Plasmafarm: A Reason Review

REASON - The concept
REASON - Sound samples
REASON - Our personal rating

REASON - The concept
In spring 2000 we have visited the Musikmesse show in Frankfurt to inform us about new music machines and REASON. Please find our report here. Now, 10 months later we feel it´s about time to share our impressions with you.

Did we expect too much?
We´re not going to explain all features of REASON here, we´d recomend to visit Propellerheads´ website instead. As far as the Reason concept goes, it´s truly amazing. In short words: REASON brings a full virtual studio on your PC or MAC screen - including all elements which you can find in real hardware based studios.

Elements such as:
- 16 channel mixing console with 4 aux send/returns
- drum machine (TR programming style)
- virtual analog synthesizer
- studio sampler (Akai/EMU style)
- loop player (automatically adjusts the loop tempo)
- analog sequencer
- effects (delay, reverb, chorus, flanger, distortion, filters)
- compressor
The amount of devices you can have is just limitted by the CPU power of your system. In other words, you can have multiple synthesizers or samplers, effect devices and so on. If you need another sampler, just create it by a simple mouse click.
A hit on the TAB key turns the whole rack around. Now you can wire your instruments the way you like if you´re interested in trying out new things. However, every time you create a new device, it´s wired by REASON automatically and in most cases there´s no need to change anything.
REASON integrates a sequencer for easy arrangement and it does not have any special sound card requirements (DSP cards i.E.) since REASON uses only the CPU to generate the sound. Last but not least it comes with a huge sound bank including a bunch of sounds for various devices, loops (from dub to drum´n´base) and many different drum sets for your drum machine(s).
The concept is for sure unique and from what we can tell there´s currently no other application on the market which is even close to what REASON offers. REASON opens a new gate in computer based music production.
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REASON - Sound samples
Below we have put together a few little samples which show a few of REASON´s abilities. All files are stored in MP3 format, the file size for each file is less than 400K.

Example 1: Piano
piano-dry.mp3 (Grandpiano without additional effects)
piano-wet.mp3 (Grandpiano with REASON standard reverb)

Example 2: Subtractor Synth bassline
bassline.mp3 (with delay)
bassewithdrums.mp3 (with delay and additional drums)
Additional information:
The bassline is generated using MATRIX pattern sequencer. Matrix controls the notes as well as several subtractor filters.

Example 3: String
The next 3 samples demonstrate how you can control several filters using MATRIX pattern sequencer. We used a simple string and had MATRIX control the sampler´s cut off filter and resonance frequence.

The image on the left shows one NN19 sampler on top and MATRIX pattern sequencer below.
MATRIX can be used to control several filters (VCF, VCA, Resonance, ...). Using a string pad and MATRIX it´s possible to create a gated string i.E.

Each MATRIX unit has room for 32 different patterns.

Using the TAB key you can look at the rearside of your virtual studio.
On the left you can see how the sampler´s filters can be triggert by MATRIX.

Check out the following samples:

string.mp3 (with reverb and chorus)
Hear a chord without any filter variations.

string-matrix.mp3 (with reverb and chorus)
This time, Matrix controls the filters shown on the left side.

string-matrix2.mp3
Finally, this last one also use some of the sampler´s filters as well as a different Matrix pattern.
Btw, the creation of this "effect pad " took only 3 minutes.

Example 4: Dance track

Finally, here´s a little sample (8 bars) of a dance/trance track. All sounds are generated in realtime by REASON. No addiditonal 3rd parties effects have been used.

dance-sample.mp3

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REASON - Our personal rating

ReBirth was and still is a nice tool and it´s great fun to work with. However, it´s more a fun tool than a serious music production tool.
REASON however is definitely a serious, professional sounding, very flexible software. The sound quality is very good, considering the price it´s even outstanding!. We do believe that it is possible to create electronic music (Dance, Techno, Drum´n´Base, ...) with REASON, which meet professional quality requirements! And we´re going to proof it!

Did we expect too much?

No, REASON is way more than we ever expected!

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