Propellerheads Announces Reason 7

Propellerheads have announced the newest version of their Reason software.  The most significant upgrade is that they've finally added MIDI out, freeing users to utilize their own synths.  Other features include an updated sound library, the ability to convert audio into REX files, a spectrum analyzer, and more.  For full details, check out Propellerhead's Reason page.

Getting Started with Reason's Pulsar Dual LFO

Propellerheads Releases Reason 6.5, First Wave of Extensions in the Works

Propellerheads have released the hotly-anticipated version 6.5 of their music production software Reason.  Many Reason users had complained in the past about the program's lack of expandability, namely being stuck with the software's  somewhat lackluster built-in effects.  All that has changed with the introduction of "Rack Extensions" in version 6.5,  Rack Extensions are, quite simply, a Reason-specific plug-in format that will allow both Propellerheads and third party developers to build new effects to add to your Reason rack.

Developers are hard at work at adapting existing plug-ins to Reason format and developing entirely new Extensions.  Indeed, there are already quite a few available through the Propellerhead Shop:

• Propellerheads LGM-1 Pulsar Dual LFO
Free until October 1st!  Two LFOs that allow you to modulate your sounds in Reason with more flexibility than before.

• Softube Saturation Knob
Free until August 14th!  Simple saturation effect for fattening up drums, bass, etc.

• FXPansion Etch Red
Takes the filter technology developed for DCAM SynthSquad and brings it into the Reason environment.  $49.

• iZotope Ozone Maximizer
The highly regarded maximizer section from iZotope's Ozone mastering plug-in.  $79.

• Sonic Charge Bitspeek
Sonic Charge brings the sound of the infamous Speak n' Spell to Reason.  $49.

• Audio Damage Rough Rider
Audio Damage's excellent extreme compression plug-in in Reason format.  $29.

• Propellerheads Radical Piano
3 samples pianos with simple sound-shaping tools to tweak the sound to your taste.  $99.

• PEFF Buffre Beat Repeater
Realtime audio scrubbing effect that brings Ableton-style Beat Repeat effects to Reason for all the glitchy goodness you need.  $49.

• Propellerheads Polar
Old-school style harmonizer and pitch-shifter.  $69.

• Synapse Audio RM-1 Ring Modulator
Virtual analog style ring modulator effect. $79.

• Sugar Bytes Slice Arranger
Slices whatever audio you feed it into slices and re-arranges them for broken beat type effects. $29.

• Studio Effects FET Compressor
Modelled solid-state type compression effects.  20% off until August.  $119.

• Studio Effects TSAR-1 Reverb
Detailed, modern reverb effect.  25% off until August 14th.  $149

• Studio Effects TSAR-1R Reverb
Algorithmic style reverb effect.  35% off until August.  $49.

• Sugar Bytes  Filter Pattern
Animated filter effect for cool, rhythmic effects.  $29.

• Synapse Audio CD-2 Dual Chorus
Two-stage, stereo chorus effect. $39.

• Softube Trident A-Range
Models a channel from the extremely rare Trident A-Range consoles.  20% off until August 14th.  $119.

• Sugar Bytes Pitch Delay
Combines pitch-shifting, delay, and filtering. $29.

• Synapse Audio AF-4 Analog Filter
Analog style lowpass filter.  $49.

• Audio Realism ABL2 Bassline Synth
Audio Realism's fantastic model of the infamous Roland TB-303.  $59.

Propellerheads Announce Reason 6.5, Rack Extensions

Propellerheads have just announced Reason 6.5, which includes a feature called Rack Extensions. These are essentially "plug-ins" that are developed specifically for Reason, extending the sonic palette of the program significantly. Few details have come out just yet, but we'll keep you updated as we learn more.

Propellerheads also announced the release of Figure, an mobile OS app...

Update: The update will be a free one to registered Reason 6 users. David Spiers of Gforce has dropped hints that Gforce will be developing a Rack Extension or two...

Propellerheads Releases Recycle 2.2

Propellerheads has released version 2.2 of it's classic loop-slicing software Recycle. The new version includes a redesigned interface, new key commands, an Online help system, OSX Lion compatibility, and more.

