Is RE's losing steam?

[Last Alternative]

Let's be honest here, folks. It ain't what it used to be. They rarely come out anymore and the excitement has gone. Other than the pop guitar thing, I don't get the feeling of happiness looking forward to new ones anymore. Maybe it's just me?
No one does the 'expected RE's this month' thing--that faded away.. Nothing cool & truly innovative like the Selig & Softube stuff anymore... No new guitar and bass amps.. No new big names getting onboard.... . I mean shit. I guess the party is winding down?

[Libraquaricorn]

They rarely come out anymore? There's been loads of new Re's lately and with quite a lot of buzz too. Zero, Nautilus, Red70, Hydronexius Combo, just to name a few instruments only. Re's are a regular expense for me now.... software that I have to have a budget for. That's first of its kind for me and it doesn't seem to end any day soon.... No, I respectfully disagree with you on this, Last Alternative.

[Last Alternative]

Fair enough. Maybe I'm just not feeling it anymore. Definitely looking forward to whatever Selig has planned next.. if anything. And it would be nice if PH made more of an effort to recruit top brands. For all we know they are but not having much luck. Who knows. I look @ PH's website and it's pictures of people holding phones...............
I look at the shop every so often and it's like eh.. I remember when there was always something new & useful and always coming soon updates. I'm just saying there's not much of a buzz compared to then. Were you around for that?

[cixelsyd]

There is a pretty rich diversity of RE's already in the marketplace. What do you see the biggest demand for?

[gak]

I've seen this with vsts too. I mean, obviously someone is going to come out with more of them but rarely something exciting. I had one of these threads during summer. THAT was brutal It's picked up nicely since then.

For me, the one thing I'd like to see is more amp sims.

[exe135]

I want a pipe organ emulation. About 25-35 stops. French romantic period. Reverb optional.

Jiggery Pokery should do that.^^

Or a Wurlitzer theater/cinema organ.

[Tincture]

Are rack extensions losing... Blah blah.

No. They are getting better and better. No doubt. The quality improves with time imo.

Can a guitar user's excrement keep up with that? Obviously not. But I still find it exciting and interesting.

[zeebot]

I dont think the excitement is gone seen as there has just been quite a big stir around the new Zero synth.
Personally I think interest is levelling out. When they first came out people lost their mind over a new LFO because well 'Rack Extensions' and stuff.
The idea has matured, people are totally use to new devices in the rack on a monthly or even weekly basis.
It's just natural progression.

[MDTerps2015]

The only steam its gaining is its repetitiveness. I think they will eventually be as good if not better than vsts because you still control the wiring. Steam not so much but luster maybe. Patience and if you are making music with Reason now, the future looks very bright for us because i think RE's will come around to the quality of vst's but i declined to obtain Reaper because i think vst's are a visual interpretation of what you are hearing when it should be an audible interpretation that matters.

[ebop]

Zero, Oberon, Vecto, ABL3, etc etc. These are just some of the synths. It's picked up if anything. More heavy hitting synths that were absent in the early days. What did we have, Antidote?? The consumer is more discerning with RE purchases as the market matures. That's all.

[Jagwah]

Let's be honest here, folks. It ain't what it used to be. They rarely come out anymore and the excitement has gone. Other than the pop guitar thing, I don't get the feeling of happiness looking forward to new ones anymore. Maybe it's just me?
No one does the 'expected RE's this month' thing--that faded away.. Nothing cool & truly innovative like the Selig & Softube stuff anymore... No new guitar and bass amps.. No new big names getting onboard.... . I mean shit. I guess the party is winding down?

I am in a similar boat to you in that REs have lost their steam to me. This isn't to say they have actually lost steam, but I take it like me you have a TON of REs, and also like me you keep seeing the same things being rehashed by different devs. A $9 synth came out the other day and it is a basic subtractor synth - the only thought I had was 'nah this will just take up room in my instrument list.'

It's cool man, when the innovative REs drop we will know something special is deserving of our attention, otherwise we can keep our money in the mean time.

