If you could ask Reason Studios one question...

[chaosroyale]

I am going to take the most softest, most charitable reading I possibly can of this.

I hope you mean "we have limited development resources, so when we work on new functions for basic devices like compressors or EQs we add them as new devices and the old ones remain as museum pieces"

Because the alternative is "we don't innovate and develop because we think it is more important that some people can play 15 year old files even though they could still play them on the older version if that is what they really wanted" ...and I can't imagine anyone at a tech company saying that and expecting to still be in business in ten years.

It is also objectively false:

Rv7000, Europa and Dr. Rex all got updates and everyone was very happy with them.

Things like adding 2 extra para bands to the EQ wouldn't affect compatibility at all because older songs could use the existing 2 bands just the same as before.

And maybe more importantly:
Stop caring about backwards compatibility if it is holding you back. I'm serious; draw a line under Reason 11 and say that any version after that will have newly updated RE-based devices that may sound different from the old ones, or whatever it takes to get back to innovating.

Or is Reason just a museum for old song files from the early 2000's?

Would any of the users here NOT want a modern sampler, compressor and EQ, just because they would have to use Reason 11 to load old songs they made years ago?

One of the reasons is that we want to ensure backwards compatibility. Creating a newer version of a device could potentially make your (old) song sound different or just plain wrong, and we wouldn't want that.

[guitfnky]

I am going to take the most softest, most charitable reading I possibly can of this.

I hope you mean "we have limited development resources, so when we work on new functions for basic devices like compressors or EQs we add them as new devices and the old ones remain as museum pieces"

Because the alternative is "we don't innovate and develop because we think it is more important that some people can play 15 year old files even though they could still play them on the older version if that is what they really wanted" ...and I can't imagine anyone at a tech company saying that and expecting to still be in business in ten years.

It is also objectively false:

Rv7000, Europa and Dr. Rex all got updates and everyone was very happy with them.

Things like adding 2 extra para bands to the EQ wouldn't affect compatibility at all because older songs could use the existing 2 bands just the same as before.

And maybe more importantly:
Stop caring about backwards compatibility if it is holding you back. I'm serious; draw a line under Reason 11 and say that any version after that will have newly updated RE-based devices that may sound different from the old ones, or whatever it takes to get back to innovating.

Or is Reason just a museum for old song files from the early 2000's?

Would any of the users here NOT want a modern sampler, compressor and EQ, just because they would have to use Reason 11 to load old songs they made years ago?

One of the reasons is that we want to ensure backwards compatibility. Creating a newer version of a device could potentially make your (old) song sound different or just plain wrong, and we wouldn't want that.

for god’s sake, you’ve got thousands of alternative devices available, between REs and VSTs, at this point. many of which you probably already own, and many others, of which are free. this obsession with updating old devices makes no sense. get over it. time to move on.

the alternative you say; “we don’t innovate...” really? that’s what you’re going with? that’s the most absurd suggestion (even framed as an alternative) I’ve ever heard lobbed at RS.

[DougalDarkly]

Deleted

[Raveshaper]

My singular question for them:

Since developers haven't been able to list products in the shop without bundling a high resolution asset pack into their releases since the inception of the RE format, are you going to maybe give store credit or refunds for the stuff people bought but can't use? Or are you just going to continue asking them to pay for things they can't access when it's baked into the format itself since day 1.

You read that right. That high resolution that everybody's waiting for? You paid for it already. It's cool, you're fine with paying for things you don't get, right? Over and over for years? Yeah, you're fine with that. Better be, because that money is solid gone.

My singular question for you:

What's it going to take for you to finally draw the line?

[chaosroyale]

You are saying that Reason does not need a modern comp, EQ or sampler because people could just use something else.

You must be on Reason Studio's marketing team!

for god’s sake, you’ve got thousands of alternative devices available, between REs and VSTs, at this point. many of which you probably already own, and many others, of which are free. this obsession with updating old devices makes no sense. get over it. time to move on.

the alternative you say; “we don’t innovate...” really? that’s what you’re going with? that’s the most absurd suggestion (even framed as an alternative) I’ve ever heard lobbed at RS.

[guitfnky]

You are saying that Reason does not need a modern comp, EQ or sampler because people could just use something else.

You must be on Reason Studio's marketing team!

for god’s sake, you’ve got thousands of alternative devices available, between REs and VSTs, at this point. many of which you probably already own, and many others, of which are free. this obsession with updating old devices makes no sense. get over it. time to move on.

the alternative you say; “we don’t innovate...” really? that’s what you’re going with? that’s the most absurd suggestion (even framed as an alternative) I’ve ever heard lobbed at RS.

right, if you’ve seen any of my posts in the last couple of months, you’d know I’m no Reason Studios apologist.

and setting aside the fact that what you’re implying is wrong (there are other stock options for EQ and compression in Reason, and many more non-stock choices available as REs and VSTs), yes, that’s what I’m saying...use something else.

it’s not hard.

