“So,” you say, “I’ve got a … and I want to connect it to a … to make music. How do I do that?”

One strong answer to that question, if you’ve got a Mac, is junXion. Developed by the landmark audio research laboratory STEIM – a hotspot in Amsterdam that for years has been imagining new ways of making music by connecting things to other things – it got a big update recently.

It takes lots of the inputs you might imagine (joysticks, mice, touchscreens, MIDI, OpenSoundControl, audio, Arduino-powered hardware and all of its sensors, and video sensing) and connects it to a lot of the outputs you might imagine (using MIDI or OSC). You can set up rules in between the input and output to make that connection musically meaningful.

OSC input and output wasn’t entirely optimal in past versions; a total rewrite now makes it work with useful OSC sources like the iOS TouchOSC and Lemur apps. You get nifty new Actions, like remote mouse control. You can use a Nintendo Wii “Wiimote”‘s infrared-sesnsing capabilities and vibration support. If you’re using video, you can now support multiple “blobs.” And the whole app promises to run faster and look better, with more help tags in the UI, and added stability.

75 € for the full version. You need Mac OS X 10.5 or later, including the latest 10.7 Lion. (Upgrades for version 4 are free; Lite users can upgrade for 60 €.)

http://steim.org/product/junxion/

Of course, talking about this doesn’t really make much sense; it’s better to see it in action. We have a whole bunch of videos from the folks at STEIM showing features like Wii and joystick control and video sensing from a camera – plus a couple of fascinating demo/tutorials submitted by users.

Let’s watch, shall we?

Via https://vimeo.com/steim/videos

Far from the walls of STEIM, though, intrepid users have concocted their own demos. Here’s a look at controlling Reason with a Wiimote:

Here’s a live performance, also controlled by Wiimote, in the modular live environment AudioMulch. The creator writes:

A basic soundscape in AudioMulch controlled by two Wii remotes via JunXion IV.

Buttons in Wii Remotes control: start and stop buttons, presets of the main mixer, transient parameter of the granulator, frequency of the pulsecomb_1 (processing the drum), a junxion-timer controlling the volume of the granulator.

X-Y-Z accelerators control: 10 harmonics of a frequency generator, parameters of the rissettone

And yes, a camera can be a Theremin:

Got your own solution using junXion – or another tool? We’d love to hear about it.

See also two fine Mac-only tools:
Osculator [Much like junXion, supports nearly anything as an input, adds advanced OSC routing]
ControllerMate [not music-specific, but very powerful modular game input utility]

In fact, what’s largely missing is easy solutions on Windows and Linux, though you can roll your own with a free tool like Pd, which also supports HID, Arduino, video, and the like.

Figure, the iOS app that’s powered by Reason instruments and effects, is now available on the App Store for US$.99 cents. The sound is Reason on your phone – literally, with the Thor polysynth and Kong drum machine, plus the Master Bus Compressor and side-chaining from Reason in effects. But the user experience is quite different. Introduced as something you’d use on the bus, this is really more about playing drums and making melodic gestures with your fingers, then tweaking those sounds and musical elements via X/Y touchpads. It’s a little bit like Korg’s Kaossilator and Reason had a love child.

For beginning users, this could mean a friendly environment to play with your fingers. But for more advanced users, there’s still enough open-ended room to work so that actual music talent might yield a very different result.

A number of our readers pointed to other apps like Intua’s Beatmaker, one of the first iOS production tools on the iPhone, as more fully-featured micro workstations. (Going back to the days of the Palm handheld, you might see something similar.) But there are already good options for those; Figure appears to be something different.

Features:

• Drums, bass, lead synth
• X/Y pad controls melodic figures, constrained by key
• Adjustable controls for key, rhythm, tempo
• Tweak as the songs play

What’s remarkable about Figure is as much what it doesn’t do as what it does. There’s no MIDI control. No AudioCopy/Paste. No SoundCloud export. No … export. Actually, absolutely no saving. All of this is in itself rather interesting, if only for the reason that it swims upstream, and if you make something you like, you have to sample it with another piece of gear. (Cue various people upset about this, others who defend its purity. Go.) Me? I’m not, uh, super thrilled not to be able to save, but I’m going to run with it in my test – plug it into my KAOSS Pad, record without a click, $*&# with the result… okay, yes, in a weird way, it could wind up being more fun without it.