The upgrade is free to existing Recycle 2 users, or for $249 new (really, Propllerheads? Don't you think it's time for a price drop on a piece of software that has been around since 1994?!)

Propellerheads Releases Recycle 2.2

We reported a little while back that Propellerheads were looking for beta testers for an update to the venerable Recycle, so we knew this was in the pipeline, but now it's available to the general public.

Here's the details:

• The program is now fully compatible with 64 bit operating systems.
• ReCycle 2.2 is also a true Cocoa program under Mac OS and works great with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
• The main window has been redesigned, with new zooming and scrolling. Scrolling is smoother and you can now zoom in further. Some redundant controls have been removed and others added.
• When exporting AIFF and Wave files, Record/Reason-style tempo information is now included in the file. Also, when importing audio files created in Record or Reason, the tempo information in those files is used for setting tempo and length in ReCycle.
• The Waveform now indicates graphically what sound will be played back, by dimming silent sections.
• You can now use the Q, W, E and R keys to select tools, just like in Reason.
• The Preference dialog has been streamlined and updated.
• Open Recent (documents) is now a sub-menu on Mac OS.
• The status bar has been removed.
• We have removed support for the Sound Designer II, Mixman, SampleCell and Akai (.aka) formats since these are all outdated.
• The authorization system and copy protection has been changed.
• Installation under Mac OS is now drag and drop (no installer).

Propellerheads Webstore Experiences Problems

A word from Propellerheads on some technical issues their webstore has been experiencing following the release of Reason 6:

"Stockholm, October 4, 2011

Dear customers,

We screwed up.

On Friday, September 30th we released Reason 6, Reason Essentials and Balance. The good news is that there was an overwhelming positive response from you, our customers. We're extremely grateful. We have never had as many visits to our web page and nowhere close to as much traffic to our on-line store, as the Pay What You Want upgrade generated.

The bad news is that our back-end systems weren't ready for it. First, the on-line store server started misbehaving. We worked through the night troubleshooting. On Friday we updated and fixed the code that was the root to the problem. From then on, the basic systems have been working, as far as we are aware. Unfortunately for another forty-eight hours or so, our connection to PayPal exhibited severe problems, leading to orders not being fulfilled as expected. However no orders have been lost. We think we have that problem under control know, but to be honest, we're not entirely sure.

We worked all over the weekend to fix the remaining problems and to help stranded customers. However, what we didn't know until last night was that another resulting effect of the original problem was that we had thousands of emails that had not been sent out (our servers thought we were under a spam attack!). The bulk of this was emails to customers, including various types of confirmation email. But a substantial number messages from you to us, you asking us for support on your order.

We understand that this is all unacceptable. We're a company who pride ourselves in making products that really work. While that is still true, it apparently did not extend to the infrastructure around them, and we are incredibly sorry and thoroughly embarrassed about it.

We are currently working on all aspects of this problem. As a matter of fact, most of us here in the office are doing nothing else. We have hired externals, pulled in all the people we can from other departments - such as product management and development - to get things working and your questions answered.

Here's the short form:

• Orders placed with us now are going through normally.
• We currently recommend direct credit card payment (as opposed to PayPal), since they are processed faster.
• No one is losing their money. If you have placed an order with us, you will get your product and your license, if you haven't already.
• We have not lost any orders. If you have placed an order with us and you have not received your product, license or a confirmation email, believe us, we know about your problem and we are doing all that is in our power to get back to you as soon as we can.

We will continue to post status updates on FaceBook and Twitter as we work through all the aspects of this problem. Of course you are free to email us with whatever questions you might have, but please understand that it will take some time before we can respond.

With sincere apologies,

Ernst Nathorst-Böös
CEO"

Propellerheads Release Reason 6

Propellerheads have released Reason 6, Reason 6 Essentials (a cheaper, more stripped-down version of Reason 6), and Balance (an audio interface).  Reason 6 adds a slew of new features, not the least of which is the absorption of Reason's Record software, bringing audio recording into Reason for the first time.  Interestingly, for existing Reason users, Propellerheads are offering a "pay what you want" upgrade to the new version - very generous!

