Let's Moan About the Sequencer!

[boingy]

Back in the day, FL studio was laughed at but today it wears the DAW crown.

Trust me, FL Studio does not wear the DAW crown. In fact I think they are struggling to get through the door into the throne room.

[BigPictureSound]

Back in the day, FL studio was laughed at but today it wears the DAW crown.

Trust me, FL Studio does not wear the DAW crown. In fact I think they are struggling to get through the door into the throne room.

I should have clarified I am talking about sheer volume of users. In this respect, it surely does. We can debate which DAW is better, of course- but that's subjective.

[reggie1979]

TL/DR

I am of a common sense mind. On one hand, I'd love to see ANY AND ALL workflow implementation improvements. Yes sir, can I have another?

But Reason does the "jack of all trades" better than anyone else imnsho. I have FL. It's a mess for recording audio. And I don't get that it's so special midi wise, I struggle to make a fecking beat in FL.

I don't understand why we have to take such sides like democrat vs republican. We should all want the most we can get.

[jlgrimes]

Reasons sequencer is somewhat under featured, but at the same time I wouldn't call it crappy.

For a person who play their parts in and does minimal editing, I find it pretty efficient. Actually probably one of my favorite scratch pad sequencer. In some ways its simplicity gets out of the way as Reason has a low learning curve, simple to remember key commands. Logic, FL Studio while highly praised, I never got a good workflow with either.

It starts falling short though when it comes to editing and even it certain areas it is pretty good.

It has a good pitch editor and a decent comping workflow, and decent audio time correction.

The small improvements 11 made are all critically needed features.

Automation curves
Paint tool
Individual vertical track zoom
Note muting

Those where three areas where I would get frustrated when editing parts.


It does fall short though still in certain areas,

1 no track Freeze. Probably the biggest workflow killer now for me.

2. No keybindings for changing grid snap. Live makes this so easy and is great when doing drums.

3 Regroove mixer could be improved for folks who work at double tempo. Very few eigth note swing options.

4 Nondestructive Auto Quantize. Not a big deal but alot of DAWS have this (Ableton isnt one of them). But it is cool if you use a wrong Quantize setting, you can re edit your performance with the correct one.


Those are probably my biggest two (although Reasons GUI, outdated Samplers, Combinatiors, compressors, EQs are starting to become just as much issues than the sequencer itself)


This update while small, did hit alot of my big workflow gripes with the program. It feels like they actually picked up my forum posts on this one (except the Rack VST deal)

[Raveshaper]

I can't wait until people get to use the new extended vertical zoom in the sequencer.

It only zooms into the track at the top, regardless of which track you have selected. "No," I hear you cry, "they wouldn't be that stupid". Well, it's certainly not stupid, it's utterly intentional: they saw this behaviour and someone said "that'll do, move on".

The freely resizeable track height is a nice addition, right up to the point that you can make the track height bigger than the visual space available, and so lose the bottom, so you can't reselect it later unless you scroll down to see it again (i.e. the sequencer should automatically compenscroll down to keep the bottom of the selected track being resized at the bottom of the screen, not invisibly beyond it). You can't zoom out and back in as you'll be returned to the top of the sequencer rather than the selected track.

What's depressing is that the horizontal zoom does kind of work in at least it will zoom to playhead, if not the cursor. It's always one step forward, then half a pace back. (Edit: actually I just realised in the first horizontal zoom in that video, it doesn't zoom to playhead either, does it? It swishes promptly offscreen to the right...)

That is hilarious, I'm still kind of stunned that they're charging for this with a straight face.

Look. These things aren't difficult. The sequencer is basically a stack of rectangles. It's a Cartesian coordinate system. So is the rack. Scaling, translation, rotation, these are basic things.

The fixes that are unmistakably needed are not difficult. I'm sure JP is thinking "I could program that better," and he's right. But there's a caveat to how easy these things are to engineer correctly.

You have to know what you're doing.

This time around, everybody can't ignore that they just don't seem to know what they're doing. And who wants to pay for that... Again.

[Raveshaper]

Omg wow. This looks so bad.

I either think the developers have really low standards at what is acceptable or they seriously don't care because they aren't the ones using the program.

