Propellerhead Reason 5 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Reason is definitely a contender to become one of the best DAW's in the future although it's my belief that there is still things within the package that need work.
In it's out-of-the-box state, Reason offers a variety of tools to quickly compose beautiful sounding tracks of any genre of music you'll be into. The included virtual rack should provide enough tools to make the average musicians ideas easily come to life and the sound quality of all the included sounds and effects are beautiful. Where Reason begins to show some weakness is when it comes to integrating 3rd party tools and using sources outside of Reason to create music. I find myself frustrated at times with the products paradoxical ease and difficulty. I attempted to use some VST and VSTi plug-ins and they were unusable in Reason, although they do give you enough in the Reason package to compensate for it's difficuties in this department so I got over it quickly. I also had some issues with Recycle/Dr. Octo-Rex and how it calculates tempo and found it difficult to get accurate BPM information making any imported sequences not sync properly with the rest of the composition and with lesser products out there like VirtualDJ, which makes syncing tracks with different tempos a cinch, this seems inexcusable. Reason gives me the impression that your best bet when using it is to create what you'd like in Reason and don't attempt to import anything in the process, then export your finished portion into a DAW that handles tempo synchronization and sampling better to finish your work. The most glaring ommission of this product is that you cannot use mic inputs and record your vocals in Reason, which is again disjointed because Reason does so much yet is lacking and I find it baffling.
In the end I don't regret having Reason and believe it's an excellent almost must-have tool in a musicians arsenal, however, I couldn't call it a complete DAW because it lacks some major things but I figure Propellerhead is working on it and hopefully Reason 6 will fix these omissions and flaws and make Reason the product it deserves to be, a complete Digital Audio Workstation.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Propellerhead Reason 5

Click here for more information about Propellerhead Reason 5

Read More...

Logic Studio Retail Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I use to use Logic Pro back in the day of Atari Falcon and STE1080. then i went to PC and used Logic 4.7. Though i never used the audio with it back then due to the instability of the product. It was easier to use a Mackie HDR 24/96 with midi clock to sync.
Before obtaining Logic Studio i was using Ableton Live versions 5,6,7 and now 8. The reason i bring this up is that i am now back to Logic Studio Pro on a MacPro 8 Core. The major reason for this change back to Logic was for 3 main reasons that blow away Ableton 8:
* Midi control for external and internal instruments
* Clean, Tight, Dynamic Headroom, clarity of sound. Audio Engine is far better then Ableton even at 44.1 (though i use 96k)
* for the price and what you get, this software is incredible!
The new features of Logic Studio 9 is the Flex and Guitar suite. Though i have not been impressed with the flex (perhaps because i am not sure how to use it correctly yet) the Guitar suite is AMAZING. I have owned a Line 6 pro and a Line 6 bass pro and this Guitar Suite is amazing if you run it under 96k.
The Logic Pedal board has a great slew of guitar stomp pedals that sound amazing and better then most other emulations i have heard. the distortions are warm and tube like, unlike more software emulations i have heard. it rips just right even with a guitar straight into the A/D and processed by Logic. They have a Tape Delay that emulates the Roland 201 tape echo or EHX Memory Man Deluxe and it sounds sweet and mixes very well.
The automation features are tight and crisp as well. Though it takes a bit more time to get setup on Logic for controller setup then Ableton, it is tight once you get it there.
User friendliness is not as good as Ableton but then you are getting a more PRO engine then Ableton has thus been able to deliver. In Ableton it seems the 'warp marker' technology seems to 'fuzzy' then audio in such a degree that the clarity is not tight. the dynamic headroom and stereo separation is not there. I was wondering if i was loosing my mind, but it is not the A/D Presonus firepod it was the engine of the Ableton 8. Once on Logic Studio 9, the clarity and tightness of the mix returned. This proving this engine is far superior to Ableton for a studio mix.
NOTE: if you can handle the disk space and processing power required to run 96k, do it. It will tighten your mixes amazingly.
Should you buy this? here is my suggestion:
If you run a Mac it is worth the cost. for what you get for such a pro engine and features and plug-ins this blows away the competition. At now version 9.0.2, the system on Snow Leopard is stable. very stable. It runs cleaner and crisp on snow leopard with the 64bit processing. It utilizes all the cores effectively as well. With the new imac @ 4 cores, it really could be a mini pro monster for recording.
If you own a PC, you can't use Logic, so you have to consider Sonar, Cubase, Ableton, ProTools.
I have not tried protools due to the cost of upgrades and truly to use it as tight as the industry standard, it takes a year for upgrades to happen after a new OS and the cost is outrageous compared to Logic.
I have not tried Sonar. I have used Cubase. the engine is clean though cumbersome to use.
Hope this is helpful.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Logic Studio Retail


With over 200 new features and enhancements, the new Logic Studio delivers everything musicians need to write, record, produce, and perform on a Mac. The center of Logic Studio is Logic Pro 9, which makes it easier than ever to create your own compositions. Produce and play nearly any sound imaginable with a huge collection of effects, instruments, and loops, including the new Amp Designer and Pedalboard plug-ins. Use MainStage 2 to perform live with the instruments, amps, effects, and sounds you used to make your tracks. Logic Studio also comes with applications and utilities that expand your creative options into audio post-production and mastering, including Soundtrack Pro 3, WaveBurner 1.6, and more.

Logic Studio. A studio on your Mac as big as your ambitions.

Top Features New Pedalboard with an assortment of 30 virtual stompbox pedals inspired by the classics.

Get 10% OFF

Click here for more information about Logic Studio Retail

Read More...