Reasonfreaks

[theoracle]

So here's some...

Synth Upgrades -

Timbre feature - Essentially this is just an Oscillator expander. For instance, take the Subtractor which has 2 oscillators, and call it a single timbre synth. Now load up another and use the Combinator to combine the two synths together, thus resulting in a layered timbre/ multi-timbral synth. Would a timbre feature be an essential upgrade? No not really as the Combinator now makes it possible to do this anyway by simply combining the two. Could it be useful? I think so. After all, aren't we looking to achieve something quicker and easier? With a simple click of a button on a synth you go from 2 oscillators to 4 oscillators or more! No extra need for a Combinator, an extra mixer, and so on which gradually sucks up your CPU.

Pitch feature - Some might wonder why I'm recommending a pitch feature, others may not. Essentially you can of course adjust the pitch of your oscillators using the Octave, Semi, and Cent sections in a Subtractor. However, I find it a little more useful to be able to take my sound and adjust the semitone, and cent of the overall sound without going back in and re-tweaking the sound until I get it right. Another reason for this is due to LFO tweakers. I know of a few people who go crazy over using LFO's in crazy ways to get their sounds. A simple application of using an LFO as many know is to control the pitch of your oscillators with them. Having an extra pitch section lets you achieve your sound quicker I believe. In the end I guess you could call this the Master Tune section of a particular synth.

Vibrato feature - This is another one that's not extremely essential but can be useful. Of course you can simply do this by using an LFO, but why burn up those resources if you have a knob for this?

Extra oscillator controls - This is more or less based off a hardware synth I have, where oscillator 1 has two controls that modify the wave. The second control operates off of your LFO 1 settings to help shape the wave even more. These two controls are where you can adjust the pulse width of a square wave, as well as perform cross modulation. Of course there are phasing knobs on the Subtractor, but I'm not interesting in shaping my sounds by messing with phasing knobs in an attempt to sync my oscillators or anything else.

Oscillator modulation controls - This probably could fit into the extra oscillator controls, but I felt like announcing them separate instead. As I've said, I'm not interested in using phasing knobs to shape my sounds. Things I like in a synth are : pulse-width modulation, cross modulation, sync modulation , ring modulation, and fm modulation. Pulse-width modulation and sync modulation I believe shouldn't be associated with phasing controls honestly. On a Subtractor you are given a knob for applying frequency modulation and how much you want applied, it's no DX7 but it serves it's purpose. There is also a ring modulation button on a Subtractor, again this is useful for some applications but for total control of ring modulation I would like to see some controls for it applied to something along the lines of the second oscillator where things like semitone and tune controls on the second oscillator allow you to create more precise ring modulation sounds. I would definitely like to see an oscillator sync button but it's doubtful I ever will.

Oscillator level control - To be honest, the Subtractors oscillator controls really stink in my honest opinion. On top of all the things I really wanted to be included in a Subtractor or Malstrom is the ability to control the level (volume) of each oscillator. You can of course do this in some fashion by simply adjusting the oscillator mix knob, but that method sucked on my Korg EA-1 and it sucks on the Subtractor. For example, alot of synths I've used operate their levels from 0 to 127. If I want oscillator 1 in my Subtractor to be around 35 and my second oscillator to be around 60 which way do I tweak my knob? What essentially defines each oscillator output if when the knob is centered it acts as maximum level for both oscillators?

Greater amp controls - On a Subtractor you are given filter eg amount control via the amt knob in the filter envelope section. You are also given a filter keyboard tracking knob in the filter section, but where on earth is the keyboard tracking knob for the amp section? A panpot knob could be useful as well!

Improved EG Reset controls - In the Subtractor you are of course given the ability to retrigger your envelopes by choosing the setting ReTrig instead of Legato. This is all good and well for simple things, but what if I want only the amp eg to reset and not my filter eg and vice versa?

More LFO waves - I like triangle, I even like that we have two saw waves, a square, and two forms of sample & hold. Where on earth is my sine wave LFO, or multiple square wave LFO's?

Improved LFO sections - I like the functions of LFO 1. Why the sections of LFO 1 and LFO 2 weren't combined and made available in full to each LFO is beyond me. I would like to see a key sync feature available for both LFO's as well so that you can choose whether the LFO modulation is reset on note-on or not. As for the rest of the LFO features I'd like to see capabilities for being able to do things like auto-pan, and gradual panning.

Delay upgrades -

New delay unit - This isn't fully necessary but it has it's purposes. A stereo delay would be nice, a one step method for doing cross delays would be nice as well. Improved delay control would be a greatly appreciated thing too. I do think the ability to change between MS and sync/step delays is good, but I want to see more in what would be the step length section. Things like 1/8, 1/12, 1/24, 3/16, as well as more triplet steps as well.

[bastard_son]

Pitch feature

don't you just hate it when you've made a fat bass patch where the filters cancel out the oscillitars in just the perfect way, only to find out that you need to transpose the whole bassline a fifth up, leaving you with a farting sound instead?

Oscillator level control

The malström has this already!

Greater amp controls ...... but where on earth is the keyboard tracking knob for the amp section? ...

Why would you want this? You want volume to fade when you play higher notes etc. ? Please explain.

