Reason 12

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Make Music the Way You Want

The Reason Rack is one of the most powerful and flexible sound design and beatmaking tools for your music. It’s a virtual studio rack packed full of instruments, synthesizers, drum machines, sound-shaping effects, Player MIDI effects, and mixing tools that come together to make your sound possible.

New in Reason 12

A new look, a new size and new Rack devices for creative sample manipulation, Reason 12 is all about leveling up the creative potential at the heart of your music-making experience. The brand new Mimic Creative Sampler approaches sample manipulation as a musical reimagining of audio samples that can be both inventive and even fun! Bringing together the best audio technologies from Reason Studios’ history of groundbreaking DSP and sample-slicing, Mimic includes automatic transient slice detection which easily chops up a sample into individual notes or drum beats. Time-stretching samples can be done using Reason’s legendary stretch algorithm, along with new granular and tape modes to explore.

Mimic Creative Sampler

• Mimic is Reason’s brand new premium instrument for creative sample manipulation
• Advanced time-stretch and pitch shift algorithms
• Experiment with granular synthesis controls
• Automatic transient slice detection chops up samples for fast sample juggling and flipping
• Onboard filters and effects geared specifically for adding color, grit, and character to your samples

All New Combinator

• Reason’s Combinator has been updated for highly customizable front panel designs
• Combine instruments, effects, and modular devices inside the Combinator however you like
• Use the new Editor to design custom front panels with your own layout of knobs, buttons, faders, and graphics
• Combinators can now include other Combinators inside
• Updated Combinator programming features make customized macro controls, and the sounds that enable more advanced, powerful, and inspiring

Improved Browser

• Reason’s browser has been updated for instant search results while you type
• Search results categorized, showing devices, presets, samples, folders, etc. 
• Search the current folder your in or all locations at once now

High Resolution Graphics and Scalable Window

• ALL Reason Rack devices are now in glorious high resolution
• Every 3rd party Rack Extension add-on ever made now supports high resolution graphics now
• Reason scales automatically to fit your own monitor’s resolution and pixel density
• Change the zoom level manually to make the Reason window smaller or GIANT to fit your own taste

Virtual Studio Rack

At the heart of Reason is a virtual rack where you craft your own sound using Reason’s synthesizers, drum machines, samplers, and other organic instruments – along with a large collection of audio and MIDI effects to shape both your sound and even the notes you play on your keyboard.

The Rack is a musical playground. Drag an instrument device into the Rack and start playing immediately. Add devices underneath your instrument like audio effects and everything is automatically connected and routed together. If you like building custom instrument and effect chains, you’ll love diving deeper into Reason’s Combinator where your custom device creations can be saved, programmed for your own macro controls, and even configured to have your own custom front panel with knobs, faders, and buttons of your own choosing and your own positioning.

If you love experimenting with modular synthesis and open-ended signal routing, then Reason’s Rack has another advanced dimension for you as well – the back of the Rack where devices can be cabled together using audio jacks and modular control voltage cables to modulate signals from device to device. The back of the Rack is a true “if you can dream it, you can build it” canvas to explore. But if you’re a front-of-the-rack type of music maker, you’ll appreciate that Reason devices auto-route while you focus on what truly matters: the music.

With a multi-gigabyte supply of synth sounds, sampled instruments, drum kits, loops and effects, Reason’s built-in sound bank comes packed with everything you need to make any style of music. The integrated browser helps you quickly find and try thousands of sounds across a huge sound library.

Reason is a Plugin

Reason 12’s devices are available to users of every DAW running as a VST3, AU, and AAX plugin. Running Reason as a plugin inside your DAW of choice doesn’t only offer the flexibility to take the Reason Rack wherever you want to take your music making. Reason can interact with other plugins to supercharge them in ways never before possible.