Everything I've said is unfolding in R11 so it's bittersweet. I called that the new CEO would rebrand the company and they did. I called that there would be less then a handful of workflow features and was correct. I even called that at least one of them would be half assed and poorly implemented.

Hey Mattias and PHeads: your sequencer zoom and focus priority sucks and you should be ashamed knowing users are going to be complaining about this but you won't be doing anything about it.

I predict that Reason Studios will be what Reason becomes: just a familiar name that references a bygone time. They will make devices and a rack, and that's it.

I also think that the motivation behind raising the price through tiered pricing is to capitalize on the inevitable exodus resulting from a situation they can't win: dissatisfaction in their progress.

They're looking to break even and balance their ledger before closing shop. Cashing out everyone who's unimpressed, insulted, or itching to leave is their strategy of turning their unavoidable collapse into a last hurrah.

I mean, look around. Seriously stop and look at how many people are giving this a pass. I don't think there's going to be a version 12. Maybe a Rack 2, but no 12.

The only way I could see there being a version 12 is if the rack bought them enough time to start over from scratch and do it right.

I just don't see them being able to accomplish that when every little change they make is so poorly executed. I think this is it for them.

[mcatalao]

It's once you're past that initial creative phase that things can get a bit clunky. That's when you start to notice the lack of more functional (if less exciting) things, like folders, group editing, mixer channel presets, visibility zones, more tools for manipulating notes and controllers, etc.

Yeah, this is unfortunate. I'm actually TERRIFIED of the rack once the project is more than 10 tracks (because I use lots of FX to almost everything) and I'm paralysed when I need to move something, change order, etc. Might be I'm clueless to some shortcuts I should use, but more often than not I'll f*ck something up - either it will move some devices I didn't wanted moved or won't let me move a group that I think belong together. And even if I manage to move stuff correctly, there's a huge risk things got out of whack in either (or both) the sequencer and mixer. I perhaps should keep everything in Combinators or put FX only in the Insert slot, but I don't really like that, because I prefer to see things upfront and hate to see the "anonymous" Combinator icon in every sequencer track.

Oh well, hope they're working on it for 11.x

You're Using a reason 2 rack approach to a reason 10 project When Reason has combis since v3, and insert and send slots since r 5+record.

If you feel it is a mess to tweak stuff on the rack and sequencer, specially automation, just wait to see the mess automation is on the outer daw. Add 3 devices in the vst and the automation parameters amount are huge... Not to say that everytime you have to edit something in the vst you double the click amoun. I mean the vst is great for people who work with other softwares and incorporated that workflow since having reason will not be a nuisance. But people who have reason and work fine with it will suffer on another DAW.

[JiggeryPokery]

re JP is thinking "I could program that better," and he's right. But there's a caveat to how easy these things are to engineer correctly.

You have to know what you're doing.

Well, no, I wouldn't be right. I was thinking ScuzzyEye or Pitchblende or any other dev could program that better

Edit: Thinking about my reply there, I do wonder if RS are too enamoured with their "Pelle is a genius" schtick. For those who don't remember, it was a notorious comment MHG made back on the Propellerhead User Forum (PUF) back in late 2012 or early 2013, that upset or annoyed a lot of RE devs, not just Urs Heckmann to whom it was specifically targetted. It was a spectacularly arrogant comment, designed to embarrass Urs by stating that Props' REs ran better than other devs devices because Props had a better coder. MHG was all "I didn't mean it that way", but it was impossible to read it any other way.

And while MHG steamed back into the thread to try and do some damage limitation, what's really interesting is that Hanna used the same description in her Reason Compact blogs, six years later. ("We gave Pelle, one of our founders and a downright DSP and sound genius" https://www.reasonstudios.com/blog/reas ... eflections). So internally, even six years on, that view of Pelle still exists. Now, we need caution here: I don't think Pelle necessarily is involved with the sequencer, my understanding is that generally he's on the device side (although Quartet and SeenIt aren't Pelle-coded devices because they're clearly IDT/GE based and so rely on fairly basic scripting). But what is clear is that they do seem to have this consistent self-belief inside the company that their coders are somehow above everyone else. Yet that zoom is not the work of a genius, that's the work of an incompetent, and signed off and accepted by the same.

