MrCookie,

one can read how passionate you are, and its an important thing for Reason users what you are talking about.

However, I partly have to disagree with your statement "i was right", or at least question it.

First of all R8 is not even out as beta yet, so we can only speculate about what is really inside and if props told us everything, right ?

Second, softube amps have been announced already, which means you will at least have two new devices as it seems (from Softube!). If you are not a guitarist, you may use these for saturation purpose - not a big argument, i know ...

Also, around 130$ is not cheap, but as you probably know, Reason gets major upgrades every two years as it seems. in between there are the x.5 updates which are free (have been many times). They also have discount bundles that you said you got! So, if you put it in relation to spread your investment over 12-24 months you can calculate yourself if its worth it or not.

All in all, I love reason for what it does and i think the pricing is not way too much beyond legitimity - props are not apple and can not charge the LogicX price for reason, you know that!

I respect you opinion and that you share with us, but please lets wait till release and check out before being too much concerned ;)

Personally, I am excited about the new version.

And to the Rack Extension discussion: they are expensive, but I like them. not perfect, but good! Problems such as porting a sylenth to 64bit will never exist in this format! new OS, more bits, new version compablility - all these things don't exist in RE format - i like this !

thanks for reading ;)

 

Damnit.. hadn't thought about that

 

You know after reading the strings of rants about what Propellerhead doesn't give for free and what Steinberg should have included years ago in software X,Y,Z, it put the full meaning of what a forum is: aside of everything else, a place to rant our ass off.
McCookie has done that quite well with his latest couple of lengthy posts. However, it also expose the real underlying situation between User vs. Software companies. Take into account this quote by supersharpshooter "If you buy a DAW all updates should be free for life, period." by example. I think all these software companies would argue and rightfully win the argument that they do indeed give you free updates. What they charge you for though is an UPGRADE, which should not be confused and describe as an UPDATE.

But anyway, putting that quote aside and every other whining combination of what we can't get and what we should get in a DAW, it leads me to think of some examples in music making history that are very concrete and absolute:
The world made music without updates and upgrades and without DAWs for decades. By example, there was a time when a physical keyboard never have an update (they didn't have firmware capabilities). Yeah! you could decide to upgrade to a newer version/different brand but you are getting a whole new keyboard, paid in full at the registry. And, no matter what, plenty of keyboards were sold and played on countless of hits 5 decades before the appearance of a (fully working) DAW.
The Beatles catalog is worth billion of dollars today. None of it was recorded in a traditional DAW environment. That's just one tiny example. This thread would not have enough space to list all the artists and bands around the world who successfully made music without having to wait for an update or stump the ground about what the upgrade still don't have according to their requests and hope.
Countless of hits have been mastered in Pro Tools in an era where it didn't have real-time bounce, yet hundreds of producers around the world made up fine before that feature became available. And that includes bouncing long soundtrack for Hollywood Blockbusters too.
Heck, there was a time when you buy a synth with the included 100 patches, it stays that synth with the 100 patches forever. No VST, no RE or whatever. A time where whatever the MSRP was, is what you had to pay. Not to say that it isn't better that we have more choice in today's world but plenty of people found ways to buy gears and make music accordingly without all the extras.

It is not to knock McCookie's rant down. We all rant about something here and there. However, it presses these questions though or to the least, express them out:
- Has the advance of technology and software ability have got us spoiled?
- Has access and transparency from leading software companies make us feel that we should have more active rights in deciding what makes the next upgrades?
- Are we producing as much as we sit around waiting for the next update/upgrade?
- We do realize that plenty of music are being produced in the mentioned DAWs as we speak, right?
- Have our creativity become tied up to what's NEXT and not what we already have?
- The proof of fact that millions of songs have been written, performed and recorded without a single computer in sight is not even a debate. So, can we seriously argue that because software company A has yet to include Multi routing B and Sequencer C, we can't compose and even finish the countless of "not finished yet" fragmented songs we have sitting in our hard drives?
- Our ever new belief in today's world of music that WE should decide on the pricing and worth of DAW, not the developers who put the time to create it. Isn't that a little arrogant and reaching of us? I mean, in contrast these are different but still, have we ever been able to price a BMW or Honda before it comes out? I'm just thinking out loud here!
- Wouldn't we go by OK if this Reason 8 release was in 1976, where probably $130 would be even way too much and only the elite producers in the game could afford it by then? Wouldn't WE be alright and still go with what we have?
- Some can argue that Casio had some of the worst designed keyboards in the history but also these same horribly designed keyboards (according to opinions) still produced countless of hit records. So, are interface and buttons placement really that much a distraction and hold off to our creativity in today's DAW dominated music environment?
- More importantly, what war are we trying to win? Wake up one day and fully happy that we finished 10 tracks in a week or fully happy that we wrote 50 rant posts on AudioSex

