Reason 2.0 just for the synth and samplers?

[alby]

Hi guys and gals,

 

How good is Reason 2.0 synths and samplers?

 

I need good grand piano, fender rhodes and general synth sounds for live pop and jazz keyboards.

 

At $399.00, Reason 2.0 looks pretty good value, considering that FM7 alone costs $299.00.

 

If I am only going to be mucking around laying down tracks in my spare time and mainly looking for good all around sounds for live music, is Reason still a good buy?

 

Regards

Alby

[DJDM]

Well I am a full-on Reason 2.0 convert, (I even made some of the presets in the Malstrom), so get ready for a little bias in this response.

 

The Reason package is really awesome for the price. Really awesome.

The NN-XT in conjunction with the NN-19 is a great sampler package. It covers all of the ground that you would expect from a good workman like sampler setup. The only downsides to this is a lack of Akai support,(but this is on the way), and the fact that you have to use a separate app to input audio. There is no audio input in Reason.

 

The synths are wonderful as well. The Malstrom is one of the coolest most intuitive synths I have ever worked with. Period. (Have you tried the free demo?) The Subtractor is a really effective but there are a few issues with the sonic quality if you do a lot of real time tweaking. You can compensate easily but you will have to learn its ins and outs. Get past a few hurdles and it rocks. I use it all of the time and really enjoy working with it.

 

Then there is the Dr.Rex player. Very cool. Great way to add percussion/rythmic parts to your tracks, (similar to Acid), quickly and easily. If you pick up ReCycle then you can make your own files for it.

 

The Redrum is a fully functional drum machine that has step programming along with the standard midi input functions for .wav and .aiff files.

Cool easy to grasp functions on the face of it as well.

 

Did I mention the 16 and 24 bit support for the sample based devices? Very cool...

 

Need some old fashioned step sequencing? Hook up the Matrix and get to it!

 

The effects are simple but effective 16 bit processors that work great in arrangements.

 

There is a lot more to it but try out the demo for yourself and see.

 

Can you tell that I love it?

 

As far as using it live? People do but I have not tried it so I will have to defer that to someone else.

 

My $.02,

- DJDM

[alby]

DJDM

 

Thanks for your detailed and well thought out reply.

 

I have downloaded the demo last week and played around a little with it.

 

The Fender Rhodes that loads in the demo song is pretty impressive. (Although I am love the FM7 Fender Rhodes demo patch). How good is the Grand Piano sample? I can't find any in the Demo.

 

Regards

Alby

[Dave Horne]

Are these posts thinly disguised advertisements?

 

Just wondering.

[Gulliver]

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

Are these posts thinly disguised advertisements?

 

Just wondering.

Hey, did you locate that "very well known sax player"? Just wondering...

[Dave Horne]

Originally posted by Gulliver:

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

Are these posts thinly disguised advertisements?

 

Just wondering.

Hey, did you locate that "very well known sax player"? Just wondering...

NO, I haven't heard from anyone yet. I've contacted a Czech expat group and several musical organizations. It's possible that he may have died. He is well known in the Czech Republic and is/was friends with Vaclav Havel. I suppose I could write him .

 

I'll write his name here again in case anyone else in interested ... Jan Konopásek, bari sax player/arranger ... about 70 years old.

 

Thanks, DH

[RABid]

Reason is great if you are using only Reason. However, the closed system makes it difficult to put something together in Reason, then export it to your main sequencer for further development. The best use to me, and a lot of people you see interviewed in Keyboard Mag, is to use Reason to create Acid loops, and then import those loops into your sequencer. Try the demo and decide it you want to work that way or if you want to work with a full fledged sequencer. You can use Rewire to control Reason from within some sequencers but honestly, the quality of Reason is not better than many low budget VST devices. You can do some amazing stuff on a budget with Reason but when you outgrow Reason it gets a bit jealous.

 

Robert

[Ed A.]

Originally posted by Rabid:

the quality of Reason is not better than many low budget VST devices. You can do some amazing stuff on a budget with Reason but when you outgrow Reason it gets a bit jealous.

