Reason 9.5 gets VST support

[petal]

Reason 9.5 gets VST support:

http://cdm.link/2017/04/hell-freezes-re ... t-support/

Has an old dream of mine fine come true:

http://forums.scopeusers.com/viewtopic. ... ason+scope

I wonder if it will work?

[Sounddesigner]

Looks like a good move by Propellerheads. It is difficult for Reason to remain closed with its own proprietary plugin format simply cause they are out-gunned by the open VST world. If you keep your DAW closed it has to have plugins that are truly head-and-shoulders better sound-wise than the rest of Native world but this was not the case with Reason IMO. Actually Reason's plugins were generally designed by Native developers who had VST alternatives so you weren't getting anything special and rare with Reason's plugins cause those same developers offered equivalent alternatives elsewhere, and sometimes the open VST counterpart was by far better like with Izotope's plugin.

But after saying all that; plugins inside of Reason have their serious advantages. Being able to use any VST inside Reason will allow for all the VERY FUN AND POWERFULL things in Reason to be added to those VST's e.g. CV routing, Matrix, and Combinator. I really loved Reason for those things. I also loved the stability of Reason but I suspect the stability will be harmed further by the new VST support.

I left Reason many many years ago, I still have version 3.5 to complete old projects. I left cause Propellerheads refused to implement any of the features I wanted wich was audio-in, MIDI-out, 3rd-party-plugin-support, etc. Propellerheads was stubborn back then and refused to implement those things but ironically have been slowly implementing all those things after I left. Plus they got rid of one of the things I loved and that was the hassle-free copy-protection; they said in the past they wouldn't use a dongle but then ended up getting one. They need a clear vision for Reason and not say one thing one day but do the exact opposite the next day like they did with copy-protection/audio-in/vst-support/etc. It seems Propellerheads only do what they are forced to do rather than having a great and coherent vision initially for Reason that truly works for its base and other potential-customers on the market.

It was Propellerheads stubborness that caused me to have a love-hate relationship with Reason. After saying all that I'd go back to Reason quickly if not for being 64bit only and the Copy-Protection. Reason is very powerfull and very unique and also the most stable/crash-free Native DAW i ever used. I know in the past Reason users did not have to think about crashes and only thought about making music.

[Nestor]

Today, everything should be VST compatible.

[dante]

https://www.propellerheads.se/reason-95

Not that I cared that much since I had replaced most of my VSTI's with Rack Extensions - exceptions:
1) Orange tree Jaco
2) Neo Rhodes
3) Juggernaut

So they will be welcomed back to the fold...

Looks like VST hosting rack allows mapping of reason CV to hosted VST's parameters :

Reason VST

reason-vst.jpg (107.02 KiB) Viewed 5095 times

[dante]

Plus they got rid of one of the things I loved and that was the hassle-free copy-protection; they said in the past they wouldn't use a dongle but then ended up getting one.

The dongle is not the only option - the licensing is actually flexible as you can authorize by internet or computer as well as dongle:

https://www.propellerheads.se/support/u ... s-it-work/

[dawman]

So Scope would see Reason as ASIO, and Reason sees Kontakt/Omni-Keyscape/PianoTeq and Zebra?
It's also a sequencer?

I'd be interested if that's the case.
Bidule is perfect for me, but no more MIDI Audio recording since Z87.
Lost the portaudio x64 recording features with Z97.

Its always fucking something.
Reaper however works fine but after a decade of seeing project windows with modules connected like Scope.
Going to a page I have to read just isn't appealing.
Tried that with Forte, Cantabile, Reaper.....

[petal]

It's possible for current Reason 9 owners to join the Beta test:

https://www.propellerheads.se/reason-95

We are looking forward to hear the reports Dante

[Bud Weiser]

So Scope would see Reason as ASIO, and Reason sees Kontakt/Omni-Keyscape/PianoTeq and Zebra?
It's also a sequencer?

