Reason / Cubase / Logic / Ableton Learning Comparison

S

SimonT

Member
Hi!


I've recently started using Cubase 5.1, and used Ableton 8.0.4 and Logic Pro 9 also. I have been using Reason 6.5 for 18 months now, and it is my main DAW.
Although I was shown how to use Reason by my tutor at college last year, for a good few months, I tend to think Reason is so much more simpler to get your head around. The part that's very mind boggling, is the back of the rack (the cable cv/gate/audio input/output wiring part).
It took me about an hour last night on Cubase, just to figure out how to open a midi instrument, select a preset/patch, record a 4 bar sequence, quantize it, and tidy it up a bit, then loop it a few times. Then got started on just putting a 4/4 kick drum on it. By that point I felt drained and mentally exhausted from it's complexity. Although I'm good on Reason now, as I've been using it 18 months, it would take me 10-15mins to do this on Reason. I lost motivation on Cubase. I find Logic complex as well. Abelton is a bit, but found it easier to get my head around than Logic or Cubase.
Anyway, just wanted to know what others thought. Is it worth persevering with Cubase and/or Ableton? I can only use Logic at college so I will leave that one out for now. People tell me Reason isn't professional enough, I think it is, but I'm no professional producer by any means. Maybe people say it isn't professional 'cause they're still thinking of Reason 5 or something. Reason 6 introduced audio recording (by combining the other Propellerhead software Record into Reason itself), a virtual SSL mixer (which is fantastic), and The Echo (a stereo tape echo machine), the Pulveriser (a combined compression, distortion & filter device), Alligator (a triple band gating device with many other tricks up it's sleeve), and the ID8 Device (Sound module with 36 presets:- organs, guitars, pianos, strings etc). Reason 6.5 introduced Rack Extensions (Propellerheads alternative to Vst's), then Reason 7 introduced Midi Out (recording external synths into Reason), Grouping of channels on the mixer, Parallel processing, Spectrum EQ, Audio quantizing, extra formats for audio import (AIF, MP3 and WMA as well as WAV) and a few extra things on the mix channels. It still has lots of workflow improvements to make I think, just to make it better, as it's very easy to use and edit midi etc in my opinion already. Apart from that, just a few little tweaks and that, but can't see what it's lacking.
With Logic not long since releasing Pro X (10) and Ableton being on version 9, Pro Tools being on version 10 and Cubase 7.5 (but must be about the 25th version of Cubase since it's been going since about 1989), by the time Reason 8, or dare I say 9 comes out, it will be truly awesome/professional, and I feel quite capable of anything the other DAW's can do.
What do people here think?
 
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It doesn't even take me 10 minutes to do all that shit in Cubase so it's definitely a case of you not knowing what you are doing yet.....and yeah a lot of what you want to do is going to be buried in what can seem like an overwhelming range of menu options or hidden behind some cryptic hieroglyphic shit that you haven't learned to decipher yet.

People such as myself who use programs like Cubase are often working at a higher level efficiency through the use of keyboard shortcuts, which is a major strength of Cubase, it's one of those things which requires some initial effort on your part which pays dividends later on, one analogy I often use is it's easy to just walk to school compared to assembling a bicycle but once you have your bike your trips to and from school become a lot faster and require far less effort.
 
I could do that in any of the named daws in less than 5' (yeah I know this not a p!ssing match but hey time is a factor here) because I am not having to think about the musical aspects and the audio/daw aspects are similar enough to make life easy (Cut/copy/paste having been standardised by Apple in it's Human-Computer Interface guidelines handbook so long ago now)

to emphasise hollands point - knowing the shortcuts and the musical background of what you are trying to do minimises the effort you actually have to make.

BIG HINT: print out a list of the common tasks you want to do and the shortcut key combinations to do them, post it above your wall and watch your productivity increase a thousandfold
 
The learning curve is a lot steeper for Logic or Cubase but they are also more capable although I haven't used Reason since 3.0 and it has come a long way since then.

The cabling is a nice feature, especially for those used to working with hardware. Similar operations in Logic Pro 'environments' are a bit of a nightmare if you're not pretty experienced with DAWS.

For me the in between option is Ableton Live. It's quite simple to use and routing audio, although no virtual cabling is involved, is really straightforward and easy. In fact it is pretty much designed for on the fly setup and configurations. It also has the best looping, clip recording function of any DAW out there. WIth a cheap $100 controller you massive control over clip playback (clips are samples of recorded audio or sequenced software tracks, etc,). It is somewhat weak on the layout view for sequencing and editing, etc. but is my preference for live performance and real time tweaking with mixing, composition, structuring, etc.

