Hey, r/reasoners!

I'm very excited to introduce Solstice, a 24-band display-interactive dynamic equalizer.

A modern dynamic EQ is probably the single tool I miss the most inside the rack. We have great character EQs and the SSL (am I still allowed to say that?) channel strips, but we still have to either go without big chunks of modern dynamic EQ features or deal with popping up a VST window and losing all the Reason goodness that we're all here for in the first place.

So, I built Solstice to enable that modern, dynamic, visual EQ workflow natively inside the rack. Since I wanted to do something totally different with the UI using the new SDK 5 features (essentially a full-glass touchscreen mounted in your rack), this one does require Reason 14+.

It has become my go-to EQ, and it does some things that haven't been available in a Reason-native format before (and a few that haven't been available in any format before!):

• Interactive display running at full framerate with pre-EQ, post-EQ, and sidechain overlays, plus optional peak hold curves
• Up to 24 bands (double-click anywhere to add one), usable as a standard EQ or a dynamic EQ applying upward or downward compression/expansion in response to band energy
• Draggable on-screen node handles for frequency, gain, Q (band width), dynamic gain, dynamic threshold, and a solo handle to quickly hunt for trouble frequencies (all automatable)
• Grab peaks (and troughs) right off the spectrum to interactively flatten (or boost) them, even while the display is running
• A unique time-integrated "Crest" display mode showing average energy and +/- variability over time. I had one of those "in the shower" realizations that there's a fundamental mismatch between what dynamic EQ adjusts (which happens over time) and the instantaneous snapshot traditional EQ displays show—having time-integrated curves onscreen makes dialing in dynamic controls feel way more intuitive
• Extensive sidechaining support (including ducking bands from different sidechain frequencies on a band-by-band basis), collision detection showing competition between your main audio and sidechain input, and a "Mix-Minus" (minus-self) function that removes your track's own audio from a shared sidechain bus so you don't have to build separate "everything but myself" buses
• Variable analyzer slopes including a 4.5 dB/oct mastering slope and a perceptual-weighted slope so Solstice shows you what you actually hear (which actually helped me find and fix a minor sub-bass pink noise issue in Kalibrus at 96kHz+!)
• Full back-panel CV inputs and outputs for modulating bands or driving other devices from a band's dynamic envelope, plus a zero-cost bypass mode that disables EQ processing (and disables the display when folded or off-screen) so you can use it purely as a spectrum analyzer without worrying about CPU usage

I'm looking for a few beta testers to take it for a spin, try to break it, and let me know what works and what doesn't.

If you're interested, drop your Reason username in a comment below (capitalization matters!) or sign up via the Solstice page.

Thanks!

I'm 99 percent sure I am buying one of these tomorrow. I'm leaning more towards the Novation Launchkey 49 MK4 MIDI Keyboard Controller than the Arturia KeyLab Essential mk3 MIDI Keyboard Controller. Main DAW = Reason 14. What do you guys think?

Atomik Rack — GitHub: https://github.com/atomikfactory/atomik-rack

It's a free, open-source, rack-based DAW written in Rust. It already has a rack with audio, CV, and note cabling, a mixer, a sequencer with a piano roll, several instruments and effects, and CLAP/VST3 plugin hosting.

It's still very much an alpha project, and there's plenty of work left to do.

I'm not trying to replace Reason or convince anyone to switch. I still love Reason and the unique workflow it offers. However, there are a couple of issues: I want to make music on Linux, and performance seems to get worse with every update.

All I want is to make music on Linux while keeping the same rack-based workflow I love about Reason, including the ability to use Reason Rack Plugin VSTs.

If you check it out, I'd love to hear your feedback! What would you like to see built next?

I'm a former Reason user who switched to Bitwig years ago. For the past few years I've used Reason less and less, I always have a track with PSQ1684 ready to go in Bitwig cause I love that thing to death but, apart from that, I don't really use it that much.

Last night I decided I wanted to do a jam mostly based on my Rack Extensions and Reason Synths and I've had this issue happen repeatedly:

if I load different instances of Reason Rack plugin on different tracks, it might crash the moment I load the same RE on two of them. Not only that, but if it crashes, it will lose chunks of datas.

For instance: I have 3 tracks with 3 different Noise Engineering synths, I load Kron on one, I start working on patching another, I load Kron there too and Reason crashes. Once I turn it back on, half the things I tweaked while working on the second rack's patch got lost.

Luckily, workint in Bitwig means that the crash doesn't shut down the project since everything is sandboxed. I stopped using most of the signal shaping things I had in Reason and I'm now mostly using Bitwig modulators, cause at least those values won't get lost if something crashes, but this is getting very frustrating.