This is NOT being written as an attack or something I'm trying to put fire under, but rather a way to get some rational reasoning; I'm trying to understand the motto, the perspective of this.

Your thoughts are welcome!

 

for all the cash we spend on these virtual items that are located on a server and can be bought 1 or 1 million times, for no extra cost, all the cash we pay for a simple plugin, all the cash we pay for the updates, we fking have the right to expect MORe and MOre from these manufacturers. and we should be no shy about that, when talking about it, or submitting ideas or bugs, or calling the tech support.
we should group, discuss, analyse, argument, and express our opinions, our voice. because without our cash, no dev will survice. that's why i repeat what i said on another thread, we should fight to be seen like a valued customer, and not just a walking wallet, a pigeon, an idiot that just clicked checkout, and receive the AMEN from the dev, via email, to EXCEPTIONALLY let us use HIS program the way he wants, on the computers he decide, because, we are all potential pirates, not honest, not serious, and the police must stay near us, while we use their app, police disgused on an usb dongle.

 

no offense but it's not true at all, exactly this is why ReWire has been originally invented, mean to able to connect the different pieces together, and Ableton Live is a brilliant piece of software to do this,

I've posted a picture about it but then once more,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3VCtu80v2A

creating ideas in FL which is dropped in AL as VSTi the different channels in FL have been connected to the tracks of AL using LoopBe30, using AL to put the pieces together with its different views and Reason to put the flow to workflow , monitoring function in AL can be used nicely to able to change between the different MIDI sources (AL/FL)

Reason instruments can be controlled quite nicely with http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1587/m4l-reason in AL

(just started this song, so u can hear only some random instruments in the video )

 

I age with you.but..
But that implies having to acquire a second daw. When you buy cubase,logic, etc you're not like 'OK, now, I must buy X daw, to be able to do this and that'.

If you go Reason only, there's a gigantic world of amazing kontakt libraries, dozens and dozens of incredible instruments, incredible hardware clones, whether they're called UAD, native instruments, fantastic plugins, that you can say 'bye bye', and won't be able to use.

So yeah, what you said is true... when you have the cash to buy 2 or 3 different DAW.otherwise, all those virtual cables and virtual midis and drivers, on Reason alone, they're useless.

My humble opinion, of course.

 

I've got read, understood and sympathized with your situation. However, with that being said, I harshly also get that wake-up slap from it! lol. To put it quite straight and simple: I can't and will not get "rational" and "unbiased" answers from you or probably the entire forum on such a subject. And, that's all right and agreed on. Especially, if I'm expecting such a rational answer from a dear anxious and anguish customer who's heavily awaiting more from a company he invested in.
I think that mindset of mine in trying to have a "down-to-the-middle" type of debate about customers vs. soft companies, the state of the industry vs. the past can only be conducted with folks who doesn't own any allegiance to a particular software or are in a mental state of fighting to change the system; a system they feel is not right or give them enough; which again, I can understand and would not start an argument on.
I'll only be able to achieve that with researchers, people working in the industry and have backbone access to data. Wall Street type folks with access to numbers, stock and sell. Again, people who are in need just for the pure reports, the numbers and facts. Only then, I'll have rational answers and I'll be able to make a lot more sense of the current state of music production and its relation to how customers feel and function in that environment as of late.
Obviously that is not gonna happen in getting access to all that without me investing an awful lot of money to get these data, and another awful lots of time to compile them.
I simply tell myself out loud, it's not that needed...lol! it would be great to have unbiased, pure facts on this industry but I'll do without!
I think what I need to do instead is, spend less time in the forum and go back to making music.