If you use each tool for the process it excels in (after the learning curve of course) they will save a lot of time and frustration in the end. Reason is fantastic for having a bunch of great sounds at your fingertips without having to spend a lot of time tweaking plugins to get 'that certain sound' you're after with an instrument or effect. So it's great for noodling around with a MIDI keyboard and software synths and exploring ideas. Ableton Live is great for putting it all together and making sense of it and Logic Pro or Cubase excel at final session projects (once a song idea is more developed) and mastering, etc.

That said working in too many programs will make it difficult to master any of them so it's best to find one or two that are the best compromise for your overall needs. For example I do a lot of recording single track classical guitar and small guitar oriented band stuff so I use Live for recording my ideas and working on new tracks and Logic Pro when I'm ready to 'go into the studio' and do a recording session (so to speak).

Another thing to think about when using multiple DAWs is that life can be made a lot easier by using a good plugin package so you have the same instruments and effects in your various programs. Reason is precluded from this need because it works great rewired into most DAWS so you always have your reason bag of tricks available in all the other programs you use (in basically works as a plugin package itself).
 
There are going to be certain things you will be doing the hard way until you figure them out, for example if you load in a drum map your track will now open with the drum editor instead of the piano roll whenever you click on it, so you don't even need to go menu diving or use a keyboard shortcut in order to change it over every time.

It's quite easy to overlook certain things when you come from another DAW, for example someone might be like "Cubase sucks, this was so much easier to do in my old DAW with the mouse" then you show them which button to press for step input mode or some shit and they are like "wow that's way better than what I was doing in my old DAW" I guess it's like people have certain expectations based upon some default way their Fisher-Price DAW was set up with whatever single limited option it has.
 
There's no such thing as a "factual learning curve". I've used everything from Fostex and Roland Multitracks to Reason, FL, SONAR, Cubase, Pro Tools, Logic, and back to Reason, lol. Each DAW has it's own set of commands and functions. If you're not familiar with the way they work, it takes you more time and effort to get things done.

Reason's arguably as(if not more) "professional" as anything else being discussed. It's all I use to record since my Mac update that killed Pro Tools and my M-Box. I've invested in alot of Rack extensions(CA-2A, tons of EQs and Comps), but still use the Master bus for all my finalizing and get better quality than i was getting out of Pro Tools. The comparison of tracks I've done between the two as well as comparisons to commercial releases my sound is now surpassing are like night and day. Probalby because it's less of an 'assembly line setup" and takes more work to get the best out of it. In Protools I just routed groups of tracks, Eqed, Comped, added a few dynamic delays on tracks with autopan to give my "signature sound" lol, slapped a denoiser, EQ, and limiter on the master, and export. Not saying it's as cut and paste for everyone else, but in Reason, I have to approach every aspect of the track, there aren't all the shortcuts made savvy because you hear them on 90% of the stuff on the radio right now. It reminds me of working on an actual board. And don't get me wrong, if Pro Tools never stopped working, I never would have discovered this, I only used Reason as one of my many ways to make beats, never to record a song. Wouldn't ever go back to Pro Tools now though.

If you gotta learn it, cool, but don't let anyone convince you Reason isn't just as capable of professional recordings as anything else. Most guys who say so just need something that will run their "Waves Every Plug Ever Made Bundles"and most people who can "afford" that don't know what to do with the tools provided in anything so they thing everything but presets sound bad.
 
For me, Reason is the easiest. But you need a good mastering to make it sounding "pro".
 
actually mastering is neither here nor there when it comes to having a pro sound

you need
pro composition/arranging skills
pro playing skills
pro sound design skills
pro mixing skills

to get a pro sound
 
bandcoach said:
actually mastering is neither here nor there when it comes to having a pro sound

you need
pro composition/arranging skills
pro playing skills
pro sound design skills
pro mixing skills

to get a pro sound
Click to expand...
Of course you're right, and I think everyone knows that ;)
It's just, even when your mix is perfectly balanced... Mastering is quite an essential process to highlight your musical qualities, especially when you plan to release your work, otherwise the service of mastering engineers wouldn't be needed (even though you don't necessarily need a mastering engineer to do that).
 
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