There is a serious flaw in Reason 7 which is asking for a fix AS SOON AS POSSIBLE because it makes Reason less usable as a tool for audio editing. The solution is rather simple, so I do hope the Props will address this issue as soon as possible in the next update of the program. Not in version 8, not in version 7.5, but in the next “fixed bugs/features” update.

Let me explain the issue (maybe we should even call it a bug!) in detail:

When you disable Stretch (time stretch) on an audio clip the length of that clip will be changed when slowing down or speeding up the tempo! When speeding up the tempo stuff at the end of the clip gets cut off. And when slowing down some silence will be added to the clip at the end. This is a super strange method for working with non-stretched clips in my opinion because when Stretch is off the clip’s length should never ever be changed in length.

At the moment I’m working on a video documentary and I’m in charge of both post processing as well as the music score and sound design. I’m working with interviews and set noises which are mixed by the video editor. The length of this track should never change because it’s the exact length of the edited video and syncs perfectly with it. But when I opened that track this afternoon as AIFF clip in Reason 7, disabled Stretch and changed the tempo so I could write some music to it I found out that the length of the clip was changed. Damn!

It made me go back to working with Ableton Live 8. Which I stopped using a few months ago so I could fully focus on Reason again, not because I didn’t like it but simply because I didn’t like running two programs at the same time (which I have done for years and years on many productions). I was wrong, Reason is not yet capable of doing the same sort of audio editing Ableton Live is capable of. Using Ableton Live again turned out great since I was able to look at the video while recording my guitar and bass parts. This is also a feature, video, which Reason lacks.