Interesting. I was once an avid NI Reaktor user until I realized that I never got anything done due to the fact that I'd always be building synths rather than playing synths. It's actually better, I think, to have less than infinite possiblities in a softsynth. Reason 2.0 is still very diverse, even though it is much more focused than something like Reaktor. I don't have any problem with integrating Reason in Live or DP because ReWire is pretty much seamless. It is also very processor efficient compared to Reaktor. There were many times that a single Reaktor ensemble would max out my system when used with DP (I use a G4 500MP), to the point that it wasn't practical to use. I also think in many cases, the audio quality from Reason 2.0 sounds better than Reaktor and the sampler capabilities of NN-XT in Reason far exceed anything Reaktor was able to do in sampling.

[burningbusch]

I thought the Rhodes that comes with Reason 2.0 is quite nice. Best Soundfont Rhodes that I've heard and better than many hardware Rhodes.

 

You can download a free 25MB Steinway C Soundfont here.

 

Busch.

[RABid]

I guess what I mean in my statement was this. If you do a full project in Reason and then decide to farm out sounds it gets a bit difficult. I do like the fact that with Rewire I can use Reason as a sound source and do composition in Sonar II. While I agree that Reaktor is distracting and overly taxing on the CPU I think it sounds better. I have never used Reaktor as a sampler. There are too many better options. When you compare the quality to VSTi's from NI or rgcAudio (FM7, Battery, Pentagon I, z3ta+) the sound difference is incredible. I was hoping Reason would be a good starting point for songs. People have asked for better exporting of files so projects can be moved to full fledged sequencers but the company states that is not the intent of the program and they have no current plans to improve the exporting of songs out of Reason.

 

But back to the origional question about a sound source. Consider LiveSynthPro as a sample font player, SonicSynth which is basically a VSTi of high quality workstation sounds, or a soft sampler that will load Akai format sounds.

 

Robert

[Ed A.]

Originally posted by Rabid:

I guess what I mean in my statement was this. If you do a full project in Reason and then decide to farm out sounds it gets a bit difficult.

There's an easy way around this problem. Instead of running all your Reason synths and samplers through the mixer in Reason, you can route each synth/sampler directly to the Reason Hardware Interface(top module in Reason). Doing this, and bypassing the mixer, will allow you to access each individual Reason instrument for processing in a ReWire application like Ableton Live. Each track in Live will now correspond to an individual Reason instrument rather than the entire stereo mix of all the instruments.

[DJDM]

Originally posted by alby:

DJDM

 

Thanks for your detailed and well thought out reply.

 

I have downloaded the demo last week and played around a little with it.

 

The Fender Rhodes that loads in the demo song is pretty impressive. (Although I am love the FM7 Fender Rhodes demo patch). How good is the Grand Piano sample? I can't find any in the Demo.

 

Regards

Alby

The grand piano is just OK. You would really want a good soundfont or comercial CD piano if this is a very serious part of your rig.

Again AKAI support is on the way but the Props have not said exactly when it is coming.

- DJDM

[DJDM]

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

Are these posts thinly disguised advertisements?

 

Just wondering.

Nope. Why do you ask?

[RABid]

Originally posted by php:

...Instead of running all your Reason synths and samplers through the mixer in Reason, you can route each synth/sampler directly to the Reason Hardware Interface(top module in Reason). Doing this, and bypassing the mixer, will allow you to access each individual Reason instrument for processing in a ReWire application...[/QB]

Thanks for the tip. Now a question. If I put together a song in Reason, and then I want to use LoungeLizzard for my EP or Battery for drums is there a way to divert those tracks to new sound sources? My methods have been, umm, very messy.

 

Robert

[Ed A.]

I don't know what method you used, but couldn't you just run LoungeLizzard and Battery as a VSTi in a couple tracks of your audio sequencer while the seperate Reason instruments are ReWired to additional tracks of your audio sequencer at the same time?

[Squids]

Originally posted by Rabid:

But back to the origional question about a sound source. Consider LiveSynthPro as a sample font player, SonicSynth which is basically a VSTi of high quality workstation sounds, or a soft sampler that will load Akai format sounds.