It´s all, tone-generator (synths, sample player, drumsampler) and it does sampling on the fly as well.
Sequencer, yes, but not that "complex" like in other DAWs,- and since v7 it has MIDI-Out too,- before, it didn´t.
It uses ASIO on PC, CoreAudio on Mac.
So, on a PC (desktop or laptop) you can run into any ASIO issues caused by chipsets and Windows like before.

I'd be interested if that's the case.
Bidule is perfect for me, but no more MIDI Audio recording since Z87.
Lost the portaudio x64 recording features with Z97.

there we are,- see "chipsets/Windows" above.

Most pros using Reason for live gigs, use it on an Apple laptop.
Reason works excellent on a laptop, it´s made to do.
I´m still on Reason 6.5 (32Bit) on a Windows XP machine and it runs flawlessly together w/ XITE-1/SCOPE ASIO as well as Presonus Studio One Pro 2 and Reaper, using Rewire in that cases,- or standalone w/ XITE-1.
I concider Reason to be the most stable audio application and I hope it won´t change w/ the introduction of VST support.

I didn´t upgrade because I find SCOPE 5.1 best in 32Bit mode and on a WinXP machine too.

Now w/ VST support, I might pull the trigger for a Reason 10 upgrade next future.
I don´t want 9.5 and being a beta tester.

In fact, w/ Reason, I always waited for the 1st maintenance update when a new version was released, so I´ll wait for v10.1 and then make the change to 64Bits completely.

I expect they´ll do it right since stability and relatively low CPU consumption was their target always.
I guess that VST device will be kind of sandboxed and a VST runs in a dedicated process so plugin´s crashes won´t crash the Reason application.

But the whole thing makes sense only if some latest chipsets and/or Windows version won´t show any ASIO issues with SCOPE drivers.

Propellerhead likes you using the latest greatest stuff,- OSX or Windows,- and they don´t look back.
When something isn´t as you expected and you are outdated w/ your machine(s), they offer downloading a older version and install on your own risk.

Reason already became a great recording application w/ version 6,- and it has the best time-stretch algo out there.
The mixer is good also.

Latest version will do CV modulation thru busses across internal devices, REs and VST,- maybe external too w/ the right hardware connected (and using ExpertSleepers MIDI/CV) !

I think it´s a winner !

I didn´t buy any RE, I don´t need since I own enough hardware gear, SCOPE/XITE, and can choose from NI, Sonic Projects and other´s incl. lots of freeware in VST department.
I don´t use VST too much anyway, but it would be really welcome running Reason devices, some SCOPE devices and a handful assorted VSTis all together on a relatively powerful Windows laptop and together w/ XITE-1.

The hardest might be finding a powerful enough laptop w/ a PCIexpress card slot because also Reason today needs much more CPU cycles than Reason 4 did in the past.

Its always fucking something.

YES !!!

Reaper however works fine.

Same here.

Bud

[petal]

Doh - just realized that Reason 9.5 is 64-bit only, which means that XTC-mode is not possible.

So much for that wet dream...

[ronnie]

Check out GigPerformer Strictly for live. No sequencer, no rewire (which would be nice) but you could pass the audio to Melda or some such to record or via ASIO to scope and out to your DAW with Voicemeeter.

[dante]

So Scope would see Reason as ASIO, and Reason sees Kontakt/Omni-Keyscape/PianoTeq and Zebra?
It's also a sequencer?

I'd be interested if that's the case.

I thought you were already interested after this topic about the Reason SLL routing to external hardware http://forums.scopeusers.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=34834

Yes, Scope sees Reason as ASIO. I deliberately dropped Cubase and Rewire out of that loop and reduced the ASIO channel overhead by using Scope for Mastering, Bowen synths and Mastering.

Now I mix 80 Reason SSL channels at 96KHz on an ASUS Z87 running i7-4790 at stock speed, the same motherboard running Scope PCI x 3 and Scope XITE-1D.