[electrochoc (PRX-A)]

Let's be honest here, folks. It ain't what it used to be. They rarely come out anymore and the excitement has gone. Other than the pop guitar thing, I don't get the feeling of happiness looking forward to new ones anymore. Maybe it's just me?
No one does the 'expected RE's this month' thing--that faded away.. Nothing cool & truly innovative like the Selig & Softube stuff anymore... No new guitar and bass amps.. No new big names getting onboard.... . I mean shit. I guess the party is winding down?

The "expected REs" threads faded away, but for reasons that are mainly personal (I was the author of those threads), notably a temporary drop of motivation and inspiration toward music making. Following that, I decided to wait for my motivation and inspiration to be back before upgrading Reason (I'm still with Reason 6.5), concretely meaning that I can't use newer Rack Extensions, preventing me from trying and bying them. That made me less aware of what's coming, but left me more time to play with and focus on the toys I already have!

This said, I think the Rack Extensions ecosystem evolved rather than "lost steam". Let me tell you how I see it.

First, I feel there's less utilities released these days, and those utilities were a reason why the shop grew fast in the early days. The reason why there's less utilities might be simple: Reason, with its interface and its CV cables, had a great potential that was not fully exploited by Propellerhead themselves. When REs appear, a lot a new developers made a lot of CV utilities to improve the power of Reason in those matters. To the point that the current utilities offering covers pretty much all the possibilities not covered before by Propellerhead, leaving smaller room for further improvement, meaning less REs published.

In the effect department, we had big stuff from the beginning! Think of Softube, Cakewalk, and, a little later, Selig, Kuassa, Jiggery-Pokery... But it's true that the release of big and innovative effects (both studio and creative) have slowed down... There hasn't be a lot a major releases there lately... From what I read in your comment, I feel that this is the lack of releases of such big and game-changing effects that gives you the impression that the RE offering has reached some kind of cap... We'll see in the next months if it's true or not...

If on the other hand you're looking at the synthesizers offering, it has greatly improved lately! Antidote and Predator has long been the main big synths available for Reason (with a couple of less talked-about ones), but the offering of such big and innovative synths has, somewhat, "exploded" in the last months, notably with Quad, Vecto, Zero, Oberon... It seems the synth department in the one that benefited the most of the SDK 2 new features... If synths are not you cup of tea, that doesn't matter to you, but for any synth lover, the RE world is still as exciting as it was! When I upgrade Reason, I feel I'll spend a lot of money on new synths!

As for the "no big names getting onboard" fact, it is no surprise from my point of view... From the beginning, I felt that Rack Extensions were going to be the thing of Reason enthusiasts, developing what they dreamt of having in Reason since a long time. This is mainly what happened. And keep in mind that, in this regard, some of the "small names" we saw reach the shop are getting bigger and bigger over time! Jiggery-Pokery, Selig, Sosonics, Blamsoft, Zvork... All those names are Reason-exclusive as of now, but are on the way to be considered, or should already be considered, "major" developers on our platform. Their REs had more impact on our workflow and our sound than those of many "big names" of the VST world...

Overall though, it seems there's less RE released now than there were in the first months/years... The drop in the number of utilities released might be a big part of the explanation, as well as the slower pace at which early developers are now releasing stuff... But I doubt the average quality of the newer releases has dropped... at least when you look at the synths! Honestly, I think when I'll be able to get SDK 2 REs, I might buy less REs, but spend a bigger average amount of money per RE. That should give you a hint about how the shop is evolving, at least from my point of view...