More information: propellerheads.se/figure

iPhone-optimized user manual (readable from your computer, too, though, if you’re curious)

And you can find Figure in our Apps section, then grab it from the iTunes App Store (or add your own review):
http://apps.createdigitalmusic.com/apps/figure

(We’re working on expanding functionality in that store with our partners; expect a full look at what we’re doing for this multi-platform collection of apps this month.)

We’ve got lots of other news from Messe to share soon – so don’t worry, this isn’t becoming the Propellerhead News Network. But since I’m starving and going to dinner, you can spend those 40 minutes watching the Propellerhead “keynote” press presentation I saw yesterday.

This video is for the moment the only way to really see the new iPhone app Figure, powered by Reason under the hood. Speaking of which, I have some answers to questions readers asked during our live coverage from yesterday:

Q. Will Figure be available on Android?
A. No plans at this time, no.

Q. Is the US$1 price an “intro” price? Really, only a buck?
A. It’s really only a buck, when it becomes available following Apple approval. It’s not officially an intro price, but Propellerhead also hasn’t said it’s the permanent price, so you might want to snap it up.

Q. Is there an iPad-native resolution?
A. Confirming this one. But see the demo video below… on an iPad.

Q. Will it support MIDI out?
A. Good grief, I’d be a little frustrated with Propellerhead if they added MIDI in or out to this iPhone app before we got it in Reason. (Cough. Yes, I still want that, darn it.) Anyway, short answer: no. No MIDI in, no MIDI out. MIDI out would be excellent, because it’s a pattern sequencer; maybe they can put that in a future version and I can play my MeeBlip with it. MIDI in makes less sense, because it’s really about the touch experience.

Q. There’s really Reason inside this app?
A. Yes. Ernst was very clear on this, as you can hear in the video. It’d be really great if you could somehow load racks from the desktop Reason with Figure and visa versa, but we’ll just have to get our hands on this, which should happen very soon.

Q. What does Figure actually look like?

Our friends at Sonic State shot video, so that I spend more time sitting in the sun eating brats and drinking beer. (Nick, does that mean me embedding this here counts as non-commercial usage? I’m doing it solely out of being lazy and bad at shooting video.)

Seriously, it’s a nice hands-on:

Users want more: that much is clear. But for years, Reason has famously (or infamously, depending on your point of view) resisted plug-in formats as a way of extending its production environment. At the moment, plug-ins have been dominate largely by Avid (RTAS), Apple (AU), and Steinberg (VST), as open source alternatives have failed to gain wide commercial traction. Those formats apparently didn’t make the cut with Reason.

That changed officially tonight. Reason’s rack is open to third parties, via something called Rack Extensions, previewed and available by summer for all Reason users. What you’re getting is not so much a new plug-in format as a new set of ideas about what a plug-in should be, in the form of a way of making add-ons for Reason alone.

The ability to get more out of Reason’s rack will clearly mean more for lovers of Reason, who at last will get some favorite sonic toys and tools without switching hosts. But how exactly do the specifics work? I spent some time with Ernst Nathorst-Böös, CEO of Propellerhead, as well as other developers working on the program to try to understand what it’s all about, and trying strange new green sauces known in Frankfurt. (Non mood-altering substances, mind. Just stuff you put on potatoes; don’t read too much into it. German cuisine.)

Before we get to that, though, here are two obvious take-aways for other plug-ins. To me, the benefit for the Reason community is pretty clear. But I think even for Propellerhead, the best thing that could happen here is if other plug-in formats follow the lead. Plug-in formats in general could work better than they do. It’s frustrating that they’ve made little progress since their introduction in regards to some obvious shortcomings, over a range of years. (Don’t believe me? Ask almost any plug-in developer, anywhere.) There are two obvious elements of the Propellerhead announcement that could mean something to competing plug-in formats (AU and VST in particular). Propellerhead aren’t the only ones complaining about them.

