now that this program was mentioned here quite a few times, i thought i should talk a little about it. although i’m in no way involved with the guys making it, i really like it and became a huge fan over the last years. the software is called ‘Reason‘ right now it’s up to version 4, the company is called Propellerhead and they did another fine release that goes by the name of ‘Recycle‘.

anyway, what is reason? when i checked it out the first time (version 1.0, must have been somewhere around 1999-2001) i was mostly into recording audio and did know little about synthesizers, samplers, drummachines etc., so it didn’t strike me at once. and it wasn’t until version 3 when i started really thinking about it, got into it, actually read the manual and another book on advanced tips, tricks and techniques (powertools for reason 3 by Kurt Kurasaki aka Peff). the more i used it, the more i loved it. and now, running on both versions 3 and 4 (depending on which mac i’m using…), i use it almost exclusively when it comes to music. i’m tracking audio with Cubase LE 4 (sometimes GarageBand), then import it into Reason and stay there for anything else.

Reason is best described as a virtual studio rack. you actually see the rack itself and even the screws that attach the devices to the racksides. so you start with an empty rack and have a whole list of devices you can create in it. first, there’s two different mixers, then various synthesizers, samplers, a loop player and a drum computer as sound sources. you can choose between a whole bunch of different effect-devices including 5 different master effects and then there’s little helpers like mergers and splitters for both audio and control voltages and a pattern sequencer as well as an arpeggiator. and believe me it’s all you need – most of the time even more. the amount of devices you create is only limited by your computer… besides the rack itself you have another window that shows the sequencer where you see the different tracks (of different devices) and can move slices, cut, copy, draw etc. – the usual.

you can create patches for most of the devices and save them, in- and export them to be used in another one of your projects. there’s so called ‘refills’ you can download from the net, lots of them are free, to get a bunch of new sounds or effect patches. you can copy and paste complete devices and, i believe, even combinations of devices from one project to another. if you’re done with a tune, you’re able to export it as an audio file or as a published reason song, that means other users can open it, look at what you did exactly, make changes but cannot export or publish it in their name. so there’s a cool way to learn from others…

but one of the most interesting features is the do-it-yourself-option, or however one could call that. with the push of a button you can turn the rack around and see the rear of it. now you might think in good old monty-python-crunchy-frog-sketch-manner: ‘now where is the pleasure in that?’ because the devices are created to look and work like the ‘real’ ones, with knobs, buttons, little displays and such, they also have derriéres where you see power cables, don’t open warnings and cooling slots. AND cable connections! that means you are able to make your own cable connections between different devices to create whatever frankenstein-device you want or even a feedback loop :-) you actually see the cables hanging around and even moving right after turning the rack around – that alone makes for hours of entertainment, trust me on that….

this is in my opinion what makes Reason one of a kind, the possibility to create any freaky combination of whatever your even freakier mind can come up with. yeah! the disadvantage, however, is getting lost in the sheer mass of possibilities is quite easy if you don’t really know what you’re doing. but on the other hand that’s quite common with other programs as well and for Reason there are nice sites, forums, databases with all kinds of stuff to help you out or help you expand.

the only thing i do not love about reason, and that’s really the only thing i can come up with, is that the rack-window has a fixed width. that means on a widescreen there’s wasted space, it would be better (in my opinion) to be able to make it the whole screensize. in case of a macbook for instance, the single knobs, letters and displays get quite tiny…

but apart from that it’s an awesome piece of software that should be checked out by anyone who’s trying to make music on his/her own. i wouldn’t want to do without it anymore and if they don’t suddenly start screwing up things, i’ll buy the next versions as well – guaranteed.