Good luck and hopefully Steinberg gives you your wishes at some point down the line man. Cheers!

 

once again, we all have the right to expect great content on these payable updates. whether it is called cubase, logic or reason. and again, 130 euros for the V8 reason update, it's a true joke. i hope nobody will get it. but with the new browser feature, people will run and give millions euros to propellerhead and this V8.

 

I'm not sure if you've totally understood the direction I was going with my last posts?
Like I said, I was more trying to have a "RATIONAL" debate on this, but that's impossible because it would only be possible with an outsider, someone who's in it purely for reporting the facts. Case in point, your last posts is totally another round of complaints and all opinion based, not FACTS!. We could go for years back and fourth discussing what Soft companies should do and shouldn't do but as long as it is coming from our own perspective and what we like, it remains pure opinions. And honestly, for me, at some point it becomes a waste of time, a waste of valuable energy. That's why I said it is time for me to go back to making music. Nah, seriously! :dancing:

I see no point of nagging about a few companies which choose to conduct business in ways that doesn't match my values and thoughts. It's not to disrespect you or anything but your posts comes off that way though!
I think the reason I have a somewhat different view on this subject is because I've walked in their shoes. I've sat down in business classes. I've been a businessman myself. Yes, I have priced product according to my own terms and sell to people who agrees to exchange money for them. Yes, not everybody could afford them. But, when you go into business, you set a threshold and a bar of how low and how high you want to sell your product. You market it to the specific segment of people whom you know based on research can afford it.
It is my ultimate choice and my choice only to offer my product free, not for someone else to dictate such. That's part of the power a seller have in business. The consumers can choose not to buy, simple as that! I completely disagree on the notion that I, you or anybody have the right to tell any programmer/group of programmers/business owners how much they should priced their work. Not rational thinking at all.

Pro Tools HD systems are in the thousands of dollars. it is simple decision for Avid: You either can buy it or you can't. End of the story! They are not going to stand around listening to anybody nagging about "Oh! but you could make it affordable for all". Well, buy the native version!
Waves DigiGrid is untouchable to most but the company already know so. They know exactly the average unit that they can pull off the shelves. Yes, products flops sometimes but a company gonna put a price tag they feel is the worth of their product. Flopping or not, that's for later results!

"reason is a special case: they are alone on their department. not supporting vst" Not quite true! Pro Tools never officially supported VST either. Avid had RTAS for a while as their proprietary extension technology then recently moved to AAX. Yes, along the years there have been many Bridge and Adapter work-around the situation but you cannot install native VST's in Pro Tools. I know so cause I own it for years and had to use many of the work-around to get my VST's in it. Yes, I do also understand that many of these RTAS versions are part of the package bought for the VST, so you don't pay for them in most cases. But still, there are tons of VST out there to this day that Pro Tools users don't have an RTAS or AAX version for them to use.
With all that said, with all the boohhahah over at Avid forums around the world, Avid stand their ground and never plunged. At the end of the day, whoever really wants to use Pro Tools still use it and you ever barely hear them complaining about XYZ VST they are missing. It's all a choice!

We all in the world see, perceive, and process thoughts differently according to which side of the table we sit on, our situation and how much stacks is in our bank account; Equally, what part of the world we are too. So, yes, I do understand that what I can afford and would not hesitate to pay for, is not quite the same for some others.

Anyway, man! just like I said in my previous comment, I sympathize with you on many level; Many things you point out, you hit it on the nail. However, there are some other things also that I don't agree with because they are opinions, not facts and not rational thinking (which WE ALL DO as human being anyway *yes* ). And, on those, I'll just agree to disagree and move on. Well, as human being sometimes we just see different on certain things, right?
For me, there is a clearer path to this or at least one I'm trying to put together for my own sake: Less complaints, more work! That's the motto I'm currently living by.

Again, good luck on everything!

 

just received an email from propellehead, a regular newsletter.

to remind me/owners that version 8 is coming and...

a new guitar plugin got released today, 21 august.


a 99$ RE