Note that given the nature of this being a fresh announcement, we haven’t yet fact-checked this with Propellerhead, and some statements here are interpretive or speculative. And, of course, some stuff is still in the works as this is developed. We’ll cover it as it evolves.

1. Plug-ins shouldn’t bring down hosts. One of the most important point Propellerhead made was widely misunderstood. The idea is this: when a plug-in crashes, the host shouldn’t crash with it. Now, the developers of Reason are obviously very proud of the stability of Reason, but that isn’t the issue here. However stable or instable your host is, the notion is that a plug-in shouldn’t be the reason that host crashes. Some effect you downloaded shouldn’t send your whole session toppling to the ground. Various forms of sandboxing can prevent this. We’ll have to test the Reason solution in practice, but in principal, I know of no reason every plug-in couldn’t support this basic notion. And even if you’ve seen Reason crash, as some commenters have said, the idea here is that a plug-in won’t be the cause.

2. Plug-in developers ought to be able to sell their stuff right in the host. This is a no-brainer. Set aside the obvious success story of Apple’s App Store on iOS and Mac. Plug-in developers have an impossible time these days just selling their work (or, indeed, even giving it away). It’s kind of bizarre that in the Internet age, no other host makes it easy to find and try out the work of other developers. (I was going to give an exception, but … there isn’t one. Seriously. What the heck?)

It’s pretty easy to make an extended argument for either of these ideas without talking about the Reason announcement. And I’m not trying to sell Reason here: believe me, I’d like to see other plug-in formats advance, too. Reason might want that, as well, since they rely on that same developer ecosystem. (Translation: they need devs making enough money to spend the time to keep making plug-ins … for anyone, not just Reason.)

As for Reason, here are some answers to frequent questions and comments from readers.

What will it cost? When can I get it? It’ll be free for existing Reason users, available by end of Q2 (beginning of summer, more or less).

Which add-ons will be available? So far, all we know is the developer list: KORG, SonicCharge (of uTonic and Synplant fame), Peff (Kurt Kurasaki), Softube, and Urs Heckmann (u-he). I also saw iZotope in the crowd, but make of that what you will. Props aren’t saying much more than that; other developers may be involved but aren’t yet public.

Will there be an SDK for any developer? I got a clear answer from Ernst on this: yes. Anyone will be able to download the SDK and make add-ons. There are a couple of caveats. First, you have to have an established business entity (in the EU, with a VAT ID / outside Europe, just some legal entity). Second, it’s just not ready yet. What we saw today was a technology preview, but Propellerhead says they’re eager to open this up to other developers; they’re just not quite prepared to handle that process yet. We don’t yet know to what extent the store you see in Reason will be curated or how, and I wonder if free add-ons might get around the need for a publishing business. What I can say is, there won’t be a developer fee.

Will hardware DSP be supported? Not at this time, or evidently in the forseeable future. Ernst emphasized that Propellerhead feels the current multi-core engine is sufficient. So, no Universal Audio add-ons — but remember, if you really want that, you can just ReWire Reason into a host.

Will you be able to make open-source plug-ins? This seems possible, given you can run DSP code. Your code is your own. I didn’t have time to get an official answer on this; I think it’ll be easier to look at once we can see the SDK.

Can you have UI elements? This came up in the press conference. There are some limitations in the “first release,” say Propellerhead. But there was an impressive demo from SonicCharge with a nice, animated visual display for Bitspeak; suffice to say, you won’t directly port VST UI code, but plug-in devs can work with what Propellerhead is giving them. It’s not so much having to deal with having a new plug-in format as having to work with some new UI requirements – and, quite frankly, that’s a potential issue with any plug-in that has any UI at all. On the upside:

Can you use Reason back-panel routing tools and the like? Yes. You can do all the CV routing and automation and other good stuff a conventional Reason device would have.

These are just more Combinator skins, yeah? No. We’re talking low-level DSP – which also means the DSP portion can be ported really fast. Propellerhead said Softube compiled in 15 minutes – for both Mac and Windows. Most of the time you’ll now wind up investing in UI. (That chuckling sound you hear from developers is because this is generally the case with plug-ins.)

