Propellerhead Reason Essentials review

best buy

1 / 4

Propellerhead’s Reason is among the best known Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) suites, providing a full audio production environment on your PC. However, like many professional audio packages, its near-£300 price is rather high for many enthusiastic amateurs and bedroom producers. With that in mind, Propellerhead has released Reason Essentials, a cut-down but still very capable version for just £85.

The most immediately visible difference between Reason Essentials and its more expensive sibling is in the range of included synthesisers, samplers and effects. There are also some relative limitations to the power of Reason Essentials’ mixer functions and production environment – Essentials has a two- rather than four-band equaliser, for instance. It also only supports its own file format, so you can’t use it to edit projects created using other versions of Reason. All of this means that, if you’re already used to the full power of Reason, this cut-down program will feel like a step backwards. However, if you’re either a user who primarily treats Reason as a recording environment for live instrument inputs or if you’re entirely new to Propellerhead’s software, then there’s plenty to like.

Many DAWs overwhelm you with a wealth of powerful options, few of which are immediately obvious in their functionality, which makes the immediate and intuitive simplicity of Reason Essentials’ interface a very welcome pleasure. You can configure the program to display the features you need, but we were immediately comfortable with the default setup of a track display at the bottom of the screen and space to load your virtual effects racks and synthesisers above it. Each of your virtual effect and synth units is depicted by an image of a rack unit, complete with knobs and buttons that you can use to adjust it. This makes it immediately obvious how to adjust and control your sound and invites easy experimentation.

To add a new track, whether it’s for an analogue audio line input such as a guitar or microphone, or a synth-based MIDI instrument, all you have to do is select the relevant option from a right-click menu. Once created, you can choose which input it records (if you’re recording with a multi-input audio device) and enable or disable options such as recording – which determines whether it records sound when you click Reason’s main record button – and monitoring, which determines whether the track is played as you record. There are also mute and solo options, which allow you to silence it during playback or make it the only track which is played. All these options work in concert with Reason’s main controls at the bottom of the screen, which allow you to play, record, pause and wind through any active tracks.

The effects rack bank towards the top of the screen allows you to add and configure a variety of effects to each audio input, or apply effects to multiple inputs simultaneously. Available effects include classic guitar pedals such as flangers and distortion boxes, as well as reverb, delays, compressors and a wide range of vocal effects. It’s easy to choose from these using Reason’s file-manager style Patch Browser interface.

You’ll need a decent sound card to get the most out of Reason Essentials, particularly if you plan on recording live instruments. At very least, you should install a generic low-latency ASIO driver such as ASIO4ALL which will minimise lag when recording and will work with even the most generic on-board or budget USB audio devices. Like the recording and input interfaces, Reason Essential’s settings are clearly designed and easy to use, from selecting your sound card driver to detecting MIDI input devices such as keyboards and drum pads. If you don’t have a MIDI keyboard, you can even set up your computer keyboard to work as a MIDI control surface instead, although it’s very much a compromise option.

Whatever control surface you use, choosing an instrument for it is simple. You set up an instrument track from Reason’s main right-click menu in much the same way as you create an audio track or add an effect. You can select instruments using the Patch Browser or go to the Instruments sub-menu and choose from Reason Essentials’ supplied synths, samplers and drum machines. Propellerhead’s legendary Thor synth isn’t included in Reason Essentials, but the wide range of synthesisers, samplers and patch banks that are included will take most musicians a lot way before they start wishing for more advanced options. Reason Essentials also lacks support for VST plug-ins, which limits your ability to add third-party sound patches and effects. However, it does support Propellerhead’s ReFill sound libraries. It’s a proprietary closed system, but there are plenty of interesting sounds available, some of which are free.

Although it’s limited in comparison to the full version of Reason 6 and despite its lack of VST patch support, Reason Essentials is a brilliant introductory Digital Audio Workstation. Its clear layout, comprehensive help files and handy mouse-over tooltips make it genuinely easy for beginner to get to grips with. It’s very competitively priced, too. At £85, it’s both cheaper and easier to dive straight into than Steinberg Cubase Artist 6.5, making it our Budget Buy for audio production.