I am able to do anything I want in Reason, but I have been really shocked at how they have been treating their users who keep asking for features that are now old hat in other DAWs. I used Reason back in 2004, then again in 2008. Then I stopped and reinstalled it in 2020 wanting to get back into music. And I found that the community had died. It's dead. There used to be Reason refill websites, a Propellerhead music conference, well-known producers promoting Reason, and a thriving online community. It's all gone because Reason has been so stubbornly silent in addressing user complaints over features they've been asking for over a decade now! Like... why? Why not just do it? So now, even though I love Reason for my own personal use, I find that the product I rely on so much might be a sinking ship and is completely disregarded by the broader producer community. And to boot, they for some reason made the decision to stop making their awesome high-quality KZfaq tutorials and replaced those with amateur user-generated content and long, rambling live streams. Why would they do that? It's like they're self-sabotaging.

I’m not ever updating Reason again.

I still have that Record box too! I have it and a number of other physical Reason versions, I was using it since version 2.5. I switched to Ableton after Reason 13 was announced. It was honestly death by a thousand cuts for me. I'm extremely sad about it as Reasons skewmorphism is what made me fall in love with it - and I still love it. But at some point I realised that brand loyalty was keeping me around. Reason+ was the beginning of the end for me. I used to be able to just buy Reason, but being pushed to subscribe monthly to get the full range of Propellerhead devices was a non-starter for me. Note chase, track grouping and midi clip looping were the immediate features I found in Ableton when using the trial that made me realise I could never go back, and now I'm like, wait a minute, these are such basic features - it's inexcusable that Reason doesn't have them!

Excellent Follow up Video! 👊🏻✊🏻

I agree, Reason 13 should have been a free update. I still love the program but I won't be upgrading to 13, I'll wait till 14 or a point update if they add more to make it worth upgrading.

When they locked the high res refresh behind upgrading to 12 I knew I was done with reason. Even if they do fix all the stuff we’ve been complaining about for years ,like the awful midi editing that is so far behind EVERYONE, we would have to pay hundreds for it. Honestly wish we were in a different timeline where they didn’t ruin what I thought to be the most refreshing DAW of the bunch.

I'm wondering why they got rid of my favorite color scheme, "blue". Why would they do that? Why would they make that effort?

I recently got the Cubase 13 upgrade. Normal upgrade cost is 129, but I got it for 69 on sale. Came with an astonishing amount of stuff for the money. When I saw the upgrade cost of Reason 13, and what it included, I actually laughed out loud and was embarrassed for the company and anyone who would be conned by it.

All of Reason history can bee summed up in one line dude: A DAW that refused to allow VST/ AU plugin functionality clear up until version 10, to a DAW that no longer wants to be a DAW at all and decided its actually a VST/AU plugin.

In my humble opinion, Reason needs to: - Bring down the price of their main product back to where it was before - Offer a Suite version (again) where they can justify charging more - Take clues from Roland Cloud's "Play for Life" offer to make the Reason+ subscription more appealing by letting customers keep one of the Reason Studio's Rack Extensions after a year of subscription.

Last reason I had was 6. On a whim I tried whatever Live version that was out at the time. Never looked back. The workflow for reason was just such PITA! With Live and Bitwig .. the limiting factor is ME. I can do anything I want and fast.

Good video! I have Ableton 12 (awesome with Max) and FL Studio 24 (always terrific for quick mad scientist vibes). But Reason 13 remains my go to music production tool (a user since Rebirth was released in the 90s) when I am not in Avid. The rack is so familiar to hardware and the sound quality is always top rate! Sorry, but the synths in Live and Fl Studio just are not comparable to the Reason devices for me. Grateful I can afford to dabble in different DAWs. In my view, if you enjoy working with hardware, Reason will often be a good fit. If you primarily like working with software, then there are numerous other options for a beginner that are way cheaper (e.g., Reaper). The one downside of being a Propellerhead fan for decades is that they always do what they want to do regardless of what users say. But in their defense, I have always had the most consistent fun making music on a computer using their products. Peace!

Imagine if they had hired Ekssperimental Sounds to do make his REs (which are hilariously expensive, by the way) as native devices. Reason would be looking a lot more interesting.

I’ve been using Reason since the Record/Reason days. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to turn Reason into a groove box. Something akin to Push. But Reason Studios again too caught up in nickle and diming their customers. Their videos feel a bit out of touch. I will keep them around because I use a lot of their instruments in other DAWs. But they need to make drastic changes to the fluidity of the browser dragging and dropping. More sample warping options. Make the sequencer as fluid as the rack. They should’ve hired me years ago but whatever. Here we are.

4:07 Yes not having note chase is annoying so I bounce midi to audio, and if I need to edit something I bounce it to audio again.

I agree that a complete version of Reason in a plug-in would be awesome. Lack of VST’s in the plug-in is such a shortcoming. I used Reason from version 1 but gave up with it. It is still great fun to use but they obviously don’t have the resources to compete anymore. I would love to start using it again and a complete plug-in with piano roll and VST’s would give me the excuse that I need.

