A major update to this popular DAW, Reason 8 has a new browser located on the left side of the screen. The mixer, rack and sequencer are all there, but you can customize their view and, for easier use, the transport is now at the bottom of the screen. Reason 8 adds new Softube guitar and bass amp simulations as Rack Extensions.
All guitar patches, sounds, samples and effect presets are “drag and drop” directly to the guitar effect unit or a synth like Thor or Maelström, a reverb unit, or the individual Kong drum machine pads.
The sequencer has a lot of small improvements: you can double-click notes to add or delete them and you can duplicate notes and clips with a quick key. Mix Channel gets the color of its Source
Device and if you change color either at the source or the mixer, it matches. I also like that Tracks are named after the patch you load and you can resize notes from both edges.
Reason 8 is as solid as ever and sells for $449 MSRP and requires Mac OS X 10.7 or later. Windows PCs require Windows 7 or later.
Barry Rudolph is a recording engineer/mixer who has worked on over 30 gold and platinum records. He has recorded and/or mixed Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hall & Oates, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, the Corrs, and more. Barry has his own futuristic music mixing facility and loves teaching audio engineering at Musician’s Institute, Hollywood, CA. He is a lifetime Grammy-voting member of NARAS and a contributing editor for Mix Magazine. barryrudolph.com