Propellerheads' Big Announcement(s) Revealed

It turns out the big announcement from Propellerheads was actually several announcements, including one that surprised the hell out of me!

• Reason 6 Announced

This is the one that surprised me. Not that there is a version 6 or that it adds several new effects like a gater and a buss compressor, but that they've finally integrated Record within Reason. They were so stubborn about not combining the two when Record was first released, I never expected this to happen, but apparently demand was sufficient. I think this is a serious step up for Reason and applaud the decision to go in this direction.

• Reason Essentials Announced

Reason Essentials, as the name might suggest, is a stripped down, lower-cost version of Reason for those that don't need all the bells and whistles of its big brother.

• Balance Hardware Interface Announced

Also surprising is the release of a simple, easy to use 2 channel audio interface called Balance. Balance is designed to take most of the tedious work out of the recording process leaving users more time to just make music.

All of the new products are slated for release on September 30th.

Big Announcement from Propellerheads Later Today

Swedish software developers Propellerheads posted the cryptic picture above on their website along with a note that they would be making a big announcement Tuesday at noon. What do you think it will be? My guesses:

• They will announce they are totally bankrupt and had to resort to hiring a 10-year-old to draw the above picture. Price? Cookies.

• The echoing "Help" suggests that they are about to unveil a brand new delay plug-in. Because it's Propellerheads, the delay plug-in will have to run as a separate app from Reason and Record. All the typical essentials found in most delay plug-ins such as a wet/dry mix, programmable delay time, and feedback levels will be fed to an alligator who will then poop out three additional separate apps to control those aspects of the plug-in. The manual will be issued as yet another separate app.

• In all seriousness... many people are speculating it could be a version of Record for the iPad. Or perhaps a stripped down version of Record or Reason? What do you think it will be?

Propellerheads Looking for Recycle 2.2 Betatesters...

Propellerheads have announced the impending release of Recycle 2.2, which, among other things, updates it to be 64-bit. Want to be a beta-tester? Sign up here.

Reason 5: The Return of Live Sampling at Last?!

In the past, I've been pretty critical of Propellerheads on this blog, particularly the "closed system" nature of Reason and their insistence on requiring their users to buy an entirely separate program if they actually want to do proper recording. What a hamfisted workflow! But when they get it right, they get it right.

As you've probably heard, Reason 5 is on its way, and the 'Heads have gradually been revealing the new features in a series of videos. Nothing lit me on fire until today when they announced that Reason 5 would include live sampling, something virtually unheard of in the world of software samplers for some stupid reason. Instead of just loading in a recording you made in another program, Reason 5 will let you sample your sounds live from within the sampler itself, just like... oh, every hardware sampler ever (Oberheim DPX1 notwithstanding...). This is something I've been wishing the major sampling platforms would introduce for years now, so it's nice to see someone finally take the lead.

This is So Stupid It Makes My Brain Hurt

Apparently the wonderful Synthtopia blog got an e-mail from Propellerheads to ask them to stop calling the company's new Record software a 'DAW'. You can read all the face-palmingly dumb details here. (Have a look at the comments section to and see if you can pick out the comment that was almost certainly written by a Propellerheads marketing person...)

Make no mistake, this is solely about marketing. Propellerheads know they can't compete with the likes of Ableton Live, Steinberg Cubase, Apple Logic, etc., so they want to pretend that this is somehow something different than just a DAW with a feature set that doesn't measure up to the competition.

Let me be clear that I have nothing against Propellerheads. I have fond memories of playing with Rebirth back in the day, I still use Recycle a lot, and although I didn't find Reason to be to my liking, I can understand why others do like it. I'd love to see Record develop into something exciting if for no other reason than that it will push the other DAW makers to innovate further, and that benefits us all. But I think they've got a long way to go before they achieve that and most of the chatter I've seen around the net today suggest a lot of other people do as well. I would hope the company would have a bit more respect for the intelligence of their potential customers and realize that if it walks like a DAW, and quacks like DAW, people are going to call it a DAW.