But I can do this with existing plug-in formats. Not quite. There are several elements missing. First, Reason will have an integrated store for this stuff, which also means the ability to move between users, computers, and operating systems more seamlessly. Second, existing plug-ins don’t do things like true host-integrated undo. (Ernst gave the ugly example of tweaking a knob in a plug-in, hitting undo, and undoing the last step – inserting the plug-in – making the whole thing disappear.) Third, and perhaps most importantly, you don’t get sandboxing features in any current plug-in format, meaning a misbehaved plug-in can theoretically crash your whole host.

What’s in it for developers? A 70/30 split — developer/Props — just like Apple’s iOS and Mac stores. And it’s free to join the developer program, so there’s nothing to lose but, uh, time.

But this is just proprietary tech. What experience does Propellerhead have with third-party developers? Oh, just these little things called ReWire and (loop format) REX – which, along with Steinberg’s VST really led the way as far as third-party, cross-platform formats. (REX arguably had a lot to do with the rise of looping software.) Each of these have been used in multiple operating systems and hosts, and require dealing with developers. This is much bigger, of course.

How does this help me collaborate? Propellerhead brought this up with a selling point, so I followed up. Basically, the scenario is this: you’re sharing a track with another Reason user. They don’t have the Squidoodlidoo plug-in you purchased. They can use a 30-day demo, and try it for free. (Otherwise, they have to buy the plug-in, too, naturally.) Also, Ernst tells CDM that the store will maintain every back version of every plug-in. So if you need a previous version, you can revert to that on a set. Reason itself can still open, in version 6, files created in version 1.

So, why would I use an existing plug-in format, if this is The Future? Probably because there’s a host you like better than Reason, or you have one of the many plug-ins that won’t yet support this new thing. But you knew that, right? The payoff here is clearly if you like working in Reason and want more flexibility.

Why a new format? Actually, I’ll editorialize on this one. The kind of integration with Reason here just wouldn’t work with any plug-in format – we’re talking routing control voltage in and out via the back of the rack, integrated automation, and a UI that seamlessly blends with Reason. It’s not a question of formats; you have to write a plug-in for Reason or none of that is possible. As for why existing plug-in formats don’t do some of the things Reason’s tech here does, that’s easy. No one has actually proposed a plug-in format that does that, a handful of vendors control existing formats in wide commercial use (Apple, Steinberg, Avid), and efforts to build a new standard haven’t gotten traction. So, in the meantime, if you want these ideas in practice, you have to build them in your own software, which is what Reason has done. If you want these ideas elsewhere, let’s see it.

Got more questions? I’ll append answers here if I can find them. Expect more once we hear more on what’s actually available to add onto your rack (for users) and once we’re closer to having stuff ready for a wider audience of developers (for you coders). No images or video yet – I know we still owe you a look at the new iOS app – but that’ll get posted when ready.

More details, and ugly speculation about whether or not I was wearing pants, in the live event coverage:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/03/propellerhead-announces-mobile-app-figure-live-announcement-coverage/

For the last few decades, generally speaking, we’ve had computers, and we’ve had physical, modular, analog gear. Computers are endlessly patchable, but not using physical cords. Modulars use physical cords, but they lack the flexibility (and affordability) of a computer.

Now, US$25 and an Arduino can change that.

rePatcher is a simple, tangible modular interface for computers. It could work with any software, but right out of the gate it already works with two popular (virtual) patching environments, Max/MSP and the free and open source Pure Data (Pd). You use physical patch cords to make connections, and those connections are reflected in the patch you see on the screen. The patch cords are coupled with requisite encoders for dialing in additional parameter changes. (Reason comes up as a possible candidate for additional compatibility, which would, of course, be really sweet.)

rePatcher is built as a shield for Arduino, so you’ll need one of those, but that still keeps the price low enough to say I absolutely have to have one of these right now.

