PROPELLERHEAD Reason 2.5 (Windows/Macintosh)

Rating:
Summary: lots of music for the money
Review: I just started on reason 2.5 about a month ago, and once you make it over the learning curve (which isnt long) you have an incredible tool at your disposal!
Super fun and user friendly reason 2.5 comes stock with great ingredients to get started right away. Once you get the hang of it there are really infinite possibilities as you can edit sounds in all instruments as well as apply great effects, and its limited only by how much space you have on your hard drive. While I can see some limitations, theyre on a very limited scope and unless your able to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and have unlimited time to build a huge proffessional studio you wont need to worry about it. Absolutely the best and most thourough all around software for the money.

Rating:
Summary: Reason 2.5 is my best friend right now !
Review: I use reason with all of my beats, i stopped using drum machines when my friend introduced me to this,check out my beats @ www.soundclick.com/exsagent to see what reason can do,holla back

Rating:
Summary: This is a Really Good Thing of Software stuff!
Review: I used this program in my Electronic Music class. I really enjoyed it. It wasn't super difficult to use once I got used to using it. And it was really fun. If it wasn't soooo expensive I would buy it. But oh well...maybe someday (i need a freakin keyboarder too!).

Rating:
Summary: This is a Really Good Thing of Software stuff!
Review: I used this program in my Electronic Music class. I really enjoyed it. It wasn't super difficult to use once I got used to using it. And it was really fun. If it wasn't soooo expensive I would buy it. But oh well...maybe someday (i need a freakin keyboarder too!).

Rating:
Summary: if
Review: kid606 uses this then it must be good. and if i'm mistaken oops /=

Rating:
Summary: What a virtual studio should be like
Review: Reason 2.5 is the most intuitive music composition software available, particularly due to the fact that it emulates music hardware rather than work like software. Those who are familiar with such hardware will recognize many of the tools: mixer, samplers, synths, drum machine, and effects devices. You can organize these devices on a virtual rack. Press the Tab key and it flips to the back of the rack, showing all the inputs/outputs, gates and cables, as if you were looking at the back of actual hardware. Simply amazing.

When one can buy Reason for less than $400, it's hard to justify the hardware route costing perhaps ten grand (FYI: an even better bargain is the Reason 2.5 / M-Audio Ozone keyboard package for around $430). In other words, the program is tremendous value for money, and combined with Pro Tools, has the potential to produce professional-quality sound. Furthermore, Reason allows the user to focus on making music, rather than wasting time moving around hardware and physically reconnecting them. You can test various ideas quickly (e.g. try out different effects) since you can hook up devices without leaving your seat.

Reason also has a great sequencer, which logically converts the temporal nature of music into visual, spatial data. The sequencer should therefore be readily accessible for people who have basic experience with graphics software (e.g. Illustrator, CAD) and easy to learn for those who don't.

The one thing you can't do with Reason is take samples/loops from existing songs. For instance, I can't lift a section off a Metallica guitar solo or Mozart string quartet or whatever and create a new pattern from that. To do this, you need ReCycle, another software product from Propellerhead.

The manual that comes with the software isn't great, but it's enough to get you started and overcome the not-so-steep learning curve to start making songs. Actually, this is the first of a few learning curves and down the road one should invest in a real manual to help refine the sound. As Reason has so many possibilities, it's best to concentrate on the song and sounds you want to make rather than get bogged down by the endless combinations of devices and control settings. After all, you probably wouldn't be considering this product if you didn't have a few specific musical ideas stuck in your head.

Rating:
Summary: What a virtual studio should be like
Review: Reason 2.5 is the most intuitive music composition software available, particularly due to the fact that it emulates music hardware rather than work like software. Those who are familiar with such hardware will recognize many of the tools: mixer, samplers, synths, drum machine, and effects devices. You can organize these devices on a virtual rack. Press the Tab key and it flips to the back of the rack, showing all the inputs/outputs, gates and cables, as if you were looking at the back of actual hardware. Simply amazing.

When one can buy Reason for less than $400, it's hard to justify the hardware route costing perhaps ten grand (FYI: an even better bargain is the Reason 2.5 / M-Audio Ozone keyboard package for around $430). In other words, the program is tremendous value for money, and combined with Pro Tools, has the potential to produce professional-quality sound. Furthermore, Reason allows the user to focus on making music, rather than wasting time moving around hardware and physically reconnecting them. You can test various ideas quickly (e.g. try out different effects) since you can hook up devices without leaving your seat.

Reason also has a great sequencer, which logically converts the temporal nature of music into visual, spatial data. The sequencer should therefore be readily accessible for people who have basic experience with graphics software (e.g. Illustrator, CAD) and easy to learn for those who don't.

The one thing you can't do with Reason is take samples/loops from existing songs. For instance, I can't lift a section off a Metallica guitar solo or Mozart string quartet or whatever and create a new pattern from that. To do this, you need ReCycle, another software product from Propellerhead.

The manual that comes with the software isn't great, but it's enough to get you started and overcome the not-so-steep learning curve to start making songs. Actually, this is the first of a few learning curves and down the road one should invest in a real manual to help refine the sound. As Reason has so many possibilities, it's best to concentrate on the song and sounds you want to make rather than get bogged down by the endless combinations of devices and control settings. After all, you probably wouldn't be considering this product if you didn't have a few specific musical ideas stuck in your head.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding - but with limitations
Review: This is an outstanding piece of software, no doubt about that. I just want to point out one limitation you should be aware of : Reason 2.5 does NOT allow audio recording and - as you can read on Propellerhead's homepage - version 3 will not allow it either.
In order to record (and mix) audio tracks associated with a Reason project, you'll need a Rewire compatible program (like newer versions of SONAR and Cubase) that will run Reason as a slave unit.
However, the Rewire function is a part of the Reason package and it works nicely. As everything else.

Rating:
Summary: Versatile Music Composition Tool
Review: What is Reason? It's a software replica of a recording studio that includes mixers, samplers, synths, and a plethora of effects devices. It's a processor hog, so be sure you get the fastest computer you can afford to run this bugger. It's easy to use, intuitive, and the sounds are first class. The users manual could stand some improvement, but there are books out there that can help. It is worth noting that the learning curve is shortened considerably if you've worked in a "real" recording studio environment, and you probably won't plumb all the depths of this versatile software without a little but of real world experience.

Rating:
Summary: Versatile Music Composition Tool
Review: What is Reason? It's a software replica of a recording studio that includes mixers, samplers, synths, and a plethora of effects devices. It's a processor hog, so be sure you get the fastest computer you can afford to run this bugger. It's easy to use, intuitive, and the sounds are first class. The users manual could stand some improvement, but there are books out there that can help. It is worth noting that the learning curve is shortened considerably if you've worked in a "real" recording studio environment, and you probably won't plumb all the depths of this versatile software without a little but of real world experience.