay, distortion, chorus/flanger, phaser, envelope filter and compressor units are ALL as good or better than any Pro Tools or VST/Logic plugs I've used! They are simply excellent and highly musical sounding. (If you have used Rebirth before, you know what I mean). Reason's FX units are of course much more powerful than any of the standard plug-in FX, simply because they can be quickly patched in a myriad of clever ways that haven't been possible before.

Skeptical? OK...try this in your studio:

Patch the CV output of your sampler's Envelope generator into your delay units' feedback loop and then run the delay's output through a stereo reverb unit which is being Bandpass filter modulated from a drum loop's feel in sync with your tune's tempo changes.....

......I can do this with Reason in about one minute without reading the manual!


REDRUM DRUM MACHINE MODULE




This is the device that everyone was wishing for in Rebirth....an 808/909 style Drum machine with easy importing of your own samples and kits. Great interface, tone-shaping and finally you can make patterns more than 1 bar! Nice addition of three levels of Accenting (yes kids....it's something new called "dynamics"). You can also play and trigger it from MIDI if you want, using traditional "real-time" sequencing or the step 808 approach...really the best of both worlds. Cool Dance/Hip-Hop drum kits from E-Lab included.


DR. REX LOOP PLAYER




This is the true star of Reason......an innovative rhythm module that plays ReCycle REX loop files in sync with your song. You can even preview grooves in real-time in sync! It's like the long lost brother of ReCycle. This unit could get a full review of its own, but suffice it to say that it's really inspiring, powerful and addictive! Excellent REX loops by E-Lab included.


THE MATRIX SEQUENCER




This is a terrific software version of the old Moog/Arp modular analog step sequencers that put Giorgio Moroder, Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk on the map. It can be used for many applications including modulating parameters in numerous Reason modules too. Loads of techno fun and very easy to use.


THE MAIN SEQUENCER




The sequencer in Reason will be very comfortable to Cubase users, as it looks quite similar. It's not a full-blown Logic style MIDI sequencer, but it's streamlined, intuitive and very good for getting basic ideas together. Editing is presented in several "matrix" style windows. It is totally workable even without another sequencer program. The controller track display is particularly nice. I was surprised at how easy it was to learn....(not the case with any workstation keyboards that I know of!). Again it's the integration with the whole system which is what makes it rock. Great sample accurate feel too. You can Import and Export MIDI Files, but I could easily see people making good records with just this!

AND NOW FOR THE DOWNSIDES:

It almost feels cruel to point out the weaknesses of such an amazing program, but we found a few to be aware of in version 1.0:


THE NN 19 SAMPLER




This is the weakest and most disappointing of all the devices in Reason for a couple of key points:

1. No Velocity Switching at all. (ouch!....forget about any realistic instrument sounds...even the old Akai S-900 and the Roland Sound Canvas have velocity switching!)

2. Reason's sampler doesn't read any of the industry-standard sound library formats like Akai or Roland. For right now, it's just garden variety basic AIFF and Wave support.

3. Nothing too inspiring in the factory sample-set. The included sample library is serviceable, and nothing is blatantly bad sounding, but it's not too exciting either.....(admittedly, we're pretty biased and picky about sampled sounds since that's our business!)

4. Auto-mapping of samples is not as good as in EXS24, GIGA or Unity. The Octave shift parameter is also implemented incorrectly (Reason shifts the map's tuning instead of the MIDI Transposition) and coarse tuning is only adjustable in positive values.....weird...

So basically, this is a sampler for a Techno guy, not for a Composer-type guy. It's fine for loops and phrases and some very basic instrument sounds. But contrary to the claims made at the 2000 Winter NAMM demo, Reason's sampler is not even close to a replacement for something like Unity, EXS24, Gigastudio or a pro-level hardware sampler.....at least that's the case in version 1.0 of Reason.

In fairness, there are some very good points, too. The Legato and Portamento modes work perfectly (exactly like the Roland XV-5080), the multimode filters sound excellent, the Spread panning feature is very useful and like all of the Reason devices, the sampler is extremely easy to use.

Unfortunately, this is the only area where it seems that a poor tradeoff was made towards user-friendliness INSTEAD of power features that are absolutely necessary for developing and using high-quality sampled sounds. Sadly, you currently can't use any of our Spectrasonics CD-ROMs with it :-(

OTHER BUMMER ISSUES

1. No VST2 support. This means that you have to use Rewire and OMS to communicate to it. It's currently not possible to integrate Reason with Logic 4.6.1 on the same computer. It just crashes. The current Rewire support is weak in Logic as well. Propellerheads' Rewire 2 spec looks very promising, but since no other company has implemented it yet, it doesn't make much of a difference at this point. It's a shame that the Propheads didn't use the well-accepted and easy to use VST 2.0 standard in addition to Rewire. It would sure make life easier now with all of the OMS headaches on the newer Macs. If you are a Logic user, right now you should really plan on running Reason on its own computer with it's own MIDI and Audio interfaces, etc.

2. None of the LFOs will sync to clock. This is an odd omission considering that this feature is always requested by technoheads and the Props are gods in technoland. Hopefully this can be updated as it would open up a lot of cool possibilities. (BTW, this is another great feature of the Emagic EXS24 sampler)

3. The Reason sound library system, called a Refill, uses a concept that's a little different than your average sample library and synth patch bank.

Here's the difference: The factory Refill (sound set) shows up on your desktop as one huge 500meg file. You can only open it in Reason, and you can't delete ANY of the files you don't need! I guess the concept isn't so bad if one thinks of it as a humongous PCM ROM like in a synth, expansion board or sort of a bloated Rebirth Mod. It's just too bad that you can't optimize your hard disc space with what you actually want to use. It's not a huge problem now with only the factory Refill, but it could be a real pain once lots of third party Refills (sound libraries) start to come out.

4. Reason is primarily a closed system. New devices will probably need to be created by Propellerheads only. This is quite different from the VST Instrument and plug-in world. Since what is available is so good, this isn't a major issue. I guess this level of integration has its price.

5. Stability of version 1.0 was very good on our 500mhz Imac DV, but my G4 upgraded beige Mac experienced frequent crashes with the Dr. REX module. Your mileage may vary.

A LITTLE TIP

Get a mouse with a scroll wheel to use with this program....it makes a huge difference!

AND NOW THE CLINCHER!

The most important and underrated thing about this program is how astoundingly efficient it is on CPU power. I can have loads of synths, samplers, loops and FX with tons of voices firing simultaneously and the CPU light on even my modestly powered computers barely reaches the 50% level. An entire Reason studio's worth of stuff takes up less power consumption than ONE monophonic Mercury VST Instrument or one Reactor synth! This makes all the difference in the world in what can actually be accomplished musically with this program. Believe the hype.

ODDS & ENDS

There are so many other great things I haven't covered, like the excellent documentation, the auto-shrinking color-coded patch cables, 64 MIDI channels and 64 Audio Outputs, Controller automation and remapping, Rebirth integration and much more...but it's about time to get to the inevitable:

BOTTOM LINE

If you are even remotely into any kind of electronic music, Reason is a must-have product. You could easily make great music for years using only this one program. Reason is a joy to use and makes electronic music spontaneous and fun again. From beginners all the way to the most hard-core synthesists will lose many wonderful hours of sleep exploring the possibilities that seem to invite you to try them. In a year full of remarkable software developments, Reason would be the clear winner of the Best Music Software award.

OK..what more reason do you need?

(How about that it's only $399 bucks!)

-EP

For more info vist Propellerheads


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