Reason’s Player MIDI effects are a wholly unique take on musical creativity and experimentation. By transforming incoming notes on your keyboard or by generating their own notes, chords, or drum patterns Reason’s Players have become favorites of the Reason Rack. Reason’s Players can now be set up in your DAW to control other plugins in your DAW, bringing the power of Reason’s Players to every instrument plugin you own!

Adding the Reason Rack Plugin Effect atop your DAW’s mix channels means tapping into Reason’s powerful mix-polishing audio effects. To get that big studio sound, the Channel EQ, Channel Dynamics, and legendary Master Bus Compressor devices have been faithfully modeled after the elite SSL 9000k* mixing desk at the center of the world’s top studios. If you want to dirty up your mix channels in the best sense of the word, try out the Audiomatic Retro Transformer’s selection of coloration and tonal shaping effects.

Don’t Already Have a DAW?

No problem! Running Reason 12 as a standalone software doesn’t just mean you can access the same powerful Reason Rack and the same vast collection of devices. Reason standalone includes its own sequencer and professional mixer, meaning you can bring your ideas to life from exploring new sounds to fully polished, mixed, and mastered songs ready for sharing with friends and fans.

Expanding The Reason Rack

While Reason comes with a sizable collection of instruments and effects devices already, some of us are always looking for even more creative options and the inspiration that comes from exploring something new. When you’re ready, Reason’s Rack is expandable with Rack Extensions. Rack Extensions additional Rack device plugins built by some of the top instrument and effects developers around the world – from modern effects to vintage instruments and everything in between.

Instruments & Effects

Use your ears!

These instruments and effects are all included in Reason. You can combine them any way you want in the Rack to create the perfect sound for what you want to express. Some of these may look complicated at first – but don’t worry. Nothing can break. Just use your ears and try stuff out!

Europa – Shapeshifting Synthesizer

A wavetable synth at heart; Europa is the most powerful, most modern and biggest sounding synth for your next track and the many more to come. The heart of Europa is its three spectral wave engines, where waveforms are loaded and warped through traditional wavetable sweeps and spectral waveform modifiers. Add to that a set of unique spectral filters, customizable envelopes, fantastic effects and more and you’ll be ready to realize that Europa isn’t just the greatest synth to arrive in Reason. It’s the greatest synth to arrive. Period.

Thor – Polysonic Synthesizer

Where other synths use one specific form of synthesis and one single filter, the Thor polysonic synthesizer features six different oscillator types and four unique filters. What does this give you? An unstoppable monster of a sound generator, Thor utilises synthesizer technology from the last 50 years. With its unique selection of oscillator types and filter designs, the Thor Polysonic Synthesizer is a veritable synth museum. But there’s nothing dusty about this instrument. Thor may have one foot in history, but its sound is pure future.

Monotone – Bass Synthesizer

For all the bass heads out there, here’s Monotone: a monophonic supply of speaker rattling low-end. Monotone has a deep and big sound but is inviting and easy to work with. No hidden menus or cryptic controls. Everything you need is at your fingertips when you want it. Monotone is also the bass synth in Reason Compact for iOS. Start your basslines on Reason Compact and scale up your production on your Desktop – Monotone seamlessly integrates into your workflow.

Subtractor – Polyphonic Synthesizer

Similar in layout of the analogue flagship synths of the early 80s, the Subtractor makes it easy to create anything from warm pads to rumbling bass. A unique feature of the Subtractor Synthesizer is the oscillator phase offset. By using this feature you can create complex waveforms by subtracting or multiplying a waveform with a phase offset copy of itself. This analogue type polyphonic synthesizer is based on subtractive synthesis, the method used in classic, analogue synthesizers.

Kong – Drum Designer

Kong Drum Designer is not your regular drum module. It’s the drum module focused on giving you 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. Flavour the sound with 11 support generators and effects. Program automation, create alternating groups and let Reason’s powerful sequencer drive the beat.

