Reason 13 Announced- Sequencer updated!

[Artie Fichelle]

1. Reason has very good instruments, to name only friktion, algorithm, etc. And it has good Players.
2. To edit in Reason is not fun, here they should work on.
3. As an example algorithm is able to make the best sounding brass stuff, better than all contenders, but OPX 7 is much better in strings.

[jens]

If I am not completely misunderstanding him I think his point is that he stumbled upon indicators that appear to show that Reason's GUI code is rather inefficient and thus uses
quite a few CPU cycles instead of being processed mainly on the GPU - which seems like quite a fair point to me.

Yet I can run the same count of instruments in Reason 12 as I can in Cubase or Live.

This is an indicator that no matter how effective or ineffective Reason's GUI code is - somehow by some stroke of a miracle it behaves exactly as every other DAW. Which seems like a point does it?

How do you explain it then? Please not a gotcha question, how?

Personally I have no say on the matter itself right now as I didn't do any respective testing myself yet.

I merely said that I consider his point a fair one - I didn't say his findings are accurate, valid, final, extensive or even exhaustive. But may this be as it may be: I certainly think that this absolutely can be discussed/analyzed in a civilized manner without any requirement whatsoever of stooping down to attacks and generally hostile/agressive behaviour.

[Scotty]

This isn’t a pile on just an observation. Reason can’t see or use all the cores (performance cores only) on my Apple Silicon machines. It can’t see the hyper threaded cores on my 56 core dual socket x99 workstation rig or the SMT equivalent on my Ryzen 5950x rig. I can’t see how you can get the same track counts as other daws which can use more cores namely Cubase and Logic.And it does matter with some plugins which can scale well across all cores regardless of logical, virtual or efficiency type. This is independent of the graphics engine which is running exclusively on a logical core.

My Reason projects tend to be smaller and I rarely miss the efficiency of Logic or Cubase when making noises in Reason. I agree with others that further refining the editing should be the priority. I’m looking forward to this update. Hopefully we’ll see some steady development in that area over the coming months.

[spacepluk]

If I am not completely misunderstanding him I think his point is that he stumbled upon indicators that appear to show that Reason's GUI code is rather inefficient and thus uses
quite a few CPU cycles instead of being processed mainly on the GPU - which seems like quite a fair point to me.

Yet I can run the same count of instruments in Reason 12 as I can in Cubase or Live.

This is an indicator that no matter how effective or ineffective Reason's GUI code is - somehow by some stroke of a miracle it behaves exactly as every other DAW. Which seems like a point does it?

How do you explain it then? Please not a gotcha question, how?

Personally I have no say on the matter itself right now as I didn't do any respective testing myself yet.

I merely said that I consider his point a fair one - I didn't say his findings are accurate, valid, final, extensive or even exhaustive. But may this be as it may be: I certainly think that this absolutely can be discussed/analyzed in a civilized manner without any requirement whatsoever of stooping down to attacks and generally hostile/agressive behaviour.

I would very much like to have a civilized conversation. You say I came out as aggressive and I apologize if that's the case but it's hard to have any civilized conversation with you when you insult people every other post.

[spacepluk]

This isn’t a pile on just an observation. Reason can’t see or use all the cores (performance cores only) on my Apple Silicon machines. It can’t see the hyper threaded cores on my 56 core dual socket x99 workstation rig or the SMT equivalent on my Ryzen 5950x rig. I can’t see how you can get the same track counts as other daws which can use more cores namely Cubase and Logic.And it does matter with some plugins which can scale well across all cores regardless of logical, virtual or efficiency type. This is independent of the graphics engine which is running exclusively on a logical core.

My Reason projects tend to be smaller and I rarely miss the efficiency of Logic or Cubase when making noises in Reason. I agree with others that further refining the editing should be the priority. I’m looking forward to this update. Hopefully we’ll see some steady development in that area over the coming months.

I think generally Logic/Cubase will always end on top when comparing track counts at lower buffer settings. And it's because they use a hybrid buffer and run most of the stuff on the larger one.

That has advantages and disadvantages and if you compare to other DAWs that are more "realtime" focused like Ableton, Pro Tools, etc. I think the performance is very comparable between all of them.

[Scotty]

That makes sense. I didn’t test Live and Bitwig against Cubase or Logic. I assumed they wouldn’t do as well.

One thing that surprised me with my older dual socket x99 is it performed very close to a Macintosh Ultra 2023 running the same Reason only projects ( no VST plugins) Reason appears to leaves a lot of CPU potential untapped on Apple Silicon.

I think generally Logic/Cubase will always end on top when comparing track counts at lower buffer settings. And it's because they use a hybrid buffer and run most of the stuff on the larger one.

That has advantages and disadvantages and if you compare to other DAWs that are more "realtime" focused like Ableton, Pro Tools, etc. I think the performance is very comparable between all of them.

