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I was using the Reason 3.0 Mastering suite last night and I must tell you guys that it is amazing! I don't know if you really need a hardware compressor. I know Reason can't do audio but you can always export a file from a program like Cubase as an audio file and then load it into the Reason sampler and then use the compressor (or M-class mastering suite). Also the software reverbs are awesome. How do you guys compare software with hardware stuff?

Comments

iznogood Mon, 08/15/2005 - 12:43

i'm happy that you're amazed by the results....

but i must say that i'm appalled that they call it a " mastering suite"

this has nothing to do with mastering..... and can in no way be compared to real mastering with hardware (or plugins)

mastering consists of great monitoring/great hardware/a great engineer/and an occasional plugin.....

to give people the notion that this has anything to do with mastering is just marketing hype.... and imo an immoral way to cheat people out of their money....

it is just more or less great plugins that can make people's more or less great mixes sound a little louder and "cd-like"

and as so it is fine..... but if anyone here is serious about anything they do they should keep their money..... then concentrate on making good music and have a mastering engineer do a proper mastering...

there is a reason that reason costs about a fifth of a good mastering compressor....

this notion that just because one can program a bassdrum on all quaternotes they are mix and mastering engineers..... and record companies..... is just.......... arrrghhh!!

anonymous Mon, 08/15/2005 - 12:56

Reason can't do audio

So you load your 196kHz/24-bit stereo wave file into a sampler then hit a note on a keyboard or program it to play in the first measure... so how do you preview something in the middle of a track? There is not trigger to sound the note, how does this works? I really want to buy Reason so I can get rid of handfull of expensive hardware gear.

iznogood Mon, 08/15/2005 - 13:17

jamiey wrote: [quote=iznogood]but i must say that i'm appalled that they call it a " mastering suite"

Man, get a clue, you can read product descriptions, right? You know, Fisher Price makes mountain bikes, and they absolutely rock. Understand the connection I'm making here?

of course i can......

but obviously some peolpe can't....

to use your analogies the guy who started this thread WAS comparing fisher price to cannondale!! (imho)

anonymous Mon, 08/15/2005 - 13:27

Well, it's obvious to me that the original poster has no idea what the more expensive gear sounds like. He made no claims that it replaces professional mastering engineers or houses, and I don't think he was trying to. Just say that the software nowhere near compares to hardware and leave it at that, leave all the bubbling complaining and grumpiness "immoral" shit out of it, because I'm sure he doesn't not gain anything from that other then maybe feeling as though his post was disrespectful in some way. I completely understand you but it's just a silly little toy with some fancy graphics, nothing to get all hot and bothered about.

TeddyG Mon, 08/15/2005 - 13:53

Yes, angstry. I understand angsty... Nothing to cure the angst better than to try to help cure someone else's stupidity. So here:

Just to expand on this thread a bit(Well, not really this thread, but it was already posted so...), how does one use a piece of hardware with a DAW? I have a "channel strip" with AES out, so I just plug it into the soundcard and go with it, using it's compressor, etc. And, I can add a hardware "insert" to the "strip", through it's insert point, this I believe I get, but -- what if I had a hardware compressor in the rack and I wanted to run my already-on-the-DAW audio out through it and back to DAW. How does one actually do that? Maybe you could give me the simplified "chain of events"..? I'd like to try some hardware(All the real knobs, ya'know...)...

If it matters I use Wavelab 5, a LynxOne soundcard and I have a Mackie 1202VLZ. The channel strip is a DBX 376(Again, if it matters.)

Thankx!

Teddy G.

anonymous Mon, 08/15/2005 - 14:25

There's several ways to mix semi-ITB like this, it's more dependent on your software of choice I think. For me, I simply assign a bus (or aux) to output to a hardware output, from there the physical connection goes to my rack processors, and then back into the DAW. You will more then likely be able to monitor through the audio card's software mixer. When you want to 'print' this, you have to record to a new track, also called 'bouncing', it happens in realtime as you play the audio.

With something like reverb where your reverb unit is 100% wet it should be pretty easy, but if you are just using a single EQ on one of your tracks in a multi-track situtation, there may be some latency to compensate for.

What alot of people do, and I dont only because I don't have enough hardware, is to have every track or in some cases combinations of tracks go out into the analog realm and come back into the DAW either pre-mixed via an external mixer or back into as many channels that you started out with.

Really, there are several methods and setups that are possible. Sorry, it's hard to really simplify it, especially explaining through words. There should be diagrams at least to illustrate the setup and procedure.

anonymous Mon, 08/15/2005 - 14:32

Reason is an awesome program. You can't deny it. Just hear the demo songs, they sound incredible! I'm not saying it has the best compressor but I feel it's really good for tracks or instrumental music. Of course there are other hardware tools which are cool but if you use sampled sounds or sounds that come with Reason and the Reason synths (Malstrom, Subtractor) in your productions, do you really need the hardware stuff? (I can understand if you are going to record vocals or instruments live, you would need the hardware compressor, etc).

Reason deserves all the credit it gets. If you know how to use it, you will give it credit. It's very intuitive and a tool perfectly made for the creative minds. Moreover, I think it's very reasonably priced too.

anonymous Mon, 08/15/2005 - 14:36

You can go analog in to your DBX and digital out via SPDIF, that would yeild the best results. You want to avoid the A/D/A conversions wherever possible. I'm not sure why you'd want to 'aux' into the channel strip though, maybe you mean 'bus', in which case it's much simpler and if you are simply mastering through it then you won't have to worry about latency. You will have to worry about gain staging though, I believe with your LynxOne all of this should be possible, though it looks like it's only two channels in and out so it may get tricky and you may have to do some routing with your external mixer.

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