Propellerhead Reason 5

Propellerhead Reason 5 Reason 5 is here on August 25th 2010. This is the biggest upgrade ever to Propellerhead's production software. You can get the full product details from Propellerhead's website but here's a taster of what's new in version 5. Also don't forget to check out the updates to Propellerhead Record here!

What's new in Reason 5?

Kong Drum Designer

Analogue synthesis, physical modeling, sampling, REX loops, support sound generators, effects, flexible routing, multiple hit types and more. The Kong Drum Designer is not your regular drum module. It's the drum module focused on letting you get exactly that drum sound you're after.

Kong has 16 pads and 16 drums. Build your drum sounds based on any of the nine different drum modules. Flavor the sound with 11 support generators and effects. Program automation, create alternating groups and let Reason's powerful sequencer control the beat. Reason 5 ships with a sound bank with a generous supply of kits for Kong across a wide variety of styles.

Live Sampling

Remember the time when samples were something you sampled and not loaded from your hard drive? When a sampler was a machine that could record samples, not just play them back.

As samplers became software instead of machines, they came to rely on external sample editing software for recording and editing the samples and the art of spur-of-the-moment creative sampling was pretty much lost. Now we are bringing it back to Reason 5 with its live sampling input.

All sample players in Reason are now samplers. Just hook up a sound source to the rack's sampling input and you are ready to start sampling. Use a mic, a turntable, an instrument or the entire Reason mix.

Blocks Sequencing Mode

Many musicians tend to think of music in terms like intro, verse, chorus, breakdown, buildup and so on. With the new Blocks mode in Reason 5 and Record 1.5, your sequencer does too. Blocks lets you sequence your songs using a more pattern-based approach, with the segments of your song as individual building blocks to be laid out in your arrangement.

Start by creating the discrete parts of your song in blocks mode. When you are ready to start building your song, just switch back to song mode and draw in what blocks should play in the dedicated pattern lane. Use one block for the verse and one for the chorus — or build your song around a single 8-bar loop.

Blocks provide a very fast way of creating a musical structure for your song. But the options don't end there. With the basic arrangement laid out, you can see the contents of the blocks and create variations and mute individual parts, or add further musical elements in song mode.

A typical use for Blocks is to create your backing track in blocks and then use the song mode sequencer to record vocals or instrumental performances. For music based around a single looped section, one repeated block with automation and mutes of individual tracks added in song mode makes arranging a breeze.

You never have to commit to using either mode - you are free to move back and forth between Blocks and Song mode, and any changes you make in your Blocks will instantly be manifested in all instances of that Block. Need some tambourine on that chorus? Add it, and there will be tambourine whenever the chorus block is playing.

Dr OctoRex

The upgraded Dr. Octo Rex loop player loads eight REX loops into one player and lets you switch between them on the fly. This makes arranging a breeze - load the drum loops into one player, the guitars into another and use the sequencer to select what loop to play in a pattern-like fashion.

With eight loops to switch between, the new loop player also comes ready for the experimental minded. Set the player to retrig the loops on the beat, on the bar or on the 16th note. Or program the loops manually like in the original rex player.

For each of the eight loops, the new rex player also comes with an expanded set of per-slice settings. Set pan, pitch, filter frequency and level, reverse slices, use multiple outputs, create alternating groups of slices and much more.

And much more:

Apart from the big feature additions, there are of course tons of smaller additions and changes to Reason 5 and Record 1.5. Here are a few of them.

Automatic Self-Contain of Samples (incl from ReFills)
Make your songs self-contained by embedding samples and even ReFill sounds in your file. Reason 5's self-contained song format makes collaborating with your friends a breeze. Even breezier than before actually.

Record Notes on Multiple Tracks
Reason 5 and Record 1.5 lets you use multiple MIDI keyboards, pads, and controllers for playing and recording your instruments. Lock a 16-pad controller to a Kong, and use a keyboard to play your synths. Or use two keyboards on stage for controlling different Reason instruments.

Scale Clips by Resizing
By pressing the alt or option key, Record 1.5 lets you timestretch individual clips. Now you can stretch loops to match your song's tempo, or expand samples to eight times the length for completely new sounds.

Mute Tool
The new Mute tool lets you click to mute and unmute clips. Use it to mute sections, or create variations in your Blocks.

Set and move loop functions
Select a clip and press L to immediately set the loop points to the selection. Use the new Remote parameters for real-time control of the loop points from your MIDI controller.

Tap Tempo
New in the transport panel is the Tap Tempo button.

Improved key commands for laptop use
Reason 5 and Record 1.5 works even better on your laptop – or any keyboard missing a numeric pad. The new key commands lets you control play, loop, record and more from your keyboard.

Hierarchical menus in Combinator programmer
A sound designer favorite, the Combinator's programmer window is now even easier to use with hierarchical menus for fast patching.

Additional CV inputs on Combinator
The Combinator in Reason 5 is expanded with new CV inputs on the back. The four new CV inputs can be used to control any parameter on the contained devices, providing even more options and possibilities for sound designers.

Updated Help system (incl Help on Mac)
Reason 5 and Record 1.5 comes with a new and better built-in help system, on both Mac and Windows.

Bounce clip to sample
When using Reason & Record, you can now bounce audio recordings to samples, so you can use them in Reason devices such as Kong, Redrum, NN-XT and NN-19.

Reason 5 updates
In Reason 5 there are tons of changes to bring Reason up to speed with Record. These changes include advanced multi core support, improved cable management in the rack, faster sample loading, on-screen piano keyboard, sequencer usability improvements and much much more.