Reason 5 is here. VIDEO Feat. Hank Shocklee and others...

Boomshanka wrote:YO REASONS IS WACKED SON

Lmao.

reason always had dope sounds but i neva got into dr rex and could neva get my drums placed right but with kong thats serious

Dr Rex took some getting used to, im still getting to know it. I like what it does with recycle chops. I gotta get my hands on 5. Trying to buy a house and sneaking a few hundreds past the guards is rough these days lol

I used to reach for the Rex player when inspiration was running low, as I could always find something worth bouncing into Cubase with it.

Coz wrote:I used to reach for the Rex player when inspiration was running low, as I could always find something worth bouncing into Cubase with it.

+ 1.

yeah reason is nice, this one for sure looks good. Without rewire though, reason would not be worth it I dont think... but who knows with record.


as for logic>reason... who cares. They are different products. apple computers<orange guitar amps.

Reason has had a bad rep over the years, personally I love it. Coupled with Record it's the bollox IMO

Some Record 1.5 stuff

Peff's demo of Blocks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6b9jwJqkqU

Audio to CV with Neptune
http://www.peff.com/journal/2010/08/25/neptune-audio-to-cvgate-combi/

I've been playing with the demo for a while and to me Kong is pretty dope. Kong does not make anything else that's out there obsolete but it has some very cool functionality on offer. It works great with the 2 pad controllers I tried out of the box also, once Reason detected them. I wasn't impressed by most of Kong's effects (indeed not the Transient Shaper and the Roland Space Echo emulations) but the generators themselves are pretty cool. I spent a good amount of idle time **** with the Rattler FX module and the basic FX module aptly named "Noise"...yes, just Noise. As always I didn't like the Overdrive FX module, but I've also never been a fan of Reason's distortion unit which it seems harvested from. I like the fact that there are multiple gain stages (allowing more control over drum design) and routing options (see bottom of post). Pad assignment is quick an intuitive and so are setting up groups for muting, etc. The mute group kill decay time is not editable, to my knowledge. I'm still learning it but I do not see where there are multiple banks as on a MPC and obviously there's no time expansion/compression for samples. To be fair, in a software environment where you can use multiple instances of Kong with very little hit on the resources, banks are probably moot. I'm probably just overlooking it anyway though but I can see very little merit in even having them, so it's no biggie. Both the physical modeling and "analog modeling" modules sound a little like Roland's offering from their drum machines and electronic drum kit modules. The selection of modules on offer gives a nice range of possibilities...I'm already thinking about what fun could be had with the PM modules.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I was not impressed by Dr.Octrorex at all. The Nurse REX module inside of Kong, for it's uses in the context of a pad, impressed me more than the big octo version. I can see where it's an improvement from the old Dr.Rex but when I first saw it on the Propellerhead site I instantly thought, "So this will be RMX for Reason?! Hell yeah!". From what I see so far though it's really geared toward not having to use multiple Dr.Rex players but not really for playing, combining, or mashing the loops all at once (see below for back panel). It's cool but I'm sure you can see how it's far from what I was thinking, unless of course I missed something. Once I got over that initial let down though I came appreciate at least what it's designed to do and in that manner there is an improvement.

The input monitoring and sampling input shit seems pretty well thought out, though obviously a lot of things in more powerful gear are left out. The sample editing facilities are basic, but useful. Where the sampling thing really comes to the fore is regarding something that it isn't even being marketed heavily regarding and that's the sample management facilities in the pull out. This pullout (Tools menu) allows you to contextually drill down into a hierarchical menu and navigate through the sample contents of each of your sample loading enable devices (think column view on Mac OSX or the Folders sidebar thing in Windows). From there you can edit your samples, manage them, and export them. Very handy shit for Reason. I haven't gotten around to the Blocks features and stuff yet. I will try it out but I personally plan to only use Reason 5 as a sound generator if I purchase it and probably won't use it's sequencer. For those who already own Reason as their main tool this version will probably make you buy it quick. For those others your feelings may be a mixed bag. My feelings are still mixed but I'll keep playing with it. It's stable, it's fun, but I have to know more about what I can make in it before I decide if I'll finally add Reason or not.

