# Reason Studio's Friktion, a newcomer to the physical modeling strings court.



## lychee (Aug 25, 2020)

I am amazed that no one is talking about this new plugin from Reason Studio, which looks very interesting.
It's a string synth (but not only that) based on physical modeling, which could be a serious competitor to Audiomodeling plugins.
So I allow myself to open a discussion, and I let you discover this little gem.
I just regret that it is in Reason rack format and not just in simple VST.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 25, 2020)

I watched both demos earlier today and wasn’t immediately blown away by what I heard. It does not seem to threaten Samplemodeling’s Strings any time soon? Or am I missing something / dismissing it too soon? Do not misunderstand, by no means is my intention to put shade on this instrument. But I did not get the feeling its intended user group is orchestral composers.


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## sostenuto (Aug 25, 2020)

Longtime puzzling re. diving into Reason. Friktion post caught my attention, but still not finding major 'reasons' to go for Reason ..... given large Spectrasonics, K12U, Synchron Player, OT SINE, +++++ investment. Always curious and open to advices.


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## mussnig (Aug 25, 2020)

lychee said:


> I am amazed that no one is talking about this new plugin from Reason Studio, which looks very interesting.
> It's a string synth (but not only that) based on physical modeling, which could be a serious competitor to Audiomodeling plugins.
> So I allow myself to open a discussion, and I let you discover this little gem.
> I just regret that it is in Reason rack format and not just in simple VST.




Reminds me a bit of the modelled strings in one of Ableton's instruments (I think it's Tension), which I honestly didn't really try yet (only for a few minutes). I am sure that Reason Friktion can do a lot, but as @doctoremmet says, it doesn't seem to be targeted at someone who wants to replicate the sound of real Strings for orchestral use.


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## Kent (Aug 25, 2020)

Reminds me of, like, a DX7. Not a bad sound, but not a "real" sound.

Seems like it would have a lot of uses though!


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## TGV (Aug 25, 2020)

I'm not going to go Reason, it's just not my thing, but Friktion does sound and look interesting, although the walk-through flute immediately reminded me of Sculpture.


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## lychee (Aug 25, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> I watched both demos earlier today and wasn’t immediately blown away by what I heard. It does not seem to threaten Samplemodeling’s Strings any time soon? Or am I missing something / dismissing it too soon? Do not misunderstand, by no means is my intention to put shade on this instrument. But I did not get the feeling its intended user group is orchestral composers.



The problem is that the developers did not have the good idea to do more orchestral demos, because by listening carefully we realize that this instrument is convincing and very capable.
The second video gives a better idea of the possibilities of Friktion, I'm waiting to see what a genius of orchestral composition could bring out of this plugin, with a real work on the sound and a good reverb.

Here are some examples of interesting demos (in my opinion):


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## fiatlux (Aug 25, 2020)

I have found it much more interesting in Sound Design rather than tryiing
to recreate instruments. It is able to create new instruments that feel really organic
and have so much life. I feel like my Kontakt libs do a much better job of real-world emulations.
But Friktion really feels like a more modern version of my old Yamaha VL1 & EX5.


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## lychee (Aug 25, 2020)

kmaster said:


> Reminds me of, like, a DX7. Not a bad sound, but not a "real" sound.
> 
> Seems like it would have a lot of uses though!



That's my opinion, but I find you a little harsh even if we sometimes found the sounds of Friktion a little synthetic at times, but if we compare with the Audiomodeling Strings for example, I find that it is very close, and when you see what wonders some can do with AM plugins, well I think this Friktion is a rough diamond that is not yet cut.
Knowing in addition that Reason's plugin is able to solo as well as perform an ensemble, that makes it all the more interesting.


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## Kent (Aug 25, 2020)

lychee said:


> That's my opinion, but I find you a little harsh even if we sometimes found the sounds of Friktion a little synthetic at times, but if we compare with the Audiomodeling Strings for example, I find that it is very close, and when you see what wonders some can do with AM plugins, well I think this Friktion is a rough diamond that is not yet cut.
> Knowing in addition that Reason's plugin is able to solo as well as perform an ensemble, that makes it all the more interesting.


I think you underestimate the esteem I have for the DX7


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## Nick Batzdorf (Aug 25, 2020)

fiatlux said:


> I have found it much more interesting in Sound Design rather than tryiing
> to recreate instruments. It is able to create new instruments that feel really organic
> and have so much life. I feel like my Kontakt libs do a much better job of real-world emulations.
> But Friktion really feels like a more modern version of my old Yamaha VL1 & EX5.



Yes. I too have a VL1, and it's great - but as with every instrument, you have to use it for what it's good at, not what it's not good at .


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## muziksculp (Aug 25, 2020)

Very Interesting.

I'm a big fan of Physically Modeled Instruments, especially Bowed Strings.

I haven't had the time to check 'Friktion' yet, just watched the Intro video. I wonder if they will make a VST version of Friktion ? 

Actually, I wish Sample Modeling had a dedicated PM Player for their Instruments instead of Kontakt. I'm not a big fan of using Kontakt's GUI for PM Instruments.


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## José Herring (Aug 25, 2020)

Reason is my go to secret weapon. It doesn't come up much here because this forum is more dedicated to "real" sounding samples. 

Friktion is going to be great for sound designing organic sounds. It also sounds really good for ethic instruments from the demo. Right now on the Reason forums somebody is trying to program some e-bow things on it. looking forward to it.

This is going to be another amazing Reason offering, but if you're looking for authentic sounding strings, then look elsewhere. Reason does what it does best and that is creating new sounds and having an endless amount of modulation possibilties through its back panel cv routing.


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## José Herring (Aug 25, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> Very Interesting.
> 
> I'm a big fan of Physically Modeled Instruments, especially Bowed Strings.
> 
> ...


I'm fairly sure that since Reason now is a VST plugin that their days of making VST's are over. They even pulled Europa VST from their shop a while back.


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## muziksculp (Aug 25, 2020)

José Herring said:


> I'm fairly sure that since Reason now is a VST plugin that their days of making VST's are over. They even pulled Europa VST from their shop a while back.



Hmmm... Not sure I like that. I would still rather use it as a VST rather than have to use Reason as a VST to be able to use Friktion.


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## lychee (Aug 25, 2020)

kmaster said:


> I think you underestimate the esteem I have for the DX7



So I apologize for underestimating the DX7. 
I would be curious to hear patches from the DX7 capable of reproducing realistic instruments such as strings.


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## José Herring (Aug 25, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> Hmmm... Not sure I like that. I would still rather use it as a VST rather than have to use Reason as a VST to be able to use Friktion.


Reason VST ROCKS!!!!!! Plus then you get to use some really great reason fx and instruments. 

If you go that direction remember the trick to using Reason is to read the manual. It isn't as straight forward as they'd like you to believe.


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## José Herring (Aug 25, 2020)

lychee said:


> The problem is that the developers did not have the good idea to do more orchestral demos, because by listening carefully we realize that this instrument is convincing and very capable.
> The second video gives a better idea of the possibilities of Friktion, I'm waiting to see what a genius of orchestral composition could bring out of this plugin, with a real work on the sound and a good reverb.
> 
> Here are some examples of interesting demos (in my opinion):



The flute and Erhu demos is where this instrument is going to find it niche in my template. I also know it can do drums, I'm curious about that too.


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## lychee (Aug 25, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> Hmmm... Not sure I like that. I would still rather use it as a VST rather than have to use Reason as a VST to be able to use Friktion.



We can now think of Reason rack as an NI Kontakt, it's just that we're not used to seeing Reason in this form and it's frustrating to have to take a whole pack of plugins to be able to then buy the one that interests us really.
I think Reason Studio should think about just creating a player.


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## muziksculp (Aug 25, 2020)

José Herring said:


> Reason VST ROCKS!!!!!! Plus then you get to use some really great reason fx and instruments.
> 
> If you go that direction remember the trick to using Reason is to read the manual. It isn't as straight forward as they'd like you to believe.



Thanks for the feedback. 

I have never seen someone use Reason as a VST in their DAW, I will do some Youtube surfing on this. Also wondering if using Reason as a VST is very efficient CPU wise, and also not too busy to look at visually.


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## lychee (Aug 25, 2020)

Reason Studio succeeded with this Friktion in getting me interested in their rack, well done guys, you got me.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 25, 2020)

lychee said:


> So I apologize for underestimating the DX7.
> I would be curious to hear patches from the DX7 capable of reproducing realistic instruments such as strings.


Strings were never DX7’s strongsuit. But I have heard some pretty convincing percussions and plucks. Very organic sounding. My love for it and FM synthesis in general go deep.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 25, 2020)

lychee said:


> Reason Studio succeeded with this Friction in getting me interested in their rack, well done guys, you got me.


You have become somewhat of a beacon on this forum when it comes to modeling. So I will follow this development and your posts. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.


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## José Herring (Aug 25, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> Thanks for the feedback.
> 
> I have never seen someone use Reason as a VST in their DAW, I will do some Youtube surfing on this. Also wondering if using Reason as a VST is very efficient CPU wise, and also not too busy to look at visually.


Yeah it's unbearably efficient. Reason is kind of built on that idea as their user base is wide and they have pro's all the way down to 14 year old kids in their mom's basement. So it's built on the idea that anybody can use it and is the main reason why Reason was my second major purchase. I say they pay probably too much attention to efficient and have in the past sacrificed a tiny bit of quality because of it. Though with Reason 10 that quality gap dissipated. 

But, compared to Reaktor it's so CPU friendly. Though now that Reason is in the bigger leagues some of their Rack Extentions come with a cpu hit. But RE's like Expanse are so good that I chose it over Serum. Europa is so good and comes included in Reason. I wish they had a better skin for Europa though. That red gives eye strain. The main reason why I use Expanse instead. Grain their graintable synth is full of surprises. It can even play back loops in time and you can mangle the hell out of them like Slate and Ash stuff. Nearly every time a new plugin is released I find that it has been hidden in Reason for decades and I just didn't know about it. 

And their vintage Reason stuff is some classic digital stuff that I still use. I think though mostly for nostalgia.

I consider Reason a swiss army knife of plugins. Yeah, over the years I've spent $10,000 on instruments and plugins that are maybe a little better than Reason's stuff, but in truth for the couple of hundred bucks you got a amazing amount of stuff. But, you do have to spend a lot of time learning it. On the other hand, their stuff is timeless. Their synth Thor which came out with Reason 4 nearly 15 years ago, can still hold its own against many of newer synths, but you have to know how to use it, but it litterally has every synth in it including a limited PPG wavetable synth. I'm like whoa!

If you get it contact me and I'll get you started with the basic "reasoning" behind Reason.


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## José Herring (Aug 25, 2020)

lychee said:


> Reason Studio succeeded with this Friction in getting me interested in their rack, well done guys, you got me.


Pm me if you need help. Like I said it isn't as straight forward as it seems. Also, I belong to a group on FB called "Propellarheads Reason Users". It's got some hardcore Reason talent in it. They even took me to task a few times for being kind of a "newbie" because though I've been a Reason owner since version 2.5 I really hadn't used it since Reason 5 until Reason 11 came out. So when I got back on the FB group I asked the usual newbie questions which sometimes got a few curt responses until I started to asked the real deep questions.


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## muziksculp (Aug 25, 2020)

I'm sure REASON is a wonderful tool to have, but I really don't want to deal with another learning curve.

I have enough to deal with as is, my DAW, the various plugins I use with it, my HW-Synths, Effects, ..etc. I even stopped using my NI Maschine Mk3, because it needed me to twist my workflow, and deal with another, and very different layer of workflow, that didn't make sense to me. 

I like to have a unified workflow as much as possible, that keeps me productive, while having fun doing so.


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## cqd (Aug 25, 2020)

Yeah, since it's vst/AAX everyone should have reason really.. for what you get it's a steal..Europa is one of the best synths out there.. being able to route everything up and fire it in a combinator is great..this friktion looks decent going by the video.. I'll pick it up at some stage..but yeah, everyone should consider reason now.. there's no real learning curve.. it's a load of synths/effects in a shell you can wire up however you want.. it's pretty epic..


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## Sarah Mancuso (Aug 25, 2020)

Reason is great. A capable and unique DAW in itself (though not exactly the most streamlined for orchestral workflows), and a great synth-and-fx rack to use in other DAWs.


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## pmcrockett (Aug 25, 2020)

This makes me want to get back into Reason, which I haven't really touched since version 3 or 4. I'm a sucker for physically modeled instruments, and Friktion looks like it sits about halfway between Audio Modeling's strings (emulation of real instruments) and AAS's String Studio (physically modeled string based synth), and I'm really interested in seeing what can be done with it. To my ear, it's pretty far behind the AM strings in terms of recreating orchestral instruments, but I think the sound design possibilities are the real selling point for this.


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## rnb_2 (Aug 25, 2020)

Got the email from them today. I got Reason Lite (an even more cut-down version of Intro - it seems like those names should be swapped?) with my Korg microKEY Air controller, so I can run this without buying anything else (though I would have to buy Intro if I want the dual arpeggiator and some other things in the video). It doesn't seem to be directed at orchestral composers, but a decent-sounding and versatile modeled strings + sound design library for $99 is tempting, especially when you can rent-to-own at $10 a month. Nice that they also have a demo.


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## lychee (Aug 26, 2020)

Another test video where we can see that Friktion is able to do basses or guitars things :



Some of you say it's a good sound design tool and I think it's more than that, due to its ability to be really tweakable in so many ways I'm sure we can easily simulate real things.
But I can't prove it without getting my hands on it so I tried to get a trial version but it told me on their site:

"Friktion requires a different version of Reason, Reason Essentials or ReCycle than the one you currently have registered in your Reason Studios user account"

Do I have to buy Reason rack or something like that to play Friktion or can I use a demo of this program to play the demo of Friktion?
It's not easy to test this plugin so the Reason team need to think about a better way to sell products, and again like Kontakt, a free player is one of them.


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## gamma-ut (Aug 26, 2020)

If you don't have a version of Reason that will run it, there's not a lot of point in demoing or buying it. 

However, it should run in the Lite version of Reason/Reason Rack 11. Pluginboutique gave it away with a purchase last month. I imagine there will be another sale or giveaway sometime soon.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 26, 2020)

@lychee To put it into context, what are your thoughts on Expressive E’s Arché range? I know those are by no means as tweakable as Friktion is. But just to gauge what you think of those instruments - soundwise? They still run a 40% discount on them until September 10 and whenever @charlieclouser posts an “add to cart” message I’m always immediately intrigued. 

Still am, but also waiting for Aaron Venture to release Infinite Strings (sample based, but great complement to IB and IW and relying heavily on modeling in Kontakt). 

And of course Samplemodeling still have their sale up (was it $299 for their strings?) and SWAM instruments are cool because they’re truly modeled. And then there’s AAS, right?
Is that a complete overview of this particular market niche? (For strings at least). Anyway, I digress: my main interest here is to find out whether Friktion and Arché are somewhat in the same ballpark soundwise.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 26, 2020)

gamma-ut said:


> If you don't have a version of Reason that will run it, there's not a lot of point in demoing or buying it.
> 
> However, it should run in the Lite version of Reason/Reason Rack 11. Pluginboutique gave it away with a purchase last month. I imagine there will be another sale or giveaway sometime soon.


A lot of those Pluginboutique giveaways end up for $10 on Knobcloud not much later... always a pretty risk free way to get your feet wet.


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## muziksculp (Aug 26, 2020)

OK, I was never into using REASON, even though I had it, and even updated it up to version 10. 

SO.. I re-evaluated Reason, and what I might be able to use it for as a VST in my DAW (Studio One Pro 5).

I decided to get *Reason 11* as an upgrade from Reason 10, and use it as a VST3 Plugin, this will give me access to all the Rack Instruments, and Effects inside of Studio One Pro. No more REWIRE, so it's basically like using any other VST in my DAW. 

I will look into getting FRIKTION as well so I can use it in S1 via the REASON 11 VST RACK. 

I think it is a great value for making beats, electronic music, experimental music, ..etc. ..etc. and have a lot more cool tools added to your DAW. 

There is a bit of a learning curve involved, but it's not that much if I just use it as a VST Plugin in my DAW. I can always use REASON 11 as an alternate DAW to S1Pro 5, and put some time into learning it, to have completely new DAW flavor, and experience. Although I doubt I will use it as a DAW frequently.


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## lychee (Aug 28, 2020)

I was finally able to test the Friktion demo, it was necessary for that to first download the one of Reason and then click on the trial version of Friktion.
It took me a long time to understand that pressing "trial" put Friktion in the shopping cart, and then you had to go to the cart to have the free demo.

So after testing this VST I can say that for those who like the concept of physical modeling, this is a must have tool, and the Reason Rack also seems like a good investment.
Too bad I don't have the budget for this at the moment.

The classic string sounds sound good to my ear (no expert, I'll grant you that), but the ensemble option makes the whole thing sound like an accordion more than a string section.
For this I think that we should create a rack of several solo violins (for example) to opt for something realistic.
I'll do some testing later.

But I remain convinced that we can opt for great things from this plugin.

For example (100% Friktion):


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## rnb_2 (Aug 28, 2020)

Anybody who is on Waves' mailing list and has some interest in Friktion - check your inbox. I got a link for a free copy of Reason Lite (which I already have) this morning. It has about ½ of what is included with Reason Intro, but it would give you the rack to install the demo of Friktion in.


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## lychee (Sep 3, 2020)

rnb_2 said:


> Anybody who is on Waves' mailing list and has some interest in Friktion - check your inbox. I got a link for a free copy of Reason Lite (which I already have) this morning. It has about ½ of what is included with Reason Intro, but it would give you the rack to install the demo of Friktion in.



I'm sorry I missed this, but thanks for the info anyway.


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## lychee (Sep 3, 2020)

Maybe some will not be convinced, but to test the Friktion demo I did a Mokup of La Serenissima by the Rondo Venesiano orchestra, and for me this confirms that Friktion is a very powerful tool in this area.
My mokup is still under construction, the instruments are still raw and I haven't done a lot of mixing work (an area that I don't master) but already it sounds good to my taste.
I mostly worked on creating ensembles by grouping solo instruments together, because I didn't like the ensemble effect that came with the plugin.
I put three violins with different parameters to differentiate them, all going into the Line Mixer with a slight pan.
It was great fun making your own orchestra section by section, all I need is a time humanization tool (which exists but is not provided in Reason's core tools).
Friktion excels at short notes, I didn't do a good job of making realistic sustained notes, but it's probably because I'm not an expert in string sounds and I did everything through my inexperienced ear.

And you, what do you think of all this?


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## doctoremmet (Sep 3, 2020)

lychee said:


> Maybe some will not be convinced, but to test the Friktion demo I did a Mokup of La Serenissima by the Rondo Venesiano orchestra, and for me this confirms that Friktion is a very powerful tool in this area.
> My mokup is still under construction, the instruments are still raw and I haven't done a lot of mixing work (an area that I don't master) but already it sounds good to my taste.
> I mostly worked on creating ensembles by grouping solo instruments together, because I didn't like the ensemble effect that came with the plugin.
> I put three violins with different parameters to differentiate them, all going into the Line Mixer with a slight pan.
> ...


