# Reason with 3rd Party VSTs - Integrating with Another DAW



## lydian91 (Jan 15, 2019)

I've started getting back into Reason now that it supports 3rd party plugins. Being able to integrate things like Omnisphere and Soundtoys within the Propellerhead ecosystem makes it a real powerhouse for designing sounds. It's my preferred environment whenever I need to create a custom patch; however, I have yet to find a great solution for integrating this with a master DAW (Cubase or DP generally—the specific DAW isn't really important here). 

ReWire works great, but you lose the 3rd party plugin support, so that's not really an option. I don't need a bunch of live audio coming from Reason into my DAW, so I'm happy to print one sound at a time (like you would with analog synths). The core issue really boils down to tempo sync.

Reason of course supports midi clock sync, but this comes with its own set of problems. Film cues can have a lot of tempo changes, and the midi clock just can't adjust fast enough. Would an external midi clock be a solution? Not sure if that could integrate with tempo coming from the master DAW. I haven't really ventured into this part of the midi world. For the moment, the only solution I'm aware of is to export a midi file from the master DAW into Reason, but it's clunky and makes experimentation difficult—especially when working to picture. 

It's looking like the technology just isn't there yet, but I'm curious if there are other solutions. Reason is such a powerful sound design environment now. Would love to find a better way to integrate it into my workflow.


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## Crowe (Jan 15, 2019)

Ah. That's a pretty crappy thing. Not having rewire work with the 3rd party support takes away some of the charm.

The only thing I can think of at the moment is 'rewiring' another way. You may not have the setup to support this, but I'd probably think about running Reason on a laptop, and routing the sound to my PC interface, recording it into my main DAW. But that'd negate the midi clock, unless you run from another interface that has midi.

Hmmm...


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## lydian91 (Jan 15, 2019)

Yeah, it's admittedly a tricky thing to solve. I'm on one machine. There really may not be a way around exporting midi files. I was just enjoying the thought of using Reason as an instrument rack in tandem with VE Pro. VEP being the container for "acoustic" instruments, Reason for the hybrid stuff.

I suppose this issue isn't really specific to Reason. The same problem would exist for those looking to tempo sync a bunch of analog gear with a master midi sequence that has lots of tempo changes. How do people handle this?


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## LinusW (Jan 15, 2019)

I'm actually trying to do it the other way around. Reason as my master DAW and midi over ethernet to my slave computers, but Reason lacks MTC/MMC unfortunately. :(
There is Ableton Link though. You could have Reason on a second computer slaving to the tempo of Ableton Live.


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## lydian91 (Jan 16, 2019)

Link is an interesting idea—had not considered that. It's unfortunate that it's not supported by the major scoring DAWs. Though it did get me thinking that a program like Bitwig or Live might be a suitable replacement for Reason. Those might have the same rewire limitation though...IDK Reason's rack-based architecture is so great. There's a simplicity that's hard to beat.


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## antret (Jan 16, 2019)

Well, I did try this as a proof of concept awhile back so I may have some of the details a little mixed up, but I did get this to 'work' .....

Ableton Live has many limitations when it is in a rewire 'slave' mode. no vst plugs can be used, no max for live, etc. I read on the Reaper forum people 'syncing' Reaper and Ableton live without using rewire. In Reaper, there is a setting to turn off or on whether Reaper 'reacts' or 'ignores' rewire status. In my case, it meant that i could be using Reaper as the main DAW for a project, decide I need to add a little max for live magic, open ableton live (since Reaper isn't 'rewire anything' Ableton live opens normally) and use all the vst and max for live things i want.

Reaper comes with a driver called ReaRoute which needs to be used. This is the audio output/driver you need selected in Ableton Live. In Reaper, ReaRoute is selected as the audio input on your selected track to monitor the output of Ableton live (I think in reaper you can use your normal ASIO driver) With fancy routing you can route many tracks separately from Live to Reaper. I was ok testing just sending the mix track to reaper. 

The way I got them to stay in sync was by using a application like loop midi to pipe midi clock or MTC between the two. was it perfectly time aligned in sync? I don't think it was? was there a bit of latency between the two DAWS, I believe there was. Could that all be overcome? I don't know.... I didn't really pursue it. 

As I say, I just tried it to see if it would work. That was a while ago, so I apologize if some of the above isn't super accurate.  I think if you search in the reaper forums you can find talk of this.

Hopefully a tiny bit helpful....


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## theBOWMAN (Jan 17, 2019)

Watching with interest! I'm in the same boat - would absolutely love to be able to use all my 3rd party stuff in Reason whilst it is rewired into Logic


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## lydian91 (Jan 17, 2019)

After some more experimentation, I've found that syncing with the midi clock is somewhat usable—to an extent. If the tempo changes stay within about 10 bpm of each other, there isn't any perceptible flamming between Reason and the master (I've tried with Cubase and DP). For most film cues, the majority of tempo changes are staying within that range. The moments when a tempo synced effect needs to overlap a larger tempo shift is a rarer occurrence, so for those situations you would still need to export a midi file and print from Reason. 

It's not an ideal scenario, but it does make this a usable setup for the moment. I can at least try things against the picture and then print once I'm ready to commit. It's pretty old school, but I think that's been part of the appeal for me. I'm really enjoying creating all of my hybrid sounds in a virtual rack that has to be cabled (and printed) manually. You get the flexibility and instant recall that comes with digital, but the analog architecture forces you to slow down and be more deliberate. It's a mindset shift that's feeling really great. I feel more in control of my sounds.

We need a better way to sync tempos. The major DAWs should adopt Ableton Link as they have done with ReWire—or just update the ReWire protocol so that it allows for 3rd party plugins. Ugh...


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## rrichard63 (Jan 17, 2019)

EDIT: after rereading this thread from the beginning, I think this suggestion isn't relevant. See my next post.

Has anybody tried this product?

http://energy-xt.com/rewire-vst.html

If it does what the developer says it does, it might help.


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## rrichard63 (Jan 17, 2019)

lydian91 said:


> ... ReWire works great, but you lose the 3rd party plugin support, so that's not really an option. ...


Why do your plugins have to be in Reason rather than in your ReWire host?


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## lydian91 (Jan 17, 2019)

For me the appeal is that mixing and matching your own plugins with the Reason devices opens up a lot of creative possibilities—and it's all in a modular environment. You could take an instance of Omnisphere, run it through some Soundtoys stuff, run that through Pulveriser, then layer all of that with Subtractor and Thor—all in one patch. Or perhaps layer Battery and Kong to create a custom kit.

A more utilitarian example would be using Omnisphere with Reason's matrix device. Omnisphere's arpeggiator is great, but you can't trigger different patterns. So if you were to create a cool arp pattern that works great in 7/8, you'd have to duplicate the patch to account for that one 3/4 bar in the cue. Using Reason's matrix, you could automate different pattern sequences as needed.


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## rrichard63 (Jan 18, 2019)

lydian91 said:


> For me the appeal is that mixing and matching your own plugins with the Reason devices opens up a lot of creative possibilities ...


Thanks. Your examples are very helpful. I think I understand the problem now.


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## lydian91 (Jan 20, 2019)

Ask and you shall receive!

https://ask.audio/articles/mma-amei-developing-prototypes-for-next-generation-midi-20

Looks like midi 2.0 will address this timing issue. I'm sure it will be a while yet, but this is so encouraging—and long overdue.


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