Propellerhead Reason - THE SOUND QUALITY

Status
Not open for further replies.
It is hard for anyone to claim that Reason has it's own sound quality. It has it's own DSP algorithms and floating point math which is probably different to any other DAW, although I'd say there would be some similarities with Cubase/Nuendo/et al from the Steinberg stable given that Rewire was first created to allow Cubase and Reason to integrate.

Purely from a perceptual point of view, the sound you hear has been altered by your sound card and speakers/headphones by the time it gets to your ears.

So, no Reason does not have a sound of it's own, any perceived differences are down to personal biases that are unfounded in fact.

Sounds like a great PhD research topic - "The Perceptual Inference of Quality for High-End Digital Audio Workstations". Would need to standardise audio interface and speakers and headphones for this to be a viable experimental series.

Oh, and as for sounding shit on your car stereo, ever thought that it may not be capable of what you thought it was???.
 
Tbh, there's no possible way you can tell the difference.
Take Reason pianos for instance.
They took a Steinway grand among others. Well, they took the top 3 pianos that are out there. Each of around, about and above of a 100 thousand bucks. They sampled those pianos with the best mics you can get at this point in time and the best pre amps that exist.
Now, if you play a piece on one of those sampled pianos, choose any mic setup you want, and turn that into a song. Now you say you can hear the difference?
Now let's take a top producer, say Quincy Jones, now let's put him and a group of technicians behind Pro Tools, and let him record the same piece of music on the same piano with the same microphones and pre amps. Which , wouldn't be that weird, as they went all out on the Reason piano refill and got , THE most expensive/best sounding pianos, THE best sounding mics and used all of them and THE best pre amps. The only thing here that differs are the engineers. Now you can argue the human factor in this equation but to be honest, you think Propellerhead hired the biggest idiots they could, to sample those pianos? No, they took pros and that difference in this equation can be neglected.
You're not gonna hear this difference.
Now theres a whole lot more to Reason than only that 100 bucks expensive refill. I can assure you though, that everyone or every occasion anyone has encountered the "Reason sound" is a situation where somebody handled the mixing and mastering who didn't have the proper knowledge of Reason and/or mixing and mastering.
Give Reason to someone who knows it and has proper knowledge of music production in all it's technicalities and you're gonna get quality music. The same with PT, Cubase, whatever.
Seriously, you guys can't stop bickering about Reason and what it all misses. Isn't it obvious that there are enouhg ppl still picking Reason as their main DAW?
Ah, **** this endless discussion on FP!
You know what, keep bitching about it, truth and fact is that everything you say tells more about you than about Reason, now ponder about that!
 
I would agree that both reason 2.5 & 3.0 had a lower, flatter level of sound quality but that has been long gone. There's no possible way you can listen to a track & tell what it was made on w/o specific presets being used to tip you off. BTW reason is as much for engineers as it is for arrangers & musicians so you have to have some knowledge of how to engineer & shape sounds in order to use it to its full potential. This is where the complaint about sound quality comes in. People want all ready made samples (which you can buy like Piano's mentioned in the above post). The flat sounds in the program are for those who can or want to engineer & tweak the sounds in their tracks.
 
If you hear a crappy beat made on Reason.... that producer sucked at mixing and arrangement.

If you made a crappy beat w/ Reason... you suck at mixing and arrangement.

If you can "hear when Reason is being used"... that's because the producer used a preset you're familiar with and didn't alter it or tweak it. They just used it rawdog lol. For instance, I'd been a minute since I've used Reason... but I know certain string patches by heart... (I think they're called Orchstrings and BigStrings if I remember correctly). But how do I know those patches? Because I used them to death at a time when I couldn't mix, and my arrangements sucked lol.

When I was using Reason... my music ultimately was what you would call "low quality". The songs had no real life. Why? Because I sucked at mixing.. and my arrangements were garbage.