Nice job. I like what I’m hearing! (having listened to the first clip). Are all instruments Friktion? I think I’m hearing a flute-like sound in there, some kind of wind instrument at least.

I like the bowing type sounds. The sustains are less convincing and sound more artificial / “synthy” than the shorts. For the record, I do not argue that any instrument (like Friktion) should be “real” for it to be useful and/or sounding good. This sounds good in my book!


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## lychee (Sep 3, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Nice job. I like what I’m hearing! (having listened to the first clip). Are all instruments Friktion? I think I’m hearing a flute-like sound in there, some kind of wind instrument at least.



The other VST I have used are the Wivi Pro oboe (which I have to rework a bit), Modo Bass and Addictive Drums 2.
All strings are from Friktion (see example above).



doctoremmet said:


> I like the bowing type sounds. The sustains are less convincing and sound more artificial / “synthy” than the shorts.



I don't understand, yet when I listen to the sustained strings solo, it sounds believable, but when I listen to the whole music, it sounds synthetic like you say.
I don't see what I did wrong.

Example of raw sound:


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## lychee (Sep 3, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> For the record, I do not argue that any instrument (like Friktion) should be “real” for it to be useful and/or sounding good. This sounds good in my book!



It's true, I actually hesitated for a long time to buy Wivi Woodwinds, but I chose it for its more lively side than a rigid sample-based plugin.
In addition, this type of instrument is more malleable to get closer to what I have in mind.
I think I'll do the same with Friktion, and too bad for ultra realism, because I prefer live sounds.


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## doctoremmet (Sep 3, 2020)

lychee said:


> I don't see what I did wrong.


I had no intention to imply this!


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## doctoremmet (Sep 3, 2020)

lychee said:


> I actually hesitated for a long time to buy Wivi Woodwinds, but I chose it for its more lively side than a rigid sample-based plugin


I know, I followed that thread and may have given you my 2 cents at the time (likely “try Aaron Venture”). I like the path you have chosen to follow!


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## doctoremmet (Sep 3, 2020)

lychee said:


> Example of raw sound:


It almost sounds as if the phrase is doubled, like an 8v overtone is in there somewhere... and I do not mean the part where there is actually a recorded octave... also the vibrato may be too... mathematical? Too much of a straight LFO sinewave modulating the amplitude? I don’t know yet. I am telling you though... I might get Friktion at some point. I can recall the days in the early 90s when I was drooling all over the VL1 and EX5. And now it is finally available for mere mortals.

This is a very interesting and cool sounding instrument indeed. Realism be damned


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## doctoremmet (Sep 3, 2020)

Can’t wait for @José Herring to get this one too, hoping he will drop some cool demos. But right now he’s likely jamming with UJAM guitars, saturating all life out of them with Trash2, while playing some kickass clarinet on top or something


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## lychee (Sep 3, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> I had no intention to imply this!



LOL, I was not implying that you were implying this, it was a real question which you answered here:



doctoremmet said:


> It almost sounds as if the phrase is doubled, like an 8v overtone is in there somewhere... and I do not mean the part where there is actually a recorded octave... also the vibrato may be too... mathematical? Too much of a straight LFO sinewave modulating the amplitude? I don’t know yet. I am telling you though... I might get Friktion at some point. I can recall the days in the early 90s when I was drooling all over the VL1 and EX5. And now it is finally available for mere mortals.
> 
> This is a very interesting and cool sounding instrument indeed. Realism be damned



I confirm, the vibrato is too straight, lifeless, but that's all Friktion offers, I haven't seen how to put anarchy in it.
Another fault of Friktion, the legatos are not great, but it's not catastrophic either.
I will explore your other points that you noted.
Thanks.



doctoremmet said:


> Can’t wait for @José Herring to get this one too, hoping he will drop some cool demos. But right now he’s likely jamming with UJAM guitars, saturating all life out of them with Trash2, while playing some kickass clarinet on top or something



I also can't wait to see what other guys more seasoned than me can do with this plugin.


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## doctoremmet (Sep 3, 2020)

lychee said:


> It's true, I actually hesitated for a long time to buy Wivi Woodwinds, but I chose it for its more lively side than a rigid sample-based plugin.
> In addition, this type of instrument is more malleable to get closer to what I have in mind.
> I think I'll do the same with Friktion, and too bad for ultra realism, because I prefer live sounds.


This got me thinking... Do you also use modeled pianos, such as the Arturia or PianoTeq ones? I only have the Arturia ones, but I tend to prefer sampled pianos. Something sounds “off” to me in the Arturias when I play them for a while, but I can’t tell you what. I read this a lot about PianoTeq as well, and there are at least an equal number or even more people that adore it and the way it allows you to really shape the tone, the absence of phasing and the playability of it. Oh, and those people also just love the tone as well.

This much I know: a lot of psychology is involved here


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## sostenuto (Sep 3, 2020)

Especially 'Sampled' when AI gets us to the 'feel' when touching special grand piano keys and related, organic interaction. Had good fortune to audition many when living in Boston area, SF Bay area, and now not far from Las Vegas. Such major variation in notable, large grands .... at least to my 'awareness' when playing. Psychology ??? ..... _amid other ethereal processes_.


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## doctoremmet (Sep 4, 2020)




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## doctoremmet (Sep 4, 2020)

Omg. Those taikos can be physically modeled with Friktion? Damn. I think I will follow @lychee and @José Herring and jump on this Reason train. Because Cameron’s video shows a lot of promise. What’s Reason Studios’ track record for maintaining and updating their synths?

That second track also shows that Friktion’s shorts really seem to be a happy place for it. I like how they sound all screechy.


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## José Herring (Sep 4, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Omg. Those taikos can be physically modeled with Friktion? Damn. I think I will follow @lychee and @José Herring and jump on this Reason train. Because Cameron’s video shows a lot of promise. What’s Reason Studios’ track record for maintaining and updating their synths?
> 
> That second track also shows that Friktion’s shorts really seem to be a happy place for it. I like how they sound all screechy.


Reason is not everybody's cup of tea but it does well for a lot of things. 

Rather than update synths Reason tends to release new synths. Also, you can get Rack Extensions which are Reason plugin format. The standalone also will host vst2. The Rack Plugin is vst 3 though and itself won't host other vsts because that would be redundant.

If you get it let me know, I will help you get up and running. Many synths in Reason. They all do many things. Some of them are fairly old and haven't been updated almost ever. Some of them are fairly new and will probably never be updated but they will still work in future versions of Reason. Reason's original synths Maelstrom, and Subtractor have been around since Reason 1 and they still load up in Reason 11. Plus all the fx and utilities still work from Version 1 as well. 

Reason is an old daw and kind of came up on it's own with little influence from the outside world. It took them nearly 15 years to even think about hosting VST's and it still doesn't do it well. So the best thing imo is to treat Reason as Reason and to use it's own format of Rack Extensions which do work inside another DAW as well.

If you get it, I will give you an indepth Reason history lesson that will get you oriented.


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## José Herring (Sep 4, 2020)

Also, be aware that you have to purchase Friktion for $99. It doesn't come with Reason.


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## doctoremmet (Sep 4, 2020)

José Herring said:


> Reason's original synths Maelstrom, and Subtractor have been around since Reason 1 and they still load up in Reason 11. Plus all the fx and utilities still work from Version 1 as well.


This is the main reason (pun intended) I asked and your answer is reassuring. I have known Propellerheads for ages but never really dared to dive in. Just switched from Live to Cubase (with the intention to do electronic stuff in Live still but move orchestral compositions that require more MIDI tweaking to Cubase). I have the Reason Light version (via Waves or Plugin Boutique, I forget). And I am a total synthhead like you. I kind of told myself to wait and just buy one more synth this year - but MSoundFactory still tempts me and I hope Tracktion will release their 8 operator/3 sample osc’s F ‘em synth. But Reason keeps popping up on my radar too, especially since they’ve made the move to “just a DAW” to the “rack as a VST” concept (which I adore).

There’s this Dutch guy who released his debut sometime in 2002 (guy grew up in punk rock scene, worked in a factory and sent a local record label a demo cassette when he was like 42 yo, which they immediately released unaltered as his debut after hearing it). He only used Reason. People have told me they recognise a lot of factory presets 

Here’s a couple of tracks from that record - just for fun. It sounds pretty lo-fi but it has a certain “home made charm” that I totally dig!

Sorry for the off-topic @lychee!


----------



## doctoremmet (Sep 4, 2020)

José Herring said:


> If you get it, I will give you an indepth Reason history lesson that will get you oriented.


I will get it, but it may take some weeks. I’m rebuilding my rig and need to do a lot of decision making on software / architecture / template etc. Plus: I just got the entire XSample sample catalogue. Oops! Btw, I will do a woodwinds walkthrough at some point. First impressions: good!!

But thanks for the offer, I appreciate it very much José!


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## doctoremmet (Sep 4, 2020)

José Herring said:


> Also, be aware that you have to purchase Friktion for $99. It doesn't come with Reason.


Well aware! Thanks for the heads-up!


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## muziksculp (Sep 4, 2020)

I wish Friktion did a better bowed string emulation. 

The examples I hear don't convince me that Friktion is able to handle the bowed string modeling to create realistic sounding strings. i.e. imho. SWAM does a much better emulation of bowed strings. I feel Friktion does a better job emulating plucked strings, but then plucked sounds are usually easier to emulate than bowed strings in general. 

I'm still on the fence if I should buy Friktion, or not. I'm tempted to get it for sound design work, but not for realistic string emulations. I'm in no rush, so I will wait to hear what Friktion users are creating with it, especially bowed sounds.


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## lychee (Sep 4, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Sorry for the off-topic @lychee!



No problem, you are talking about Reason and it relates to our subject.



doctoremmet said:


> Omg. Those taikos can be physically modeled with Friktion?



Yes, day after day I am in awe of this plugin, and I think I can create an entire orchestra with it. 

I'm just super sad that I twice missed the opportunity to get Reason Lite (from Wave and Plugin Boutique), and now I feel like an idiot.
Now, I have to pay for Intro in addition to Friktion, but I can console myself by telling me that I will have other jewelry in addition, like Kong Drum Designer for example, which also has a physical modeling part in it.

Have you seen this video which remains interesting, even if they talk a lot rather than doing a demo ? :


----------



## José Herring (Sep 4, 2020)

lychee said:


> No problem, you are talking about Reason and it relates to our subject.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Soon you'll be breaking your piggy bank to shell out for Reason Suite. 

But, Reason Studios admitted that they may drop the suite idea for Reason 12. But, Reason 12 isn't going to come out this year. 

Should you decide to invest in Reason beyond the intro version, I would wait until next year unless you're dying to have the rest of Reason. Last summer they founder of Reason stepped aside and a new CEO is in charge and it's a little unclear what direction they are going to go in.


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## sostenuto (Sep 4, 2020)

Pleased to have used the promo to get Reason Lite. Primary purpose was to try, then perhaps add Friktion. Will take more monitoring of this Thread to step up with $99. ........ as well as confidence that 'Lite' does not limit Friktion capabilities in notable ways ?


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## José Herring (Sep 4, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> I wish Friktion did a better bowed string emulation.
> 
> The examples I hear don't convince me that Friktion is able to handle the bowed string modeling to create realistic sounding strings. i.e. imho. SWAM does a much better emulation of bowed strings. I feel Friktion does a better job emulating plucked strings, but then plucked sounds are usually easier to emulate than bowed strings in general.
> 
> I'm still on the fence if I should buy Friktion, or not. I'm tempted to get it for sound design work, but not for realistic string emulations. I'm in no rush, so I will wait to hear what Friktion users are creating with it, especially bowed sounds.


Yes, wait to some users get their hands on it. Reason is notorious lately for some really, really poor demos.

They use to go to artist when they first started and I remember even Charlie Clouser about a year back posted his Reason demo from the early 2000's. They use to include those demo songs in the program so you could study what they did. It was glorious back then. Then somewhere a long the way they just stopped doing that. Maybe the level of artist they were willing to contact changed or maybe the music just changed beyond my interest, but it seems now all they tap are people that are only interested in doing dance music. Unfortunately instead of going to a composer for Friktion they seemed to have just done it in house.

Friktion isn't on my list of things to get at the moment but it will eventually over the next few months be a purchase. I'm sure that it will be for sound design for me though. Possibly drum design as well. I also think it can do some aggressive shorts. Shoot, now I'm talking myself into getting it earlier....urrrggg


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## muziksculp (Sep 4, 2020)

José Herring said:


> Yes, wait to some users get their hands on it. Reason is notorious lately for some really, really poor demos.
> 
> They use to go to artist when they first started and I remember even Charlie Clouser about a year back posted his Reason demo from the early 2000's. They use to include those demo songs in the program so you could study what they did. It was glorious back then. Then somewhere a long the way they just stopped doing that. Maybe the level of artist they were willing to contact changed or may the music just changed beyond my interest, but it seems now all they tap are people that are only interested in doing dance music. Unfortunately instead of going to a composer for Friktion they seemed to have just done it in house.
> 
> Friktion isn't on my list of things to get at the moment but it will eventually over the next few months be a purchase. I'm sure that it will be for sound design for me though. Possibly drum design as well. I also think it can do some aggressive shorts. Shoot, now I'm talking myself into getting it earlier....urrrggg



Yes, I will wait for a while before getting it, and see what other users do with Friktion, for now, it seems like no one is able to impress me with the bowed strings of Friktion. Actually, I was thinking that they might have been better if they just focused on the bowed strings model, like SWAM, instead of trying to be more than that, and try to emulate everything a string can do, but do it so-so .


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## doctoremmet (Sep 4, 2020)

José Herring said:


> Soon you'll be breaking your piggy bank to shell out for Reason Suite.
> 
> But, Reason Studios admitted that they may drop the suite idea for Reason 12. But, Reason 12 isn't going to come out this year.
> 
> Should you decide to invest in Reason beyond the intro version, I would wait until next year unless you're dying to have the rest of Reason. Last summer they founder of Reason stepped aside and a new CEO is in charge and it's a little unclear what direction they are going to go in.


So, the current Suite is an “includes everything” type deal? And going forward with 12, it will be more of an “a-la-carte” thing?

I like the modular setup of the Reason Rack, but being the completionist / hoarder that I am, I also fear it... *

@lychee: is that video the 1.5 hour long talk? Because I just watched that one and it was very interesting. I heard someone had created extremely cool sounding metal guitar patches with it, riffing away. Pretty astounding really.

* What are some of the “must haves” in Reason? A couple of synths, arpeggiators and effects that you wouldn’t want to miss?


----------



## doctoremmet (Sep 4, 2020)

lychee said:


> Have you seen this video which remains interesting, even if they talk a lot rather than doing a demo ? :



Yes! That’s the one I just watched. Those really eerie whispering sounds they were able to create were so... natural sounding yet totally original - I really was impressed. And those metal guitar riffs were something else...

Friktion metal guitar riffs: 1m10s in...


----------



## doctoremmet (Sep 4, 2020)




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## Sarah Mancuso (Sep 4, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> So, the current Suite is an “includes everything” type deal? And going forward with 12, it will be more of an “a-la-carte” thing?
> 
> I like the modular setup of the Reason Rack, but being the completionist / hoarder that I am, I also fear it... *
> 
> ...



Europa is included with Reason and is a great modern wavetable synth. It's complex enough to be capable of a lot but still straightforward enough that I don't get overwhelmed trying to program patches for it. Maybe it's just me but it feels easy to make it sound good.

In Suite (or as a standalone purchase), Complex-1 is a powerful modular synth inspired by the "cables everywhere" analog types.

Pulverizer is pretty great as a super gritty compression/distortion/filtering effect with a lot of other nifty features, like an envelope follower that can be routed wherever.

I quite like using the Reason rack as an environment for all the Kilohearts and Kuassa effects that are available as rack extensions, since a lot of them are simple pieces that work well in combination with each other. Because they have VSTs meant for combining them in similar ways, this one might be less applicable if you're just using it as a VST instead of as a DAW, but being able to use it as an all-in-one-place effects rack for combining various developers' REs could still have value  

Building custom FX racks using multiple devices in the Combinator is something I do a lot of. I recently saw a video on here that referenced using Steinberg's Stereo Delay plugin to add depth to libraries in lieu of outriggers, and it didn't take long to clone it in a Combinator that I can now drop in wherever it's needed. You can get pretty in-depth with routing audio and CV between devices to use the whole rack like a big modular device.

I would say that if you already have a decent collection of Kontakt libraries, Suite probably isn't going to do much for you. The sampled instruments in it are mostly pretty dated, and you might be better off just waiting for good sales on the synths/effects you're specifically interested in from it.


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## muziksculp (Sep 4, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


>




@doctoremmet ,

Thanks for posting this video. Friktion bowed strings sound much better here, than other demos I heard, so this is encouraging, and tells me that it's more of a know how to get them to sound nice, and more real, and not totally due to the limitations of the Friktion bowed String modeling.


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## doctoremmet (Sep 4, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> @doctoremmet ,
> 
> Thanks for posting this video. Friktion bowed strings sound much better here, than other demos I heard, so this is encouraging, and tells me that it's more of a know how to get them to sound nice, and more real, and not totally due to the limitations of the Friktion bowed String modeling.


I thought exactly the same thing, so I figured to just drop it here and see if you’d agree...


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## muziksculp (Sep 4, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> I thought exactly the same thing, so I figured to just drop it here and see if you’d agree...



Good move. Thanks.

Yes, my strategy is to wait, and not rush into buying Friktion, until I hear enough of what other users are able to produce with it, especially the bowed strings.


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## muziksculp (Sep 4, 2020)

I should add that Friktion would have much more users if it was also available as a VST3 plugin, rather than a Reason Rack Instrument. There are many who are interested in getting Friktion, but don't want to buy Reason, or deal with it, even if it now runs as a VST .


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## doctoremmet (Sep 4, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> Good move. Thanks.
> 
> Yes, my strategy is to wait, and not rush into buying Friktion, until I hear enough of what other users are able to produce with it, especially the bowed strings.


Same here. Same reasons + I’m busy enough learning new instruments as it is...  - but I have to admit this instruments does intrigue me in a good way - as does Reason as a “concept”


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## doctoremmet (Sep 4, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> I should add that Friktion would have much more users if it was also available as a VST3 plugin, rather than a Reason Rack Instrument. There are many who are interested in getting Friktion, but don't want to buy Reason, or deal with it, even if it now runs as a VST .


Yes. I am afraid I will like Reason. A lot. And sink way too much time in it. I really should use what I have and just make music...


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## José Herring (Sep 4, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> So, the current Suite is an “includes everything” type deal? And going forward with 12, it will be more of an “a-la-carte” thing?
> 
> I like the modular setup of the Reason Rack, but being the completionist / hoarder that I am, I also fear it... *
> 
> ...





doctoremmet said:


>



Dammit! Now Friktion just moved to the top of my list.


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## José Herring (Sep 4, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> I should add that Friktion would have much more users if it was also available as a VST3 plugin, rather than a Reason Rack Instrument. There are many who are interested in getting Friktion, but don't want to buy Reason, or deal with it, even if it now runs as a VST .


