A creative playground

I've been using Reason since version 1.0. At that time it was the only DAW choice next to Cubase. Cubase crashed a lot on me. Reason was very stable so it won out. You couldn't record, edit audio or master tracks very well in the beginning so I had to use other programs on the side (Acid and Soundforge) and I even still used Cubase for midi handling of external instruments. Reason quickly grew out to become a completely independent DAW and it replaced every other program in my workflow. For period of time it became tho only thing I made music with. I often thought about leaving Reason, or combine it with other DAWs, when modern features were not jet incorporated and Reason seemed to become outdated. Like when VST became a must, but it didn't support VST yet. When it finally supported VST but there were still issues with it other DAWs had already fixed. In the end all the VST issues were fixed but then it didn't support VST3 yet which had become the new standard, etc. I thought about moving back to Cubase because I hear it has gotten a lot more stable over time. Or use Reason in combination with Logic, so I could say "I don't use instruments to make music. Instead I use Logic and Reason", like I'm some sort of Greek philosopher who theorises music out of thin air (you'd be surprised how many people don't get that joke). Each time I was about to jump ship, Reason came with an update to fix all of the issues I had. I'm still using it to this day. Even though most of my sound nowadays comes from hardware instruments and VST effects, I still like the Reason workflow. The 16" rig interface makes it feel like you're still working with a real hardware studio, even when on your computer. Some people claim you have to be "savant" to be able to handle workflow, but this is how hardware always worked. To me it all makes perfect sense and it actually helps me to see what's going on and dig deep into sound design. Where in other DAWs you only see the surface and everything else is hidden in menus, in Reason you just have to follow which cable goes where, what position each button is in, to see exactly what's going on. The sequencer is fine. quantisation, time stretching and pitch correction sounds good. It may not be as advanced as Cubase in that regard (where for example you can quantise to a groove instead of just the grid) but I think you can do everything manually (as you should). The build in instruments and effects are also not to be overlooked as well as the third party rack extensions (Reason's alternative to VST, from when they didn't support it yet). Their latest instruments such as Objekt, Algorhythm, Europa and Parsec are fine by themselves, but you should dig deep into their older devices to discover sounds and effects you can use as building blocks to create your own sounds. For example; Subtractor has some really unusual wave shapes (only displayed as numbers). NN-XT has unusual sound effect samples like thunder or didgeridoos. Thor has rare oscillators and formant filters. You can use the external input of Radical piano to make sound resonate with the strings of an acoustic piano, etc. Most devices have options for advanced cv routing. Reason is extremely inspiring. A creative playground for people who want to build their own sounds.

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