[Mataya]

One of the reasons is that we want to ensure backwards compatibility. Creating a newer version of a device could potentially make your (old) song sound different or just plain wrong, and we wouldn't want that.

Maybe it's just because I'm not a coder, but this statement doesn't make any sense to me at all.

Is there a reason why adding a new version of a device - Combinator II for example - means you have to delete the old one?

Why would backwards compatibility be affected at all, as long as the 'old' devices remain untouched?

What is it that I'm not understanding?

Also, other DAW developers did that successfully, so maybe you could ask them how it's done properly.

[friday]

One of the reasons is that we want to ensure backwards compatibility. Creating a newer version of a device could potentially make your (old) song sound different or just plain wrong, and we wouldn't want that.

I knew that was coming, but I have counter-arguments in the case of thor you could leave everything as it was and just add new modules (and intern stereo processing, only if a stereo osc or filter is used), the wave editor will change nothing of the sound, if you just add some more features like direct edit of audio clips, more curves, add rex features to it and so on, and then you have the possibility to add switches on the back of devices (the beauty of reason) with old behavior, new behavior... there are so many creative ways to solve the problem, as to leave all this old (and capaple) devices untouched

Anyway, I have to say i am really thankfull to see you still answer some of the posts!!!!!

Edit: I think there is one other big problem, you must solve in the future. In other DAW’s you can delete the old VST that you won't use anymore, but in reason we have to live with 20year old stuff for how long? You have to clean up your device portfolio or update theme at any point in the future, to not look outdated, even if you change the sound! If you inform the users then they have to deal with that. That was the same in the earlier days with analog gear… MKII... I think at Reason Studios there are a lot of Apple Lovers (I am not) and Apple does a lot of this decisions… In no scenario can i imagine that in twenty years you still want to have all the old devices in the Rack?

[orthodox]

One of the reasons is that we want to ensure backwards compatibility. Creating a newer version of a device could potentially make your (old) song sound different or just plain wrong, and we wouldn't want that.

I knew that was coming, but I have counter-arguments in the case of thor you could leave everything as it was and just add new modules (and intern stereo processing, only if a stereo osc or filter is used), the wave editor will change nothing of the sound, if you just add some more features like direct edit of audio clips, more curves, add rex features to it and so on, and then you have the possibility to add switches on the back of devices (the beauty of reason) with old behavior, new behavior... there are so many creative ways to solve the problem, as to leave all this old (and capaple) devices untouched

Building new devices from ground up gives much more freedom than modifying existing ones when you have to maintain strict compatibility. You can't make features obsolete, can't change parameter ranges. Why even touch that mammoth shit when you can make a better device. Now we have Europa, Complex, which exceed most capacities of Thor.

[chaosroyale]

You're right, but;

1- Reason very rarely adds new core devices (apart from awful romplers). They just let the old ones get older and older.

2- Other developers don't have the same problem. They either update, or keep the old one and add Version 2 plugins. As another post said, maybe someone should ask them how to do it.

3 - Lets stop caring about *strict compatibility* for things like the old half-rack chorus.

Building new devices from ground up gives much more freedom than modifying existing ones when you have to maintain strict compatibility. You can't make features obsolete, can't change parameter ranges. Why even touch that mammoth shit when you can make a better device.

[guitfnky]

Building new devices from ground up gives much more freedom than modifying existing ones when you have to maintain strict compatibility. You can't make features obsolete, can't change parameter ranges. Why even touch that mammoth shit when you can make a better device. Now we have Europa, Complex, which exceed most capacities of Thor.

couldn’t agree more. what would the point be? users would try out the revised versions, but probably wouldn’t reach for them more often than they otherwise would have. but put out a new device? yeah, people will use it.

expecting them to update old devices is to expect RS developers to waste their time and our money.

[chaosroyale]

the EQ options are:

half rack EQ: 2 band, since 2000
mclass EQ: 4 band, since 2005
SSL EQ: 4 band, since 2011

That's it.

Compare that to Live or FL or Cubase or whatever.

But hey, fair enough, as you said "use something else". That seems to be the direction Reason is going.

there are other stock options for EQ and compression in Reason,

[guitfnky]

the EQ options are:

half rack EQ: 2 band, since 2000
mclass EQ: 4 band, since 2005
SSL EQ: 4 band, since 2011

That's it.