Reason has always been a closed system. That's why it's been a rock solid platform. I've never had Reason crash on me, not even once in nearly 20 years of using it.

That may change of course now that it accepts VST and that now that it is a VST. But, so far the plugin has also been rock solid and every RE has been equally as rock solid no matter what company made the RE. Reason just has extensive QC. And, they test their beta release on just about every system imaginable. Collect data and make as many patches as they can before a release. No program of course is bullet proof but it's done well for me.

There's also some not to well known developers that are killer! Blamsoft makes Expanse which is a killer Wavetable synth. Between that and Europa I've not felt the need to get Serum. They also make Viking 2 which is fantastic! I don't have it because I have The Legend RE and also I got the RE version of Obsession when I bought the vst. So to have yet another analog emulation would start to get redundant, but I'm tempted none the less. 

There are so many RE synths that have gone unnoticed and Friktion will be another one. It will be your secret weapon because unlike many VSt's not everybody will have it.


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## doctoremmet (Sep 4, 2020)

José Herring said:


> Dammit! Now Friktion just moved to the top of my list.


I know right? The minute I put this on, I was on the edge of my seat. This will blend nicely with more traditional sample libraries, to give some edge. And it will also be good for “acoustic sounding” sound design I gather. I will continue to follow this thread and YT closely...

Also: secret weapons are good!


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## dzilizzi (Sep 4, 2020)

So I've had Reason since 2.5. It was my main instrument for years. Wasn't so crazy about it as a DAW, though I loved that it would run without a problem on anything. Seriously, I had a netbook with an Atom processor and 4GB RAM and it would run without a problem. 

I'm at 10 now. Didn't upgrade to 11 because I was waiting for the sale... No suite, I don't really need all the extras as I have a number of the RE's already. 

So question, 10 is not a VST? I still need to bridge it, correct? I like the sound of Friktion. I probably will get it. Though I may wait for a sale.


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## José Herring (Sep 4, 2020)

dzilizzi said:


> So I've had Reason since 2.5. It was my main instrument for years. Wasn't so crazy about it as a DAW, though I loved that it would run without a problem on anything. Seriously, I had a netbook with an Atom processor and 4GB RAM and it would run without a problem.
> 
> I'm at 10 now. Didn't upgrade to 11 because I was waiting for the sale... No suite, I don't really need all the extras as I have a number of the RE's already.
> 
> So question, 10 is not a VST? I still need to bridge it, correct? I like the sound of Friktion. I probably will get it. Though I may wait for a sale.


Yes, you still need to use Rewire with 10. 

Rewire has its advantages though and Reason Rack Plugin isn't really a substitute for Rewire, but rather just a different direction.

The Rack Plugin isn't easily multitimbral. It just accepts income midi without any channel distinction. If you want to use multiple synths in one instances of the Rack Plugin you have to use a combinator and configure it to respond to different midi channels or it will trigger every synth in your rack. That was a major bummer for me. But, I'm also comfortable using it on an instrument track, with one synth, fx mixers and utilities all in one instrument. That opened up new possibilities for me.

But, I would like to start pressing them to make the Rack Plugin multitimbral and be able to use the VST3 standard much in the same way VEPro works so that I can have nearly an unlimited amount of midi routing to as many instruments as my computer can stand and then route each instrument + its fx chains to different outputs. Rather than having to pull up a new instance for each instrument and chain.

I want my cake and to eat it too, with extra frosting on top and throw in a cherry as well.


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## muziksculp (Sep 4, 2020)

I think REASON 11 does not support the REWIRE protocol.


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## dzilizzi (Sep 4, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> I think REASON 11 does not support the REWIRE protocol.


So probably keep both 10 and 11.


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## lychee (Sep 4, 2020)

Some of you seem interested in Friktion, but expect more convincing demos from others, why not do like me and test yourself through Friktion and Reason as a free trial for 30 days?

Having tested myself, I admit that the plugin is not perfect when it comes to sustained sounds, but is very believable in short sounds, and sustained notes are far from being horrible.
The Swam Engine wins on this blow but loses on the fact that Friktion does not stop only at the sounds of strings.

But I think this plugin is not for those who expect a perfect string sound out of the box, and it's powerful enough to fill in its gaps with little tweaks, or by adding Reason's own achitechture modules.
I once compared the Reason Rack to Kontakt, but I quickly understood my mistake when I discovered the modular part of this Rack, which gives almost endless possibilities.

As said above, I think Reason Studio (Proppelerhead) should seriously consider separating the rack from its DAW, and at the same time creating a simple player like for Kontakt.
I think that by doing this the success would be greater.


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## gsilbers (Sep 4, 2020)

lychee said:


> Some of you seem interested in Friktion, but expect more convincing demos from others, why not do like me and test yourself through Friktion and Reason as a free trial for 30 days?
> 
> Having tested myself, I admit that the plugin is not perfect when it comes to sustained sounds, but is very believable in short sounds, and sustained notes are far from being horrible.
> The Swam Engine wins on this blow but loses on the fact that Friktion does not stop only at the sounds of strings.
> ...





Ive had it since version 1.5. and it was a few version later that there was a lot of poeple asking for a sequencer in reason and thus it was added. 
ITs still possible to use it as standalone and not use the sequencer if you dont wanna. its still there. 
plus now its a plugin so it can be used in any daw or apps like MainStage for live performance. 


Friktion is defenitly more for hiphop , electronica and not for real classical music. Its handling of string sounds to create some unique sound is pretty cool. but no, for realism is not meant to be.


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## gsilbers (Sep 4, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> I think REASON 11 does not support the REWIRE protocol.



Correct. reason 11 does not support rewire. its a plugin now.
Im guessing those with cpu issues that needed rewire as a standalone - rewire- verison might not be happy.


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## lychee (Sep 4, 2020)

gsilbers said:


> Friktion is defenitly more for hiphop , electronica and not for real classical music. Its handling of string sounds to create some unique sound is pretty cool. but no, for realism is not meant to be.



It's your point of view, and I respect that everyone is their opinion, but I don't agree.
I do not agree with the fact of condemned Friktion to this or that type of music, without giving it a chance to prove his value in other areas.

If I take the example of the Swam Strings, at the beginning I heard really unrealistic demos, but today, some people manage to get really bluffing demos from this plugin.
I might be stubborn and I might be twisted, but I think the same can be done with Friktion.

Sorry, I keep defending this plugin as a hysteric, but I assure you I don't have any stock at Proppelerhead, I'm just very (too) enthusiastic about this instrument.
I need to calm down.


----------



## muziksculp (Sep 4, 2020)

Hi,

I came across this demo on Youtube.

It's early Baroque music of Jean Baptiste Lully, done with Friktion.

Sounds Very nice !





Here is another demo using Friktion with a Middle Eastern flavor.


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## muziksculp (Sep 4, 2020)

I thought it is a good idea to download Friktion's Operation Manual pdf to get to know, and evaluate it better. 

It is available for download on the Friktion product page : under documents and specs. 






Friktion


Get the full expressiveness and natural sound of string instruments, right in your Reason Rack. Use Friktion to create string parts that are far closer to real-life bowed instrument performances than you could ever get with any sample library. Friktion is a physical modeling string instrument...




www.reasonstudios.com


----------



## lychee (Sep 4, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> Hi,
> 
> I came across this demo on Youtube.
> 
> ...




This 2 examples are good to illustrate my point of view:

The "Baroque" was certainly done less or without fine-tuning the sound, and it's close, but not realistic to my ears.

The second has been worked on more deeply, and if you don't know it's done with Friktion, you might be fooled.


----------



## lychee (Sep 5, 2020)

Yesterday I was experimenting to humanize vibrato by adding a random behavior LFO via a Reason module.

And today I used Friktion for one of my sound, and listening to the original vibrato, I realized that it sounded randomly, whereas before it didn't.

By consulting another forum, I finally got my answer:

Update version 1.0.2

- Fixed a bug where legato at max pitch could result in hanging notes
- Fixed a bug where sending negative CV to the mod wheel could cause issues
- Adjusted randomization of vibrato to be less pronounced
- Minor graphical fixes

So here is one of the negative points of Friktion now erased.

Someone said that Proppelerhead doesn't update their plugins?


----------



## muziksculp (Sep 5, 2020)

I was checking the Operation Manual to find out if Friktion offered Microtuning feature, or Alternate scales, but didn't find anything. This would be a welcome feature for a future Friktion Update. 

Unless I missed it, please let me know if I did. 

Thanks.


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## lychee (Sep 5, 2020)

I often hear about microtuning here and there, but what is the point?

The cool thing about the Reason Rack is that when you don't have exactly what you want, you can find it through other third party modules.


----------



## muziksculp (Sep 5, 2020)

lychee said:


> I often hear about microtuning here and there, but what is the point?



Microtuning allows you to create alternate scales to the equal-tempered western scale, which allows you to play other types of music with more authenticity, i.e. Middle Eastern, Asian, Early/Renaissance, ...etc.


----------



## muziksculp (Sep 5, 2020)

By the way, Audio Modeling Solo Strings Instruments, and Sample Modeling's Solo & Ensemble Strings offer microtuning features.


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## lychee (Sep 5, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> Microtuning allows you to create alternate scales to the equal-tempered western scale, which allows you to play other types of music with more authenticity, i.e. Middle Eastern, Asian, Early/Renaissance, ...etc.



Thank you, thanks to you I would go to bed less stupid tonight. 

For the video I put you above, the problem is that it uses the pitch band, so it necessarily works in mono.


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## muziksculp (Sep 5, 2020)

lychee said:


> I often hear about microtuning here and there, but what is the point?
> 
> The cool thing about the Reason Rack is that when you don't have exactly what you want, you can find it through other third party modules.




Very Cool ! 

Thanks for posting this. 

I didn't know that there was a RE for micortuning. So, problem solved.


----------



## lychee (Sep 5, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> Very Cool !
> 
> Thanks for posting this.
> 
> I didn't know that there was a RE for micortuning. So, problem solved.



There are a lot of third party plug-ins on the Reason Studio site for just about anything.


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## lychee (Sep 8, 2020)

By dint of persistence I find that I finally arrive at something credible.
I created a set of violins with control of the accent, the position and the pressure on the strings live via combinator.






After a few hours of "programming" and modifications, I think it sounds good.
I think that if Friktion can sound synthetic, that it is only our fault, because it is a "simple" synth, and that if we push a button too much here or there, inevitably we will leave the register of a real instrument.

I finally gave in and got hold of Reason and Friktion, and frankly I don't regret my purchase.
For those who are not afraid to put their hands in the bowels of the instruments to achieve the sound they want, I highly recommend it.


----------



## labornvain (Sep 8, 2020)

I would love to have this kind of control on something that actually sounds like real strings.


----------



## muziksculp (Sep 8, 2020)

labornvain said:


> I would love to have this kind of control on something that actually sounds like real strings.





lychee said:


> By dint of persistence I find that I finally arrive at something credible.
> I created a set of violins with control of the accent, the position and the pressure on the strings live via combinator.
> 
> 
> ...



Hi @lychee ,

Thanks for sharing your latest demo/test of Friktion's Violins.

You are getting better at it, Yes, experimenting, and finding the right combinations of control, and settings is what I call the magic formula. It takes time, and a lot of experimenting to make a physical modeling instrument with so many parameters as Friktion to sound very real, and convincing. Not an easy task, but when you find the magic formula, it will sound awesome, and very realistic.

I purchased Friktion, and started to experiment with it, I will post a short demo soon to show the degree of realism I was able to achieve with the bowed modeling of Friktion, but I know I can achieve better results with more experimenting, and getting creative with the programming, and performance.

I didn't try using the Combinator, but I can combine multiple instruments in Studio One Pro 5 via the Multi-Instrument feature, and even apply varying degrees of processing on each instrument in a multi-instrument. So, I can get quite creative in my DAW, but I will also look into using the Combinator in the Reason Rack to combine multiple Violins.

I haven't had too much time to spend with Friktion, didn't even check the plucked modeling, or try using the many options for the Resonator Types it offers. Friktion is an amazing sound design tool to have.


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## José Herring (Sep 8, 2020)

lychee said:


> By dint of persistence I find that I finally arrive at something credible.
> I created a set of violins with control of the accent, the position and the pressure on the strings live via combinator.
> 
> 
> ...


Love me some Kwai Chang Caine... Nice work Grasshopper. 

Still a bit of work to do on the tone of the violins. Some sound scuplting using EQ might do it or if there's some tonal shaping abilities in Friktion, you'll get there. Mostly I'd start by dipping some around the 2k area. Seems very bright and harsh. In a bit I'll download the example and see if EQ might help it along.


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## lychee (Sep 8, 2020)

José Herring said:


> Love me some Kwai Chang Caine...



All my youth spent in front of these series (sigh). 



José Herring said:


> Still a bit of work to do on the tone of the violins. Some sound scuplting using EQ might do it or if there's some tonal shaping abilities in Friktion, you'll get there. Mostly I'd start by dipping some around the 2k area. Seems very bright and harsh. In a bit I'll download the example and see if EQ might help it along.



Thanks for the advice, I did this by feeling with my inexperienced ears.
I'm not a violinist, not even a keyboard player, I do everything with the mouse and the piano roll so it takes me a long time to do something plosible.

I would take all your expert advice with pleasure, and I would be glad not to be alone in this adventure.
I agree that it sounds too bright, no need for EQ for that, I have a button called "direct" which can mitigate that.

Once again thank you.


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## José Herring (Sep 8, 2020)

lychee said:


> By dint of persistence I find that I finally arrive at something credible.
> I created a set of violins with control of the accent, the position and the pressure on the strings live via combinator.
> 
> 
> ...


I didn't have my DAW computer up so on my internet computer I just downloaded a Audacity and applied a little processing. I don't know if it improved it any but I tried to bring up the warmth and bring down the nasal quality of your example. I also added some air and used the cheap audacity reverb to give it a little more room. I of course could do a lot more if I did it with my expensive plugins but this would give you an idea of how to sound sculpt. The expression of your example is excellent. It's kind of why I'd like to use Friktion as an expressive natural sounding sound design tool.


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## José Herring (Sep 8, 2020)

lychee said:


> All my youth spent in front of these series (sigh).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh wow. Man I can't wait to get frikton. Next on my list now behind more RAM!

BTW not an expert. I struggle with this shit just like anybody else. It's not an easy transition to go from a background of live classical and contemporary art performance to dealing with virtual studios and instruments. I've been doing it for a long time now though but I'm still just learning like everybody else and I still make huge mistakes.


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## doctoremmet (Sep 8, 2020)

Definitely getting there champ @lychee - I don’t hear any of the distracting things I did in your first demo! Put in the hard work and you’ll get rewarded. I am very tempted to jump on this train too.

On the subject of physical modeling: any user experiences with the AAS range of instruments? I have some stripped down Sessions versions and have mainly played the Lounge Lizard 4 one, which is good. The Guitar Strummer is also pretty decent IIRC. The virtual analog synth doesn’t look very good on paper spec-wise (no osc cross modulation options of any kind, no freely assignable envelopes, no flexible mod matrix) but the Session variant did sound way better than I had ever expected. And then there are two true modeling synths (Chromaphone and Strings something something). 

Anyone try them or use them frequently? It may be cool to use them in conjunction with Friktion I figured... do an entire track with modeled sound


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## doctoremmet (Sep 8, 2020)

PS: I got the Expressive E Arché instruments (modeled violin, viola, cello). Their sale runs until September 10, 40% off. Pretty neat stuff.


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## José Herring (Sep 8, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> PS: I got the Expressive E Arché instruments (modeled violin, viola, cello). Their sale runs until September 10, 40% off. Pretty neat stuff.


Seems cool with the Expressive E Touche, but man I'm just not that coordinated.


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## lychee (Sep 8, 2020)

José Herring said:


> I didn't have my DAW computer up so on my internet computer I just downloaded a Audacity and applied a little processing. I don't know if it improved it any but I tried to bring up the warmth and bring down the nasal quality of your example. I also added some air and used the cheap audacity reverb to give it a little more room. I of course could do a lot more if I did it with my expensive plugins but this would give you an idea of how to sound sculpt. The expression of your example is excellent. It's kind of why I'd like to use Friktion as an expressive natural sounding sound design tool.



Indeed it already sounds much better, too bad I don't have sound engineering talents.
In any case it reassures me to know that I am close to the goal and that just one equalizer can be enough to pass this milestone.

Expressive for sure, just by playing on the pressure and the position of the bow and you immediately see the thing come to life.
You hear irregularities, artefacts and a whole bunch of stuff that humanizes it all.
The more I listen to this kind of product, the more I become allegic to samples.



doctoremmet said:


> ...It may be cool to use them in conjunction with Friktion I figured... do an entire track with modeled sound



It is true that there are other solutions that I had forgotten.
I admit that when I heard the demos of Arché, I was not inspired, but now that I've got my hands on Friktion, I tell myself that maybe I was wrong and maybe it was worth it, but I'm not going to reinvest now in a similar product.

As a Cakewalk user at the time when this DAW was paying, I had 2 AAS products bundled.
AAS has good products like Lounge Lizard 4 or Chromaphone ..., but others more disappointing, like Strum Session 2 for example.
I'm waiting to see what the next versions of these products will be.



doctoremmet said:


> I don’t hear any of the distracting things I did in your first demo!



I think my mistake was that for some strings the bow must not be in the right position for the note played.
Well yes, after all it's a simulation of strings, you have to take into account all the aspects of the real instrument.


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## doctoremmet (Sep 9, 2020)

@lychee In your recent search for modeled wind instruments you ended up getting WIVI, which seem cool. At the time, did you consider Respiro? I have encountered it before and all this talk about physical modeling has rekindled my interest. Also: any users out there of Reaktor / Prism and the Resonans RE in Reason? I am totally going down a modeling rabbithole. The expressiveness gain seems to be very high, even when the quote/unquote realism may suffer. Anyway, Respiro also sounds like a cool instrument in the “fantasy wind” category.


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## doctoremmet (Sep 9, 2020)

Diving into Reaktor now.

Just discovered Chet Singer in the User Library. The guy is a genius obviously. I guess for those who have Komplete and are interested in physically modeled strings and winds, this is something to look into and add to Friktion.


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## lychee (Sep 9, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> @lychee In your recent search for modeled wind instruments you ended up getting WIVI, which seem cool. At the time, did you consider Respiro?



In my quest for physically modeled instruments I had seen Respiro, but the demos were once again disappointing and too much synth or sound design focused.
Again I think I misjudged this program after listening to other demos in a more accoutic register, but I finally took Wivi for its ensemble management of instruments, useful if you will. to do orchestral like me.



doctoremmet said:


> Diving into Reaktor now.
> 
> Just discovered Chet Singer in the User Library. The guy is a genius obviously. I guess for those who have Komplete and are interested in physically modeled strings and winds, this is something to look into and add to Friktion.



For the Chet Singer creations, yes indeed he is a genius, but I quickly gave up when I saw the amount of resources that Reaktor demanded from my machine.
Too bad, because Serenade is a good plugin, free in addition, and I'm sure that Friktion was inspired by that, these are two tools that I find quite close.
The originality of Serenade is the possibility of using the pitch bend to control the movement of the bow.