[dvdrtldg]

Seems to me that a certain saturation point has been reached - e.g. when there was only a small handful of RE compressors available, every time a new one dropped everybody went nuts. Now it's Meh, another compressor, how many do I need anyway. That's how I feel about many of the FX units that have been appearing lately. There's been some interesting stuff happening on the utilities front (e.g. the PSDN env generator) but not much if anything in the way of jaw-dropping innovation. And I'm fine with that, it's been forcing me to read a few manuals and get more familiar with the devices I already own

Synths, well I've been raving about Zero and I like Vecto a lot, but apart from that nothing has really blown me away. I'm waiting now for sample loading and a proper granular synth, maybe an updated sampler would be nice too. Apart from that I'm pretty fucking delighted with my Reason toys

[Last Alternative]

OK I think it's safe to say it has lost steam for me and a few others. No biggie. Yep! I get to save my money for live gear. I'm getting the Blackstar Venue ht60 tomorrow, got a pedal board the other day, getting the Gieger Counter pedal, and a wireless guitar setup for my birthday/Christmas from my parents so no loss really. I don't have a ton of REs. Just what I need but more amp sims would be cool even though I'll be mic-ing my amp soon

It's all personal opinion really. Thank you for your thoughts.
-Jace

[Emian]

i think the last months were quite exciting in RE country.... The Rig-bundles earlier this year were only the calm before the storm, but all those synths that came out this summer; we have the BEST 303 emulation to date (ONLY in Reason for now); the PMS-20 made me allmost cry with its superb analogue-style filtersound & ProPulsion enhanced my "ReDrum CV-out to Kong" workflow a lot ....

I disagree; i think this has been an exciting RE summer... SO exciting even i didn't think a moment to upgrade to Reason 8

[Gulale]

It seems like that to me. In fact, my guess is Propellerhead will start supporting VST in the near future. And users will start talking about it like a big deal. I'm not saying it is not a big deal but this was suppose to happen long time ago. I don't think Best known developers will start releasing Re version of their format. It is not wise. Reason Rack extension costumers or Regular buyers are not as good as or as many as the VST. here handful of people are buying products in a regular bases and on top of it ph takes 30 percent, that is not good if I'm a developer. On VST side if a company release a good product, they can sell thousands of them just easily. Business wise it is silly decision to support Re unless the developer is fond of Reason. IMHO my guess is, most of reason users are crack version 1-5 as a rewire. They don't care about rack extension. But they make it look like PH have so many users when they create videos on youtube.

Last time I felt sorry for Softube when I see how many people have bought the Tube - Tech here. I believe it is three or four right? However, on Softube website it says Tube- Tech is the most requested vst format. It hurts to be honest not getting your investment back as a developer. I'm not saying Re is bad but business wise it doesn't worth the effort.

[chimp_spanner]

I really don't see how VST would be good for developers or for PH. Once you essentially add support for cracked VSTs to Reason, that's it. Game over. Those same people who have been happily using cracked 1-5 would only need to make the initial investment in version 6 or higher, and then they can use as many free synths and effects as they can download. IMO it would kill the Re market and many developers.

To me it's like asking for XBO to play PS4 games. Nice idea; never gonna happen. Reason has some distinct advantages over other DAws, and it has some limitations too. Same with Cubase vs Logic, Logic vs PT, Reason vs Ableton. Different tools, different jobs. Admittedly Reason is different in having a totally closed/proprietary plugin format and they would do very well to bring the Re standard up to scratch (to allow for things like layered UIs, expandable panels, sample loading, etc. at which point maybe we'd see things like ports of Massive, Spire, Sylenth, etc.).

But what it lacks in that department it makes up for in its modular environment. With a bit of creativity and a handful of rack devices you can make instruments that don't even exist in VST format. And I'm kinda cool with that. When I need VST I just use Cubase 8. And when I need both, I ReWire, although I'll admit it's not my favourite thing in the world to do

I'm hoping that PH do pull out the stops for version 9, and make a huge splash. I'm very passionate about (and heavily invested in) Reason. I'd love to see it riding high!

[scifunk]

Reason strength is its own enemy in the RE department. Before REs you were 'stuck' with the stock devices, most of which perform very well and most users couldn't tell the difference between them and a 'top' VST emulation. So Reason forced you to learn the stock devices very well. When REs came available, after the initially excitement uses became unimpressed quite quickly as, apart from the CV utilities mentioned above, instruments and FX were pretty much rehashes of already existing devices. I think the only REs I now use regularly are Antidote, Kuassa's EQ, Softube FET, Selig's Leveller and Echobode. Everything else is still taken care of with stock devices.