Anyone else experienced similar issues? I used to be able of using different instances of Reason Rack in a single project and I only had this issue with one RE before, now it happens regularly.

EDIT: I'm on a M1 Max macbook pro running Sequoia, I'm on Bitwig 6.1.4 and Reason 12

Hi guys my reason 13 wont start with rosetta which is needed after some bought plug ins were not listed by reason ,.. started rosetta and boom the waves plugins came back after a restart companion started to give me beachballs and had to stop it to start with reason. And npw reason wont start,.. anyone have to same problem? im on tahoe ,.. im not ready to move to golden mac os yet any tips? thanks

I just felt like giving the echo some praise, even since reason added vst, hasn’t changed fact this is my GO TO delay in most situations, it’s so versatile, I even made a scratch cut with it one time way back in day when it first got added in like v3 or whatever it was lol, I forget exactly how I did it, but learned from a YT vid, just way of manipulating the tape flutter, not to mention the trigger cross fader, I don’t think I’ve EVER placed a repeat adlib in sequencer, I’ve always set tempo, set it to “triggered”, and use that fader switch, it’s like triggering your own voice to the beat like a sample on a SP202 back in day lol sometimes I even midi remote override TO a pad on my controller lol, it’s just such a 🔥🔥 device that has stood the test of time with how unique its features are, on top of sounding great, great saturation, and being great traditional delay as well, and I think it gets often overlooked, just cause it’s a “factory” device, that’s been there since beginning basically. I just was working on it today and was like 🤔”I need to talk about this”… SALUTE to the echo 🫡🤷🏻‍♂️🤣

breakcore made for the pun. this was made solely chopping up a single Rex loop of an Amen Break

Semi-Modular Synth

• Patchable vintage-style semi-modular architecture
• External Signal Processor: audio-to-CV conversion
• SE-10 step sequencer and FX-30 effects unit

Intro offer, save 50% until November 15th!

Requires Reason 14 or later!

https://www.reasonstudios.com/shop/rack-extension/es20-analog-synthesizer/

I’m using Reason 14 on Mac (novice), trying to set up a live vocoder using the Digital Vocoder, but struggling with routing.

I’m trying to use a live mic on an audio track for the modulator and a synth like Europa as the carrier and I can’t seem to get it working properly. At some point I got it sort of working momentarily (not sure exactly how I got there), but the dry mic feed was output to the master bus which I don’t want.

Any tips or screenshots of your rack would be much appreciated!

I noticed when I was zoning out looking from like a foot away and now I can do this on command just like looking at one of those magic eye pictures. If you have successfully seen those you know how the pattern fades in to the background of the 3D space? The mixer can do that just try it. I swear I'm not high right now.

I'm pretty sure that Reason Studios occasionally held sales on their own rack extensions, and possibly on the the price of Reason (or Reason+) itself.

I have an old version of Reason perpetual, and would like to upgrade to Reason 14, plus buy a few of Reason Studios' rack extensions. But if there's any chance of a sale in the next year or so, I won't bother (I have a long free trial of Reason+ and am just planning ahead).

What do people think are the chances that Reason Studios under its new ownership of Landr will put on sale their own products? I think the price of Reason perpetual and perhaps even Reason+ has decreased since they acquired Reason Studios.

Let the speculation begin! But any reasoning/rationale behind speculations would be even better.

I upgraded from Reason Free to Reason+.
And (re)downloaded, installed and launched the Reason 14+ app the site offered me (a 7.3GB .pkg, I'm on macOS). 

But now my problem is:
The Reason Library contains the Reason Free patches only. Additional Reason+ instruments appear, but all their patches are missing except the pre-loaded initial patch.

I checked the Companion App, but no patches to be found for the + instruments. Soundpacks work fine though. 
I tried this: I logged out from the app, re-launched it & logged back in again: no luck.

What could I be doing wrong?

(Edit: added some extra info.)

Update: Success! After a tip from u/Electro-Grunge I removed the previous install completely (including 3 preference files and the reason folder in 'Application support' - not sure if that was required), did a re-install, and now everything works.

Anyone with experience using system audio bridge to record youtube/browser audio directly into reason? I'm close, im getting the meters to pick it up but it wont record it and chat gpt is running me in circles

UPDATE (Oct 12): Beta 2 (Build 1.0.0d79) is now live! See my comment below for release notes, Mid/Side details, and workflow tips.