Radical Piano – Advanced Acoustic Piano

Radical Piano will change the way you use pianos in your music by allowing you to imagine a piano in a real space and set about creating it yourself through intuitive controls. Based on a custom blend between sampling technology and physical modelling algorithms, Radical Piano affords songwriters, producers, and sound designers an unprecedented level of control to craft a realistic piano that is 100% unique.

MIDI Out – Device

Play the sounds of your favourite hardware synths and beat machines within the Reason Rack. Sequence and automate your MIDI gear in Reason’s sequencer, play in new ways with Players, or control any MIDI parameter with CV cables from any rack device.

When using Reason as a VST3/AU/AAX plugin, the MIDI Out Device communicates directly with the host. Build your own custom MIDI rack using Reason’s devices and control any other plugin or external hardware in your DAW of choice.

Effects

Sweeper

Add more colour with this high quality, multi-talented modulation unit with expansive dynamic modulation options. Sweeper offers three separate stereo modulation effects: phaser, flanger and filter. The pristine-sounding phaser offers up to a whopping 40 stages for some extreme phasing sounds. The Flanger excels at the sweeping sounds you’d expect from it while the filter section is the oversampled filter from Europa with nine filter modes. To breathe life into the effect, Sweeper has a modulator with a looping envelope, an audio follower and audio trig to modulate just about any of Sweeper’s settings.

Master Bus Compressor

Reason’s trusted ready-for-radio bus compressor is now available as a rack device. The sound is identical to the Mixer’s master bus compressor, but the rack unit offers expanded CV control, dry/wet settings and the ability to apply the compressor magic anywhere in your signal chain. How would your drum mix sound with its own Master Bus Compressor?

The Echo

The Echo is an advanced stereo echo bringing together the brilliance of modern delays with the organic sounds of analogue circuitry and old-school tape machines. The Echo is equal parts pristine stereo delay, sound sculpturing toolbox, and playable performance effect. Add Delay, colour, modulations and triggers to your Rack. The Trigger and Roll modes let you play The Echo as an instrument, creating stutter and repeat effects on the fly.

Features

Reason Rack Plugin Formats

• VST3 (Ableton Live, StudioOne, Cubase, etc)
• Audio Units (Logic Pro)
• AAX (Pro Tools)

Instruments    

• Objekt Physical Modeling Synthesizer
• Grain Sample Manipulator
• Radical Piano Advanced Acoustic Piano
• Europa Shapeshifting Synthesizer
• Thor Polysonic Synthesizer
• Rytmik Drum Machine
• Klang Tuned Percussion
• Pangea World Instruments
• Humana Vocal Ensemble
• Kong Drum Designer
• Mimic Creative Sampler
• NN19 Sampler
• NN-XT Advanced Sampler
• Monotone Bass Synthesizer
• Malström Graintable Synthesizer
• Dr. Octo Rex Loop Player
• Subtractor Polyphonic Synthesizer
• ID-8 Songwriter’s Toolbox
• Redrum Drum Computer
• MIDI Out Device

Effects

• Quartet Chorus Ensemble
• Sweeper Modulation Effect
• Master Bus Compressor
• Channel Dynamics
• Channel EQ
• RV7000 MkII advanced convolution reverb
• The Echo high-quality delay & tape echo
• Softube Guitar amplifier with amp and cabinet modeling
• Softube Bass amplifier with amp and cabinet modeling
• Scream 4 Sound Destruction Unit 
• Alligator triple channel pattern-based gate
• Pulveriser distortion, compressor and envelope follower module
• Synchronous Effects Modulator
• Neptune pitch corrector and voice synthesizer
• Audiomatic Retro Transformer
• MClass 4-band mastering EQ
• MClass Dual band stereo imager 
• MClass Stereo compressor with sidechain input, soft-knee mode and CV out
• MClass Maximizer with look-ahead and soft clip
• RV-7 digital reverb
• DDL-1 digital delay line 
• D-11 foldback distortion 
• ECF-42 envelope-controlled filter 
• DF-101 chorus/flanger
• PH-90 phaser 
• COMP-01 compressor 
• PEQ2 2-band EQ
• BV512 vocoder with 4 to 512 bands and equalization
• UN16 unison 