It’s not the first attempt to do something like this, but it might be the most accessible and affordable – and interesting. And while those cute little patch cords are fun, there’s nothing stopping someone from building on this idea and going to bigger cords and something more extensive than this 6×6 matrix.

Best of all: the magic happens entirely over USB, so if you want to make this work with something else – say, your favorite VJ software – you can do so with anything that can communicate over serial.

More information:
http://www.openmusiclabs.com/projects/repatcher/

Stockholm-based design technistas and boutique synth shop Teenage Engineering have evidently worked out how to keep busy and brighten those dark Swedish winters. They showed up in Southern California this week with a slew of new stuff to show off. And while mention of their OP-1 synth may elicit controversy in comment threads online, their booths are crowd pleasers. In contrast to the buttoned-up, business-like atmosphere of a lot of tech vendors at NAMM, TE’s whimsical science lab seems to spill out onto the show floor, and – along with more analog-tilted booths Big City and Analog Haven – attracted crowds like no other tech.

What was actually going on? There’s a new OS update and a new product. The OS update delivers new drum and sequencer modes and badly-needed MIDI sync, plus cool MIDI modulation. Combined, it seems the OP-1 has really matured – sync alone removes a major obstacle for some adopters.

The new hardware is Opbox, a combination USB host / MIDI / CV box with analog sensors – and it has pretty plug-in modules and even custom-made shoes to match. The shoes may not be terribly practical, but the Oplab fits a unique niche in hardware I/O and DIY projects – provided it’s a niche that people actually want. We’ve got some details plus some exclusive images.

OP-1 Update

New in the OS:

• Finger step-sequencer, with 32 step patterns per key and 14 polyphonic patterns. (It’s an unfortunate name, given that’s also Tim Exile’s excellent Reaktor creation. Toe? But it looks cool.
• DrumBox, a drum synth. More on that in a second.
• MIDI LFOs for modulating four parameters at once – very cool.
• MIDI sync – at last, you can sync to clock messages.

Bonus: you get Reason integration (if you enjoy superior Swedish engineering), and, oddly, a game.

http://www.teenageengineering.com/products/op-1/os-update

I ran into CDM reader Neil Bufkin on the show floor, and he’s back with a new video of the OP-1 update and other goodies. Watch:

Teenage Engineer David Ericksson also shares some thoughts with CDM on DrumBox:

The idea behind DrumBox is to provide a spiced up version of classic beat box designs with everything from digital wave-shaping to FM and more. You get 24 keys each with a custom 2 oscillator setup where you can morph between different modes. The same knob also includes a volume envelope to balance the drum sounds. It’s been very tricky to build this up using only 8 parameters and still get a versatile drum machine. The payoff is that it’s pretty hands on and when you start using the LFO’s to control these params you can really do crazy stuff.

TE also shares with CDM the rough sketch from which this feature originated, plus a look at how it looks in the final product:

Oplab

Oplab is an all-new product. It’s marketed as complementing the OP-1, but it’s really a general-purpose board. Imagine an Arduino-like prototyping platform on steroids, with stuff you’d want to use for music applications. And then imagine that, much to the surprise of me and a number of other people with whom I spoke, that they made a bare circuit board look strangely beautiful and finished. This board looks better than a lot of housings. In one box, you combine lots of I/O connections and inputs for sensors.

• Three USB connections. One turns the Oplab itself into a USB device, so you can connect to a computer. But the other two are USB hosts. That means you can use the Oplab with USB devices and no computer in sight.
• Three MIDI connections. MIDI IN, MIDI OUT, and then a third MIDI port that can be either THRU or SYNC24.
• 2 CV in, 2 CV out for analog connections – using any analog connection you like.
• Program select switches. Easy access to settings.
• Ins and outs for anything else. 2 12-bit connections can be switched to input or output, so you can do everything from add sensors to use as music controllers or drive lights or motors. Now, that’s not many connections – but notice also the headers and coming development kit.
• Plug-and-play sensors. For those who want something that lets them hack around without having wires pop up or worrying about delicate, exposed boards, TE is making ready-to-use sensors. Flip is an accelerometer, Poke a pressure sensor, and Tap a piezo. You could also make your own and save some scratch.

http://www.teenageengineering.com/products/oplab/

All of this goodness costs you – US$299 is the price for the board, sensors costs $49 each, and the pretty red tray with the sensors and board all put together top US$425. But you do get some fairly sophisticated functionality in the form of adding MIDI and CV and USB hosting. Hosting isn’t easy. This also opens up some new interconnections with devices like iOS and Android and the OP-1, since the USB hosts can negate the need for a dedicated computer for USB MIDI gadgetry.