If I decided to go back to Reason today, i'd make the same high quality music that I do now in Studio One. It's been said 100 times already but.. Knowledge is the difference.. not the tool
 
i totally agree with what you saying! I been using reason since about 08 and i couldn't understand why everybodys beats sound better than mines... sound quality wise. Once i start getting into mixing and understanding the job of the combinators and racks etc etc. Music is crisp,drums hit the way i want them to and i fell back in love with reasons lol For a minute I was trying to get into fruity loops but really wasnt up to learning a whole new daw. I have fl but i never use it. As far as vst's I must say they do take sounds to a whole new level but thats why reason now has rack extensions! sooo we wont be left out ha ha
 
Prove it. Tell me which beats on my soundcloud were made on Reason and which ones were made on something else

that comment kind of made me chuckle a little bit :pointing: I just enjoyed the 808 and dx7 claim... (two extremely distinct synths) Let me make a quick recording of my prophet 08 with TAL chorus on it and we will see if he can tell if its a juno 106 or not!
 
I use reason and have had no problem with sound quality. All DAWs are the same, if you spend enough time on one you will create music that sounds good. As Megalodeez said ^, if the music sounds bad it is the producers fault, not the software.
 
Last edited:
ain't no thang. I know when I hear an 808. I know when I hear a DX-7. I know when I hear Reason.

True. BUT...
I used to see through that when making mixes for distribution.
I gotta say, once yiu get a taste for what let's say Logic or Live sounds like, doing a track in Reason DOES sound like...not clean or something...low qual-ish like.
 
Every peice of equipment has a "sound". Wait...let me finish.

By "sound", I mean when the norm is done with the equipment, the "sound" is reflected in it.

Example: trap beats made in FL studio using the same sample kit is 1 of the many "FL Studio Sounds", you can load those same samples into Reason make a beat the same way and it will have an "FL Studio trap beat sound". The MPC gritty choppy sample with offset swing sound can be done in any DAW, but it is an MPC sound. You got the Logic keyboardy sound because people don't use anything but what was in the box and don't take time to turn down all those smothering FX, but Purity and Sampletank can give you the same sound I'm speaking of...it's still infamous with Logic users.

Whenever I think of that "Reason Sound", I think of that oversaturated/compressed keyboard stuff that sounds like a Dr. Dre beat with a bad mix. But thousands of songs come from Reason that do not fit that criteria.

DAWs/equipment are branded with a "sound" by what majority of users do with them, taking time to get a distinctive mix and thinking out the box a little will take that "sound" out of your music and put you in an elite circle that's just a...."good/great/amazing sound", lol.
 
True. BUT...
I used to see through that when making mixes for distribution.
I gotta say, once yiu get a taste for what let's say Logic or Live sounds like, doing a track in Reason DOES sound like...not clean or something...low qual-ish like.

Prove it - demonstrate with audio not words - in my experience the only reason one piece of software will sound different to another is if you intentionally use it differently - i.e. you don't apply the same principles to the mix and creation phase, therefore making the differences more obvious
 
Last edited:
Logic


Now tell me what's wrong, lol.



Again, that's not saying you're doomed to have a sound within a DAW, just giving a little push to differentiate yourself from the norm is enough.
 
nice!! what kind of r.e. do you have on your site?

On my site? I have no RE's on my site, I'm gonna upload some RE patches there at some point tho. But if you asked what RE's I own then: Polysix, Predator, Resampler, Tsar R1, Uhbik A, Etch Red, Echobode and the free Pulsar and Saturation Knob.
 
Where you get that organ patch? Sounds beautiful...

Care to share patch for patch?

Take a listen (all done in Reason):

soundcloud.com/secret-archives

sure its actually in the reasons patch organ under all instruments-organs, its called the b3, also some of the hammonds are good too!! and really diggin yo beats, you a genius!!! i gotta soundcloud too check out some of my stuff, which is also done in reasons lol

http://soundcloud.com/gold-empire-ent
 
Last edited:
sure its actually in the reasons patch organ under all instruments-organs, its called the b3, also some of the hammonds are good too!! and really diggin yo beats, you a genius!!! i gotta soundcloud too check out some of my stuff, which is also done in reasons lol

Gold Empire Ent.'s sounds on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

I'll follow you now. You are a beast yo! Your sound is dope and inspiring...Would love to collab in the future if possible.

Thanks for the info on that patch too!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top