People go buy 3rd party vst"s to use in reason..but dont wanna pay for they plugins thats for sale. People want them for free 😂.... ALL DAWS HAVE PROS AND CONS...i test them all the time...its about what you know and what you do. Shalom

I hope RS see this as it's a fantastic summary of just how poor value for money R13 is. It says a lot when by far the best thing about Reason Studios is... Ryan! I know he loves Reason but it feels like his talents as a presenter\educator\ambassador are wasted.

I used Reason up until 11. Nobody hates Reason more than people who truly love it and wish it didnt suck in all the ways that it sucks. Its constantly looking over at the "other guys" and copying their homework now. It has to be whoever is making decisions at the top. Management or something. Maybe they were not prioritizing the happiness of their most productive and talented software engineers and lost them, so they are slowly suffering from corporate brain drain - I dont know, but something has been wrong and the magic has been missing for a while now.

Pretty sure you can go into NI controller editor and set the option for Maschine to control host transport, so when you open it as a VST the controller play/stop etc functions.

Thanks much for the follow-up. My thought is that they should not allow it to be opened as a standalone DAW inside another DAW. They should really just make the improvements people want to see in the standalone DAW. There's so much potential and a chance for them to be back in the upper echelon of DAWs if they just...listen to their customers. I like the new update, but I've been exploring other DAWs Ableton and Studio One over the last couple of years., and like you, I also use Maschine. I think the thing that's kept me from committing full time to another DAW is that none of the other DAWs are as inspiring to me upon opening it as Reason had been over the years. Visually, there is no other DAW as stunning as Reason. That keeps me hanging on. However, I think I will make the tough decision to commit to another DAW as a companion to Maschine...with Reason as a Rack Plugin. I'll likely still make beats in Reason from time to time. We'll see.

Reason standalone as a vst Plugin is a great Point .. I hadn't even thought about it👍

as a Reason user since reason 2 I am sadly going to move to another daw which I don't want to do, Reason has sort of always been a little bit behind with features I remember how long it took them to add the ability to record into Reason and how long it took them to add vst support I see this new update as embarrassing, it has got to the point were they are so far behind but what they are choosing to add to the daw is not what people want, I have seen many people actually say they prefer the old browser and the fact they took away the favorites menu is a downgrade. I wont be buying another version of Reason again they have lost a long time user :(

To be fair, they added the ability to draw a ramp on velocity lanes in the tool area.... But let's be honest here, they can't even do QOL updates like adding new keyboards to their master keyboard list in the prefs. My Arturia keyboard can run FL Studio and Live almost completely and I don't expect that from Reason but it would be nice to have basic functionality without constantly assigning buttons.

Something as simple as markers still not available in 2024. Beyond the simple qol stuff though, the whole daw is just too far behind. It's a shame because it's fun to work with, but you really have to jump through hoops to do serious work. And for a daw that takes pride in an analog workflow, where's the analog sound? Why isn't there summing? Where are the vintage compressors and eqs? Why do they pretend that is an ssl mixer? It's a cartoon rendition. And how about update those old, old rack devices. 20+ year old code. I can go on, but I'm just pissing in the wind. I'm just bummed because I like the damn thing and want it to be successful.

Luna FREE only works with I lock, and I'm not doing that, so is unusable for Me. On that topic Reason 12.5 added a new offline register mode which was supposed to be for Plus users to be able to open Reason without always having a internet connection. The problem for Me is I'm a stand alone user and am expected to use that same system, and its annoying, you have to select a 1 month pass, or yearly pass and the yearly pass is only allowed to be on 1 computer. Currently I cant open Reason on My main laptop and its very annoying.

I never ever have the problem of working on a drone and the bassline in the same track

Dang. I use the capture thing in live all the time. It’s one of my favorite features. I’ll just jam over something for a few minutes then go back and check out what I did if I started to like what I was doing. But yeah, it’s really sad what’s happening to reason. They can’t decide if they want to be a daw or a synth rack. I kind of feel like they don’t have anyone there to work on the DAW side anymore. Even with the instruments, you can tell they are being lazy. I’ve complained about mimic before. It’s the perfect example of how they leave off the most basic features that people using samplers for chopping would need. Hopefully they come out with a .5 update or something.

What blows my mind is that Propellerhead's Rebirth is what gave the company a spot on the map and 20 + years later there is still no 303 stock in Reason. That literally should have been the first instrument within reason. And not through the Rebirth input machine crap.

Honestly. I think this is really lame . Most guys complaining couldn't write a decent track to begin with no matter how many bells and whistles they have and I've heard some great tracks written on reason 3. Hell I've seen some amazing things done with juat the maelstrom alone. So whatever. I love reason and I love ableton for different reasons and I use both.

The reason upgrades are good for the reason user specifically but not good for the modern day producer in general. So if you are coming from another daw, you will miss a lot basic stuff that was at your finger tips.

After using Reason for almost 15 years, I finally started thinking about switching to another DAW. If a loyal user starts thinking like this, something is really wrong.