[kinkujin]

I don't see a need to moan. I've used alot of other programs and sequencers ... there is a reason I landed here. Doesn't mean I'm not curious about other programs but Reason is jump-in-and-get-crap-done good for me.

[jam-s]

I mean, look around. Seriously stop and look at how many people are giving this a pass. I don't think there's going to be a version 12. Maybe a Rack 2, but no 12.

The only way I could see there being a version 12 is if the rack bought them enough time to start over from scratch and do it right.

I just don't see them being able to accomplish that when every little change they make is so poorly executed. I think this is it for them.

The situation might also be like this:
* They know for quite some time that the programme has to be redone from scratch, but they knew that they could not do it in one chunk.
* 1. Introduce a new API aka RE
* 2. Port devices over and untangle rack from sequencer (--> Reason VST and migration path to HiRes-Rack)
* 3. Write a new sequencer/DAW (might be WIP and thus only very little is done on the legacy code base).

[dezma]

I got it all figured out:
Probably this Pelle guy earns a "genius" wage also, so they compensate by getting their sequencer resources from sheltered workplaces

[plaamook]

I can't wait until people get to use the new extended vertical zoom in the sequencer.

It only zooms into the track at the top, regardless of which track you have selected. "No," I hear you cry, "they wouldn't be that stupid". Well, it's certainly not stupid, it's utterly intentional: they saw this behaviour and someone said "that'll do, move on".

Yeah, that's a real problem.
It's the same in R10 it's just that no compensation was made in 11 for dealing with the extended zoom.

Such a drag. I was really looking forward to that feature, been complaining about zoom for years.

[reggie1979]

Well, the title does say "moan"

[ortxedys]

I may be the odd one out, but im genuinely ok with Reasons sequencer. I get all the qualms people have about it. I tend to not get hung up on the negative parts of any scenario. I imagine most of the ones complaining arent making much music, huh?

[plaamook]

I may be the odd one out, but im genuinely ok with Reasons sequencer. I get all the qualms people have about it. I tend to not get hung up on the negative parts of any scenario. I imagine most of the ones complaining arent making much music, huh?

I just finished my 3rd album on 10, was looking forward to starting my 4th on 11 so maybe go imagine something else eh?

[MannequinRaces]

batch, moan, cry, waahhhh. —>> Directed at you Reason sequencer.

[Creativemind]

I can't wait until people get to use the new extended vertical zoom in the sequencer.

It only zooms into the track at the top, regardless of which track you have selected. "No," I hear you cry, "they wouldn't be that stupid". Well, it's certainly not stupid, it's utterly intentional: they saw this behaviour and someone said "that'll do, move on".

The freely resizeable track height is a nice addition, right up to the point that you can make the track height bigger than the visual space available, and so lose the bottom, so you can't reselect it later unless you scroll down to see it again (i.e. the sequencer should automatically compenscroll down to keep the bottom of the selected track being resized at the bottom of the screen, not invisibly beyond it). You can't zoom out and back in as you'll be returned to the top of the sequencer rather than the selected track.

What's depressing is that the horizontal zoom does kind of work in at least it will zoom to playhead, if not the cursor. It's always one step forward, then half a pace back. (Edit: actually I just realised in the first horizontal zoom in that video, it doesn't zoom to playhead either, does it? It swishes promptly offscreen to the right...)

This feels like a never ending story (I hope though they have it listed as a bug) . But I've had a feeling that they do not use the DAW themselves in a serious way (noodling maybe, but finished song production, no) and they do not work closely observing how advanced users work - simply put: They do not understand what they are doing (must understand the end user's need first). Could also be a case where the programmers have to much power/leverage inside of the company and the product manager is always run over. I can also understand that after the long list of bug fixes after 10.x, they have not had enough time to develop v11, since they need to push it out well before Black Friday and Christmas sales.

The long term problem here though is that it looks real shitty. The few YouTubers left doing videos will complain about it, and I checked in with some of them. They laugh at Reason (never used it, never will) and/or they jumped ship and don't care anymore. This spreads like wildfire and the kids trying to use Reason will be laughed at as some "lame kids" wearing the wrong jeans, then they have to go to Ableton or Studio One. It feels they are digging their own grave as Reason is putting themselves on a fast track to become the Oldsmobile of DAWs. Bad management sums it up... They probably need to think about their corporate culture too if that is the case. I wish they would...