Player MIDI effects and utility devices

• Beat Map Algorhythmic Drummer
• Scales & Chords
• Dual Arpeggio
• Note Echo
• RPG-8 Monophonic Arpeggiator
• ReGroove Mixer real-time groove console
• Matrix pattern-based sequencer 
• Pulsar Dual LFO 
• 14:2 mixer w/ EQ and effects send/return
• 6:2 channel stereo line mixer
• Spider Audio Merger & Splitter 
• Spider Control Voltage Merger & Splitter
• Combinator, for building chains of instruments, effects, and pattern sequencers

Sounds and patches

• Huge factory sound bank with more than 29000 device patches, loops, and samples

Reason Standalone Software Features

• VST plugin support: add any instrument or effect plugin to Reason’s rack
• Delay compensation makes all signal paths play in perfect, phase-locked sync
• Opens songs and synth patches made in Reason Compact – the free pocket music studio for iOS
• Rack Extensions lets you expand your collection of instruments and effects from Reason Studios and 3rd party developers
• Support for Ableton Link: effortlessly sync Reason and other link-enabled apps over WiFi
• Unlimited audio recording and instrument channels
• Fully featured high-precision multitrack sequencer with Blocks mode and audio comping tools
• High-quality realtime time stretch & audio transpose
• Pitch Edit mode for polishing your vocal recordings
• Audio slicing and audio quantize—correct the timing of your audio recordings
• Convert recorded or imported audio in the sequencer into REX loops for further sound manipulation
• MIDI instrument output—control synths, samplers and keyboards from Reason’s sequencer
• MIDI clock output—sync hardware to Reason
• Advanced exporting—export your separate mixer channels as individual audio stems, including effects and tempo track
• Live sampling on all Sampler devices
• Remote mapping to external MIDI controllers and hardware control surfaces
• Supports all major file formats—from WAV and AIFF to MP3 and more
• Realtime sample rate and bit depth conversion allows for importing any audio into Reason without issues
• Multicore support and 64-bit compatibility makes Reason fast and powerful on any computer
• Self-contained song files make moving projects between computers and collaborator as easy as moving a single file.
• Advanced modeled mixing console with complete channel strip for every instrument and audio channel

New in Reason 12.6

• Native support for Apple Silicon
• Offline mode that enables all users to use Reason without an internet connection wherever they are

System Requirements 

Mac

• Fast, stable internet connection
• Intel or M1 Mac with multi-core processor
• 4 GB RAM (8 GB or more recommended for large ReFills or Rack Extensions)
• 5.5 GB free system disk space required, plus 20 GB for optional content. Additionally, program may use up to 20 GB scratch disk space and additional space for cached graphical assets
• macOS 10.13 or later (64-bit)
• Monitor with at least 1280×768 resolution
• CoreAudio-compliant audio interface or built-in audio hardware
• MIDI interface and a MIDI keyboard recommended
• For using Reason as a VST Plugin, a host with VST3 support is required
• For using Reason as an AU plugin, a host with AUv2 support is required
• For using Reason as an AAX plugin, Pro Tools 12 or later is required

Windows

• Fast, stable internet connection
• Intel or AMD multi-core processor
• 4 GB RAM (8 GB or more recommended for large ReFills or Rack Extensions)
• 5.5 GB free system disk space required, plus 20 GB for optional content. Additionally, program may use up to 20 GB scratch disk space and additional space for cached graphical assets
• Windows 10 or later (64-bit)
• Monitor with at least 1280×768 resolution
• Audio Interface with ASIO driver
• MIDI interface and a MIDI keyboard recommended
• For using Reason as a VST Plugin, a host with VST3 support is required
• For using Reason as an AAX plugin, Pro Tools 12 or later is required