In fact, it’s nice to see a polished, designed product that does this kind of DIY stuff; that’s something we had seen in past entries from vendors like Eowave but had largely fallen away in recent years. There’s just no question that if you’re on a budget you should look to other ways of doing this. And I think the bigger question is whether people will like this I/O setup. It won’t suit people with lots of CV, and it’ll be overkill for people with simpler setups. My guess is it’ll make a lot of people happy in between, but I honestly don’t know. Let us know if you’re intrigued.

All of this is capped off by more Teenage oddities. The latest addition: they’ve designed their own custom shoe, complete with a pouch to hold their accelerometer.

More information – and lots of ideas for how you might use the Oplab, put quite articulately if a bit scant on technical details – at:

http://www.teenageengineering.com/products/oplab/
http://www.teenageengineering.com/products/op-1/os-update

Updated: Making Over Your Lifestyle with Design

Comments are getting a bit … heated … below. So, I simply wish to take this opportunity to say, if you don’t like the chic design of Teenage Engineering’s products, you can be easily replaced.

(PS – IKEA is now based in the Netherlands, so it’s fitting this is a Dutch, not a Swedish, film. But watch and learn. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pop open a can of Budweiser and use a real synth – one with wooden endcaps – in the back of my truck, before catching the NFC championship football game. None of this Swedish nonsense. And remember, all national stereotypes in your head are completely true! America!)

It bears saying: a lot of the taste for Scandinavian design was cultivated in the US. Along with other European modernists, key designers settled places like Los Angeles, and their style mingled with American style. If you don’t like the looks (or, crucially, function) of this, tell us what you do like: more variety is better.

You’ve seen “pay what you want” pricing for self-released albums on Bandcamp, and independent donationware software. But you certainly haven’t seen it in a major proprietary application like Reason 6. That’s what Swedish developer Propellerhead is doing with their Reason 6 upgrade, with name-your-own-price starting at EUR/USD 1.00, through the end of October. (One, not one hundred. Really. Apologies for embedding what’s essentially an advertisement below, but the video explains it.)

Edit: Readers observe that Reason 2.5 was a free upgrade, which is arguably just as notable as a pay-what-you-will upgrade here.

Now, this isn’t for everyone: it’s the upgrade, not the full product, and it’s only for people who own a copy of Reason and a copy of Record. In effect, what the upgrade does is reward early adopters who purchased Reason and Record Duo or bought Record separately on top of an existing copy of Reason. My feeling was certainly that the two products should have been offered together from the start. Many Reason users complained that they weren’t getting all the new audio recording features (only a sampling feature). And I noted in a review of Record for Macworld that Record didn’t come with everything unless you also bought Reason. The bundling of Reason and Record functionality into a single product called “Reason” to me makes perfect sense, and the deal here reflects that.

For that reason, I wouldn’t go as far as asking, as Jo-Ann at Shocklee does, if this is the future of music software pricing. But it is a big deal, and it proves that more significant names in music software can take some risks. It’s also a nice bargain: remember that Reason 6′s price, reflecting the incorporation of both programs, is effectively what you paid for Reason + Record duo, and that even if you have both, you still get some nice, new effects. (I’ve been playing with them for a few weeks, so expect a write-up on that soon, once I actually sit down and make some real music with them.)

But for me, the bottom line is, it’s nice to see a good idea trump caution in the accounting department.

http://www.propellerheads.se/paywhatyouwant/

As an addendum to our first look at Propellerhead’s new Reason 6 announcements (including incorporating Record), Propellerhead points us to a promo video of their new Balance audio interface. We’ve seen efforts before to make software more appealing to newcomers by bundling an audio interface, so this is, on the face of it, hardly “stop-the-presses!” sort of news for digital musicians. But there’s some evidence the Propellerheads may have hit on a new formula.