[spacepluk]

That makes sense. I didn’t test Live and Bitwig against Cubase or Logic. I assumed they wouldn’t do as well.

One thing that surprised me with my older dual socket x99 is it performed very close to a Macintosh Ultra 2023 running the same Reason only projects ( no VST plugins) Reason appears to leaves a lot of CPU potential untapped on Apple Silicon.

Is that using an up-to-date Reason 12? Could it be that you're running it in Rosetta mode?

I've never heard of that but also I haven't measured or felt the need to... So far it's working smoothly on my M1 Max.

[jjpscott01]

Just tested the latest version of Reason 12 on a 2018 HP laptop with 10 series intel i7 processor and its running really smoothly on this one as well. I just installed the latest version of Bitwig (5.2) to see how it compared and my CPU with the same plugins makes the DSP meter go wild. Studio one 6.6 isnt quite as bad as Bitwig on this laptop but certainly uses more than Reason 12. This laptop has Iris Pro Graphics embedded for what its worth.

[Scotty]

Yes the Ultra was running the latest Reason and it wasn’t in Rosetta mode. The ultra has fewer useable cores as far as Reason is concerned than my Dual Socket X99 , on this Rig, Reason can use all 28 logical cores, it can’t see all the additional hyper threaded cores it maxes out at 32 cores. On the Ultra it doesn’t see the efficiency cores. The performance is not sluggish. I just am just noting that Reason on Mac Silicon has less headroom than you would expect given the newer architecture. The Ultra does outperform this computer on identical Cubase projects . Tests were done at the same buffer settings but different audio interfaces as I use pcie based RME Raydat cards on the PC side and a 3rd Gen Focusrite interfaces on the Ultra. That could account for some differences as the RAYDAT is one of the most efficient audio cards available. Regardless Cubase did perform noticeably better on the Ultra, Where as Reason was only marginally more performant and I am being generous.

That makes sense. I didn’t test Live and Bitwig against Cubase or Logic. I assumed they wouldn’t do as well.

One thing that surprised me with my older dual socket x99 is it performed very close to a Macintosh Ultra 2023 running the same Reason only projects ( no VST plugins) Reason appears to leaves a lot of CPU potential untapped on Apple Silicon.

Is that using an up-to-date Reason 12? Could it be that you're running it in Rosetta mode?

I've never heard of that but also I haven't measured or felt the need to... So far it's working smoothly on my M1 Max.

[spacepluk]

Yes the Ultra was running the latest Reason and it wasn’t in Rosetta mode. The ultra has fewer useable cores as far as Reason is concerned than my Dual Socket X99 , on this Rig, Reason can use all 28 logical cores, it can’t see the additional hyper threaded cores. On the Ultra it doesn’t see the efficiency cores. The performance is not sluggish. I just am just noting that Reason on Mac Silicon has less headroom than you would expect given the newer architecture. The Ultra does outperform this computer on identical Cubase projects . Tests were done at the same buffer settings but different audio interfaces as I use pcie based RME Raydat cards on the PC side and a 3rd Gen Focusrite interfaces on the Ultra. That could account for some differences as the RAYDAT is one of the most efficient audio cards available. Regardless Cubase did perform noticeably better on the Ultra, Where a Reason was only marginally more performant and I am being generous.

That makes sense. I didn’t test Live and Bitwig against Cubase or Logic. I assumed they wouldn’t do as well.

One thing that surprised me with my older dual socket x99 is it performed very close to a Macintosh Ultra 2023 running the same Reason only projects ( no VST plugins) Reason appears to leaves a lot of CPU potential untapped on Apple Silicon.

Is that using an up-to-date Reason 12? Could it be that you're running it in Rosetta mode?

I've never heard of that but also I haven't measured or felt the need to... So far it's working smoothly on my M1 Max.

That makes sense, thanks for the details!

[spacepluk]

I was thinking about this and depending on the buffer settings you used in your tests the difference in performance might be caused by ASIO Guard’s hybrid buffer.

A fair comparison would require using the maximum buffer size on both DAWs or disabling ASIO Guard, and I think you wouldn’t see much of a difference in that case.

This only tells you if the raw performance is comparable or not. In practice having the hybrid buffer is very useful, hehe

[xbitz]

The beta test has started, please go ahead .. at least those who can, obviously.

[Jac459]

Sorry if I missed a news but any indication of an upgrade price from v12 (if not bought recently).
I guess no discount for RRP users ?

[spacepluk]

Sorry if I missed a news but any indication of an upgrade price from v12 (if not bought recently).
I guess no discount for RRP users ?

I haven't seen anything. People say that it will probably be the usual upgrade price unless there's an intro price offer or something.

[Jac459]

Sorry if I missed a news but any indication of an upgrade price from v12 (if not bought recently).
I guess no discount for RRP users ?

I haven't seen anything. People say that it will probably be the usual upgrade price unless there's an intro price offer or something.

Thanks