Product Reviews

Swedish developer Propellerhead fathered one of the earliest and most successful software synthesisers - ReBirth. Its big brother Reason has been years in the making, and a quick glance at its specification will explain why. Reason is an entirely self-contained music studio modelled in software. The modular approach of Reason is designed to offer ultimate flexibility. It uses a familiar metaphor, that of the studio rack, which occupies the main window. Below this is the Sequencer window, with the transport bar (play, stop, fast forward, rewind and so on) at the bottom.

If you choose to launch Reason with an unpopulated rack, then the first unit that must be added is a mixer. This has 14 stereo channels routed into two outputs - your sound card's main stereo out, or your choice of any two outputs if the card has multiple audio output buses. You can add as many mixers as you require, should you need to exceed the 14-channel limit. The mixer has four effects-send buses for 'global' effects, each of which may be tapped by tweaking the effects-send knobs above each of the 14 channel strips.

To add sound sources, you simply select the appropriate type from the Create menu. If you create rack items logically, then connections between them are made intelligently by the software. Pressing the Tab key flips the rack around - and lo and behold you can see cables connecting clearly labelled inputs and outputs. They even sway. In this way you can set up complex patching between modules.

The primary module Subtractor is a monstrous two-oscillator synthesiser with up to 99-voice polyphony. As the interface only allows one patch to be active at a time, you will need to add further instances of Subtractor for multitimbral operation. There are 32 waveforms for each oscillator, allowing a wide variety of sounds to be produced beyond the typical 'analog emulation' basics. Propellerhead has even invented a new and powerful modulation option it calls 'phase offset': each oscillator can produce a second offset oscillation, resulting in an entirely new waveform. This technique allows the synth to produce PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) and Oscillator Sync-type sounds without having dedicated emulations of those features - plus a whole host of bizarre new voices.

Subtractor features two filter stages with a variety of settings - I found the controls very well calibrated for sweeping. All in all, the synth fares extremely well, particularly considering how little processor power is consumed. The sound is grittier and more digital than many VST plug-in instruments, but I grew to like the tone, and the twin filter design is great for voice-like formant effects. However, with a few notable exceptions, the presets supplied fail to show off the synth's true ability and lack many of the (admittedly cheesy) analog stalwarts to which we've grown accustomed. And one final niggle - the LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator) stage also lacks any facility to sync with the track's tempo, making rhythmic modulation a fiddly affair.

Just like the real thing

The NN-19 sampler module is an instant hit, similar in use to a hardware sampler. Firstly, you import samples (WAV or AIFF format), map them onto MIDI keys, either automatically or manually, and then tweak their loop points to create the basic sounds. These become the oscillators for the synthesis stage, a simplified version of the Subtractor control set and identical in operation. Compared with the painstaking work required to create sound sets for sound cards such as Creative's Sound Blaster Live! or Guillemot's ISIS, this is a breeze. However, the sampler doesn't support multilayering and is unable to import fully defined instrument sets in any format other than Reason's proprietary one. I have a complete 22Mb percussion set that has taken a lifetime to compile, and the thought of having to import all the individual WAV files (none of which has tuning information) and map them to keys fills me with dread. For this reason, NN-19 will only end up being used for new sounds, plus a handful of supplied instruments from the factory soundset, ranging from the sublime choirs and basses to the ridiculous guitars.

Next on the rack is ReDrum, a pattern-based drum machine that uses the trusted Roland step system. A large number of kits are included, although many of them forget to include vital instruments. Happily, it's easy to delve into the excellent supplied WAV library and create your own. ReDrum does

ADVERTISEMENT

what you expect, although if drum munging is your bag it may be easier to save the patterns as audio loops, then import them into ReCycle for slicing and dicing before exporting back to the next unit: Dr.Rex.

