Yesterday Propellerhead Software has announced version 8 of Reason. Does it fulfil our wishes?

No spectacular new features were added this time but the interface got a new and more modern flat/2D design. The browser is now an integrated part of the Reason interface with drag and drop functionality for devices/REs, samples, patches and songs. Two new Softube devices are added: an Amp and a Cabinet device.

The new amp and speaker models from Softube gives you further creative options when recording guitar or bass. The two devices come with first class modeling of classic amplifiers and speakers combined with a selection of great-sounding presets.

Softube has created Amp and Cabinet for Ableton Live 4 years ago. So I’m wondering if the Live devices are any different from Reason’s namesakes. Let’s hope they are because Amp and Cabinet are not the best sounding guitar devices around. You might have guessed this: because of this the Line 6 Guitar and Bass devices will be taken out of the Reason rack in October 2016, see FAQ.

Unfortunately some essential things are still missing in this update:

• being able to run Reason 8 as Rewire Master (in Rewire Slave mode Reason lacks all audio recording capabilities and totally depends for audio mixing and rendering on the Rewire host)
• unsure if the Clip-length issue (see my blogpost) is fixed, but I highly doubt it!
• unsure if you’re able to use two different audio devices for input and output (for example a guitar-device on input and the build-in device of your Mac/PC as output)
• no way to sync video other than to slave Reason in Rewire mode to a program (We want Reason to be a Rewire Master! We want Reason to be a Rewire Master! We want Reason to be a Rewire Master!)
• Reason can only run as a music tool, everything in the timeline is synced to tempo, but people doing video, radio-documentaries and audio editing (me!) want to be able to work independent from tempo using Real Time instead of Beats Per Minute, so I would love to have that option in Reason

And what would you say if this was available right now:

• a Reason Cloud Service for managing your songs, patches, samples and refills online
• being able to collaborate with other Reason users online (think: Google Docs for music)
• Reason as a subscription based program (please make a plan for All You Can Eat which includes all Rack Extensions!)
• a Reason Controller for iPad/iPhone which makes it super easy to control Reason AFK (away from keyboard)
• (your turn: please leave a comment for your future wishes)