words: ALEX BLANCO TECH Propellerhead Reason 7
SEVENTH WONDER OF THE WORLD
Can Propellerhead’s Reason 7 finally silence the doubters and prove to be an invaluable DAW?
only processing the audio when they are moved. Producers can either use a stretch mode or have the audio actually sliced, depending on whether they’re working with, say,
I
t’s been 13 years since the release of the original Reason, and as somebody who had only just recently spent a lot of money on
music production hardware when it first came out, I was quick to dismiss it as a child’s toy. Fast-forward to the present day and Propellerhead have certainly had the last laugh. So it’s surprising how many Logic, Live and Cubase producers still look upon Reason with disdain. Fortunately, that number is dwindling, and many users of those platforms now appreciate the CPU advantages of Reason, its stability on stage and the fact it has one of the finest and most seamless time- stretching systems. So, can Reason 7 win over even more of the doubters?
Probably the most exciting new feature in this incarnation of Reason is slicing. It seems bizarre that the company that brought the world Recycle (one of the original loop- slicing tools that perhaps did more to shape electronic music-making over the last 15 years than anything except VSTs) has never included such a feature in its original sequencing product. This has been rectified, as it has now been finally incorporated into Reason 7. Slicing in Reason 7 is effectively automatic, but not intrusively so, as it creates automatic slice points,
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vocal syllables, a synth part or a drum loop. Users can even load the slices into one of Reason’s sample playback devices and then re-sequence the MIDI notes: wicked. And then, of course, there is the ability to use the slicing in conjunction with Reason’s groove quantizing. All in all, this feature is long overdue, but it could hardly have been done better.
SLICE ‘N’ DICE Ever since its introduction a few years ago (in Record which is now combined with Reason), Propellerhead’s SSL-emulating mixer has been winning over fans as one of the most accurate software recreations of the
legendary hardware. Well, Reason 7 has improved it even further in two key ways. First of all, a little button on the EQ section now opens up an analyzer and graphic-based editor of all of the same EQ controls available in the channel strip. This offers a brand-new dimension to mixing in Reason and really lets users visualize and isolate important frequencies, and hone in on problem frequency crossover points between channels. Perhaps even more useful from a mixing point of view is the ability to form as many groups of SSL channels as needed in mixer mode with one simple command. This kind of group- processing isn’t just useful for setting up groups and processing them together, it is also great for parallel processing, whereby producers have multiple copies of the same channel — perhaps one dry, one with just the
VERDICT BUILD QUALITY
EASE OF USE FEATURES
N/A 8.0 8.0
VALUE FOR MONEY 9.0 SOUND QUALITY
8.0
HYPE Fantastic slicing, unexpectedly
GRIPE No new instruments,
unchanged sequencer.
Hugely popular with many but mystifyingly underrated by others, everybody owes it to themselves to take Reason 7 for a spin.
8.2/10 PRICE
Reason 7 upgrade: $149 Reason Essentials 2
Reason 7: $449
(fewer instruments and effects and no RE support): $129
CONTACT
propellerheads.se
versatile external MIDI support and great mixer improvements.
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