You would think when implementing a feature in Reason, that at Reason Studios they'd have Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton, Studio One, Cubase, FL Studio and Cakewalk all installed on 1 or more computers and they'd look at how that feature was implemented on those daw's and then all have a discussion on which approach or way was best and go with consensus wouldn't you?

I am starting to agree that they don't use Reason to properly finish any music as they'd come across the same issues as us surely or they simply don't know what they're doing. If they look at how the same feature is implemented in another daw, if they don't USE that feature then they'll simply see that feature (in some cases anyway) and not actually use it if you get me and that is why things are often (excuse the language) half arsed. As in sometimes a feature can be SEEN but unless you USE it in the process of a song or for what it's needed for you could overlook certain aspects of his usefulness or implementation.

Why when they added slicing notes in 9 wasn't the ability to rejoin them added. It's the first thing I looked at when I used that feature. I gutted and shook my head. You'd only need be able box 'round it with the mouse and do ctrl / j like with clips.

The muting notes - again something missing. You can't just hold the left mouse button and scroll along, have to click them all individually. You should be able to the same with clips too with the mute tool.

The highlight the notes too, I was looking for a shading across the midi editor to line notes up with your midi controller key depression. Something else missed out so now you have to hit the midi controller key and look back and forth at the note in the midi editor and the piano key selected to check it's the same row. A shading woulda solved this. Again, a feature just not fully thought through. Hope we aren't waiting for this be fixed still in another 6-12 months but I fear it will just be left as is. I am beginning to think these things are intentional now.

[selig]

Why when they added slicing notes in 9 wasn't the ability to rejoin them added. It's the first thing I looked at when I used that feature. I gutted and shook my head. You'd only need be able box 'round it with the mouse and do ctrl / j like with clips.

The muting notes - again something missing. You can't just hold the left mouse button and scroll along, have to click them all individually. You should be able to the same with clips too with the mute tool.

This has also been a personal pet peeve of mine, a lack of consistency in the UI/workflow. IMO, whatever you can do to one object should be allowed to be done to all. But this is not always possible in Reason:
•You can quantize notes, but not automation.
•You can join clips, but not notes.
•You can "curve" automation but not fade in/outs.
•You can group faders but not anything else in the channel.
•You can loop-record audio (and create new "lanes" for each loop) but not notes.

Consistency in the UI simplifies the UI because you only need to learn any one function for one object type, and then you automatically know how to do it to all others. It's an example of expanding on a feature set while simultaneously simplifying the interface, something that's not always easy to do (but should be done where possible IMO).

[Creativemind]

Why when they added slicing notes in 9 wasn't the ability to rejoin them added. It's the first thing I looked at when I used that feature. I gutted and shook my head. You'd only need be able box 'round it with the mouse and do ctrl / j like with clips.

The muting notes - again something missing. You can't just hold the left mouse button and scroll along, have to click them all individually. You should be able to the same with clips too with the mute tool.

This has also been a personal pet peeve of mine, a lack of consistency in the UI/workflow. IMO, whatever you can do to one object should be allowed to be done to all. But this is not always possible in Reason:
•You can quantize notes, but not automation.
•You can join clips, but not notes.
•You can "curve" automation but not fade in/outs.
•You can group faders but not anything else in the channel.
•You can loop-record audio (and create new "lanes" for each loop) but not notes.

Consistency in the UI simplifies the UI because you only need to learn any one function for one object type, and then you automatically know how to do it to all others. It's an example of expanding on a feature set while simultaneously simplifying the interface, something that's not always easy to do (but should be done where possible IMO).

Yes very well put Giles. Consistency really matters.

[ortxedys]

I may be the odd one out, but im genuinely ok with Reasons sequencer. I get all the qualms people have about it. I tend to not get hung up on the negative parts of any scenario. I imagine most of the ones complaining arent making much music, huh?

I just finished my 3rd album on 10, was looking forward to starting my 4th on 11 so maybe go imagine something else eh?

Curved automation does look a lot more fancy than just plain ol straight lines, huh?