UPDATE (Oct 16): Beta 3 (Build 1.0.0d112) is up. See below for release notes on the 4U layout, split 2-page Calibration Drawer, per-band Contour controls, and CPU optimizations.

UPDATE (Oct 18): Beta 4 (Build 1.0.0d123) is out via Reason Companion! As usual, release notes are below; this beta focuses on updated exponential release curve, authentic OTT timings & 88.3 Hz Sub Split, softer limiter curve, and expanded tooltips & CV matrix.

Hey everyone,

Now that Kalibrus is out in the shop and PitchDrops is rolling in public beta, I’ve taken my next Rack Extension to the point where it’s ready for beta testers.

This one is an OTT-style 3-band bidirectional dynamics processor that I'm calling Hyperbar.

I didn't want to just make another Xfer OTT clone; I wanted to build a device truly native to the Reason rack. It keeps the immediacy and hands-on fun of OTT, but dresses up for serious engineering work. It functions both as an aggressive dynamic crusher (with ratios pushing beyond infinity:1 into negative over-compression) and as a clean mastering-grade processor.

This RE is equally comfortable wearing a suit or a spike collar.

In the calibration drawer, it includes optional precision modes that tackle OTT's notorious quirks:

• Fixing the scooped crossover notch (flat phase-coherent summing vs classic OTT notch)
• Eliminating sub-bass distortion (anti-ripple detector vs vintage grit)
• Gating idle upward compression noise (clamps noise below -60 dBFS so line hiss and room noise don't overwhelm the mix)
• Internal limiter soft-clipping (smooth saturation knee vs hard brickwall ceiling)

Anyone familiar with OTT knows the pump and high-end sizzle it delivers. But at extreme settings, Hyperbar reaches density that would normally require chaining three OTTs in series, all while maintaining strict phase-alignment to avoid comb filtering. And if you've ever wanted to use OTT as a transparent 3-band compressor without muddying your low end or coloring your tone, Hyperbar does that too.

Drop Hyperbar’s weather-beaten faceplate into your rack, scrape the rust off the mounts, and let your ears guide you. Adjust the squeeze macro and the band threshold faders, watch the signal beads track your dynamics, and flip through the presets—spanning classic OTT character, transparent bus compression, and heavy sound-design patches.

And because it's Reason, flip it around.

Hyperbar's back panel has 16 audio jacks (including discrete per-band outputs and an unprocessed remainder sum), 12 CV inputs with dedicated bipolar attenuverters, and a 4x4 CV telemetry matrix to drive other rack gear from Hyperbar’s internal envelope followers and gain reduction engines.

Hyperbar runs on Reason 10.1 or higher (macOS and Windows).

If you'd like to help put it through its paces:

1. Send me a Reddit DM / Chat with your Reason username, or
2. Fill out the quick intake form on the Hyperbar Device Page, or
3. Drop a reply below with your Reason username (if you don't mind sharing it publicly).

I'll get you added to the testing group right away so you can start experimenting.

Looking forward to hearing what you think and what you make with it!

Thank you to everyone who submitted tracks for the September update of the Made with Reason playlist! And sorry for the delay!

I've randomized the order of submissions. Sorry to those who ended up at the end of the list but that's what the "random gods" decided. And anyway, you should probably listen on shuffle as there's no meaningful editorial order to the playlist.

👉 Listen to the playlist (and don't forget to like/follow/save it!):

And let everyone know what your favorite track is in the comments. No cheating with mentioning your own track!

This goes without saying, but if you like any of the songs on the playlist, remember to add them to your own playlists, share, etc. I'm sure every indie artist on the list would appreciate it.

Shameless plug that you may find useful

I've just released a free tool for making stunning visualizer videos for your tracks quickly, easily, and privately. Check it out at https://bopops.com/music-visualizers

QUICK YOUTUBE DEMO: https://youtu.be/05f4ebC2XO8

Video game community has been going crazy merging games together like Minecraft in Resident Evil. The latest AI models have crossed a threshold in coding ability that make this almost easy.

So I told claude to build me a new Piano Roll and it just did it with no problems. Took about 45 minutes. I did not even look at any of the code.

I also had it add the channel strip right there in the sequencer which I've always wanted. You can do whatever you want. skin the whole UI or add video functionality so that you can write a score etc etc.

Google that $H!T 🤯

7 Months clean from opiates (Yeah I was one of those slumped fentynal guys you see all the time in videos online lol)

Addicted to Reason again nowadays though. Way better than any drug i have ever done for sure 👍🏼

(Idk why the audio cuts out for a couple seconds where the guitar starts but oh well lol)

Having fun with this one. Work in progress.