Reason 13 runs on more PC hardware. Not all of us can afford to upgrade computers for a DAW update. I’m still using Ableton 11 for when I have to play live but for me personally, Reason 13 is the best DAW for creating left to right music timelines to export as songs. I also subscribe to the Blockhead DAW patreon. These two DAWs take wildly different approaches. I’m not 100 percent ableton because the arrangement view is not that intuitive for me.

Holy shit. Still no note chase? That should have been addressed like 10 years ago. I remember that being the most annoying part of reason. How much time is wasted that you have to go back to the start of the midi clips. Especially parts with drones.

I think an interesting question is whether or not 'good software' is simply a sum of its features

I like all the DAWs. I don't have anything against anyone. I used FL Studio for 6 years (my first DAW), I have Ableton Live Lite, Logic Pro and tried a bunch of others. However, rn I just like Reason the most. You just can't compare the look and feel of a DAW and how well you can work with it on paper. Yeah, FL got free lifetime updates, however, everything they released in the last 5 years was not interesting to me, or at least not enough to give it another go, since the workflow is so different (and worse IMO). I think Ableton is great but I just dislike using it because of the navigation in the sequencer and it looks like a spreadsheet (dont get me wrong, I like the modern look but compared to Reason it's a sterile operating room, especially the devices). Now a days it's just not the software holding me back. My favorite music was made with software 10 years ago. I bet they didn't have MIDI chase back then. Great video and a fair comparison. However, too often new features sound great on release but rarely get adopted into the normal workflow. Reason needs to speed up their development for sure, however, for now I will stick to it. Have a nice weekend everyone.

Hey : keep in mind that 12 was $199 for upgraded combinator - VST 3 - support and HD GUI, 50 samplers not one proper pitch stretching tool 🤣🤣 if one is REASON 1.0 to 13 user, what is the value of reason now $1500 ? Also have you noticed that NI gives ZERO shits about updating Maschine Now : these are your words " EVERYTHING IN REASON SEEMS UNFINISHED" and I agree with this statement 100% Cheers 🥂 🥂

To be fair, it took Ableton Live over 20 years to get these features users been asking for. That being said, Reason has been around since 1997 haha. Anyway, I wouldn't trade Ableton for anything. People try to convince me switching over to Bitwig but I won't do that.

back in the ancient days I loved reason because it was so frictionless moving from a hardware workflow. However 20 something years later, they are still there, and the world have move on. Hell, even ableton was nice coming from trackers, but they adapted to the times (sometimes at a slow pace, finally they are having tags for plugins) but adapted anyway

I take a pragmatic view. Those missing features and tools, how often do you really need them? Sure there are situations you would love to have them and it might slow you down, but in the end this has rather a minor effect on your work and art. Those who now switch from Reason to Ableton, are they now producing better music?

Honestly, since the departure of Ernst Nathorst, the new CEO has focused on marketing and business models rather than on innovation and implementing current standards.

Keep in mind reason Studio Worked 😔 2 years For 13

Matthias as the product manager has to go and let someone else take over the direction.

Reason is no longer competing as a full complete proper main DAW... All they want is new subscribers. Not even interested in perpetual license owners... They just want you to use the rack plugin in live... As a subscriber, of course...

Yeah Reason's DAW can't compete with Ableton at all, in fact, why do they even still bother with their DAW? And the Reason perpetual license upgrade cost to 13? LMAO they are on some mighty fine crack. Reason rack is cool, unfortunately the Reason+ subscription price is way out of touch with reality. It should be no more than 10 bucks a month. I can guarantee they aren't getting many subscribers at 20 bucks a month, its stupid.

Once again Reason Studios is overcharging for an underwhelming product and Ryan is trying to polish a turd as best as he can

Oh boy, now you got me thinking about trying Ableton or Luna. I'm really a Reason user since 2005, but maybe it's time to switch. I heavily rely on Dr Rex loops, maybe it's the reason I'm not to leaving Reason yet (pun unintended).

Studio one is the best .

🍿😄

the other good thing about ableton is its free ;) lol

Hey just stay with ableton....yes reason need features. But is it a deal breaker? Do it stops your workflow? People dont think about thinks untill they realize they need it now..before a feature came..people still created music.. abelton live nice.. but the GUI HORRIBLE has no inspiration at all

Even Reaper is better than reason.

Reason is 🗑 I tried using Reason back in the day and then tried again 2 years ago (with the plug-ins inside my own DAW) and it just wasn’t worth the money to pay per month. They should just trash the DAW and become a Plugin company. The workflow is not intuitive, fast or easy to use. Making music should be fun not a chore.🙄

agree ableton destroyed the competition by ending the cash cow mentality of the others and going for mass reach instead. smart.

user interface is crap ..

@Bitwig embarrasses Ableton. Ableton doesn’t even allow you to edit clips…that’s absolutely ridiculous 😂 And Ableton just now in version 12 allows you to see all the workflow.😂

why do you even bother 🤣

Isn't reason free

It sucks for a Reason.

Hahaha. obviously a paid video. Can't take anyone serious who uses Ableton. With that shitty UI that would even have looked retro in the 80s.