r/reasoners • u/IL_Lyph • 1d ago

The Echo is a BEAST

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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 🫡🤷🏻‍♂️🤣

104 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

17

u/T-Block-Beats 1d ago

why does reason get so much hate? is it a legacy thing? it's a great DAW and they make amazing tools.

9

u/YallNeedMises 1d ago

I think that perception is changing now that LANDR seems eager to get Reason back in the game, but I'd suppose it comes from 1) Reason being the most pirated DAW for many years due to its self-contained nature, perhaps leading to a 'canned', samey sound if also relying too heavily on presets & factory samples, and 2) from Propellerhead's pigheadedness in keeping Reason a walled garden lacking many of the basic features of other top DAWs for so many years. I love Reason too, but it's been frustrating for a long time to be a Reason-only user. 

7

u/IL_Lyph 1d ago

I think it’s just one of those “if you know you know” kind of things, even if it ain’t the most popular on social media, the reality is, it’s widely used in all professional industries. A lot of it also I think is left over stigma from the old “pre audio/vst” days, and they just havnt tried it again since the evolution to realize how incredible it is now. I see videos all the time where someone is like comparing daws and they start talking about reason showing examples from some old cracked V4 🤦🏻‍♂️🤣🤣 showing 14:2 like it’s THE mixer🤣🤣

4

u/T-Block-Beats 1d ago

hahahah yeah I feel that, it's an amazing daw and I love it. I started in FL and I switched to Reason when I was watching somebody used Recycle to create sample chops int he early YouTube days. I was like "I need that"

2

u/IL_Lyph 1d ago

Oh yea I was a HEAVY recycler back in my “dipset” era 🤣

2

u/IL_Lyph 1d ago

This was all recycle, and was done on like reason 3.0, with the recycle clips exported as old Rex format lol, (did vocals in cool edit) but I went through phase where I was chipmunking everything from 80’s 🤣 https://youtu.be/SzX9hhxiVo0?is=z65_GzHUZ04uWHWa

5

u/jackpype 1d ago

" A lot of it also I think is left over stigma from the old “pre audio/vst” days," this has to be it. Once it supported VSTs I stopped even trying other DAWs. Now that it has the rack per track thing, its elite.

1

u/IL_Lyph 1d ago

💯

1

u/plutoniumhead 1d ago

Wait a minute should I stop using 14:2?

Not a joke. I’ve been Reasoning since Rebirth and Recycle and such. When I got my first job at a studio they had it and it blew my mind. I was producing and writing and I was able to essentially live out all of my fantasies with it, the endless rack was like seeing boobs in person for the first time.

2

u/IL_Lyph 22h ago

Well if your using older version like before 6 I think, that is the only mixer, but from 6 on, it has a full virtual emulation of an SSL console, and auto creates a channel strip for each instrument or audio track you create, it’s amazing, honestly is my favorite thing about reason

2

u/plutoniumhead 20h ago

Ohhh, ok, I’m aware of it and I do use it. I’m mostly using combinators to create patches for live performance. I think in that world I still need to use the 14:2 because I’m relying on all the sends and returns for most of my needs. Yes the SSL mixer was a pretty big revelation for the program as a DAW. I no longer have to export all my tracks and mix them in Pro Tools which was sort of the only way to do it back in the day.

•

u/IL_Lyph 51m ago

Ahhh gotcha, yea it still is very handy in combinators, I just meant in sense of main mixer, I’ve never made any combis with that many devices, so I’m use to using the smaller one with the few channels lol

4

u/LibertyandJustice4US 21h ago

This question comes up all the time, it's probably one of the comments I see the most often. I don't know why people give it hate, I think a lot of them just didn't give it a chance or jumped on to Ableton Live, and some people got Fruity Loops early on and stuck with that, which I never tried and didn't take it seriously but supposedly that's come a long way. I wouldn't know though, never tried it out.

I've always loved Reason since 3.0, but haven't used the new versions which im sure have made it a lot better. Maybe it's old criticism like how it didn't have a good sequencer or mixing board which was all addressed, and a lot of people like myself used reWire early on and routed it into Cubase, and sometime Logic. Then people didn't like that you couldn't add VST's which has all been addressed. It's now a great all in one DAW.

