This latest enhancement engenders a peculiar feeling of satisfaction. In fact, through virtual ports on your computer, it can also play soft synths hosted in other applications. The big ticket item here is the new External MIDI Instrument (EMI) device: Reason can now play and control your external hardware synths. The opening up of Reason to the outside world is practically complete with the launch of v7. Freebies have been rather thin on the ground, as opposed to the vast sea of gratis VST plugs, but you can download 30-day trials if you’re collaborating with someone and missing an extension. New Rack Extensions can only be found, bought and installed from the Propellerhead Store. The SDK is free to genuine commercial developers, and some hefty names have come to a fast-growing party: Korg, FXpansion, Rob Papen, iZotope and u-he are just a handful of examples.įurther control is maintained by distributing Extensions through a very 21st century integrated web store. This tightly written plug-in format is obviously designed to slot seamlessly into Reason, complete with all the established audio and CV connections, and automation control of standard devices. And I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of bending Reason devices to mimic particular instruments and effects.īut as of v6.5, Propellerhead’s attitude changed, with the introduction of Rack Extensions. I’ve always been on the fence: as much as I’d like to use my favourite virtual instruments and effects inside Reason, the ReWire inter-application protocol has usually been enough to let me link Reason to a VST-compatible host. This was fine: files could easily be swapped between users and Propellerhead didn’t have to worry about accommodating other developers’ code. But Propellerhead isn’t like that!įor the longest time, Reason was a closed system.

For a normal software house, this update would have been worth a full integer, and inspired a full review. To bring us up to date, we should take a trip past v6.5. There was almost nothing left for a Reason 7 update to add… except for MIDI Out functionality. Then with v6.5, last year, the wall came down, and the previously locked rack of virtual synths and effects was opened up to third-party plug-ins. In retrospect, the release of Reason 6, with its fully integrated audio tracks, heralded Propellerhead’s move to answer critics of its closed approach. After almost 13 years of careful and considered development, Reason’s ‘walled garden’ is entirely open.

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