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## doctoremmet (Sep 10, 2020)

Another cool example...


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## lychee (Sep 11, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Another cool example...




The violin is realy well executed. 

I think this VST is starting to drive me crazy, I saw that there was a resonator called voice, so I looked for a voice patch but I couldn't find one.
So I set out to create one, but here is what delirium I went into (for the oldest of us who know):


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## doctoremmet (Sep 11, 2020)

lychee said:


> The violin is realy well executed.
> 
> I think this VST is starting to drive me crazy, I saw that there was a resonator called voice, so I looked for a voice patch but I couldn't find one.
> So I set out to create one, but here is what delirium I went into (for the oldest of us who know):


Whoa. Sounds eery, like a cross breed between a voice and a theremin - in a good way! Awesome. I am continually updating my YT feed in hopes of finding more in-depth programming tutorials by the likes of Aiyn Zahev, Richard Devine and Simon Stockhausen. Or extended walkthroughs, workshops etc. As soon as I have finished the PC build I plan to get that Reason Lite rack up and running and put down some $ to get my first RE ever.


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## doctoremmet (Sep 12, 2020)




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## lychee (Sep 13, 2020)

I am about to finish fine-tuning my orchestral string ensemble, I would like to know your opinion on this.

In the last few days I have learned a lot about how to handle this plugin, first step I think you need to tune the original instruments to avoid their synthetic DNAs.
Then you should know that it's not like the Audiomodeling plugin, nothing is scripted to do things automatically, I think you have to play with the CCs to control the pressure and the position of the bow.
By this, you can give the sound the correct "accent" of the note you are playing.

That's not to say the plugin doesn't sound good out of the box, but I think you'll need that to have something more authentic.


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## doctoremmet (Sep 13, 2020)

lychee said:


> I am about to finish fine-tuning my orchestral string ensemble, I would like to know your opinion on this.
> 
> In the last few days I have learned a lot about how to handle this plugin, first step I think you need to tune the original instruments to avoid their synthetic DNAs.
> Then you should know that it's not like the Audiomodeling plugin, nothing is scripted to do things automatically, I think you have to play with the CCs to control the pressure and the position of the bow.
> ...


Will listen closely to this and review / leave feedback later. Thanks for this!


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## doctoremmet (Sep 17, 2020)

Reason has a customer survey. It gets you 15% off your next order. Ends September 30th.


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## yumyum123 (Sep 23, 2020)

I made a short harp loop using the Friktion trial and the built-in harp preset, if anyone wants to see. I think it sounds much better than Pianoteq's harp (the only other physically modelled harp I know of), but you need to modulate a lot of parameters (the harp loop uses 10 parameters) for the best sound. That can take a lot of time.

Here's the link:  .

As for the VST parameters I modulated (aside from velocity):
-Sustain level/articulation (decrease as the note sounds)
-Articulation attack (just semi-random; find a constant attack level that I like and increase/decrease to add movement)
-Pluck noise
-Pluck level
-Pluck position
-Articulation decay
-Velocity to start level
-Finger non-linearity
-String decay
-Fingerboard collisions

The parameters after sustain level were all controlled semi-randomly. I found a constant value I liked for these parameters and use automation to keep increasing/decreasing. This adds a bit of movement/makes it sound less static. From my (very limited) experience, Friktion is much more forgiving than SWAM strings, but I've only tried the pizzicato mode extensively.

Just sharing notes in case it helps anyone at all. Feedback welcome!


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## doctoremmet (Sep 23, 2020)

yumyum123 said:


> I made a short harp loop using the Friktion trial and the built-in harp preset, if anyone wants to see. I think it sounds much better than Pianoteq's harp (the only other physically modelled harp I know of), but you need to modulate a lot of parameters (the harp loop uses 10 parameters) for the best sound. That can take a lot of time.
> 
> Here's the link:  .
> 
> ...



Thanks for your elaborate notes. I like the sound of your harp.


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## lychee (Sep 23, 2020)

I think the difference between Friktion and Swam is that Swam has its parameters locked to that of the original strings instruments.
Friktion is made on a string basis but goes beyond the register of these instruments, and is more difficult to tame.

Well done @ yumyum123!
In my quest to create my orchestral kit with Friktion, I looked at the case of the harp too (just like you I was not convinced by the Pianotek version), and I see that Friktion is capable of doing the job also on that side.

I know I keep repeating it, but I love this toy!


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## José Herring (Sep 23, 2020)

Man, the starting to sound good. I like the Harp a lot. I'm interested in Friktion though for creating natural sounding sound design instruments. Stuff that doesn't actually exist. 

As soon as I get through my sample buying hell, I'm going to dive into this one. Create unique ethnic sounding instruments, ect...


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## yumyum123 (Sep 23, 2020)

Another post. I made a Reaper script for the SWAM violin earlier this year, which adds slight randomisation every 0.10 seconds (I think that's the time) and kept it because it sounded good to me. I tested the script with the Friktion harp and obtained good results.

After script (before script is mostly the same as the link in my previous post):



The script itself (Reaper only, using host automation with the Reason VST rather than MIDI): https://mega.nz/file/1twRVKra#LCUSpzdJrbp1wAygtsofG15hR-SSb1kbTiQHL9QDg1I .

To use the script, you need to have Python installed and set up with Reaper. Then, click on an automation lane (not a MIDI lane) and import/load the script from "Actions". Keep doing this for all the automation lanes you have and (for any synth instrument I've tried, like Friktion or SWAM, as opposed to sampled instruments) your instrument will sound more "alive".


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## lychee (Sep 27, 2020)

Interesting to see Friktion controlled by a wind controller:


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## yumyum123 (Sep 27, 2020)

Wow! The celtic sounds of the violin and erhu were impressive, and I didn't expect Friktion (as a synth modelled for string instruments) to do as well as it did with wind instruments like the bass flute/shakuhachi.

By the way, hopefully not spamming (last time I'll post the harp in solo), but here's the harp playing a song intro (30 seconds):  .

Two harps used and placed with a trial version of DearVR Pro.

--

Something else that might be helpful for a few people: I bought a violin IR to use with the SWAM violin (with the dry/electric violin option selected) and have tested this with Friktion, disabling Friktion's internal body and setting it to dry and then loading the IR with ReaVerb. I think the IR sounds a bit better than the internal body provided in Friktion, but of course you cannot make adjustments like the size of the body with the IR.

Internal (Friktion) body: 

External (IR) body: 

The IR used is the French Violin IR from https://www.3sigmaaudio.com/items/category/strings/ .


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## mcatalao (Sep 30, 2020)

lychee said:


> Interesting to see Friktion controlled by a wind controller:
> ...



Lychee, thank's for sharing.



yumyum123 said:


> Wow! The celtic sounds of the violin and erhu were impressive, and I didn't expect Friktion (as a synth modelled for string instruments) to do as well as it did with wind instruments like the bass flute/shakuhachi.



Hi guys, My name is Miguel, i'm the guy with the EWI im this video!

First and foremost, thank you for your comments.
I've been playing with friktion for the last 2 weeks and i have to say it is such an inspiring instrument.

I think RS did a great job in this one, and i really hope they create something simmilar for winds. Well becaus of course, wind's are my thing. Anyway, i have to aree with yumyum123 as the pipes are great in this device, and mostly because of the resonant body, as they didn't only add the usual string instrument resonant body they also added some other resonant boxes, like a darbuka that oddly enouth is perfect for wind instruments. 

Anyway, it also seems they thought about the possibility of using friktion with breath controllers, as they have that on all the possible modulations, so you don't even have to pass trhought a combinator to route breath to anything. I really like to route breath control to the articulations, and bite control to mod wheel. It turns friktion into something magical. 

It also makes possible to control more "consciently" the amount of vibrato you add as any violin and flute player could do. The patches come whith pressure and vibrato routed to the mod wheel, but if you have aftertouch or a wind controller it's usefull to detach the 2. 

So, again thank's for sharing.

MC


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## yumyum123 (Oct 2, 2020)

Harp + flute test (not my composition, but I played it into Friktion), slightly inspired by Miguel.



Have barely touched some of the most important parameters (like vibrato amount and rate), but should really stop procrastinating and go start studying.

I used the normal flute patch as a starting point, and then reduced the bow noise/accent/pressure a large amount to get a "sweeter" sound. For some odd reason, playing the higher-pitched notes is almost inaudible when the bow pressure is very low, but I think the bow pressure should generally increase/decrease in a way similar to the sustain level.

The flute is very high-pitched (I might need to tone down the EQ's high gain), but it's like that in the original Sega Saturn version as well. See track 25 at https://www.zophar.net/music/sega-saturn-ssf/lunar-2-eternal-blue to hear original.


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## mcatalao (Oct 11, 2020)

Hi folks just created a Duduk patch (based on a sax patch), and some inspiration brought this up.

I'm in love with it! Now I want the equivalent for winds!


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## muziksculp (Oct 11, 2020)

mcatalao said:


> Hi folks just created a Duduk patch (based on a sax patch), and some inspiration brought this up.
> 
> I'm in love with it! Now I want the equivalent for winds!




Sounds very nice, but the typical duduk has a more nasal, timbre, with some rich sounding mid-high frequencies, like adding some very mild distortion to the sound. I'm guessing you can take it to the next level with some additional programming, and some DSP treatments. 

Thanks for sharing.


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## mcatalao (Oct 11, 2020)

muziksculp:

Yeah, I know. But Friktion does not have filters (apart from the EQ). I'm thinking about adding a filter with a variable resonant frequency to create the "nasal" effect. It has to be kbd variable, so i might use a thor over this. I'll post it if it works!


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## mcatalao (Oct 11, 2020)

The variable filter works but i still feel somthing's missing. Maybe a bit of middle frequency. I think it sounds a bit better though!


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## muziksculp (Oct 11, 2020)

Actually, it is quite interesting that Friktion can emulate wind instruments, although it is a Strings (Bowed, and Plucked) Physical Modelling Instrument.

I would love to see Propeller H. Release a Physically Modelled Wind Instrument for Flutes, and Reeds.


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## lychee (Oct 12, 2020)

mcatalao said:


> I'm in love with it! Now I want the equivalent for winds!


 You too? 😉

Please, don't be afraid to share your patch experiments.


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## el-bo (Oct 12, 2020)

Sounds like a really lovely instrument. Shame it's tethered to a rack...and no MPE?


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## spacepluk (Nov 25, 2020)

Thanks all for the cool demos! I'm testing this with Reason Lite and there are quite a few presets that don't load. Does anybody know if Intro is enough to get to see all the examples?


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## mcatalao (Nov 25, 2020)

spacepluk said:


> Thanks all for the cool demos! I'm testing this with Reason Lite and there are quite a few presets that don't load. Does anybody know if Intro is enough to get to see all the examples?


I'd say the patches in combis might not work because of stuff you might not have in lite. but friktion exclusive patches should be fine. Can you check if the problem Is with the combi patches?


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## doctoremmet (Nov 25, 2020)

spacepluk said:


> Thanks all for the cool demos! I'm testing this with Reason Lite and there are quite a few presets that don't load. Does anybody know if Intro is enough to get to see all the examples?


Good question! I have picked up Lite in an earlier PluginBoutique giveaway, with the distinct purpose of running Friktion at some point. Following this.
@lychee Can you give your thoughts / experiences?


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## spacepluk (Nov 25, 2020)

yeah, it fails to load the combi patches but the rest work. It would be nice if it told you what's missing.


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## spacepluk (Nov 25, 2020)

The thing is that I'm looking into this to try to approximate Tagelharpas and weird stringy things for a Vikings game. But the price for Standard+Friktion already gets into Dark Era territory... but then I'll miss all the fun... decisions...


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## mcatalao (Nov 25, 2020)

Check the pricing in BF. Reason has a 30% discount these days.<


Anyway, i thought the combis should load nonetheless, without the devices that are not supported. What error does it give?


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## spacepluk (Nov 25, 2020)

If I press "OK" it goes back to the previous preset.


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## mcatalao (Nov 25, 2020)

That's odd. When this happens with a RE it says the re is not available and the device is shown in an ugly yellow box. I guess there's a marketing strategy so that people are "forced" to buy the full version.

Anyway, Reason Suite and Reason full are now with 30% discount if you are interested.

Good luck.


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## mcatalao (Nov 25, 2020)

PS.: I see you're using the DAW, if that's the case, imho it's worth to up the ant with Reason.


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## I like music (Nov 25, 2020)

This sounds excellent to me, especially for 'tweaked' instruments, or giving the impression of a novel/ethnic instrument. Instruments where our ears are _as_ attuned to the natural timbre.

Such a shame about needing to buy into Reason. Well, not a shame. They can and should charge what they like. I would just love to have access to these without needing Reason.


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## spacepluk (Nov 25, 2020)

Yeah, I just opened the DAW to take the screenshot real quick  I used to own the Reason Suite but I sold it because I didn't use most of it and I needed the cash for other things. These days I'm mostly using Logic and stuff from NI & Spitfire.

Reason Intro has most of the stuff that I would use except maybe Grains... but that alone for me doesn't justify buying into Standard. And for the case of Viking sounds, even with the BF sale it would make more sense to get Dark Era instead of Standard+Friktion...

I think I'm going to send them an email and ask if Intro is enough to load all the Friktion patches. But I might get it anyway, I don't know :D

Thanks for your help!


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## lychee (Nov 25, 2020)

To the question "do all of Friktion's patches work with Reason Intro?", the answer is yes.

I missed the opportunity to get Reason Lite, but from what I see it's not bad, because I use the racks for Friktion (for the moment) and with Lite I would have been limit.

It's true that it's a bit frustrating to have to pay Reason to be able to play just a plugin, but I took it as if I had bought Kontakt to which I would add a library.
Considering also that it has a lot of good plugins in Intro, that Reason's modular environment is a big plus, that Friktion is a wonderful plugin and that the set (Friktion + Intro) is ultimately not that expensive, why deprive?


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## spacepluk (Nov 25, 2020)

lychee said:


> To the question "do all of Friktion's patches work with Reason Intro?" The answer is yes.



Thanks, that makes things a lot easier


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## I like music (Nov 25, 2020)

lychee said:


> To the question "do all of Friktion's patches work with Reason Intro?"



So the duduk and erhu sounds etc that we heard in this thread ... those were just tweaks made in friktion? meaning that _if_ someone has the chops, they can create non-bowed instruments with the Reason Intro + Friktion combo?!


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## lychee (Nov 25, 2020)

I like music said:


> So the duduk and erhu sounds etc that we heard in this thread ... those were just tweaks made in friktion? meaning that _if_ someone has the chops, they can create non-bowed instruments with the Reason Intro + Friktion combo?!



Yes, you can create a whole bunch of organic / acoustic instruments with Friktion.
It's a synth whose base are the strings, but nothing prevents you from going beyond and creating flutes, sitars, percussion or other improbable instruments.
I easily managed to create a fairly realistic Koto.


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## doctoremmet (Nov 25, 2020)

I like music said:


> So the duduk and erhu sounds etc that we heard in this thread ... those were just tweaks made in friktion? meaning that _if_ someone has the chops, they can create non-bowed instruments with the Reason Intro + Friktion combo?!


Pretty cool, huh? As a Sample Modeling user I figured you might be fascinated by this one too


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## I like music (Nov 25, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Pretty cool, huh? As a Sample Modeling user I figured you might be fascinated by this one too


You know you're going to find me around these threads. Basically, what fascinates me here is not the traditional western strings sound, but the fact that I can maybe tweak them to _behave_ like strings still, but with a completely different and novel tone. Essentially creating a faux-ethnic instrument. This could be very very interesting. Shit. Need to save that money for True Strike + Infinite Strings but keep spending it on other things...


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## I like music (Nov 25, 2020)

lychee said:


> Yes, you can create a whole bunch of organic / acoustic instruments with Friktion.
> It's a synth whose base are the strings, but nothing prevents you from going beyond and creating flutes, sitars, percussion or other improbable instruments.
> I easily managed to create a fairly realistic Koto.



Damn ... so just so that I have this right (want to double check). Friktion can run inside Reason Intro (currently on for £48)?


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## doctoremmet (Nov 25, 2020)

I like music said:


> You know you're going to find me around these threads. Basically, what fascinates me here is not the traditional western strings sound, but the fact that I can maybe tweak them to _behave_ like strings still, but with a completely different and novel tone. Essentially creating a faux-ethnic instrument. This could be very very interesting. Shit. Need to save that money for True Strike + Infinite Strings but keep spending it on other things...


I hear you. That's the reason I dig AAS Chromaphone so much. And MODO Bass and Drums. And SWAM, Sample Modeling (don't have those). Arché (have those, really cool). And Arturia's Piano V (I am too poor to even consider PianoTeq haha). @lychee has been a very consistent and well spoken advocate for all things physically modelled this year, so thanks for that. Cheers. Looking forward to further exploration of this universe, and Friktion appears to be in my future. I just need to get Intro apparently. Is there a discount at all for (free) Lite owners?


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## mcatalao (Nov 25, 2020)

I like music said:


> So the duduk and erhu sounds etc that we heard in this thread ... those were just tweaks made in friktion? meaning that _if_ someone has the chops, they can create non-bowed instruments with the Reason Intro + Friktion combo?!



Hi! I did that demo just to show the interaction of Friktion and a wind controller.

The erhu and sakuhatchi are already on the main patches of Friktion. In fact, all the patches in my video are included in Friktion when you buy it. The only difference is that i routed the mod wheel to vibrato and breath ctrl to the articulation pressure. This way i can control the intensity of the vibrato and the intensity of the sound. Friktion is the only device in reason as of now that works well with the pressure/velocity relations, something i would like to see on other devices. 

The Duduk is a bunch of edits i did over the sax patch. I did 2 versions, with friktion only, so i'm only mingling with eq, and altering some resonance parameters, vibrato, noise, harmonics, all thinking on turning the patch more gritty, and more centered. 

The second version is a tad more spacial and i added a variable filter after friktion (using thor routing matrix) inside a combinator,with the resonance following kbd.The idea is to keep adding the nasal "sound" characteristic of the duduk. It's not perfect, i would 10x prefer to have (and know how to play) a real duduk but i can have a lot more dynamic control over this than the duduk i have (i was using one of EW Ra Duduk's) wich is fine, but not as controllable.

Anyway, Friktion is a great device if you forgive some random glitches that are added by some of the algorithms. The interaction of the bowing and harmonics, and the auto legato sometimes create awkward undesired sounds that you might feel the need to clean on midi and post prod.

On a side note, if you're really into a wind physical modelling devices, specially working good with a wind controller or a mpe synth, you should take a look at Respiro. But i guess that is theme for other thread!


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## I like music (Nov 25, 2020)

mcatalao said:


> Hi! I did that demo just to show the interaction of Friktion and a wind controller.
> 
> The erhu and sakuhatchi are already on the main patches of Friktion. In fact, all the patches in my video are included in Friktion when you buy it. The only difference is that i routed the mod wheel to vibrato and breath ctrl to the articulation pressure. This way i can control the intensity of the vibrato and the intensity of the sound. Friktion is the only device in reason as of now that works well with the pressure/velocity relations, something i would like to see on other devices.
> 
> ...