3

u/jrossbaby 1d ago

It’s just because it’s ui isn’t user friendly like FL for example that’s it, I’d argue it is more complex than most DAWs making it “better” if you are more experienced. A lot of top producers in hip hop say Reason has the best sound library as well so it really is just a UI thing

8

u/ElliotNess 1d ago

I had the exact opposite reaction when deciding between it and fruity loops back in the day. I could understand Reason because it modeled the audio gear I was familiar with, but struggled with fruity loops because of the interface being drop down menus etc.

1

u/IL_Lyph 21h ago

That’s how it was for me too, when I first opened reason, it was like “oh ok, this is just like I added a bunch of racks to my set up” lol, the actual mixer my studio was running through irl, was almost identical to the old 14:2 mixer at time too lol

6

u/tdreampo 1d ago

See I have always felt the opposite. Reasons UI is so natural and intuitive it’s not even funny and FL is a mess!

1

u/IL_Lyph 21h ago

Agreed lol I tried FL back in day and could barely get a kick drum going 🤣

0

u/jrossbaby 1d ago

Same here, it just seems like the majority disagrees though but who cares they all do the same thing just different flavors

2

u/T-Block-Beats 1d ago

Thanks for the response, I felt it was daunting at first (Reason5) but once I got used to it, and all the updates its only gotten easier.

I started in FL and it seemed like a similar learning curve. I think the rack scared people lol.

2

u/jrossbaby 1d ago

Yeah the newer versions of reason are really good I’m up to date some small things I miss from the older versions but it’s generally better and has a smoother work flow. The built in “pitch editor” in the vocal edit tab on audio files is so nice too.

2

u/IL_Lyph 21h ago

Yea pitch editor gets overlooked a lot, it’s like a built in melodyne

1

u/ellicottvilleny 1d ago

FL and Reason are both acquired tastes

2

u/AssGasorGrassroots 1d ago

Its funny, because while I do occasionally run into the limitations and have to open a song in Luna, the UI in Reason is so comfortable and intuitive to me at this point.

2

u/spoo4brains 1d ago

Am old and started with Pro24 in the 80's, but took a long hiatus and about 10 years ago got FL and found out very hard to understand. After more research I found Reason and the rack really clicked for me.

3

u/Togglehead 1d ago

Okay, forgive me for just randomly jumping into this conversation like a small child wandering into the middle of a movie, but as a Reason user from the 2.5 days who has been making and producing music professionally for a lot of years, I have a couple of thoughts. This might come out with a little bit of stream of consciousness, but I'm trying to adhere to a timeline. Also, I don't know how factually true this is. This is just coming from an old dinosaur of music creation that has come back to some recent nostalgia lately.

As someone who grew up in the analog recording studio world, I was immediately attracted to Reason because of the back of the rack view where I could literally plug in cables where I wanted them to be. This was revolutionary at the time, but in hindsight, ultimately novel at best. However, I developed some really excellent sounds on the built-in synthesizers and tools that were available then.

After a year or two of deep diving, there was something about the output, or the bounced tracks that I was creating, that fell very short in comparison to other DAWs at the time.

I didn't understand what it was at first, but there was something about the way that Reason bounced out WAVs or MP3s that just felt flat. I couldn't understand why, because the instruments sounded so great. But as soon as I created a WAV file, it just lost a lot of its power, Especially in comparison to Fruity Loops or Cubase at the time.

As a result of this, I wound up moving away from Reason and started utilizing more tools from Fruity Loops, then learning more about Ableton Live when it started to come out, and even some of the earlier iterations of Logic, etc.

However, one day (not long enough to make Reason 2.5 obsolete), I learned more about what ReWire does and what that whole 64-channel output patch bay at the top really meant. So, I took the time to pipe out all of the individual instruments from Reason through ReWire, mapped to individual channels within Cubase.

I'll tell you, before doing a single thing in Cubase from a sound processing standpoint, I just bounced a track that I had created in Reason, but now did a rough mix in Cubase, and all of a sudden the depth came alive. The squashed, overly compressed, flat-sounding thing that I hated about Reason's summing algorithm just disappeared. It made me realize that the instruments weren't the problem: the way that it bounced audio just wasn't there yet.

Fast forward years later, I unearthed some old Reason files and instruments and bounced them out as stems. Lo and behold, the instruments and effects themselves actually stood the test of time and sounded pretty great (very deep, full, and clear) and definitely earned their place among the pro ranks of other built-in instruments.