[electrochoc (PRX-A)]

Reason strength is its own enemy in the RE department. Before REs you were 'stuck' with the stock devices, most of which perform very well and most users couldn't tell the difference between them and a 'top' VST emulation. So Reason forced you to learn the stock devices very well. When REs came available, after the initially excitement uses became unimpressed quite quickly as, apart from the CV utilities mentioned above, instruments and FX were pretty much rehashes of already existing devices. I think the only REs I now use regularly are Antidote, Kuassa's EQ, Softube FET, Selig's Leveller and Echobode. Everything else is still taken care of with stock devices.

This may vary from one person to the next... I agree that it's impossible to "reinvent the wheel" over and over (an EQ is an EQ), that Rack Extensions are somewhat rehashes of stock devices, and that the overall quality of stock devices makes it harder for REs to be competitive. But there was many stock devices (mostly effects) with which I was unsatisfied since a long time, and I was happy to find better alternatives in the form of REs. In the effect department, there's not a lot of stock devices I still use regularly: I often mentionned, even though I like distortion in general, how I disliked Scream to the point I was not using distortion before REs came out; same for choruses; and I'm very happy to have "replaced" RV7000 with DR-1 for basic uses.

In the instrument department, it's the opposite: I'm kinda back to some stock devices! My attempts (due to overexcitement!) to replace some of them with REs was in part a waste of time and money! Nothing yet comes even close to Kong with it comes to synth-drum design (I use Kong with no samples), and Malstrom and Thor are currently making a big comeback in my projects: using those instruments reminded me how versatile they are when compared to most REs! I still use many of my REs though, but as a complement and as a source of more specialized sounds.

[MannequinRaces]

getting the Gieger Counter pedal

I am jealous of this!! Looks like an awesome pedal. I would love to see more REs tailored to guitarists but can't complain too much. I remember you writing earlier that you wanted to run audio from guitar into Thor…

[Last Alternative]

It's either gonna be the Geiger Counter or the Dr. Scientist Bitquest. Not sure yet. I want both but I just spent $1000 on an amp yesterday!
Thanx for the midi guitar tutorial. I'll dive in after work.

[EnochLight]

In fact, my guess is Propellerhead will start supporting VST in the near future.

I can guarantee you that this will not happen. Unless, by "near future" you mean "at an undetermined time so far into the future, there's no point waiting or wondering".

[selig]

Reason strength is its own enemy in the RE department. Before REs you were 'stuck' with the stock devices, most of which perform very well and most users couldn't tell the difference between them and a 'top' VST emulation. So Reason forced you to learn the stock devices very well. When REs came available, after the initially excitement uses became unimpressed quite quickly as, apart from the CV utilities mentioned above, instruments and FX were pretty much rehashes of already existing devices. I think the only REs I now use regularly are Antidote, Kuassa's EQ, Softube FET, Selig's Leveller and Echobode. Everything else is still taken care of with stock devices.

This may vary from one person to the next... I agree that it's impossible to "reinvent the wheel" over and over (an EQ is an EQ)…

Not necessarily…

[Fretless Fingers]

I've spent the last year buying more RE's than I can remember. Honestly it can't be a decline. Personal interest may change for some but there has been allot of talk and purchases with the number of devices coming out that fill holes in Reason's possibilities. Not to mention the sales and bundles getting older content to move.

[Yonatan]

Well, sometimes it can be quite cool to not be overly excited all the time, as that can be bad for ones health and economy.
I am sure we will have reasons to jump nerves again soon, but for me, a little pause won't hurt. But I see what you mean.
Can´t compare the RE-market with the VST, not yet at least. Hope RE´s keep evolving. More advanced sampler and maybe
an expanded combinator, could fire up the Instrument making part with both new Refills and advanced RE instruments.
And on top of that, more flexibility to sell/transfer RE:s.