All good programs. It all depends on the way you want to work.
Assuming that somewhere down the road you might want to record a live,
analog source into your productions (i.e., a human voice, a guitar, a sax,
something like that...) remember;
Neither Acid or Reason allow you to record audio. All you can do is work
with pre-existing loops. Of these two, however, Reason blows Acid out of the
water, imo. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say Reason is the coolest
program I've ever seen before. (Went to a NAMM demo of Reason today...
horrible demo! What's up with Propellerhead Software's marketing?)
Anyway, with Reason, you can do everything you can do with Acid, and about a
billion times more. You've got your MIDI instruments... The subtractive
synth in Reason rivals, if not surpasses, my Korg MS 2000, which cost $1K US
right there! The drum machine is badass and simple, the loop player gives
you your .rex files, and, the pitch shifting algorithims are as good or
better as they are in Acid. ("Acidizing" a file doesn't mean much, really,
and Acid doesn't sound that good to me anyway.) Not only that, in Reason,
you can decide whether you want to change the tempo digitally (often a bit
dicey) or you can just work it like Recycle, and edit your slices as you
like. If you've already used Recycle, you'll find Reason a lot simpler than
Acid in this regard.
Not only that, Recycle has a great sample playback synth, about as good as
any of those Korg N series keyboards (another expensive hardware purchase),
and some hot fx, including delay, reverb, distortion, etc. etc.
And, depending on how powerful your computer is, you can open up as many of
these modules as you want, so, it's got sick power on a decent P3 or G4.
Not only that, the street price is only $239 US. That's beyond stupid. I
would heartily recommend this program (and BUY it, don't pirate it.
Propellerhead is a damn cool company, one of the few that don't put in a
copy protection scheme, and these guys should be supported. Oh yeah, one
other thing, it is dead EASY to use. You could install it on Friday evening
and have your first tasty track done by Sunday night!)
Having said all that, Reason still doesn't let you work with audio. For that
you need the full blown sequencer and Recycle. I've used 4 of them, and
here's my breakdown / NAMM report.
a) Logic Audio is the best. Great plug ins and timing, nice interface, and
the 5.0 upgrade, with total automation, plus the new control surface for it,
morphs it into another realm. It's really a musical instrument, now. (And
check the user list... Nitin Sawhney, Jamiroquai, etc.) But, it is really
difficult to learn. Prepare to spend a few months before mastering it.
b) Cubase is right there with it, but generally thought not quite as
reliable. The feature set is up there with Logic, but the company has no
tech support to speak of. Rumor has it the lads from Groove Armada recently
jumped ship to Logic because of some esoteric timing problems in Cubase.
c) Digital Performer, has always been one of the slickest, but its for Mac
only.
d) Cakewalk / Sonar... thumbs down on the basis of their NAMM show booth.
What were they selling over there, Karaoke refill tapes? (Even though it's
the most popular program, probably the easiest, and E:Trinity gets it to
sound nice....)
Final consideration; those sequencers cost alot of money. (Street price
around $500 US, or more); not only that, to get the most out of 'em, you've
got to get a good audio card (ditto with Reason.)
The short answer is, if I was just starting out, I'd get Reason, start
making my tracks, and then, if I get good, pick up Logic or Cubase and start
putting vocals etc to my Reason trax... If you ever want to do vocals later,
you will still be glad u have Reason. It's hot.
----- Original Message -----
From: "mark givens" <markeg@hotmail.com>
To: <ACID-JAZZ@UCSD.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2002 1:19 AM
Subject: ACid or REX ?Cubase Reason or ACID
> dear list: There are two file formats and programs that are blowin up in
> the desktop music world .Acidfiles by sonic foundry and REXfile which is
> part of the REcycle (steinberg) system used with Cubase and now Reason
which
> is already highly touted. What it comes down to is which of the three
> programs are best to buy ?Reason and Cubase are somewhat cheaper than Acid
> until you add the cost of Recycle in . The thing is all of the programs
are
> deep and I intend to use whichever one i get for a long time . I like
> working with audio more than midi but I like chopping and timestretching
as
> well. Rexfiles are one way to chop and change the tempo of a sample and
> Acid also has beatchopping and matching.Reason has virtual synth and drum
> machines in addition to a rexfile player. well what do you think?
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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