Before praising this unit to heaven, it's important to point out that its usefulness is severely limited unless you own ReCycle - Propellerhead's own loop slicing and stretching utility. Until a loop has been treated and saved by ReCycle in RCY, REX or the forthcoming stereo REX2 format, you are limited to the selection of 300-odd loops supplied, or those you buy on sample CDs.

That proviso aside, Dr.Rex is a fabulous creative tool. Once a loop has been imported, you can transfer the loop section information to the Sequencer and shuffle the slices around like MIDI notes, transforming the loop beyond recognition. Like the NN-19, it has simple synthesis functions that allow excellent sonic control.

The last main rack module is the Matrix, similar in operation to ancient analog step sequencers. Like ReDrum it uses patterns, but the outputs are control voltages for note on/off, pitch and sweep. It has no sounds, being designed to control other units in the rack. I found it useful for creating arpeggios, but if you understand analog synth modulation techniques, you can plug the outputs into just about anything that takes a control voltage. And as someone pointed out on Propellerhead's Web site, you can 'fake' tempo-synched LFOs using the Matrix editor if you have the patience.

Finally, Propellerhead has kindly included a ReBirth input module - this uses the ReWire multitrack audio communication protocol to pipe the output from ReBirth into Reason with sample-accurate synchronisation. In this case, Reason is the master application in the ReWire chain. Similarly, up to 64 channels of Reason itself can be pumped into Cubase VST 5 as a Slave ReWire device. Apparently, ReWire 2 will allow 256 channels to be accessed in this way. Full ReWire support for Reason within Cubase VST 5 and Logic Audio isn't quite working yet, but will be available in the next updates.

To process the audio from the sound generators you can create a selection of effects units, either as inserts for particular modules, or as one of the four global slots connected to the mixer. These are the biggest disappointments within Reason - the reverb in particular is ghastly, the compressor not flexible enough and the overall selection poor. On a bright note, I liked the Digital Delay unit, but for serious studio use you'll have to pipe Reason into a sequencer and use plug-ins.

Under control

Having looked at the audio creation and I/O functionality of Reason, it's time to consider the control system. The Sequencer is fairly simple, but none the worse for that, though being limited to the width of the rack is ridiculous. I loathed it at first, constantly clawing for my familiar Cubase interface. However, it's really quite nifty when you get used to it, particularly the way you can work with Pattern instruments (ReDrum or the Matrix) as either patterns or individual notes. To achieve the latter, simply select Copy Pattern to Track and the notes appear in the sequencer for editing. Alternatively, use a Pattern Controller Track to issue pattern change commands within the sequencer. You can even mix the two ways of working - using patterns for the basic backbeat or arpeggio, and adding punctuation sounds as individual notes where necessary. Sadly, the Pattern Controller Track within the sequencer is infuriatingly unintuitive to use - something for version 1.5 perhaps?

MIDI control is absolutely fantastic. Every parameter can be assigned a controller track within the sequencer, and automation can be recorded or drawn with the Pencil tool. I particularly like the way parameters with automation tracks have a green border around them to remind you that they have a mind of their own. In addition, there's a superb Learning mode where you select a parameter controller on screen, then twist a knob on your external MIDI device to tell the software that's what you'll use to tweak the control in real-time. I wish beyond all wishes that every single piece of music software did this. You can even use your computer keyboard as a control surface with a similar learning mode.

Reason is a massive achievement. It has a fearsomely efficient engine; I couldn't even begin to make it break into a sweat on a 1GHz Athlon, and it even ran well on a 500MHz Pentium III. Although the price of this efficiency is less realistic analog modelling than offered by dedicated plug-ins, the results are tremendous considering the benefits of the low overhead.

Despite being version 1, it didn't crash once, even during an 11-hour editing session. The sound generators are excellent, though in many cases the enormous 500Mb sound patch library fails to show them off at their best. Connectivity between modules is superb, and the MIDI control utterly delicious. I can think of a thousand ways to improve Reason, but to criticise it for this would be absurd.