Pros and Cons of Reason... anyone?

[Goodfella]

I haven't even tried Reason. I know there's a Demo on their web page but my current PC will no support it.

About a year ago I was in one of the best studios of my area. A friend of mine that works there heard my work and liked it. So he asked me what tools I use for making music. Well, I use Fruity Loops. Back then it was version 3.56 I thnk. Now I use FL Studio Producer Edition 5.

The thing is that my friend told me that if I was able to squeeze the juice out of Fruity Loops, then I should consider buying Reason, because as he told me: "You're going to elevate your music with Reason".

I know it is not as easy to use as FL Studio but please, do as if you were selling me Reason and tell me other pros and cons about it.

[grob2]

Pros:
Good quality and inspiring soft synths with flexible virtual signal routing (also, some pretty decent effect units)
Nice samples and drum kits for electronic music
Many inexpensive or free quality "refills" (bundled files that include synth patches, samples, etc.)
Very logical and easy-to-use interface that keeps you making music instead of trying to configure things
Includes a decent soft sampler (although by no means on par with the more expensive, dedicated samplers like Kontakt) and an easy-to-use REX file player

Cons:
No audio recording if you record your own instruments or vocals- which forces you to either record audio in a different program and then import them as samples OR use a host program like Sonar, Logic, etc.

Limited formats accepted by the Reason samplers may make it hard for you to incorporate your other sample libraries directly in Reason (again, needing a host program like Sonar for things to be compatible)

Conclusion: very easy tool to stay focused on the music. You can find individual soft-synths, samplers, effect units, etc. that sound better than Reason. But, everything in Reason is of good quality, and you really have a lot of bang-for-the-buck when you consider all of the soft-synths, samplers, effects units, and samples that are included. Perfect for sample driven-music, but the limitations on audio-recording should make you consider exactly what you'll use Reason for if you do a lot of audio recording.

[Shadow-Ninja]

i can only speak for reason 2.5

pros: high quality sounds
a **** load of refills

cons: the linear sequencer is so ****ing annoying and cumbersome
doesn't deal with recording
not vsti/dxi compatible