More LFO waves

I agree. Perhaps they (propellerheads) wanted people like us to use the matrix instead.

New delay unit

I want CV-delays too!!

[theoracle]

Oscillator level control

The malström has this already!

True, but I want more than just the Malstrom to have it

Greater amp controls ...... but where on earth is the keyboard tracking knob for the amp section? ...

Why would you want this? You want volume to fade when you play higher notes etc. ? Please explain.

Basically yes lol. Sometimes I want a patch to play softer on the higher end or lower end.Not always a dramatic drop in level, but enough that something that's really aggressive on the low end isn't going to blow your ears out as you scale up.

More LFO waves

I agree. Perhaps they (propellerheads) wanted people like us to use the matrix instead.

I guess so, but I really like getting things done faster. If it's just just a click away, or in the hardware world a knob turn away it's alot easier for me to move on rather than set up cv's and then draw in curves and lines.. hehe

New delay unit

I want CV-delays too!!

Actually that would be pretty interesting...

[corsica_s]

Regarding CV Delay, here is alittle present.
It is fairly basic as to what you can do, but basically you just wire the output of the CV Spider to whatever you want to control. Output A is the "dry" CV signal and Output B is the "wet" or delayed CV signal. The Vocoder is there just to show that the signal is actually being delayed, but you can take it out if you want. And of course you can replace the Malstrom with a Subtractor if you want to use the Subtractor's random LFOs. And don't forget to hit run, or it won't do anything.
Hope that you have fun with it.

[theoracle]

nice 1 corsica. i guess in a sense i'm just asking props to dumb down things. some people may be fine with messing with phasing knobs for sounds and messing with the matrix for lfo's, etc.

i just prefer they step up to the game and be on the level with everyone else. being different doesnt mean you have to be difficult. why take up cpu when you can just do a simple thing here or there.

the combi is cool but why use 5 or more sub's or mal's when you can just use 1 synth. look at z3ta or meta..not to mention many others. there's so much potential out there and prop's would rather us use multiples of subs or mal's to achieve a sound when 1 synth can do the trick. add some effects and you're off.... i love reason but come on, get with the program. in terms of soft synths we're not ruling anything

[corsica_s]

I do know just what you're saying about making certain things easier. For people who just want to sit down and play, it can be hard to find really great sounds with Reason when compared to other synths. That's where I think a lot of the "Reason has a bad sound" comments come from. For whatever reason they expect a single Subtractor patch to sound like a z3ta or albino or whatever else. And when you consider that it takes about 6 devices to make a CV delay... On the other hand, you can't make a CV delay with most other programs at all. Personally I wish that all the devices would be broken down even more so that Reason becomes like an easy to use Reaktor, but that's just because I've had the chance to do things with modular synths which tends to give me a different point of view.

[theoracle]

I agree.Making it something like Reaktor could be a plus. In the end I guess I just look at where Reason is and where it's competiton is. I do enjoy messing with Subtractor and Malstrom as well as the Combinator. I don't think Reason has a bad sound really, it just needs massive upgrades. Things like z3ta and other soft synths, they are one synth. Things that take us several units to try and replicate hehe, they can do easily with twists of the virtual knob. I like that Prop's gave us Master Class units. I just wish they would shoot higher, instead of matching something already out there why not go higher. Set the new standard I guess is what I mean. Take what synths and soft synths are out there and go beyond. Take the effects units and go beyond, and so on.

[bastard_son]

cool combi there. I can't remember when I needed it, but there was an instance where I wanted the cv-delay. My scream-auto setup wasn't half as good as in this download.

Anyway I still like the simplicity of the Reason synths. I don't think I would enjoy a bunch of huge vstis as much as I enjoy the malström.

About a year ago I was considering buying some vsti to get that jp8080 sound, but I think I came pretty close using just a single malström the other day. So even if I have known all the knobs on the malström for years, I'm still just learning to use them now.

[theoracle]

The Malstrom is cool, I just want even more powerful synths. Something that won't take me 5-10 units of synths and several EQ's, Reverbs, Distortions, Delays, etc to make 1 emulated sound haha.

[theoracle]

As time has passed I'm thinking the Subtractor needs stronger filters, I'd still like a time clock option, and a multiple tempo change ability rather than doing alot of math and trying to do it the way they have available. Time is precious

oh and a better delay unit and a high pass filter added to the ECF

[theoracle]

Thought of another one! Besides more programmer routing options in the combinator... I want one that allows me to route effects to the combi mod wheel! so that while i filter sweep with the mod wheel i can apply an effect to it as well!

[chriscarter]

You know what I would LOVE to be able to do with the Combi mod wheels??

Adjust multiple parameters at the same time, for instance note length and filter cut-off

And yeah I agree the subtractor's oscillator controls stink ... grrr they frustrate me so ...

[azerate]

That's fine and dandy, but what about some VST support. That would be a real update.

[theoracle]

doubt it will ever happen, atleast not right now... but hey who knows

[theoracle]

I'm still waiting for my cross-mod feature.. I really had hoped Thor would solve this but it didn't

It's so very essential to some deadly sounds. Take this one for example, it's done live by me off my microKorg.

http://rapidshare.com/files/103191707/C ... tch_16.mp3