Thank you so much for the detail. I'm probably going to buy Reason Intro + Friktion. I don't need solo strings but being able to tweak the tone to create something slightly different, could be very interesting.

I'm completely unaware about how to work with synths, so there will be challenges here I'm sure, but the VI community will sort me out if I come unstuck, I'm sure 

Really liked your duduk patches by the way.


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## doctoremmet (Nov 25, 2020)

mcatalao said:


> you should take a look at Respiro. But i guess that is theme for other thread!


I created a Respiro thread, but back then it didn’t find much responders  Great synth for EWI players though.


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## lychee (Nov 25, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> I just need to get Intro apparently. Is there a discount at all for (free) Lite owners?


Reason Intro is now € 55.00 / € 79.00, and Friktion at € 74.00 / € 109.00 for Black Friday.
Unfortunately with Lite the only discount we can get is on Reason 11 for € 188.00 / € 269.00, but not on Intro.


doctoremmet said:


> I hear you. That's the reason I dig AAS Chromaphone so much. And MODO Bass and Drums. And SWAM, Sample Modeling (don't have those). Arché (have those, really cool). And Arturia's Piano V (I am too poor to even consider PianoTeq haha).


I have Modo bass too (i wait for the E Guitars) and I plan to take Arturia's V collection for Black Friday, but it's tense because I also have to redo my machine (yes, physical modeling is consuming).
I got Chromaphone 3 for the percussion part of my set without samples, it's a good plugin but very resource intensive. I made a harp with it and I tried to make a tampani, but there I have not yet achieved the right mix.

Here is my harp under Chromaphone and my Koto under Friktion:


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## doctoremmet (Nov 25, 2020)

mcatalao said:


> Hi! I did that demo just to show the interaction of Friktion and a wind controller.
> 
> The erhu and sakuhatchi are already on the main patches of Friktion. In fact, all the patches in my video are included in Friktion when you buy it. The only difference is that i routed the mod wheel to vibrato and breath ctrl to the articulation pressure. This way i can control the intensity of the vibrato and the intensity of the sound. Friktion is the only device in reason as of now that works well with the pressure/velocity relations, something i would like to see on other devices.
> 
> ...


Great post! Now I’m even more excited


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## lychee (Nov 25, 2020)

Friktion is really well programmed, in my Koto example above the simple fact of playing with the pitch wheel gives resonances of string bending as with the real instrument.


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## I like music (Nov 25, 2020)

lychee said:


> Reason Intro is now € 55.00 / € 79.00, and Friktion at € 74.00 / € 109.00 for Black Friday.
> Unfortunately with Lite the only discount we can get is on Reason 11 for € 188.00 / € 269.00, but not on Intro.
> 
> I have Modo bass too (i wait for the E Guitars) and I plan to take Arturia's V collection for Black Friday, but it's tense because I also have to redo my machine (yes, physical modeling is consuming).
> ...



Oh man, I like that koto sound ...


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## LamaRose (Nov 25, 2020)

The demos "Cello and Piano," and "Fiddling Around" sound very viable in maybe a slightly larger orchestration/song context.


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## mcatalao (Nov 25, 2020)

I like music said:


> .
> 
> I'm completely unaware about how to work with synths, so there will be challenges here I'm sure, but the VI community will sort me out if I come unstuck, I'm sure
> 
> Really liked your duduk patches by the way.



Thanks. 

The good thing about friktion is that the controls have nothing to do with a synth. So instead of having an ADSR, an lfo or a filter you have the phisical aspects of either the instrument a d even the way you control in real life, like the weight of the bow, tensions and stuff like that.


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## I like music (Nov 25, 2020)

mcatalao said:


> Thanks.
> 
> The good thing about friktion is that the controls have nothing to do with a synth. So instead of having an ADSR, an lfo or a filter you have the phisical aspects of either the instrument a d even the way you control in real life, like the weight of the bow, tensions and stuff like that.



That's extremely helpful to know, and basically seals it for me.

I'm being quite dim here, but I can't find the end date for their 30% sale. Can anyone help please?


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## mcatalao (Nov 25, 2020)

It's a bit hidden but in the emails I got the re's and reason promos end 30/11.


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## I like music (Nov 25, 2020)

mcatalao said:


> It's a bit hidden but in the emails I got the re's and reason promos end 30/11.



Thanks again! Damn, don't get paid until the week after. Might go to my local shark and ask them for an advance hehe.


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## Tremendouz (Nov 29, 2020)

So this thing is actually pretty nuts. Can't believe a string synthetizer can do ethnic flute sounds this well (I tweaked the shakuhachi preset a bit)


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## lychee (Nov 29, 2020)

Tremendouz said:


> So this thing is actually pretty nuts. Can't believe a string synthetizer can do ethnic flute sounds this well (I tweaked the shakuhachi preset a bit)



It's strange isn't it, but if a string instrument is used under certain conditions (bow position, pressure ...) it can sound like a flute.
Under Friktion it suffices to lock the parameters on these conditions to obtain a this flute.
I don't think you can simulate everything, but a lot of stringed instruments are within Friktion's reach.


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## Tremendouz (Nov 29, 2020)

lychee said:


> but a lot of stringed instruments are within Friktion's reach.


Indeed. I just messed up some more with it and came up with this acoustic guitar patch


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## lychee (Nov 29, 2020)

Good introduction, but I would say that we are more between the guitar and the sitar for the moment.
Perhaps less hi damp and a bit of accent in attack in my opinion.
In any case I see that you are having fun, welcome to the world of Friktion!


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## Tremendouz (Nov 29, 2020)

Haha thank you, it's a rabbit hole of endless tweaking for sure!


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## sostenuto (Nov 29, 2020)

Have Reason 11 LITE. Seems Friktion _ trial/demo ran properly, but unsure. Can anyone confirm this ... as ready to purchase with only one day left for BlkFri price. 

THX!


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## doctoremmet (Nov 29, 2020)

sostenuto said:


> Have Reason 11 LITE. Seems Friktion _ trial/demo ran properly, but unsure. Can anyone confirm this ... as ready to purchase with only one day left for BlkFri price.
> 
> THX!


Someone mentioned that the Combi patches in Friktion are not completely frictionless, they don’t load in Lite due to missing modules apparently. Reason Intro seems to be the minimum tier.


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## sostenuto (Nov 29, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Someone mentioned that the Combi patches in Friktion are not completely frictionless, they don’t load in Lite due to missing modules apparently. Reason Intro seems to be the minimum tier.



Many thanks ! Thought I recalled something like this. Not dealbreaker, but good to know extra $69. required for this to work fully.


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## doctoremmet (Nov 29, 2020)

sostenuto said:


> Many thanks ! Thought I recalled something like this. Not dealbreaker, but good to know extra $69. required for this to work fully.


My “pleasure”. I was confident I might end up with a higher Reason tier than Lite AND Friktion this BF, but I still didn’t. Basically both the actual $ and the idea of a further time investment in the n-th “environment” seem too daunting at the moment.


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## Melving (Nov 29, 2020)

Sooo... I was wondering how Friktion would hold up for classical. Figured I'd type Pachelbel in, having played it on both violin and piano, and learn how to use a sequencer in the process. Three frustrating days later - attached. Think I've encountered every available bug in Fruity loops. Fruity loops and reason lite. Feedback welcome - taming the shrillness of violins? Also Fruity loops seems to be nonideal for micromanaging ADSR, vibrato. Better DAWs?


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## mgnoatto (Nov 29, 2020)

sostenuto said:


> Have Reason 11 LITE. Seems Friktion _ trial/demo ran properly, but unsure. Can anyone confirm this ... as ready to purchase with only one day left for BlkFri price.
> 
> THX!


It works on Reason Lite, maybe not for the fully potential of combi patches but it does perfectly for the single instruments


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## mcatalao (Dec 2, 2020)

Melving said:


> Sooo... I was wondering how Friktion would hold up for classical. Figured I'd type Pachelbel in, having played it on both violin and piano, and learn how to use a sequencer in the process. Three frustrating days later - attached. Think I've encountered every available bug in Fruity loops. Fruity loops and reason lite. Feedback welcome - taming the shrillness of violins? Also Fruity loops seems to be nonideal for micromanaging ADSR, vibrato. Better DAWs?



It sounds nice, but imho the Cello lacks a bit of dimension and realism. The violin is more realistic but it all sounds too static. This is supposed to be more "airy" (pun intended), so the long passages should swell a bit more imho. 

I think you can improve it if you adjust dynamics to have more swell and be more airy, using the mod wheel for expression. Also the way the main violin enters is aggressive imho. 

TBH, I don't think Friktion is the best tool for ensembles, In reason's world I would rely more on StringWerk (It's a string studio ensemble and sounds OK, and it might be a bit more realistic for these kind of things.).


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## lychee (Dec 2, 2020)

mcatalao said:


> It sounds nice, but imho the Cello lacks a bit of dimension and realism. The violin is more realistic but it all sounds too static. This is supposed to be more "airy" (pun intended), so the long passages should swell a bit more imho.



Out of the box Friktion has a realistic material, but when it comes to composing there are plenty of parameters to put in place for a realistic play.
The problem with @Melving's interpretation is that there is no movement in the bow position, everything is static as you say and you are also right on the expression.
In the strings, the high sounds must be played in a certain bow position at the risk of sounding shrill otherwise.
Remember that Friktion is a string simulator and therefore has to be played like the real instrument.
For my part I programmed a bow movement according to the position on the keyboard, so that I avoid having to draw CCs all the time (that does not correct everything, you still have to play CC sometimes).
I also coupled the volume with the pressure of the bow.



mcatalao said:


> TBH, I don't think Friktion is the best tool for ensembles, In reason's world I would rely more on StringWerk (It's a string studio ensemble and sounds OK, and it might be a bit more realistic for these kind of things.).



Believe me, this plugin is perfectly capable as an ensemble, I'm working on it and I intend to share my kit once I feel it is finalized.

Here is an example of my current kit:


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## RogiervG (Dec 2, 2020)

lychee said:


> Out of the box Friktion has a realistic material, but when it comes to composing there are plenty of parameters to put in place for a realistic play.
> The problem with @Melving's interpretation is that there is no movement in the bow position, everything is static as you say and you are also right on the expression.
> In the strings, the high sounds must be played in a certain bow position at the risk of sounding shrill otherwise.
> Remember that Friktion is a string simulator and therefore has to be played like the real instrument.
> ...



at times the strings sound realisitic, at many times it sounds like a cheezy cheap synth from the nineties. (honest opinion, not intended to bash you or your work)
are the timpanies and woodblock/claves also made in friction? (they do sound quite good)


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## Melving (Dec 2, 2020)

Thanks all! Still working on it. I suppose my question was twofold - how much can I push friktion, and what else could I use  Listening to some commerical interpretations, they sound pretty laid back, and detache. Also easing up on bow position, early reflections. If I could have I'd have uploaded the source so others could rearrange...


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## Florens (Dec 23, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> A lot of those Pluginboutique giveaways end up for $10 on Knobcloud not much later... always a pretty risk free way to get your feet wet.



I am the knobcloud guy, just chiming in to say that selling unregistered licenses was banned on knobcloud because of this. Selling freebies is usually a violation of the Terms of the developers or Pluginboutique. 

Also, I felt knobcloud was getting less attractive for serious users. 

Banning the sale of unregistered licenses has been a good way to deal with this, because registered licenses are transferred through the developers themselves; they can then enforce their own license transfer policy and only transfer licenses which are allowed to be transferred.


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## doctoremmet (Dec 23, 2020)

Florens said:


> I am the knobcloud guy, just chiming in to say that selling unregistered licenses was banned on knobcloud because of this. Selling freebies is usually a violation of the Terms of the developers or Pluginboutique.
> 
> Also, I felt knobcloud was getting less attractive for serious users.
> 
> Banning the sale of unregistered licenses has been a good way to deal with this, because registered licenses are transferred through the developers themselves; they can then enforce their own license transfer policy and only transfer licenses which are allowed to be transferred.


Just to be clear, I wasn’t promoting this in any way, shape or form. I merely noticed that this behaviour very much was the case on Knobcloud. I understand your decision to kill it. From time to time I do still see a certain -shall we say- correlation between stuff sold on Knobcloud and the current freebie on Pluginboutique. Maybe those are people selling a double license or something. Anyway, just chiming in here to clarify that the months-old post you replied was not necessarily my advice to other forum members


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## applegrovebard (Dec 23, 2020)

This is pretty cool for physically modelled strings: Chet Singer's free Reaktor ensemble Serenade played with gestures.


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## Florens (Dec 23, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Just to be clear, I wasn’t promoting this in any way, shape or form. I merely noticed that this behaviour very much was the case on Knobcloud. I understand your decision to kill it. From time to time I do still see a certain -shall we say- correlation between stuff sold on Knobcloud and the current freebie on Pluginboutique. Maybe those are people selling a double license or something. Anyway, just chiming in here to clarify that the months-old post you replied was not necessarily my advice to other forum members



I did not understand your post as any endorsement of this practice, and I know it is a couple of months old, but from time to time I look up forum posts about knobcloud on google and comment on it. Sorry if it seems out of place given the timeframe, but it is hard for me to read certain things and not comment on them  . I know that this problem does still persist but at a much smaller scale, and people have already been banned for posting freebies after a warning, but it is difficult to get rid of it completely because you usually don´t know if a particular license is actually registered or unregistered, unless this is reported back to you or written into the feedback section. Anyway, sorry to bother you


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## doctoremmet (Dec 23, 2020)

Florens said:


> I did not understand your post as any endorsement of this practice, and I know it is a couple of months old, but from time to time I look up forum posts about knobcloud on google and comment on it. Sorry if it seems out of place given the timeframe, but it is hard for me to read certain things and not comment on them  . I know that this problem does still persist but at a much smaller scale, and people have already been banned for posting freebies after a warning, but it is difficult to get rid of it completely because you usually don´t know if a particular license is actually registered or unregistered, unless this is reported back to you or written into the feedback section. Anyway, sorry to bother you


Gotcha! I wasn’t offended or anything, but was a little surprised and had to re-read my own message in context - because it was old haha. I agree that it would be hard to totally manage that particular situation with the unregistered licenses, and also that it seems to be way better these days. Thanks and good luck with the platform!


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## rnb_2 (Dec 24, 2020)

Resurrecting this thread seems like a reasonable place to put this.

Reason is running another sale over Christmas - 30% off, so the same as their BF deals. However, Best Service is, for whatever reason, listing everything at 40% off, which brings Reason Intro - the cheapest version that will run everything in Friktion - down to $54 (vs. $69 everywhere else).

Even more interesting, the Reason Standard upgrade from Lite/Intro is listed at $179 (vs $209 everywhere else). Combine that with the "2020" discount code through this weekend, and if you have Reason Lite or Intro, you can upgrade to the full version with a ton of synths and effects for $159. You can then turn around and upgrade to the normally $599 Suite for $169, apply that $20 coupon again (explicitly allowed by Best Service) to knock that down to $149, and get the whole shebang for $308.

Since I got Reason Lite for free, this is very tempting...


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## doctoremmet (Dec 25, 2020)

rnb_2 said:


> Since I got Reason Lite for free, this is very tempting...


Yes me too, it was a Plugin Boutique / Waves give-away at some point, wasn’t it? This $159 deal sounds great. They don’t offer Friktion though do they? And what is this coupon code? Sorry... not able to check at the moment. Thanks for this!


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## Markrs (Dec 25, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Yes me too, it was a Plugin Boutique / Waves give-away at some point, wasn’t it? This $159 deal sounds great. They don’t offer Friktion though do they? And what is this coupon code? Sorry... not able to check at the moment. Thanks for this!


The discount seems to be uniquely generated when you find a Christmas tree on their site. As it is unique you can get one multiple times to use.

Looks like it isn't uniquely generated after all, my bad!

Happy Christmas Temme!


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## rnb_2 (Dec 25, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Yes me too, it was a Plugin Boutique / Waves give-away at some point, wasn’t it? This $159 deal sounds great. They don’t offer Friktion though do they? And what is this coupon code? Sorry... not able to check at the moment. Thanks for this!


For me, the code is always “2020” - you can check it by clicking the Current Deals banner on the front page, and scrolling down the deals page until you find the VSL Big Bang Orchestra deal - there’s always a tree there with the code for me. I also just realized that there is a rotating VSL banner on the front page, so when it’s showing the VSL BBO banner, it will take you directly there.


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## sostenuto (Dec 25, 2020)

Like Intro pricing, but put off not seeing Friktion on Site. This would have enabled use of '2020'. and made an attractive purchase.


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## rnb_2 (Dec 25, 2020)

Unfortunately, I don’t think Reason sells their expansions anywhere but their own store.


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## rnb_2 (Dec 25, 2020)

sostenuto said:


> Like Intro pricing, but put off not seeing Friktion on Site. This would have enabled use of '2020'. and made an attractive purchase.


You can still buy any version of Reason from Best Service, then buy Friktion from the Reason store to get the lowest total price.


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## Tremendouz (Dec 25, 2020)

rnb_2 said:


> You can still buy any version of Reason from Best Service, then buy Friktion from the Reason store to get the lowest total price.


Or you can even just activate the free trial of Reason and it will then let you buy Friktion.

That's what I did while waiting for my keyboard to arrive (Korg Microkey and probably many others come with Reason Lite so check if you already have a license)


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## sostenuto (Dec 25, 2020)

Free LITE some time ago and Friktion now @69. promo. Pondering ......


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## Tremendouz (Dec 25, 2020)

sostenuto said:


> Free LITE some time ago and Friktion now @69. promo. Pondering ......


What sold it to me was the fact that if I need some ethnic flavor to a track, Friktion has me covered unless I want a specific instrument replicated accurately. It can do woodwinds, plucked and bowed strings, not to talk about "hybrid" sounds that fall somewhere between those. To me the flexibility was worth 70€ but you need to be someone who likes tinkering to get the most expression out of it.


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## doctoremmet (Dec 25, 2020)

sostenuto said:


> Free LITE some time ago and Friktion now @69. promo. Pondering ......


Same here. But happy for now with newly purchased Plasmonic synth and also pondering Kaivo  choices...


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## rnb_2 (Dec 25, 2020)

The only thing to keep in mind using Friktion with Lite is that there are some presets that won't work because of missing effects - I'm pretty sure Intro has everything needed to use all of the Friktion presets, and much more besides.


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## doctoremmet (Dec 25, 2020)

rnb_2 said:


> The only thing to keep in mind using Friktion with Lite is that there are some presets that won't work because of missing effects - I'm pretty sure Intro has everything needed to use all of the Friktion presets, and much more besides.


So get Intro and Friktion for the same price as Reason Standard? Eur 54 + Eur 76 = €130. Or get Madrona Labs Aalto + Kaivo. Decisions.... (or -and this is very leftfield- do not get anything at all after the thousands of new synths and samples already purchased)?


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## rnb_2 (Dec 25, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> So get Intro and Friktion for the same price as Reason Standard? Eur 54 + Eur 76 = €130. Or get Madrona Labs Aalto + Kaivo. Decisions.... (or -and this is very leftfield- do not get anything at all after the thousands of new synths and samples already purchased)?