 

Robert

My company makes Sonic Synth and if you are going to do the plug-in route within a VSTi, MAS or RTAS host then it is a suitable suggestion for the instruments you are requesting. You can listen to it here: www.sonicreality.com/sonicsynthmore.html and download MP3 demo riffs of the rhodes, pianos and about 100 other sounds.

 

However, I love Reason 2 too (2 too?). If you want to go the Reason route, I think the synths and samplers inside of it are quite good. Malstrom is absolutely a blast and the NNXT is easy to use and has some nice features. We also have something kind of like Sonic Synth coming out for Reason 2 called "Sonic Refill" which will be officially announed in about a week or so. It has all the sounds of a keyboard workstation and material for all of the modules inside Reason 2 including Dr. Rex, NNXT, Subtractor, Malstrom, Redrum... I'll be posting some free stuff from it soon on our newly reconstructed Death Star... I mean web site.

 

Okay, I am plugging my own products again but hey- I hope it's relevant information for you. It's actually nice to know that we as sound developers are considering offering these sounds in multiple formats so you can choose the sample platform you like but not necessarily be isolated from the sounds you want. We're also doing something in Kontakt, EXS, HALion and Sample Cell/Unity. Another options which is cheaper is to get our OmniSoundz library. I love the Rhodes in that.

 

By the way, I just sampled the best Rhodes I think I have ever heard. When I was in LA for the AES show I got bored and booked some sample sessions and sampled my old Serge Modular, a Dyno Rhodes and this 88 Suitcase Rhodes that was just beatiful! The other Rhodes samples I've done are nice too but this one just blew me away. I can't wait to map it all out for our next big Vintage Timetraveler volume. Only a few of you even know what I am talking about so... I'll just stop there.

 

Anyway, good luck with your set up. Reason is a lot of fun and easy to use. Even if you ended up getting something else later, it wouldn't be bad to have Reason around. It's a lot of fun.

[synthetic]

I for one don't mind mnufacturers posting as long as it's in good faith (responding to a question, etc.) and they identify themselves. A few people have tried to spam this board and were shown the door.

 

Originally posted by Squids:

It's actually nice to know that we as sound developers are considering offering these sounds in multiple formats so you can choose the sample platform you like but not necessarily be isolated from the sounds you want. We're also doing something in Kontakt, EXS, HALion and Sample Cell/Unity.

Just curious: is the Roland format completely dead? I know they don't make a sampler anymore, but they do make synths that read the sample CDs that seem to be selling well. However, many companies seem to be dropping their support for Roland CDs, I guess due to customer demand. Just curious.

 

More on topic, I agree on most of the comments here that the stock sample library for Reason is just OK with a few standouts. It will be interesting to see how well it's supported by third parties. I expect to see a bunch of Reason Refill libraries come out in January.

[RABid]

Well, yesterday was payday and I started to spend a little money and order the upgrade to Reason II. At one time this was handled by Midiman but now it seems us Americans have to order from the Propeller head site again. No one carries the upgrade and I was just interested enough to pay the full price of $89. Then the kicker. $25 for UPS shipping? Are they shipping from Germany? I almost clicked the ok button, then backed out and used the money for Chicken Systems Translator. I have Reason, I like Reason, but I just don't use it very much. Not enough to justify the price for the upgrade. This is one time that high shipping cost made me cancel a purchase.

 

Robert

[Ed A.]

Originally posted by Rabid:

Well, yesterday was payday and I started to spend a little money and order the upgrade to Reason II. At one time this was handled by Midiman but now it seems us Americans have to order from the Propeller head site again. No one carries the upgrade and I was just interested enough to pay the full price of $89. Then the kicker. $25 for UPS shipping? Are they shipping from Germany?

You can get the upgrade from Midiman (M-Audio) for $89 plus $7.50 shipping:

 

Reason 2 upgrade

[RABid]

THAT'S what I was looking for this morning. I lost the email that linked to that page and could not find it while poking around the Midiman site.

 

Thanks,

Robert