Propellerhead Reason V3.0

MC Rebbe The Rapping Rabbi Reviews Propellerhead Reason V3.0 in The TechnofileI remember my first experience of Reason. My homee Alain had just got back from touring with Morrissey and had a new toy he wanted me to check out…Reason 1.0…which was so new that he’d yet to even open the box in which it came, much less figure out how it worked, something we decided was my department, so leaving me with a CD in one hand and a manual in the other, he disappeared off to the kitchen to make the tea…yeah…we’re so rock ‘n’ roll…

When he returned, 5 mins later, mugs in hand, to his amazement, not only had I completed the installation, but I’d also practically completed an entire Drum ‘n’ Bass mix. Not bad for someone who’d never even so much as seen the software before, much less read the manual. But then that’s the beauty of Reason…if you’re used to recording in an electronic music studio, you already know how it works…because that’s exactly what Reason is…an entire electronic music studio, in a single screen, reproduced in the finest…and finest of detail.

MC Rebbe The Rapping Rabbi Reviews Propellerhead Reason V3.0 in The TechnofileLaunch it and you’re presented with a 19″ studio equipment rack into which, by default, is ‘riveted’ a 14:2 stereo mixer with 4 auxiliary sends (though the default template can be customised). Select modules from a long list of samplers, synthesizers, effects, a step time sequencer and a drum machines and as you do so, they are automagically placed in the rack, connected to their own dedicated mixer channels and to tracks in the main sequencer window, both of which are auto named for you (naturally you can edit these names later). Load up your modules with patches from the two libraries that are included, or create your own, select a sequencer track (to give it ‘focus’) and start recording…and that’s it!

What…you want more…ok then…press tab and the rack revolves…showing you everything you would expect to find on the rear of real modules…and we’re not just talking separate outputs…we’re talking send and returns, CV and gate sockets, power leads, ventilation grills…in fact everything but virtual dust (angel or otherwise)…and what’s more you can freely patch together modules by simply  dragging animated leads between them…without ever having to worry about running out of patch cords…or spending half an hour trying to find the dodgy one that’s giving you the crackle (or the crack).

The sound modules on offer are ‘Subtractor’, a two oscillator, two filter, analogue poly synth with various modulation options, ‘Malstrom’, another two oscillator polysynth, based on Propellerhead’s unique ‘Graintable’ synthesis, which fuses together wavetable and granular synthesis, ‘NN-19’ & ‘NN-XT’, both of which are samplers with synth style filters, envelope generators and LFOs, ‘Dr. Rex’, which allows playback of REX audio files created in Propellerhead’s sample manipulation program, ‘ReCycle’ and ‘Redrum’, a ten channel  drum machine that can be played via MIDI or programmed via the built in Roland style step time sequencer. And talking of step sequencers, ‘Matrix’ allows you to program patterns of between 1 and 32 steps. Connect Matrix to ‘Subtractor’ and with a little clever programming you’ll think your listening to a TB 303…though if that’s what you want, you might as well download Propellerhead’s excellent ‘Rebirth’ software (which is now free) and connect it to Reason via the ‘Rebirth Input Machine’ module.

There are also no less than 16 different effects modules to choose from including reverbs, delays, choruses, flangers, phasers, compressors, parametric EQ, a 32 band vocoder, the ‘Scream 4 Sound Destruction Unit’ and  4 different mastering modules, all of which can be connected either as auxiliary or in line effects. There’s even audio and CV merger and splitter modules for ultimate routing flexibility.

MC Rebbe The Rapping Rabbi Reviews Propellerhead Reason V3.0 in The TechnofileOf course, Reason has come a long way since its original, groundbreaking incarnation and the big news in this latest version is threefold. Firstly, ‘Remote’ allows you to connect and use multiple MIDI controllers, many of which are supported out of the box. Secondly, the ‘M Class mastering Suite’ offers four different mastering class processors comprising a two band parametric equaliser, a stereo imager, a sonic maximiser and, of course, a compressor, all of which can be used both as effects in their own right as well as mastering processors placed across the final output stage.

Thirdly…and my favourite, is ‘The Combinator’. A supercharged Reason rack within a Reason rack, it allows you to combine as many different modules as you want (subject to your PCs limitations) into one discrete  Combinator unit, which can then be saved and reloaded as a Combinator patch in which all the individual modules retain full editability.

MC Rebbe The Rapping Rabbi Reviews Propellerhead Reason V3.0 in The TechnofileEach Combinator (yes, you can have more than one in your rack) offers full key and velocity zone mapping, plus four controllers to which you can assign pretty much any of the parameters belonging to the various modules you have placed within it…as well as external controllers, making it incredibly powerful both as a live performance tool and for creating monster stacked and layered sounds (and complex effect chains). But the best news is that it is as simple and straightforward to use as the rest of Reason. In fact I’d go so far as to say that The Combinator is so powerful and easy to use that it puts to shame almost every other sound creation tool I’ve ever tried.

That said, I do have a couple of criticisms, primarily of  Reason’s main sequencer, which lacks the finesse of old school sequencing packages like Logic and Cubase and which I found somewhat fiddly to use. Added to which…and this is my single biggest complaint…there’s no count in facility…something I regard as a major oversight! Another,  more minor complaint, is the lack of direct access to the program’s documentation (if you want to RTFM you have to browse for  TFPDF on your FHDD).

But the bottom line is that in every other respect, Reason is incredibly well thought out, does everything you want and expect it to do…in exactly the way you want and expect it to…and sounds absolutely superb doing it! What more could you want?

Well, how about  an audio input? Reason is full of  wicked effects, in particular, a killer vocoder, but if you want to use it to process vocals, you’ll need to have sampled them using other software…and to have saved them in a compatible format, as the list of sample formats that Reason currently supports is somewhat limited, so wider  sample format support would be  a welcome addition…and routable live audio would allow Reason to better fulfil its new role as a live performance tool.

Having a Rebirth module (or Rebirth’s constituent parts…as freely configurable modules) would also be a welcome addition. Sure you can use the Rebirth input machine, or download the free Rebirth ‘refill’ (a ‘refill’ is a Reason mega patch containing lots of sounds and samples and there are many available via the P Heads web site), but it’s not quite the same thing.

Finally, a larger mixer, with even more sends and returns (and EQ options) would be another welcome addition, as 14 channels can be limiting (you can chain mixers  together, but, again, it’s not quite the same).

That’s what more I’d want, but as for what  more I, or you actually need…the answer is nothing…buy it…make music…it really is that simple!

Propellerhead Reason awarded Golden Bagel by MC Rebbe The Rapping Rabbi in The TechnofileMC Rebbe the Rapping Rabbi awards Propellerhead Reason V3.0, 5 bagels in The Technofile

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