Well, that's just crazy-talk


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## doctoremmet (Dec 25, 2020)

rnb_2 said:


> Well, that's just crazy-talk


I don’t know what got into me. Sorry haha.


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## applegrovebard (Dec 25, 2020)

Other festive physical modelling temptations- Modelonia (vibrant brass and plucked models capable of a wide range of expressive tones) currently going for $25 and Madrona lab synths (Kaivo most relevant here) 30% off till Jan 6th. Meanwhile I've been getting back into my Korg Z1 Patchman trumpet patch played with a wind controller... and wondering if physical modelling has really moved on that much in 25 years. It certainly has tho with Pianoteq, and with the latest generation of virtual analogs (Diva, The Legend etc) tho these are sometimes not included in the 'physically modelled' category.


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## doctoremmet (Dec 26, 2020)

applegrovebard said:


> Modelonia (vibrant brass and plucked models capable of a wide range of expressive tones)


I am totally unaware of this one. Thanks, will check it out.



applegrovebard said:


> and wondering if physical modelling has really moved on that much in 25 years


Yes, I remember some VL patches in the good old EX5R that were at least as capable as some of the current crop of PM software options.



applegrovebard said:


> and with the latest generation of virtual analogs (Diva, The Legend etc)


Not forgetting AAS Ultra Analog and IKM MODO Bass / Drum. Those do sound very good.

Thanks for the inspiring post!


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## Detalion (Dec 27, 2020)

rnb_2 said:


> The only thing to keep in mind using Friktion with Lite is that there are some presets that won't work because of missing effects - I'm pretty sure Intro has everything needed to use all of the Friktion presets, and much more besides.


Hello,

Just for information, I bought Intro version to see if Friktion combo patches presets will work and not work also, missing echo-delay device and others... so no change for me... If you have already Reason Lite don’t buy Intro for this Friktion plugin to use combo patches presets but Standard is minimum required... :(

Greeting,


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## lychee (Dec 27, 2020)

Detalion said:


> Hello,
> 
> Just for information, I bought Intro version to see if Friktion combo patches presets will work and not work also, missing echo-delay device and others... so no change for me... If you have already Reason Lite don’t buy Intro for this Friktion plugin to use combo patches presets but Standard is minimum required... :(
> 
> Greeting,


I don't know what is your problem, but it work perfectly for me with Intro.


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## Detalion (Dec 27, 2020)

Well some combi-patch presets require echo-delay effect not include with Intro, so I don’t know how you can works combi patches presets without this effects installed? Maybe I missing somethings ?


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## Sarah Mancuso (Dec 27, 2020)

Friktion itself will work with any tier of Reason, and any patches that are specifically Friktion .repatch files will work.

Combinator (.cmb) patches are multis that can include _any_ Reason devices and can't be guaranteed to work in anything but the full version.


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## sostenuto (Dec 27, 2020)

Kinda 'muddy' por moi. Have LITE, and will not go further with Reason given this level of uncertainty. Friktion definitely increased interest, but put off by what seems to be 'weak' promotion and detail.


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## Detalion (Dec 27, 2020)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> Friktion itself will work with any tier of Reason, and any patches that are specifically Friktion .repatch files will work.
> 
> Combinator (.cmb) patches are multis that can include _any_ Reason devices and can't be guaranteed to work in anything but the full version.


Ok, so before to buy (Reason) Intro edition, I tried with Lite edition, yes Friktion work but some presets don’t work (combi-presets), so I decide to buy Intro to get missing effects to be able run all Friktion presets and finally, even with Intro edition I’m unable run combi-presets, so no change from Lite edition... I waste 54€ for nothing:(


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## rnb_2 (Dec 27, 2020)

Detalion said:


> Ok, so before to buy (Reason) Intro edition, I tried with Lite edition, yes Friktion work but some presets don’t work (combi-presets), so I decide to buy Intro to get missing effects to be able run all Friktion presets and finally, even with Intro edition I’m unable run combi-presets, so no change from Lite edition... I waste 54€ for nothing:(


Ugh, I'm sorry if I passed along erroneous information. I was unable to test directly because there's no way to demo Intro - the demo is Standard. I wish I knew why your and @lychee's experiences are different.

On the bright side, though, Reason Intro is a bargain for all that you get - there are a couple really good synths included that aren't in Lite, and lots of effects. If you got it just for Friktion, I'm sorry that didn't work out the way you (and I) expected it to, but you might want to play around with some of the other things that are included in Intro but not in Lite, and see if any of them have some value for you to soften the blow.


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## Detalion (Dec 27, 2020)

lychee said:


> To the question "do all of Friktion's patches work with Reason Intro?", the answer is yes.
> 
> I missed the opportunity to get Reason Lite, but from what I see it's not bad, because I use the racks for Friktion (for the moment) and with Lite I would have been limit.
> 
> ...





rnb_2 said:


> Ugh, I'm sorry if I passed along erroneous information. I was unable to test directly because there's no way to demo Intro - the demo is Standard. I wish I knew why your and @lychee's experiences are different.
> 
> On the bright side, though, Reason Intro is a bargain for all that you get - there are a couple really good synths included that aren't in Lite, and lots of effects. If you got it just for Friktion, I'm sorry that didn't work out the way you (and I) expected it to, but you might want to play around with some of the other things that are included in Intro but not in Lite, and see if any of them have some value for you to soften the blow.


don’t worry, it’s not you, my message was to confirm you Intro is not enough to run all presets.

Well, I had the same thought as you, buy standard upgrade was temping (from Lite edition) at best service for 159€ +74€ (Friktion) but after reflexion it was too expensive, I don’t need another DAW (full) to run plug-in and maybe Reason 12 will come soon, so... I decide to start with Intro after I saw lychee message : « To the question "do all of Friktion's patches work with Reason Intro?", the answer is yes. » and finally not for me.


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## rnb_2 (Dec 28, 2020)

For my part, after mulling everything over for a few days, I did finally bite the bullet and go all-in for the double-upgrade to Reason Suite. I watched several videos from people who are very familiar with Reason, did a fair bit of reading and playing with the demo, and finally decided that, given the extra discount + coupon code at Best Service, I had very little to lose in the long run.

The three unanswerable questions right now are:

1) When is Reason 12 coming?
2) What will upgrade pricing be like from Suite 11 to Suite 12, since there was no Suite 10 to compare?
3) What will v12 include beyond v11? They've released a new Instrument (Friktion) and Player (Pattern Mutator) since v11 released, so those will probably be included, but what else - high res graphics, etc?

Since I could get Suite for just over $300 (vs. $600 normal price), I couldn't really justify getting Intro if I had any interest in upgrading to Standard or Suite in the future (which I did), since it wouldn't get me a bigger upgrade discount than Lite (which I already had). I very nearly went with Standard, figuring I'd wait to upgrade to Suite until after v12 comes out, but eventually decided that the price for Suite, and the extras it comes with, made it worthwhile now.

Since there was no v10 Suite, it's hard to know how version upgrades will be priced (Standard upgrades are $129), but if it's $150-200, I would still come out well under full price for 11 after upgrading to 12. If it's priced higher than that, I'll have to decide if there are enough new features/bundled products to justify upgrading, or if I can just pick and choose individual pieces from whatever gets rolled into the v12 Suite bundle (already having Friktion will effect this calculation if it's in the bundle, which seems likely).

I may end up using Reason mostly as a rack in Logic, but I'll probably experiment with using the DAW first. I certainly don't see it as a replacement for Logic, but more for lighter, mostly electronic pieces. Reason seems to have long-standing workflow issues as things get more complicated, but experienced Reason users still seem to feel it's the most fun DAW they've used, even if they run into workflow issues for complex projects (not an issue for me in the foreseeable future).

While I've pulled together a lot of disparate pieces to help with idea generation for my very musically rusty/untrained brain (Scaler 2, Orb Producer, Riffer, Phrasebox), each of which excels at a different piece of the puzzle and works well, I do like the match of Reason's various Players (generative music tools, simple to complex arpeggiators, etc) with the many, many synthesized/sampled/modeled Instruments in the bundle. I was impressed with many of the presets in the Europa synth (never underestimate the value of a really nice default patch, like Friendly Keys in Europa), and reviews seemed positive on many of Reason's other newer synths and tools, so even if I don't end up using it as a DAW long-term, its ability to be a modular rack in whatever DAW you like really minimizes the risk in diving into it.


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## Sarah Mancuso (Dec 28, 2020)

rnb_2 said:


> I was impressed with many of the presets in the Europa synth (never underestimate the value of a really nice default patch, like Friendly Keys in Europa), and reviews seemed positive on many of Reason's other newer synths and tools, so even if I don't end up using it as a DAW long-term, its ability to be a modular rack in whatever DAW you like really minimizes the risk in diving into it.


Europa is a killer synth IMO. I find it super inviting to work with while still being remarkably deep. If you like the Friendly Keys init patch, you might like Europa Relay from Adam Fielding, who created Friendly Keys as well as quite a few of the other stock patches.


(A small handful of the Europa stock patches are mine, too.)


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## Detalion (Dec 28, 2020)

rnb_2 said:


> For my part, after mulling everything over for a few days, I did finally bite the bullet and go all-in for the double-upgrade to Reason Suite. I watched several videos from people who are very familiar with Reason, did a fair bit of reading and playing with the demo, and finally decided that, given the extra discount + coupon code at Best Service, I had very little to lose in the long run.
> 
> The three unanswerable questions right now are:
> 
> ...


Maybe Reason 12 will coming Q2 2021...

In my opinion, Reason is going to become a plugin for other DAW (maybe I'm wrong), but when you see as a main DAW, it's so far behind and the lack of features compared to the competition... I just user interface, it's a mess maybe you have 60inch monitor.

You should look this video :




On my side, I'm using Nuendo 11(score composition and multichannel audio track) and Bitwig 3.3 (for inspiration and sound design), so learn another DAW and outdated for 384 EUR, no thanks.

Maybe EUROPA synth is great but when you have Arturia Pigment 2, Analog Lab 4/V, Falcon 2, Padshop 2 (granular synth), Iris 2, Retrologue, AAS Ultra Analog the usefulness seems limited.

I am interested in physical modelling instruments, I have Pianoteq (best piano), ExpressiveE Violin/Cello (not so good), AAS Suite (great) and some other instruments.


----------



## dzilizzi (Dec 28, 2020)

Reason started out as an instrument, not a DAW. At version 5 they introduced Record as a minimal DAW. In version 6, they integrated them. Reason was my favorite instrument(s) for years.


----------



## lychee (Dec 28, 2020)

Detalion said:


> I decide to start with Intro after I saw lychee message : « To the question "do all of Friktion's patches work with Reason Intro?", the answer is yes. » and finally not for me.


I don't know how it happened, but I confirm that now there are some patches that don't work under Intro.
At the time of the question on the compatibility of Friktion and Reason Intro, I had to check and everything was ok.
I'm trying to verify if this comes from an update, but I'm sincerely sorry for my monumental mistake and the consequences it entails.


----------



## Detalion (Dec 28, 2020)

dzilizzi said:


> Reason started out as an instrument, not a DAW. At version 5 they introduced Record as a minimal DAW. In version 6, they integrated them. Reason was my favorite instrument(s) for years.


Maybe I underestimated Reason, but I read from several (Reason) users say that plugins are outdated like for example the sampler and others.


----------



## Detalion (Dec 28, 2020)

lychee said:


> I don't know how it happened, but I confirm that now there are some patches that don't work under Intro.
> At the time of the question on the compatibility of Friktion and Reason Intro, I had to check and everything was ok.
> I'm trying to verify if this comes from an update, but I'm sincerely sorry for my monumental mistake and the consequences it entails.


No problem really


----------



## rnb_2 (Dec 28, 2020)

Detalion said:


> Maybe Reason 12 will coming Q2 2021...
> 
> In my opinion, Reason is going to become a plugin for other DAW (maybe I'm wrong), but when you see as a main DAW, it's so far behind and the lack of features compared to the competition... I just user interface, it's a mess maybe you have 60inch monitor.
> 
> ...



That was actually one of the videos I watched, along with another from the same source and one from Jef Gibbons about integrating the Reason Rack with Maschine and other instruments. Evan's earlier Reason review was part of what pushed me to get the Suite, as he felt that Standard was not as good a value as Intro (which gives a lot for the money) or Suite (which adds some great extra instruments and Players for the extra cost).

I think Reason 12 will give some indication as to whether the DAW portion of Reason continues or not - the Rack was the big feature of 11, so upgrading from 10 if you use it as a DAW was not seen as good value for most. If the DAW gets a lot of attention in 12, then maybe it will stay; if it doesn't, I would say that the writing is on the wall.

Of the synths you mentioned, I only have Pigments 2, Analog Lab Lite 4, and Iris 2. I have a few others - Strobe 2 and Cypher 2, Equator, Tracktion's Collective and Biotek 2, Waverazor, Spacecraft, Knifonium - but most of those were from bundles/upgrades that I grabbed when I was approaching everything via my ROLI MPE stuff (just a Lightpad Block and a couple control blocks) before I found VI-C and got a better idea of what is on the market these days. Also, the interfaces on many of the synths I bought earlier are either just endless knobs (the fxpansion synths) or very quirky (Biotek/Waverazor/Spacecraft). Most are very good from what I understand, but not the most approachable.

I do like that Reason actually works fairly well with my Nektar P1, and I'm liking the Komplete Kontrol integration in the u-he synths (though their built-in browser is also good).


----------



## dzilizzi (Dec 28, 2020)

Detalion said:


> Maybe I underestimated Reason, but I read from several (Reason) users say that plugins are outdated like for example the sampler and others.


The things that frustrated me was you had to use it with Rewire, so you didn't get the benefit of a lot of the things that come with Reason. Also, I'm not much of a Synth person. I just recently upgraded to 11, so I don't know how the new version works as a VST. 

The best thing about Reason, even as a DAW was it is almost crash-proof and it can run on almost any computer. I used to run it on a netbook with 4GB RAM.


----------



## Detalion (Dec 28, 2020)

dzilizzi said:


> The things that frustrated me was you had to use it with Rewire, so you didn't get the benefit of a lot of the things that come with Reason. Also, I'm not much of a Synth person. I just recently upgraded to 11, so I don't know how the new version works as a VST.
> 
> The best thing about Reason, even as a DAW was it is almost crash-proof and it can run on almost any computer. I used to run it on a netbook with 4GB RAM.


crash-proof is great, like Bitwig.
I give a tried Reason Intro as a DAW and for midi editing, it's not very intuitive for me for now.

Just to understand, I see you have many DAW, ProTools, Cubase 10 , Studio One 4 and Reason 10, you already have a lot to do, so why did you upgraded to Reason 11?


----------



## dzilizzi (Dec 28, 2020)

Detalion said:


> crash-proof is great, like Bitwig.
> I give a tried Reason Intro as a DAW and for midi editing, it's not very intuitive for me for now.
> 
> Just to understand, I see you have many DAW, ProTools, Cubase 10 , Studio One 4 and Reason 10, you already have a lot to do, so why did you upgraded to Reason 11?


For the VST ability. I don't really use the DAW part, but using it with Rewire was a pain to set up. Being able to use it as a VST makes Reason much more usable to me. I did wait for the sale.


----------



## Leandro Gardini (Dec 29, 2020)

Friktion and Serenade are marvelous tools to be used as support of other libraries and special effects. Other than that, they will always sound synthy.
The latest release on my YouTube channel I used Friktion and CSS. The former works on the special effects and the latter on the normal long notes.


----------



## Detalion (Jan 1, 2021)

rnb_2 said:


> For my part, after mulling everything over for a few days, I did finally bite the bullet and go all-in for the double-upgrade to Reason Suite. I watched several videos from people who are very familiar with Reason, did a fair bit of reading and playing with the demo, and finally decided that, given the extra discount + coupon code at Best Service, I had very little to lose in the long run.
> 
> The three unanswerable questions right now are:
> 
> ...


Hello,

First, I'm wishing you and yours a safe, healthy, and prosperous new year 2021! I hope better than 2020. If anyone know if we can buy Reason and activate later to benefit grace period when Reason 12 will arrive?

Maybe I'll migrate to Standard edition via bestservice (new coupon code available 20 EUR off "HNY2021") until midnight jan, 1st 2021.

Thanks.

Best regards,


----------



## dzilizzi (Jan 1, 2021)

Detalion said:


> Hello,
> 
> First, I'm wishing you and yours a safe, healthy, and prosperous new year 2021! I hope better than 2020. If anyone know if we can buy Reason and activate later to benefit grace period when Reason 12 will arrive?
> 
> ...


I've never really seen a grace period with Reason. And they haven't had regular upgrades like Cubase does. Then again, they don't have the bugs Cubase does either. Or all the abilities.

Edit: Actually, that may not be true. If you don't buy from the Reason store, the grace period should work. But, they aren't really regular on the upgrades. So you may have to wait a while.


----------



## Detalion (Jan 1, 2021)

dzilizzi said:


> I've never really seen a grace period with Reason. And they haven't had regular upgrades like Cubase does. Then again, they don't have the bugs Cubase does either. Or all the abilities.
> 
> Edit: Actually, that may not be true. If you don't buy from the Reason store, the grace period should work. But, they aren't really regular on the upgrades. So you may have to wait a while.


Well I'm asking because I have read Reason FAQ and I see this


----------



## Sarah Mancuso (Jan 1, 2021)

They've generally done grace periods for the ~30 days before a new version announcement before, but I assume it's based on purchase, not activation, and I have no idea how third-party sellers factor into it.


----------



## Detalion (Jan 1, 2021)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> They've generally done grace periods for the ~30 days before a new version announcement before, but I assume it's based on purchase, not activation, and I have no idea how third-party sellers factor into it.


Some DAW Vendor (like Bitwig), you can buy key or upgrade key and activate later.

I presume if I buy directly from Reason Studio web site, the license will be active after order confirmation associated to my account.


----------



## Detalion (Jan 1, 2021)

dzilizzi said:


> I've never really seen a grace period with Reason. And they haven't had regular upgrades like Cubase does. Then again, they don't have the bugs Cubase does either. Or all the abilities.
> 
> Edit: Actually, that may not be true. If you don't buy from the Reason store, the grace period should work. But, they aren't really regular on the upgrades. So you may have to wait a while.


Most recently Reason Studio has released new version is approx every 2 years :
- Reason 10 was release on October 2017
- Reason 11 in septembre 2019,
- Reason 12 so I suppose the next major release will be between May '21 and September '21


----------



## antret (Jan 3, 2021)

Hi All! 

I haven’t read thru all 12 pages yet, but it was friktion that made me start filling my free reason rack. . Just listened to a Lychee demo on page 2 or so and that sounds like how I plan to use it. Using it in more ‘post-rock’ gtr driven or electronica driven music. 

Like most reason tools, ez to use and waaay more functional than it first appears. To me, it compares a bit to string studio by AAS. I enjoyed the sound of friktion much more. 

I bought 3 other RE’s while I was in their shop.


----------



## doctoremmet (Jan 3, 2021)

antret said:


> Hi All!
> 
> I haven’t read thru all 12 pages yet, but it was friktion that made me start filling my free reason rack. . Just listened to a Lychee demo on page 2 or so and that sounds like how I plan to use it. Using it in more ‘post-rock’ gtr driven or electronica driven music.
> 
> ...