Compare that to Live or FL or Cubase or whatever.

But hey, fair enough, as you said "use something else". That seems to be the direction Reason is going.

there are other stock options for EQ and compression in Reason,

we still don’t have basic functionality that those DAWs offer, but you want them to catch up by updating old devices?

[chaosroyale]

What are you talking about? That's nothing to do with what I wrote. Are you replying to someone else maybe?

By the way, when I say Reason needs updated core devices, I'm not obsessed with keeping the SAME devices. As I said in my first post, I don't care about backwards compatibility and I think they should make new devices with modern functionality. If that means ditching the old ones completely and using RE tech, fine.

we still don’t have basic functionality that those DAWs offer, but you want them to catch up by updating old devices?

[chaosroyale]

Oh maybe I see what you meant.

Needs updated core devices
-vs-
Needs workflow/GUI enhancements

"Por que no los dos?"

[Jagwah]

What was the Reason 11 upgrade supposed to be, an upgrade for ants?

[mcatalao]

You're right, but;

1- Reason very rarely adds new core devices (apart from awful romplers). They just let the old ones get older and older.

2- Other developers don't have the same problem. They either update, or keep the old one and add Version 2 plugins. As another post said, maybe someone should ask them how to do it.

3 - Lets stop caring about *strict compatibility* for things like the old half-rack chorus.

1 - I really cannot agree with this. The more recent Sweeper and Quarted are additions. Europa and Grain in Reason 10, the same. Even Thor in its time, neptune, Echo, etc were new additions to the rack in their release time. So not only they add core devices, as they are not only "romplers" (yes the soundiron stuff were romplers, but i really don't think the rest of the lot are). In fact looking at the example, (grain is not a simple rompler) you have way more synths and effects, as new core devices than romplers.

2 - Other developers have the exact same problem. They only have stuff more "contained" and they don't break hell loose as in the case of core devices who might have a different working way with reason than Re's. And of course, they have to manage way less froot print for a single device than a full DAW. Some of the new core devices are Re's that are available with reason and these have been updated more frequently than core devices (Europa got wave loading in the second version when the SDK got updated, for example).

3 - Lets not. That is one thing that makes reason (daw) my favorite because i can open a song from Reason 1 and it will still work on R11 (and sound exactly the same despite al the changes to the app). Unfortunately, i cannot say the same for Cubase and other brands.

[Timmy Crowne]

I agree with the opinion that Reason needs sequencer, workflow and GUI improvements more than it needs device updates. However, I don’t think backwards-compatibility should be the compelling reason not to refine devices. (Perhaps it’s a sufficient justification that it’s simply easier to profit from new stuff than it is to profit from refinements.)

In any case, when the Line6 devices were removed, Propellerhead did an excellent job alerting us to the coming change. I don’t recall the user base falling into business-threatening outrage. When VST optimization rolled out, the devs simply advised us that certain CV routings could yield unexpected results due to buffer settings. Recently, we were informed that Kong may behave a bit differently because of the core rewrite. The vast majority of us took such news in stride.

These are great precedents for how this issue could be handled going forward. The devs could simply announce to us that Reason 12 will bring changes to certain devices and that it would be best that we bounce tracks for the relevant devices to audio, or else simply retain an installation of Reason 11 on our machines.

There are stock devices in Reason that many users have described as near-perfect. With a little refinement, Reason’s power and workflow could be expanded greatly. Many of the feature requests are calls for such refinement.

And with respect to strict backwards-compatibility, I have to ask how could I rightly expect to open a project file in 2020 and have it behave exactly the same as it did in 2004? Is that expectation reasonable in any other software platform? I speak for myself, but if I’m still tinkering with a song file from a decade ago, very likely it isn’t worth finishing anyway!

[Proboscis]

How about an updated combinator with extra CV inputs then, I'd settle for that

-Extra CV inputs

-CV inputs for the buttons

-More programmer slots - currently it doesn't even have enough slots for the most basic of what the device itself offers, being 4xrotary, 4x buttons, 4 x CV in, Mod wheel & pitch wheel - how the hell did they decide on 16 options, but only 10 slots per device ? Really poor planning ! This could all be remedied by adding at least as many programmer slots as the default allows, and a scroll bar in that section. Although if they revisited the features, I would hope they don't stop at 16, but add 20 or more. It's no extra screen space, and scrolling is already shown to be possible in the device list

-Since even their own devices have non-controllable sections directly (such as Euro's envelope rate and other things) the only way to automate is with a Combinator. So if they are making rack extensions that do not allow automation, why are we so limited with the only tool that makes this happen ?