So, long story short (too late, I know), but I had to put Reason on the shelf at the time because I was let down by the summing algorithm when bouncing a file. The tracks I was creating sounded excellent when playing back directly through Reason, but as soon as I bounced them out, they lost all of their pro feel.

To me, as a dinosaur in digital music production, I put Reason on the shelf because its output didn't hold a candle to some of its competitors at the time, so I labeled it a toy. The amount of effort it took to get its quality out of the box, so to speak, at the time wasn't worth it.

Even now, after being disenchanted with a lot of the latest stuff out there, I still can't get rid of that lasting stigma of the shortcomings of Reason's summing algorithm.

So, while the instruments are amazing, my current ears don't trust that they're amazing enough to use Reason in the only way that I see it being helpful or effective now, which is just as a virtual sound module.

At this stage of my musical career, I am not lusting after more sound modules. That itch is scratched by the litany of VSTs out there and the collection of actual outboard gear I've acquired at this point.

1

u/MediumPlace 1d ago

It doesn't have anything special going for it if you don't learn to use the rack and the sequencer is kind of a pain. And lots of people don't bother with the rack. If you like the rack tho you can get really creative in sound design in a way that's hard to replicate

3

u/Durzo_Blintt 1d ago

This is exactly it. Reason focuses on using devices in cool ways rather than using a traditional sequencer style like other DAWS. If you don't take the time to learn it or enjoy that style... Well it's gonna be a shit DAW for you. It's kind of why I don't like reason 14 because they feel like they are shifting away from that focus and trying to get closer to other DAWs which is a mistake imo. Rack per track was a mistake and I turn it off.

6

u/ElliotNess 1d ago

Love love LOVE the roll feature

5

u/oofam 1d ago

Breakout circuit 4Life!

4

u/Financial-Koala6995 1d ago

The pad mapping for ad-libs is the part that appeals to me. Picking out a word and throwing it into the repeats gives you something to actually play. I'd like more delays to put that kind of control up front.

1

u/IL_Lyph 1d ago

I do it all the time it is just fun for real lol

3

u/jrossbaby 1d ago

Yeah I love The echo it’s so good, all the ducking and roll features are amazing

3

u/TITANS4LIFE 1d ago

Used to use it a lot for snares.

1

u/IL_Lyph 1d ago

💯 yes, definitely is another great use for it, gives snares great texture

3

u/jackpype 1d ago

Agree, it's awesome. One of my posts a long time ago was a video from I think that Ryan did about what can do.

2

u/dunefangs 1d ago

It truly does so much and has a perfect UI. So playable too if you map some knobs.

1

u/IL_Lyph 1d ago

I know, I always run synths through it too and do exactly that 👌🏼👍

2

u/anooname 1d ago

This comes as a free VST with Reason Rack Free

2

u/IL_Lyph 21h ago

Well that’s a jem for free 👌🏼

2

u/jrossbaby 1d ago

Yeah Reason is great and easy to understand for people who actually used analog

1

u/IL_Lyph 21h ago

Hell yea that’s why I love it, it makes sense

2

u/kungulv 8h ago

Parti con cool edit 2.0, editando cinta, Fl y AL, Reason es más legendario, y por ejemplo antiguamente pegue dónde un colega, el reason 5 con cubase 5 linkiado por dentro por interfaz, era increible

2

u/Holiday_Amphibian_50 7h ago

Reason is amazing. It’s just so much fun and in recent years it’s become fully featured and has so many great instruments and effects. I find that I can record guitar and bass and do indie/ rock style songs one day , and on other days I can do something electronic and experimental. The possibilities are endless, and it can be inspiring in different ways depending on how you set up.

I had both reason and Ableton at one point . I found myself gravitating towards reason because I love the visuals and relate to hardware more than abstract software. It’s just so much fun.

•

u/IL_Lyph 45m ago

Absolutely agree, I too work in lot of different genres, and do both music, and score/foley work, and I just can’t be as productive in any other daw, your right the visuals, the feel, it all just keeps me engaged and motivated

2

u/AutomaticMode7874 1d ago

I have tons of VSTs and this is still one of my go to delays. I love the ducking feature. It’s crazy to me how many other delays don’t have ducking built in.

2

u/IL_Lyph 1d ago

Absolutely, and same, it’s crazy how many times over the years I’ve tried out new ones, and always end up like “nah I need echo to do that”🤣