Yes, Lychee has done some excellent demos on here. What other REs did you get? I can totally see this work in a postrock context!


----------



## antret (Jan 3, 2021)

doctoremmet said:


> Yes, Lychee has done some excellent demos on here. What other REs did you get? I can totally see this work in a postrock context!



Hi! 

Well, I love me some sequencers, so I got around to adding the quad note generator, the pattern mutator and the evolution sequencer (interference sequencer). 

The latest update to riffer was/is great and I thought it would scratch that quad note generator itch, but they still work quite a bit differently. Glad to have both!

The only other interference type sequencer I had was a max for live device, so I was happy to get a version I could use elsewhere. 

Again, the pattern mutator I used in ableton was a Max device (coldcut or something?) but I never got along with it. I demoed the reason one with a meandering piano melody and liked quite a few of the variations.


----------



## doctoremmet (Jan 3, 2021)

antret said:


> Hi!
> 
> Well, I love me some sequencers, so I got around to adding the quad note generator, the pattern mutator and the evolution sequencer (interference sequencer).
> 
> ...


Great, sequencers of various breeds are very useful and inspirational indeed. I love some of the M4L stuff too, as I am still an Ableton guy. I have also invested in some additional sequencers for my Voltage Modular environment. Cool stuff!


----------



## Detalion (Jan 11, 2021)

Hello,

I wanted to give you a feedback on my experience after buying Reason 11 (standard edition to begin with and I upgraded to Suite edition after). I'm Bitwig 3.x (certified) and Nuendo (v11) user.

I had misconceptions about Reason software as a DAW, as I may have written earlier thinking that it (Reason DAW) was outdated compared to its competitors. After testing it, I was wrong and I have to admit that it is very efficient, of course it lacks a lot of features but on the essential features it is very good, very productive. Isn't that what you ask of a DAW?

For example, one feature I haven't seen yet (maybe it exists elsewhere but I haven't seen it), I really appreciate the use of BLOCKS to structure the music.

In brief, I think that we shouldn't rely only on the functionalities (sometimes marketing) of the solutions but to test them. On paper, some solutions may look good but in reality it's more complicated or you have to spend time to find it.


----------



## doctoremmet (Jan 11, 2021)

Detalion said:


> Hello,
> 
> I wanted to give you a feedback on my experience after buying Reason (standard edition to begin with and I upgraded to Suite edition after). I'm Bitwig 3.x (certified) and Nuendo (v11) user.
> 
> ...


How do these blocks work?


----------



## mcatalao (Jan 11, 2021)

Detalion said:


> Hello,
> 
> I wanted to give you a feedback on my experience after buying Reason (standard edition to begin with and I upgraded to Suite edition after). I'm Bitwig 3.x (certified) and Nuendo (v11) user.
> 
> ...


Blocks is just Reason's way for arranging songs. So you create a part and instead of copying and past it everywhere on your project you can name a section for example verse, and you write in the verse block and it simply plays that section. I don't know about bitwig but Cubendo have a similar tool for ages.

Reason is quite inspiring and since the Rack plugin came out i tried it on a bunch of other daws and i end up in reason because it is so nonobstructive. Maybe the other daws are so full of stuff we don't use and reason simply doesn't get in the way.

However, the fact that still in 2021 does not have track folders, channel folders, real freesing of tracks and auto punch in makes a lot of people have mixed feelings about it (lately me included). The struggle is real, for composers in particulary the lack of real freezing and track folders is really nasty!

OTOH, if you have a good pc/mac there is not a single core functionality that reason doesn't have today that impedes you do make music at any level.


----------



## mcatalao (Jan 11, 2021)

doctoremmet said:


> How do these blocks work?


----------



## Detalion (Jan 11, 2021)

doctoremmet said:


> How do these blocks work?


Hello,

The best way, is to show, allow to create section in your music.
See this video tutorial about


----------



## Detalion (Jan 11, 2021)

mcatalao said:


> Blocks is just Reason's way for arranging songs. So you create a part and instead of copying and past it everywhere on your project you can name a section for example verse, and you write in the verse block and it simply plays that section. I don't know about bitwig but Cubendo have a similar tool for ages.
> 
> Reason is quite inspiring and since the Rack plugin came out i tried it on a bunch of other daws and i end up in reason because it is so nonobstructive. Maybe the other daws are so full of stuff we don't use and reason simply doesn't get in the way.
> 
> ...


Hello,

Indeed, it lacks some features but for them are not essential to make good music.
I think these features won't even be used by half of the people.

For me, track folder and freezing track are "Nice to have" features.
About freezing track, it's time consuming at each midi modification you need to convert, but ok if you want to save your memory (RAM).

I think it depends on the type of music you want to make and the number of instruments you want to use, if you choose these instruments well (with a physical model base instead of samples) you can save memory.

Now today, an average machine with 16Gb (minimum) ram this is still usable with 16 tracks and instruments based on the physical model like piano, drums, guitar, violin/cello, synth, woodwind, bass but these instruments are often more expensive than the samples.


----------



## mcatalao (Jan 11, 2021)

You know an interesting option with blocks and automation is that if you want to do multiple mixes of your song and test different automations you can use blocks to save different mixer states and automations. Like blocks function as songs inside songs once you extend your block size to the project size.

I also use them as simple song separators, so even if I'm not using them for arrangement it's great to have them as place holders. And i also use them as locators, with the help of an automation tool called auto hot key:


----------



## mcatalao (Jan 11, 2021)

Detalion said:


> nk these features won't even be used by





Detalion said:


> Hello,
> 
> Indeed, it lacks some features but for them are not essential to make good music.
> I think these features won't even be used by half of the people.
> ...


I can't agree, specially if you work on orchestral stuff where track folders and freezing to free up CPU is quite important. Also, if you see how other daws manage freezing of VST's you don't even notice it. And unfreezing is really quick. Freezing is slow because it has to convert the midi and vst data to audio but unfreezing is quite fast (it just has to delete the audio and reconnect the vst and activate the midi data). Bounce in place was the beginning of the feature but is incomplete as a lot of other stuff are.

TBH as a recording performer of real instruments (I play wind instruments) auto punch in is a little more than a nice to have.

Reason is my daw of choice but the lack of bread and butter stuff like auto punch in, locators, track freezing... IT's as I say. There's nothing lacking to do music, but it sure would help.


----------



## Detalion (Jan 11, 2021)

mcatalao said:


> I can't agree, specially if you work on orchestral stuff where track folders and freezing to free up CPU is quite important. Also, if you see how other daws manage freezing of VST's you don't even notice it. And unfreezing is really quick. Freezing is slow because it has to convert the midi and vst data to audio but unfreezing is quite fast (it just has to delete the audio and reconnect the vst and activate the midi data). Bounce in place was the beginning of the feature but is incomplete as a lot of other stuff are.
> 
> TBH as a recording performer of real instruments (I play wind instruments) auto punch in is a little more than a nice to have.
> 
> Reason is my daw of choice but the lack of bread and butter stuff like auto punch in, locators, track freezing... IT's as I say. There's nothing lacking to do music, but it sure would help.


Maybe in Reason 12


----------



## Detalion (Jan 11, 2021)

mcatalao said:


> I can't agree, specially if you work on orchestral stuff where track folders and freezing to free up CPU is quite important. Also, if you see how other daws manage freezing of VST's you don't even notice it. And unfreezing is really quick. Freezing is slow because it has to convert the midi and vst data to audio but unfreezing is quite fast (it just has to delete the audio and reconnect the vst and activate the midi data). Bounce in place was the beginning of the feature but is incomplete as a lot of other stuff are.
> 
> TBH as a recording performer of real instruments (I play wind instruments) auto punch in is a little more than a nice to have.
> 
> Reason is my daw of choice but the lack of bread and butter stuff like auto punch in, locators, track freezing... IT's as I say. There's nothing lacking to do music, but it sure would help.


For Reason, maybe workaround is to bounce in new audio tracks from the sequencer after switch off or bypassing instrument from the rack (for midi track) to unload plugin and effects inside from memory and when you need to change, switch on plugin (from rack), change midi notes on midi track and bounce again 

You know even Bitwig (current version 3.3.1) don't have frozen track feature, you need to save midi into clip launcher and bounce in new audio in arrangement and disable the midi track. I don't see other option.


----------



## mcatalao (Jan 11, 2021)

Detalion said:


> For Reason, maybe workaround is to bounce in new audio tracks from the sequencer after switch off or bypassing instrument from the rack (for midi track) to unload plugin and effects inside from memory and when you need to change, switch on plugin (from rack), change midi notes on midi track and bounce again
> 
> You know even Bitwig (current version 3.3.1) don't have frozen track feature, you need to save midi into clip launcher and bounce in new audio in arrangement and disable the midi track. I don't see other option.


The problem is that the bypass doesn't work that well in some Re's, and the process is 3x more tedious than a full freezing function. A full freezing function is one or 2 clicks.

Bitwig is what, a 3 year daw? 

Reason is a Daw for more than 10 years, since record came along and exists since 2001. At least auto punch should be available. And the point in time with have VST's in reason should be accompanied by track freezing.


----------



## rnb_2 (Jan 11, 2021)

Detalion said:


> Hello,
> 
> I wanted to give you a feedback on my experience after buying Reason 11 (standard edition to begin with and I upgraded to Suite edition after). I'm Bitwig 3.x (certified) and Nuendo (v11) user.
> 
> ...


Thanks for sharing your experience! I'm just happy that, after the Intro/Friktion mixup, you ended up liking Reason enough to purchase the Suite version. I haven't spent any time with Reason yet, since my time was taken up testing the u-he synths to make a decision on those before the sale expired last week. Now that that is behind me, I plan to dive into Reason over the next few days.


----------



## Detalion (Jan 11, 2021)

mcatalao said:


> The problem is that the bypass doesn't work that well in some Re's, and the process is 3x more tedious than a full freezing function. A full freezing function is one or 2 clicks.
> 
> Bitwig is what, a 3 year daw?
> 
> Reason is a Daw for more than 10 years, since record came along and exists since 2001. At least auto punch should be available. And the point in time with have VST's in reason should be accompanied by track freezing.


>Bitwig is what, a 3 year daw?
6 years, Bitwig start in 2014, of course no comparaison with Reason 20 years.


----------



## doctoremmet (Jan 11, 2021)

So... anyone of you PM afficionados have hands-on experience with NuSofting Modelonia?









Mode de Lonia


This is my first test with NuSofting's Modelonia. What a beautiful instrument that is! All instruments are Modelonia.




soundcloud.app.goo.gl





It’s a pretty old one, but I quite like some of the demos. 

It’s $25 right now. Tempting?


----------



## sostenuto (Jan 11, 2021)

doctoremmet said:


> So... anyone of you PM afficionados have hands-on experience with NuSofting Modelonia?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Great to have a Demo to audition ! 🎈


----------



## Crossroads (Jan 11, 2021)

I just want to give my opinion here, because I am one of the few Reason users who actually cannot get along with any other DAW (I've outspoken about this DAW in the past under my old username DS_Joost).

Reason is... an odd outlier in the DAW world. It almost exists in it's own little space, and as such, it's development seems to reflect that. Reason Studios (formerly Propellerhead of course), seems to run it's own clock, march to it's own beat. It does not seem to compete with any other DAW head-on, as none of the updates in the last few years seem to reflect it. It's kinda like in the gaming industry where you have the two giants Microsoft and Sony duking it out for dominance in the console space, and then there's Nintendo, quietly sticking to it's own way of doing things, as they have always done.

This behaviour, this philosophy is one of the core reasons I absolutely adore Reason, but it can also be a bummer.

This philosophy ensures that Reason is developed into a unique DAW, capable of doing things no other DAW can do (and no DAW does them as easy, or logically, either). It let to the rise of Rack Extensions (the idea of which is much more awesome than VST in my opinion). It let to the rise of the Rack, which makes Reason the only DAW that truly mimicks a hardware workflow. This is where the FUN part of the DAW comes from.

I have ADD. I find making music in DAWs boring. It's a snorefest. Cubase, Studio One, Reaper, they're all very very good, but they are just so... serious. I am not inspired by it. At all. I find that I only ever really love to finish songs in one DAW, and that DAW is Reason. It speaks to my ADD mind; lights, buttons, knobs moving, bright colors, all these pieces of unique looking gear hooked up to one another; it's like building this little machine that starts to come alive the moment you hit play. Heck, even the wiring of cables tickles my fancy; I really wouldn't ever have it any other way. It's the directness of it, that hands-on feeling. The feeling of actually creating something tangible rather than just bashing in notes on a piano roll, and then drawing a line of automation or two. Reason bridges the gap between hardware and software perfectly, unlike any other DAW out there. Not even Bitwig, which does many things one can truly love, is that inspiring to me. It's the look, the feel, man.

That goes for the mixer as well; it's a replica of an SSL board, of which there are many plugins available too. But, no VST plugin FEELS like operating a hardware mixer. The only one that truly does, is Reason's mixer. It feels so huge and mighty, there's this feeling of excitement seeing this hulking display of, again, knobs and lights and faders, and seeing all of it move. And the biggest part of it is this, same goes for the rack: it all moves and lights up, AT ONCE. No hiding plugins, no opening one at the time... just this one big mixer, all knobs available just like that. The rack is like that too. It does something in my brain that I really just can't... explain. All I know is, no DAW does it, and I just don't like DAWs that don't do this.

However, it's because the workflow is so unique that I haven't ditched it years ago already. Lord knows I've tried, because the development cycle of Reason is frustrating (and painfully slow). It does not have some features that should have gone in years ago already. And you can wait... and wait... because the development sometimes seems to be all over the place.

-It doesn't do note chase (seriously? I make long ambient pieces for crying out loud!)
-It doesn't do video (and I do create music for film!)
-It doesn't do track freezing (and I do make orchestral pieces!)

These are my biggest gripes with it. But there are more, many, many, many more. However, there is simply no other DAW for me. So I stick with it. And everytime, I am reminded why I love it so much. Then I see an update for Cubase, or Studio One, and I look at it, and my mind starts to wonder at the possibilities and features that aren't in Reason. Then I demo them again, and after an hour or two, I just fire up Reason again because it's so, so boring otherwise. Reason is truly my happy place.

Anyway, I've used it for 18 years now, so ask me any questions regarding it, and I can answer them. I know the program inside and out!



This video goes into more detail why this program is a software design masterpiece.


----------



## sostenuto (Jan 11, 2021)

Impressed with your Reason experience and commitment. Was interested in Friktion and that got me into Reason Free version some time ago. Was displeased not be able to purchase and add Friktion, so backed away. May now revisit based on your post.


----------



## spacepluk (Jan 11, 2021)

Maschine can do something similar to Reason’s Blocks with the new arranger.


----------



## EvilDragon (Jan 11, 2021)

Every time I try to do something in Reason it's nearly always slower than in other DAWs (or just not possible either)... That to me doesn't say "software design masterpiece"...

The Rack is annoying with larger projects. Cables are annoying enough in the real world, I don't want to see them in my DAW to remind me how annoying they are if I simply want to route some tracks.

The mixer, well let's just say that it doesn't sound like an SSL (not that I expected it to, but then why force that layout, which is tediously slow to work with because of all the scrolling/collapsing sections...) Woof, not a fan. If only Reason had actually decent multi-monitor support (it doesn't, you can detach a mixer window but it's basically creating a new window instead of having an in-program window that snaps to the monitor you want to have... FL Studio shows how it's supposed to be done), alas...

Let's not go into dumb limitations like no support for MIDI channels inside the MIDI editor (seriously?!), not being able to set a time signature that has numerator above 16 (I love me some 21/16...), absolutely ridiculous way of changing time signatures by using host automation (but hey, it can at least do that, FL Studio couldn't do it for the longest freaking time...), no pause in the transport (?!?!), not being able to arm more than one instrument track from one MIDI input (I don't want to use a Combinator always for various reasons)...

Reason is an island. But I simply cannot look at it as a serious DAW. It's more of a synth for me. And even if I consider that, Bitwig's Grid is just a lot smoother to work with...


----------



## Detalion (Jan 11, 2021)

EvilDragon said:


> Every time I try to do something in Reason it's nearly always slower than in other DAWs (or just not possible either)... That to me doesn't say "software design masterpiece"...
> 
> The Rack is annoying with larger projects. Cables are annoying enough in the real world, I don't want to see them in my DAW to remind me how annoying they are if I simply want to route some tracks.
> 
> ...


Maybe for your needs, Cubase or Nuendo are more appropriate (for midi edition).

For midi edition, Reason is not the best, we all agree. Now, not everyone needs such an advanced function in the midi edition. I don't understand your comment about the fact that there is no pause button in the transport, to do what? Neither does Bitwig or Cubase have "pause" in the transport. 
For me it's a false problem, completely useless.

About SSL (console 9000K) sound in Reason, what did you compare it with? hardware / software (type SoftTube Console1)?

What DAW did you use currently? FL Studio?


----------



## EvilDragon (Jan 12, 2021)

Reaper.  But I also have some experience with Sonar, FL, Studio One, Bitwig, MuLab.



Detalion said:


> I don't understand your comment about the fact that there is no pause button in the transport, to do what?



To pause the transport of course. If you can stop it, you should be able to pause it without returning to where the play cursor is, instead continuing from where you paused it. Basic stuff (Cubase at least has custom keybindings you can use to get to the same thing, Reason has no such thing).



Detalion said:


> About SSL (console 9000K) sound in Reason, what did you compare it with? hardware / software (type SoftTube Console1)?


I do have some hours spent with actual SSL hardware  That said, I didn't even expect it to sound the same (how could it even sound the same when they aren't throwing enough CPU to even attempt to model the non-linearities properly?), so no foul there I guess. However forcing the whole hardware paradigm here with those super long absolutely-must-scroll-to-get-from-A-to-B mixer strips is terrible UX.


----------



## Detalion (Jan 12, 2021)

EvilDragon said:


> Reaper.  But I also have some experience with Sonar, FL, Studio One, Bitwig, MuLab.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well, about "Pause" in Reason, maybe you used old version because v11 (I don't know about older versions), just need to set correctly on "Preferences / General" settings by default is stated on to return at last start position, just need to unchecked and after that just need to press "space".

For me, the SSL mixing table inside Reason is very complete (it seems to me SSL 9000K reproduction not 4000E or G), it's a big plus when you compare to others DAW or SSL plugins (true) emulation (like PluginAlliance SSL 9000J for 349$ or Softube SSL XL 9000K for 300$).

Keep in mind that for the price, Reason Intro begin at 99$ with complete SSL mixing table 9000K, the choice is quickly made .

I think a lot of people underestimate Reason (including me at the beginning before I really tested it).
It's just my opinion.


----------



## doctoremmet (Jan 12, 2021)

Anyway. DAWs. Yup. They exist. 
One thing ONLY Reason has is Friktion.

Aaaaand we’re on topic again. No thanks.