-The amount of everything needs to be doubled ! 8 x rotaries, 8 x buttons etc. It was made long before there were so many more devices available

-The sequencer labeling of each control needs to show the title that the user gives it. This already happens with automating directly (ie if I automate Eng1 filter freq in Europa, the sequencer lane clearly says that it's Eng1 filter freq , but if I use a combinator, it's simply 'rotary 1). This is a terrible oversight!

-An option for the combinator backdrop to inherit the color of the mixer track it's linked to. I have created my own set of basic colored skins to add, but it's an extra step that I wish I didn't have to do each time.

All of this is the BARE MINIMUM they need to do. An extended wishlist on the Combinator for me would be

-Programming fixed position rotary points(for example I might want four positions of the rotary to be filter freq 15, 30, 80, 127, but in its current state its only the whole range between the lowest and the highest value)

-Buttons On/off feature option so that when one button is on, all the others turn off. Sure we can program this to happen (if you're left with enough free programmer slots) but the lamp stays on - making it impossible to know where you are at any given time by looking at the Combinator

-Independent Master Gain Control as default, since the only way to do this is to blow a precious rotary that can be dedicated to doing so

-Being able to place a Combinator within a Combinator

Backwards Compatibility is no excuse for not updating the Combinator, since they can leave the existing Combinator as it is, and simply add a 'Combinator Mk2'.

And if they ever do develop a new Combinator, PLEASE don't take away the ability to add custom skins.

[Proboscis]

One of the reasons is that we want to ensure backwards compatibility. Creating a newer version of a device could potentially make your (old) song sound different or just plain wrong, and we wouldn't want that.

Sorry, you lost the right to use 'backwards compatibility' claim as an excuse when the Line6 devices disappeared, and Rewire was removed. Reason is no longer backwards compatible.

And Propellerhead have already set the precedent for newer versions of existing devices with OctoRex & RV7000 Mk2, so with some proper planning, or even straight out 'MK2' versions right alongside legacy versions, all of this is achievable. Plenty of other creative software applications run legacy features

[MrFigg]

One of the reasons is that we want to ensure backwards compatibility. Creating a newer version of a device could potentially make your (old) song sound different or just plain wrong, and we wouldn't want that.

Sorry, you lost the right to use 'backwards compatibility' claim as an excuse when the Line6 devices disappeared, and Rewire was removed. Reason is no longer backwards compatible.

And Propellerhead have already set the precedent for newer versions of existing devices with OctoRex & RV7000 Mk2, so with some proper planning, or even straight out 'MK2' versions right alongside legacy versions, all of this is achievable. Plenty of other creative software applications run legacy features

Could they update the devices within Reason and supply the older versions of the devices as free REs to those who wished to use them for earlier songs?

[scratchnsnifff]

Will we ever get Thor 2.0/other stock synth updates???

[moneykube]

what is your plan for vst replacing rewire- updates... (is your idea of vst somehow the reason of rewire being terminated?)

[orthodox]

Will we ever get Thor 2.0/other stock synth updates???

If I ever had an idea to make a better Thor RE, I would have stopped myself, because I wouldn't be able to sell it. Unless I was a Thor fan making stuff for free. Everyone has known it for so long. A new synth has more chances to gain popularity. The same goes for other old devices.

[Proboscis]

Could they update the devices within Reason and supply the older versions of the devices as free REs to those who wished to use them for earlier songs?

I've no conception of what is required code wise, but I imagine RE and hardcoded devices are two different beats. Why have them build a whole new RE for existing devices, and a second one for the revised version ? Surely it would be less work to simply add to whatever code exists to create a new version, call it MK2, and the older version indexed to a location called 'legacy devices'

Anyway it's a moot point, because in my heart I truly believe that they will NEVER update the Combinator, or any other existing devices. They seem incapable of even updating the GUI with high resolution graphics. It wouldn't surprise me if it was written in such an obscure, messy manner that nobody even knows how to do anything without it becoming a major rebuild project.

Alas, the music making will go on, and Reason will become more and more outdated as the years progress. Since the new 'Rack as a Plugin', there's no impetus for people (especially new users) to actually ever use Reason as a DAW, and instead it will become "Reason - The Super Mega Huge VST". As a buy in proposition, $400 is a great price for so many tools that can be used in other DAWs, with probably the largest range of third party instruments/FX/utilitues, all under one authorization umbrella. And the unique selling proposition of the 'back of the rack' concept.

Which leads me to another question I would ask. How many new Reasoner's have bought in since Reason 11, and are more people using it as standalone DAW or as a plugin ? Of all the forum posts I'm reading I don't tend to see more than a handful of posters identifying as being new to the platform.