Too bad there were no refinements to the old Redrum because with Kong now in full stride I can personally see very little reason for Redrum's inclusion except for compatibility with old projects. It's also too bad that the sample input metering, which is an improvement over the others in Reason, is not available for output metering without workarounds (loopback routing). Though this will be redundant for people who plan to ReWire Reason into a DAW if purchased, a higher resolution meter with such options would probably be very useful.

For those on Mac that have issues, like I did, with mounting the .dmg with Toast try using the built in Mac OS disk mounting or Disk Utility. I'm demoing it on a Macbook Pro from I think 2008-09 or something running 10.5.8 for now and it works fine. This is just for those who haven't tried it yet, those who cannot try it yet, or those who are just curious. I just enjoy making music so this is just my unbiased opinion not an opinion of an expert user nor reviewer. Here are the rear of the two devices...

Rear of Kong.


Rear of Dr.OctoRex


Anyone feel free to correct me so that both I and others can learn from my oversights, especially any concerning the Kong banks and such. When I have more time to spend with it I will see if those were oversights indeed, if others haven't already pointing them out. Also there are included video tutorials and a manual, which will definitely give you accurate and more information than my post...my post was mostly just my humble feelings upon opening R5 for the first time and most I was preoccupied with the sound, considering it for my own uses, and so forth. The demo is free. Try it.

nice post, and kong does seem pretty cool now that I see the back of it.... that type of multi out hadn't crossed my mind untill now

Cool man. I'm glad that the post served a purpose. Cheers.

Nice review cogswell!

Yeah, you only get 1 'program' on Kong from C1 to D#2 You can however set up a Combinator to hold three Kongs and adjust their key ranges. There is a transpose limitation that stops four from being possible. Which is a shame, maybe they will adjust this.
From C3 to B6 with the standard Kong mapping, you get extra triggers (3 per pad) so you can trigger one pad with two fingers very fast. The quick edit function is also nice, lets you adjust multiple pad settings in one view.

I agree with you about the Octo Rex, havent looked closely at it myself yet either but it's better than the old Dr Rex I guess. never been a big Dr.Rex fan anyway. Rex loops are cool but I usually load up single samples from them into NN-XT. Also with the audio stretching in Record the original use for Rex loops (varying the tempo) is a bit redundant anyway. I think that is one good thing about the new device, it's turned into a multi loop player/switcher rather than a 'mashup one loop' type thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4A2Y984nbY - Another demo from Peff - Octo Rex and Touch OSC on I pad

Cool dbz, thanks for the information and the link. Checking it out now.

dbz wrote:Nice review cogswell!

Yeah, you only get 1 'program' on Kong from C1 to D#2 You can however set up a Combinator to hold three Kongs and adjust their key ranges. There is a transpose limitation that stops four from being possible. Which is a shame, maybe they will adjust this.
From C3 to B6 with the standard Kong mapping, you get extra triggers (3 per pad) so you can trigger one pad with two fingers very fast. The quick edit function is also nice, lets you adjust multiple pad settings in one view.

I agree with you about the Octo Rex, havent looked closely at it myself yet either but it's better than the old Dr Rex I guess. never been a big Dr.Rex fan anyway. Rex loops are cool but I usually load up single samples from them into NN-XT. Also with the audio stretching in Record the original use for Rex loops (varying the tempo) is a bit redundant anyway. I think that is one good thing about the new device, it's turned into a multi loop player/switcher rather than a 'mashup one loop' type thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4A2Y984nbY - Another demo from Peff - Octo Rex and Touch OSC on I pad

yeah rex was awesome for setting up drum loops and re-arranging them. s-1000/amen style i suppose.

cogswell wrote:It's also too bad that the sample input metering, which is an improvement over the others in Reason, is not available for output metering without workarounds (loopback routing).

I was a little too quick with this one. This is incorrect. You can use the "Big Meter" for outputs and it is so simple that I overlooked it. Simply click the appropriate button underneath an output in the "Hardware Interface" instead of a sampling input, and it's that easy -- no need for loopbacks or anything.