I don't really have a need to run VST but will no doubt try and report, but Ill wait until the production version, cant really be bothered with BETA.

There will also be PDC (plugin delay compensation) calculated per SSL mixer channel automatically with manual override.

In terms of stability, the VST container is designed to catch and deal with exceptions from the VST and terminate the VST without crashing Reason itself.

Of course if you don't run VST's in Reason it will be no less stable than it is now.

Reveal Sound Spire is about to be released as a Rack Extension, a fairly close 1 to 1 with the VST apparently so I will get that. Plus new synths from Blamsoft that exploit the new Rack Extension SDK features and when everything gets mastered through Scope the sound quality is superb irrespective of whether its a Rack Extension or a VST.

[Sounddesigner]

Plus they got rid of one of the things I loved and that was the hassle-free copy-protection; they said in the past they wouldn't use a dongle but then ended up getting one.

The dongle is not the only option - the licensing is actually flexible as you can authorize by internet or computer as well as dongle:

https://www.propellerheads.se/support/u ... s-it-work/

I did'nt know their copy-protection was that flexible now, thanks for the info! I thought the internet-activation method only stayed activated for one day and if you wish to use Reason the next day you had to re-activate it. Atleast that was the case in the past IIRC but that doesn't seem to be the case now. After reading the info at the link you posted there seems to be no more mention of the strange one-day only activation wich is great. If it stays activated now like it appears to then that is a good option.

When I eventually do go 64bit O/S I more than likely will be upgrading my very old copy of Reason to the latest version since their has been A LOT of MAJOR improvements since I last upgraded (I'm still on version 3.4). For $125 upgrade i'll be getting a HECK OF A LOT of new devices/features/functionality, Propellerheads pricing has always been beyond fair.

There are a few Native DAW's with flexible routing but none quite like Reason and you couple that flexible routing with its completely modular environment and devices to take advantage of the modularity and then Reason is definitely something special. Add open vst support and optional PDC coupled with the renowned stability and you have a MUST-HAVE super modular in my book. Instead of using it as my main DAW i'll likely upgrade and use it as a alternative DAW sometimes but mainly as a super-duper-plugin inside my prefered DAW Sonar. Propellerheads have definitely brought Reason a long way, hopefully they continue to do the right things.

[braincell]

Here's why they did this:

5 Apr, 2017

Propellerhead Software announced today that the company is bringing on board private equity fund Verdane Capital IX (Verdane) as a new partner. Verdane will become an active owner of Propellerhead.

[dante]

Nope. Here is the official reason - from Ernst. https://www.propellerheads.se/blog/when ... -in-reason

Which I disagree with - my music doesn't need VST - especially since I just picked up Spire as a Rack Extension for like $59 - less than 1/3 of the price !

Reveal Sound - ReSpire

ReSpire_Front.jpg (170.92 KiB) Viewed 4885 times

But no doubt Verdane will further boost this platform.

[braincell]

He doesn't want to say that he's now Verdane Capital's bitch. I'm sure there's some truth to what he said but he left out the main rea$on.

[dante]

Sure. But that's still speculation vs his publicly stated reason. Its just as feasible a scenario that they may have chosen to do VST support at some stage without a capital investor. The business case for it is in essence the same either way. I'm sure as a partnership they would rather put new $$ to innovation rather than just supporting the issues that VST support might bring.

[braincell]

The main thing with any DAW is once you allow VST, then inferior engineering can be introduced. Cubase fixed this in part with the new blacklist. It can be ignored but it's on by default. I like it since stability is more important to me than any one plugin.

[valis]

Sandboxing is becoming common in other DAWs...

[dante]

It's a VST fest for Reason users now as 9.5 is out and selected VST are available in the propshop including u-He synths, Zebra etc and stuff from Isotope

https://shop.propellerheads.se/browse/? ... &view=grid

And check this out for full integration demo
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=you ... Zy3RipH5u0
Shows what you can do with a VST in Reason that you can't do in other hosts

[garyb]

fun!