One, Balance doesn’t look exactly like every other audio interface on the market. The design is distinctive, and the wedge-shaped form would appear to make it friendlier to use. Two, they’ve really focused on metering, which in computer recording – absent an integrated piece of hardware on which you’re tracking – has been a sticking point. You both get some protection against clipping if you set the gain wrong and an easy way to watch level without hunching over either your audio box or your computer screen; there’s one place to look on-screen and it’s very large.

Propellerhead also promises Balance fits in your laptop bag. Wait… how do they know how big your laptop bag is? (Well, they know how big mine is, as I’ve been to Stockholm, but as for the rest of you…) And as I noted earlier, it’s class-compliant so it works with things like Linux and iPads and not just Mac and Windows.

The design looks really, really nice, and since you asked, you will be able to get this USB2 interface standalone. A 2×2 interface is something you’ve probably already got, but this one comes complete with I/O that lets you connect everything into what amounts to a matrix. The remaining question is how it all sounds; everyone claims things are “high-quality” and “low-latency,” but that’s where we do have to test.

More on Balance:
Balance Product Page

Propellerhead today unveils the new Reason, incorporating Record functionality in both the full-blown and “Essentials” versions, a new audio interface in their first-ever hardware, and a beta that will at last make ReCycle a modern Mac tool.

Record added some wonderful stuff to Reason, including a terrific analog-style console, modeled EQ and dynamics, the ability (finally) to place racks side by side, and extra effects modules, including nice Line 6 modeled guitar kit. In other words, Record introduced a bunch of stuff you’d really want in Reason all along. Conversely, if you only bought Record, you were left out of a bunch of useful stuff that was only in Reason.

Yes, there was the “Duo” box that included both Reason and Record. But what you really wanted was both. Since neither app supports plug-ins, you really, really wanted both.

Propellerhead has apparently heard us, because Reason 6 now includes everything. It’s effectively Duo, with both Reason and Record. If that’s overkill, Reason Essentials gives you Record plus the bits of Reason Record users most wanted — the ReDrum drum machine, the NNXT sampler, the Dr OctoREX loop player. Essentials also has a smaller mixer (actually, I rather hope that’s accessible from the full-blown product, too.)

Onto what’s new: Reason adds a bunch of new goodies:

• Pulveriser : “crushing” effect with “crunchy” compression. Given the niceness of previous distortion efforts for Propellerheads, I think there’s reason to be optimistic.
• Echo: stereo effect with “modern” delay and analog tape echo. Sounds delightful, that one.
• Alligator: three-band pattern gate.
• Higher-quality audio transpose. One of the most overlooked features of Record was its exceptional-quality time stretching; getting better transpose alongside could make a formidable audio tool.
• True 64-bit compatibility.

The biggest piece of news here – the one Propellerhead didn’t even include explicitly in its press release – is that ReWire is 64-bit. That ensures ReWire’s place in the future of the product line.

Finally, in its first foray into hardware, Propellerhead is unveiling Balance, the lovely design of which you can more or less make out at top. It’s a two-in, two-out audio interface, but with eight connections – that way, while you can only record stereo, you don’t have to swap cables.

There’s also this feature: “Hardware buttons on Balance bring up a large meter/tuner in Reason and can also enable Clip Safe, Propellerhead’s new recording technology that with one click heals clipped recorded audio. Musicians no longer have to worry about losing a great recording because gain levels were too high, and can stay focused on creating that goose bump evoking performance.”

I’ve confirmed with Propellerhead that the basic means by which this works is that the software automatically records extra audio, so that when you do clip a recording, you can effectively borrow additional dynamic headroom (in that you’re recording additional dynamic information) by using the additional recording. There’s some clever means by which this is automatic; it should be fun to test, intentionally setting gain wrong. (I was just looking at a Sony mobile recorder that does something similar, albeit using additional bits by recording at 24-bit over 16-bit, etc.)