My Thoughts on Propellerheads Record

Alright, I've had a chance to digest this a bit, so here are my thoughts (like you care!):

• No support for external plug-ins.
This is insane to me. I understand that restrictions can be a good thing in terms of productivity, but Propellerheads' refusal to let users integrate VST/AU plug-ins in their software is a step too far, in my opinion, and seriously effects the shelf life of the product. I hear people all the time who are still using Logic 5. How many people do you know still using Reason 2? Now, the program does implement Rewire, just like Reason did, but if I have to take my tracks out to another DAW to process them with the plug-ins I want, what's the freaking point of having Record?!

• That interface.
Simply put, it's a nightmare. It looks like it was designed by someone with A.D.D. Over the years I've come to really appreciate the importance, especially in a DAW, of a clean, nice-looking interface. This just looks like a disorganized mess to me.

• Dongles Suck.
I know some people don't care, but I am of the firm opinion that dongles suck. I make it a point to buy my software to support companies who are doing good work and I find it insulting when a company burdens their honest, paying users with a dongle. Yeah, I understand that piracy is rampant (I'm a professional musician... believe me, I understand it...), but I know I'm not the only one out there who won't buy dongled software, so they're already insuring lost sales from people like myself. On the plus side, they're not charging extra for it, and if you are a dongle hater, you have the option of using an open internet connection as your copy protection, but this option isn't going to work if you're on a plane or somewhere that doesn't have an internet connection, as I often find myself when I am travelling. Neither option is very friendly for laptop users, which is a rapidly growing demographic among electronic musicians. And if you're using Record with another DAW such as Protools or Cubase? Guess what? That's two dongles.

• The Time-Stretching.
The effortless time-stretching thing is neat, but, for me at least, this doesn't outweigh the other significant shortcomings. My guess is that programs like Cubase, Logic, and Live will integrate something like this in the future anyway. (That's pure speculation on my part, it just seems to me like that's the direction things are moving in...)

• The Old Ways Aren't Always Better.
The hype around Record has been its supposed ease of use because its set up just like hardware. I actually think this makes it more complicated than it needs to be. In Logic, I basically open up a blank page and add channels as I need them. When I need send or insert effects, I just click and select the effec I want and I'm done. This means there is nothing on the screen I don't need and my set-up for a song is only as complicated as it needs to be. I guess their approach might be good for people who are used to Reason, but again, they ignored their users requests for audio record in Reason for so long, that most people who need this feature, already have DAWs.

As I said before, I am totally open to being proven wrong. I haven't used the software myself and am relying entirely on what I've read and observed in their promotional videos. But the market for DAWs (and let's be honest, despite Propellerheads' insistance that Record isn't a DAW, that's what it is) is already full, and any new entry really needs to be revolutionary in order to compete. I think they need to bring more to the table than this offers.

More On Propellerheads Record

Propellerheads Introduces "Record"

Here's the link to the product page. There's still just some basic info at this point (I'm typing this at 3 AM since that's when Propellerheads' Record site went live), but my initial thoughts are, this is going to be a tough sell. It looks like it will mainly appeal to people using Reason. But with how long Propellerheads left Reason crippled without audio recording capabilieis, most people using it seriously already use it with Rewire connected to another DAW such as Logic or Live. I'm not seeing anything here that would make most people want to abandon those and learn a new DAW. The Line-6 and SSL-modeled mixing channels are nice, but probably not enough for most people to switch. There's not much info yet, though, so I freely admit I could be totally wrong. I just think to compete in a DAW market with multiple, well-established programs, they really needed to offer something revolutionary, and at first glance, this doesn't appear to be it.

That interface looks like a cluttered mess, too, in my opinion.

So what do you think? Is this something that has you excited? Am I just a cranky old fart?

Propellerheads to Launch New DAW

The FutureMusic blog is reporting that Swedish software mavens Propellerheads will unveil a new DAW at their May 9th "Producer's Conference". As popular as Reason has been, its main weakness has always been the fact that it didn't support recording of audio, which forced users to export their projects to a separate DAW. This certainly helps explain why the company seemed to have ignored users repeated requests over the years for an audio recording feature. Definitely a ballsy move on their part, but it should be interesting to see if they bring anything new and interesting to the table!