Propellerhead Reason 9

Propellerhead Reason 9 was announced yesterday. Once again, the Swedish based music software company has failed to meet the mark and expectations of anxious users. Reason’s “New Features” (which have been present in most DAW’s for some time) have been re-packaged and marketed as ‘Groundbreaking’ in the latest YouTube video from Props. It would be pointless to remind the Swedes that their not so distant cousins at Ableton have incorporated most, if not all, of these features over the last few years. Lets not forget the squads over at Apple, Presonus, and various other software devs who have blessed beatmakers and producers with these standard features as well.

Imagine you are an expecting mother who has been pregnant for 7 months. You have been eagerly awaiting a healthy baby boy. You have painted his room, purchased a masculine baby wardrobe, and shared your excitement with every last one of your friends.

Suddenly you go into labor and out pops a pre-mature baby girl from your lady parts. The shock and disappointment are immense! These are the same feelings that most Reason users goes through with every “epic” software update out of Stockholm.

While Propellerhead’s Reason does have some charm and is a fully capable tool for producing music, its upgrade paths over the last few years have been a constant disappointment to the die hard user base. Propellerhead has been as successful as the US Government at taxing their users to death with subpar updates and features that fall short of ‘standard’ to the tune of $129+.

Whats great about the new version of Reason 9? Well… everything which includes:

  • Stability/Crash Proof
  • Audio to Midi
  • Bounce in place (Freeze)
  • Visual Themes
  • Some new devices

Again, these are only features that a die hard Reason user could get excited about because the rest of the Audio Tech Universe has been toying with them for years. Reason 9 does include some cool new devices which have been dubbed ‘Players’ that make composing and creating from scratch much easier. Infact, so easy that you don’t even have to understand music theory to make something that sounds as good as your favorite (fill in the genre) producer. With the ‘Scales & Chords’, ‘Dual Arpeggio’, and ‘Note Echo’ Players the most standard and creative composing tasks have been streamlined.

It’s hard to get excited about Reason 9 unless you’re already trapped in Propellerhead’s Reason ecosystem. No doubt, Reason users will be excited for this update. However, the rest of the music tech world will keep its eyes focused elsewhere.

Reason 9 is released on June 21 for €405/$449, with upgrades costing €129/$129. Users who bought Reason 8 on or after May 1, 2016 will qualify for a free upgrade.