The other good news on the audio interface: it’s WDM/ASIO on Windows, but class-compliant for Mac (and Linux, and iPad, and other things). The Balance upgrade will come bundled with Essentials for US$499; clearly, part of the idea here is to offer in one box some complete software for use by newcomers to music production tools, with everything they need in one box.

If you do want Balance and intend to use the full-blown Reason, Propellerhead tells us, “If you already own Reason or Record or the Duo you get a free upgrade to Reason 6 when you buy Balance. If you buy Balance new without owning any Propellerhead software previously, you can upgrade to Reason 6 by buying the Reason 6 upgrade ($169).” (See further discussion in comments.)

There are still things I’d complained about that appear not to be here – namely, MIDI output for hardware synths and the ability to run Record (now Reason) as a ReWire host and not just ReWire client, which I think would make it an ideal mixing, arrangement, and mastering console. (I do track the things I write in the “Cons” column.) But I’m very excited about this release. I’ve been a great fan of the work on Record, and it seems only natural to bring it to a broader audience of Reason users. This appears to make the product line more sensible and friendly, and I’ve long found those couple of simple effects additions in new Reason versions can turn out to be the ingredient in entire tracks.

Stay tuned for a hands-on when this ships. Ship date: September 30.

Pricing: US$449 for Reason 6, US$299 for Reason Essentials (without the hardware), or US$169 for an upgrade from any Reason version or Reason Essentials to Reason 6.

Full details:
Reason 6 minisite

There’s a public beta signup if you just can’t wait:
Beta Test Reason

And in other news, Propellerhead have an update on Lion compatibility. Their software, apart from its usual Windows function, will work on the upcoming new release of Apple’s software. Because Apple is, as expected, removing Rosetta, the now-ancient compatibility layer, it’s time for a native Mac OS X version of Propellerhead’s ReCycle loop creation software. There’s a beta coming for that, as well:
Lion Info

There’s also this nice video of Reason users, set in New York City, with a few people I know mixed in. It’s an advertisement, of course, but I like them focusing on the human side of music software.

May has brought two new Web projects from manufacturers – one a titan name from analog hardware, another the king of the software studio. In each, the product itself is downplayed to focus on artists actually making music. That means if you’re looking to kick off your summer music making with a little inspiration, you’ve got some video to watch, and not just the usual gear lust. I don’t think I can be an entirely objective judge of websites, since I do work for The Internet, but that seems like a good trend. (So, yes, I’m not only being partial to Moog and Props here – I always welcome real musical discussion from the folks who make our music tools!)

First off, Moog has a much-welcome rebuild of their previous site, replacing a hard-to-navigate kludge with tiny images. The new site I have to say is one of the best I’ve seen yet from a vendor. Of course, it’s the actual content we still care about. For that, turn to a lavish legacy section. (You can even reminisce about the year 2000 and those heady Big Briar days.)

The nicest feature – back to the idea of getting to the music – promises to be the Sound Studio. First up is The Dandy Warhols, surrounded of course by tasty Moog gear. They have a mixed lineup coming – and don’t worry; that includes the likes of Thereminist Dorit Chrysler, lest you think Moog is abandoning their synthy roots. Now, if they could just find a way to put the pronunciation of their name front and center. (Hint: if you sound like a cow, you’re saying it wrong. Rogue.)

Moog Sound Lab

Propellerhead has a unique approach in May’s “Music Making Month.” Hands-on how-to videos appear first as live webcasts, then on-demand YouTube clips, showing how to get into some real music making. Reason and Record are featured, of course, but the series is as much about production and performance as those tools. Check out the start of the terrific series by Josh Mobley on keyboard finger-drumming, for instance. (Skip a couple of minutes in, and check out Josh’s percussive dexterity.) Artist guests are doing Q&A and video how-to installments on everything from control voltage to sequencing to songwriting, and it looks like there’s a nice artist/tech balance. I like the first week’s videos; tune in for more to come. (This also, though, confirms some of my reservations about the “Like” button; I wouldn’t read too much into those numbers.)

http://www.propellerheads.se/