----------



## Detalion (Jan 12, 2021)

doctoremmet said:


> Anyway. DAWs. Yup. They exist.
> One thing ONLY Reason has is Friktion.
> 
> Aaaaand we’re on topic again. No thanks.


right


----------



## Crossroads (Jan 12, 2021)

EvilDragon said:


> Every time I try to do something in Reason it's nearly always slower than in other DAWs (or just not possible either)... That to me doesn't say "software design masterpiece"...
> 
> The Rack is annoying with larger projects. Cables are annoying enough in the real world, I don't want to see them in my DAW to remind me how annoying they are if I simply want to route some tracks.
> 
> ...


All these arguments I've heard many times before. I will not try to disprove them, for they are, for the most part, true. There is, however, one thing that I see time and time again on this forum, and others, and everywhere in the music world, which I think is one of those things that goes against the process of being creative itself: the focus on speed and efficiency as being the pillars of design philosophy.

Yes, of course I get it. Many people here work in the film and game industry, and have to abide by absolute murderous time schedules. Competition is fierce, and deadlines are everywhere. I get it, I totally do. So there is no argument for Reason being slower, is there?

Well, perhaps there is, but it comes from taking a step back from that industry and looking at it, shaking one's head and being able to say ''that way of creating music really is not for me''.

What I'm saying is that, for me, creating music is a process of involvement. No, pulling those cables isn't fast. But it is FUN. For me it is, however. Someone else might find it clunky, I don't. For me, it's a logical way of doing things, a literal representation of the connection of devices rather than an implied one. And that makes building my songs up feel much more personal. It also reminds me to experiment from time to time. As with hardware setups, sometimes trying to plug one cable into the wrong input yields unexpected and great results. Reason encourages this but allowing cablings that sometimes seem to be really, really out of left field. These guys knew what they were doing with this, and most importantly, knew what would be lost without it.

Music has lost a lot of interest of mine lately, namely because a lot of it sounds... well... as being professional, but without love. I know, sounds sappy, and not everyone will think this way. And surely music can be produced just as lovingly in every DAW. This is not my point, music makers should make music the way they really want, not they way they are supposed to do it. If that means sometimes taking the really hard decision of not working at a certain studio, then so be it.

Creativity is not a product (it can be, but I don't think of it in this way). It connects with one's soul and sometimes it seems we forget that in a world fighting for ever more productivity and ever more competitiveness. I switched out of those a long time ago. The thought of having to compete for every single job made me very depressive and uncreative. A little pressure never hurts, but we seem to favor constant pressure over taking the time to really create something special. A lot of television music especially sounds so utterly soulless and rapidly put together.

One way of getting out of this depression and out of my creative rut was to leave the Studio Ones, the Cubases, The Reapers and Pro Tools of this world behind and get back to the place I started when I was a kid; good old unefficient Reason. No endless lists of features, no searching for ways to speed things up by a couple milliseconds. Just a simple midi editor, some simple automation features, a couple of devices and that cabling system.

I don't need efficiency. I don't need every feature. In fact, both those things can make a DAW objectively better, but maybe not subjectively. You can have too many features (Reaper in my opinion), or be too lean (Studio One) and before you know it, you are googling more about features and how to do x or y instead of really, truly making music in the here and now.

The hunt for efficiency is turning into a cancer on this society, if I may be blunt, and it is especially damaging on creative fields. This is, all of it of course, my perspective. I can see some people truly not caring.

So for me, Reason is still a design masterpiece, because it is extremely consistent, and a very consistently rewarding and especially fun environment to work in. The clunkiness is sometimes part of what makes it appealing. And it is a testament to Propellerhead and Reason Studios that, despite adding lots of features, it never became more confusing, or complex or difficult. It still is as easy as ever to use. Being this full featured (that depends on what angle you look at it) already without being complex at all, that is, for me, also masterpiece design, and is absolutely also a sign of great UX, depending of course on your very personal view on making music.


----------



## Sarah Mancuso (Jan 12, 2021)

It's also worth noting that 99% of the cabling you'd do in Reason can be automated by just holding shift to auto-route while moving devices around. This is something that they really ought to publicize more, it's been around since 1.0 and lots of users seem unaware of it. With this, it's exceptionally rare to need to manually attach cables anywhere outside of creative uses, where they're quite useful.

Still hungering for more sequencer enhancements, though


----------



## sostenuto (Jan 12, 2021)

Longtime Reaper user ( first DAW ), and fairly weak chops. Does all I currently need. 
Months ago Reason 11 activity got my attention and started with LITE. Then Friktion, and was very interested. Thenfound that Friktion requires INTRO or higher. Cost ~$180. sale, or ~$200. Really deflated early interest. Installed LITE, but actually have Rack Plugin and just updated. 

Good to follow above discourse, but very unsure what Reason brings beyond current Reaper functionality ... _other than Friktion_ (  ) Will continue to monitor and learn.


----------



## Sarah Mancuso (Jan 12, 2021)

Friktion does not require intro or higher.

Combinator patches (.cmb) are multis that can contain *any* devices from _any_ version of Reason, and Friktion comes with some of those in addition to its standard .repatch patches, but Friktion itself (and any of its standard patches) will run in any "tier" of Reason.


----------



## sostenuto (Jan 12, 2021)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> Friktion does not require intro or higher.
> 
> Combinator patches (.cmb) are multis that can contain *any* devices from _any_ version of Reason, and Friktion comes with some of those in addition to its standard .repatch patches, but Friktion itself (and any of its standard patches) will run in any "tier" of Reason.


THX ! I did Demo Friktion and somewhere got off track and thought 'full' Friktion functionality required Intro or +. Will revisit and be delighted with your correction !


----------



## Detalion (Jan 12, 2021)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> Friktion does not require intro or higher.
> 
> Combinator patches (.cmb) are multis that can contain *any* devices from _any_ version of Reason, and Friktion comes with some of those in addition to its standard .repatch patches, but Friktion itself (and any of its standard patches) will run in any "tier" of Reason.


No, it’s false for comb patches require min Standard, like Echo device


----------



## Sarah Mancuso (Jan 12, 2021)

Detalion said:


> No, it’s false for comb patches require min Standard, like Echo device


This is what I said. Combinator patches can include any devices and thus can't be guaranteed to work with light versions, but Friktion and the standard .repatch patches for it will work in any tier. Combinators are multis and can be thought of as bonus material with Friktion.


----------



## ReleaseCandidate (Jan 12, 2021)

I don't like cables in DAWs, I don't like cables in modulars; give me node graphs that have been used for decades in compositing and 3D programs. And least I like them in the real world - I'm a guitarist, it takes at least another 40 years until I got to sit down playing the guitar!


----------



## sostenuto (Jan 12, 2021)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> This is what I said. Combinator patches can include any devices and thus can't be guaranteed to work with light versions, but Friktion and the standard .repatch patches for it will work in any tier. Combinators are multis and can be thought of as bonus material with Friktion.


Likely this is the detail .... misunderstood earlier. Too bad, as Friktion promo now over. 

_OTH, $20. not long-term decider either _....


----------



## Detalion (Jan 12, 2021)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> This is what I said. Combinator patches can include any devices and thus can't be guaranteed to work with light versions, but Friktion and the standard .repatch patches for it will work in any tier. Combinators are multis and can be thought of as bonus material with Friktion.


Oh ok, I read quickly I understand you said "can be work with any version of Reason"


----------



## Detalion (Jan 13, 2021)

spacepluk said:


> Maschine can do something similar to Reason’s Blocks with the new arranger.


But Maschine will become a real DAW soon, who knows


----------



## ReleaseCandidate (Jan 13, 2021)

Detalion said:


> But Maschine will become a real DAW soon, who knows


MPC almost is and you can export your project as Live projects (it does help, that Akai builts Push


----------



## lychee (Jan 17, 2021)

How about going back to the thread of the discussion? 

I am always on the creation of a strings ensemble, I progress little by little taking into account the criticisms that I have encountered.
Even if for some Friktion sounds synthetic, I find it on the contrary very organic and alive compared to my libraries of samples.
I am now trying to bring the sounds of Friktion closer to reality and the rendering of my experiments seems convincing to me.
I took an extract from one of my sounds and made it evolve from a solo to a viola ensemble.
It starts from the pure solo, then I put the internal effect of doubling.
Then I really quadruple the instrument with a few parameters to differentiate each players to end up putting everything in a reverb and spatial placement.
If you have constructive criticism of my work, please let me know, it may help me reach the holy grail.
Thank you in advance.


----------



## antret (Jan 17, 2021)

lychee said:


> How about going back to the thread of the discussion?
> 
> I am always on the creation of a strings ensemble, I progress little by little taking into account the criticisms that I have encountered.
> Even if for some Friktion sounds synthetic, I find it on the contrary very organic and alive compared to my libraries of samples.
> ...



These sound great! I definitely would be interested in your patches when you feel they are ‘finished’.


----------



## lychee (Jan 17, 2021)

I intend to share my experiments, but I'm a perfectionist so it may take time.
There is another problem, I used in my combinator a rack bought separately to "humanize" my sets, and that will make my patches unusable for you.
I will have to make special versions for Reason Lite, Intro ... but which will suddenly be less "sophisticated".


----------



## rnb_2 (Jan 19, 2021)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> Europa is a killer synth IMO. I find it super inviting to work with while still being remarkably deep. If you like the Friendly Keys init patch, you might like Europa Relay from Adam Fielding, who created Friendly Keys as well as quite a few of the other stock patches.
> 
> 
> (A small handful of the Europa stock patches are mine, too.)


I had Adam Fielding's site open for quite a while, but hadn't pulled the trigger on Europa Relay. Suddenly, a couple days ago the site started 404ing, and I haven't been able to load it since. Do you know if he's shut it down?


----------



## Sarah Mancuso (Jan 19, 2021)

rnb_2 said:


> I had Adam Fielding's site open for quite a while, but hadn't pulled the trigger on Europa Relay. Suddenly, a couple days ago the site started 404ing, and I haven't been able to load it since. Do you know if he's shut it down?


I'm not sure what the status is there, but Europa Relay is still on sale from the Reason Studios shop. Hopefully Adam's site will be back up again soon!


----------



## rnb_2 (Jan 19, 2021)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> I'm not sure what the status is there, but Europa Relay is still on sale from the Reason Studios shop. Hopefully Adam's site will be back up again soon!


Ah, cool - thanks for the heads-up!


----------



## Leandro Gardini (Jan 20, 2021)

lychee said:


> How about going back to the thread of the discussion?
> 
> I am always on the creation of a strings ensemble, I progress little by little taking into account the criticisms that I have encountered.
> Even if for some Friktion sounds synthetic, I find it on the contrary very organic and alive compared to my libraries of samples.
> ...


Your musical ideas and phraseologies are high above the average, and that is why you need tools that you can shape the sound.
It's hard to understand what is you meaning with the bowing though. It looks like your player doesn't know how to bow properly.
To me, the attacks are a bit harsh on such a melodic phrase.
I can see a little progress in your programming of Friktion, but I wouldn't have false hopes to transform a lizard into a crocodile. 
Friktion is awesome and I have used it in all my latest projects by understanding its strength and weaknesses.


----------



## lychee (Jan 20, 2021)

leogardini said:


> leogardini said:
> 
> 
> > Your musical ideas and phraseologies are high above the average, and that is why you need tools that you can shape the sound.
> ...


Once again I have to admit that I am a beginner in the matter of doing something imperseptible to an expert ear, and that is why I am waiting for your reviews from the pros to get as close as possible to reality.
So maybe Friktion will remain a lizard, but more on the comodo side than the gecko in my humble opinion. 

After even if Friktion impresses me a lot, this plugin is not perfect, I'm not a big fan of his legatos or of certain accents that certain notes take and which I have a hard time making sound to my taste, but maybe it is I who misuse the plugin?

On the song I'm currently composing, I have a violin that plays quite high and sometimes it sounds good other times less well.
In reality, can a violinist quickly alternate from normal to harmonic notes?
I feel like my "accent" problem stems from there and I should play around with it, or this is really from the original sound of Friktion and it will never be correctable.


----------



## doctoremmet (Jan 27, 2021)

So Reason+ is a thing now (subscription). Reason Intro and Suite discontinued.


Haven’t investigated this fully yet. Just leaving this here...




vi-control.net


----------



## lychee (Feb 12, 2021)

I soon finished my own string ensemble with Reason Friktion, the result is fine with me but there is one last point that I can't define.

What is the highest note that each instrument that the strings make?
I tried to find the answer on the internet, but it seems that it is not very clear because it apparently depends on the efficiency of the player to make the harmonics, so we will say in the register of a classical orchestra.

I am self taught in music so I have no notion of score and reading notes so if you tell me C sharp that is not going to speak to me then can you tell me where to place the cursor on the interface Friktion for each instrument please?

Thank you in advance for your answers.

Violin:





Viola:





Cello (obviously the same beginning as the viola but an octave lower) :





Bass (2 octaves lower)



​Here is the almost final result of my patches tested on one of my music.
It's really only legatos that can sound unnatural sometimes, but synthetic or not the result sounds much better and alive than my sample banks:


----------



## aileero (Feb 12, 2021)

lychee said:


> I soon finished my own string ensemble with Reason Friktion, the result is fine with me but there is one last point that I can't define.
> 
> What is the highest note that each instrument that the strings make?
> I tried to find the answer on the internet, but it seems that it is not very clear because it apparently depends on the efficiency of the player to make the harmonics, so we will say in the register of a classical orchestra.
> ...



The highest note on the fretless stringed instruments are hard to find out because the higher the note, the more skill it takes for a player to reach it. As you go up in pitch (meaning down on the fingerboard) the distance between notes lowers. Since an octave is what ever pitch multiplied by 2 (100hz * 2 is 200hz so 200hz is an octave higher than 100hz), that means that the amount of string needed for a player to reach higher notes lessens. Think of a string being cut in half over and over. 

I find that typically the highest you should go is about 3 octaves higher than the lowest note of the instrument. You could try to go higher but it might sound unrealistic as the task of simply playing the note becomes insanely difficult for the "player"


----------



## doctoremmet (Feb 12, 2021)

@lychee Lovely piece. Your Friktion patches sound great. Incredible this is all synthesized...


----------



## lychee (Feb 12, 2021)

aileero said:


> The highest note on the fretless stringed instruments are hard to find out because the higher the note, the more skill it takes for a player to reach it. As you go up in pitch (meaning down on the fingerboard) the distance between notes lowers. Since an octave is what ever pitch multiplied by 2 (100hz * 2 is 200hz so 200hz is an octave higher than 100hz), that means that the amount of string needed for a player to reach higher notes lessens. Think of a string being cut in half over and over.
> 
> I find that typically the highest you should go is about 3 octaves higher than the lowest note of the instrument. You could try to go higher but it might sound unrealistic as the task of simply playing the note becomes insanely difficult for the "player"


Thanks for your reply @aileero.

So if I follow your logic, the violin stops at G5, the viola and the cello at C5, and the bass at E5?
All this is according to your logic, but is it the maximum notes that a classical composer would write on these scores, or there too there are no precise rules?



doctoremmet said:


> @lychee Lovely piece. Your Friktion patches sound great. Incredible this is all synthesized...


Thank you.

I say it again, but Friktion is really the plugin that gave me the most pleasure and I had a lot of fun playing with the modularity of the Reason Rack.

It's a shame that Reason Studio decided to switch to the pure subscription in its business and that the only alternative is to pay for the more expensive version of Reason.
Their new policy will transform Reason into a niche product rather than democratize it to the greatest number in my opinion.
Again I think they would have done better to make Reason Rack some kind of competitor to Kontakt and try to attract more third party developers to it.


----------



## aileero (Feb 12, 2021)

lychee said:


> Thanks for your reply @aileero.
> 
> So if I follow your logic, the violin stops at G5, the viola and the cello at C5, and the bass at E5?
> All this is according to your logic, but is it the maximum notes that a classical composer would write on these scores, or there too there are no precise rules?
> ...



Yeah, there are no specific rules for the ranges of these instruments, but those ranges are typically the farthest I've seen for most classical music. Maybe a composer who knew a player who was really good could push a few more notes, but to an ensemble I wouldn't push any farther than that.

It's similar to wondering how fast a violinist can play. While there is a theoretical limit to our arm joints, we don't consider that the limit. It's more of what the players are capable of, and how much you would want the players to curse at you for making such difficult music. 

Rarely do I find that pushing an instrument that far in it's register sounds good though, so it's not likely that you'll go that far anyways.


----------



## lychee (Feb 13, 2021)

Once again thank you for your answer aileero.


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## antret (Feb 13, 2021)

I'm with the Doctor on this one.... well done as always!


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## Timedog (May 27, 2021)

Anywhere I can find some good Friktion patches?


----------



## Sid Francis (May 27, 2021)

Hi
I did not read the whole thread, so can please someone answer this simple question: I only own Reason 11 lite, not the full version. Can I load and use friction too? I LOVE these single new instruments made for Reason but I thought I had to forge out the whole 399 or so...?


----------



## doctoremmet (May 27, 2021)

Sid Francis said:


> Hi
> I did not read the whole thread, so can please someone answer this simple question: I only own Reason 11 lite, not the full version. Can I load and use friction too? I LOVE these single new instruments made for Reason but I thought I had to forge out the whole 399 or so...?











Postnumbers included (both from this thread)

So, Lite: NO, Intro & up: YES


----------



## Sid Francis (May 27, 2021)

Thx, Doctoremmet!


----------



## Michael Antrum (May 27, 2021)

Sid Francis said:


> Hi
> I did not read the whole thread, so can please someone answer this simple question: I only own Reason 11 lite, not the full version. Can I load and use friction too? I LOVE these single new instruments made for Reason but I thought I had to forge out the whole 399 or so...?


There is currently a 30% sale on Reason. I just upgraded from v10 to v 11 plus a free upgrade to 12 when released, for £ 90 inc VAT. You may wish to check your upgrade price.......


----------



## Sid Francis (May 28, 2021)

Thank you Michael. Yes, I saw it but it is still 233 or so to upgrade. I will get an Intro licence instead for 80€ just to buy 2 or 3 very interesting modules then which are sold separately.


----------



## Tremendouz (May 28, 2021)

Sid Francis said:


> Hi
> I did not read the whole thread, so can please someone answer this simple question: I only own Reason 11 lite, not the full version. Can I load and use friction too? I LOVE these single new instruments made for Reason but I thought I had to forge out the whole 399 or so...?


Yes you can, you can't just use some of the presets that include effects from some other components not included in lite. The actual instrument itself is fully functional.


----------



## Sid Francis (May 28, 2021)

Ah, okay, great!


----------



## antret (May 28, 2021)

Hi Sid! That's exactly what I do with my Reason 11 Lite edition. There is a few days left on their May Madness sale, so stock up!  I have cherry picked the devices (synths/sequencers) that I like and have a nice little collection. I just bought more the other day! I have Friktion so can confirm it will work. Just to re-underline the point that a lot of the presets/combis use other effects not included in lite. It hasn't been any issue on this end as it does not affect core functionality of the device. 

I have most of the Lectric Panda collection now. Plus, just picked up the Reason 'modular' synth, Complex 1. Definitely worth a lookie-lu if you like the idea of modular without complete and utter modularity of modulars. 1st impressions on this one were better than the recent AAS modular offering (which I also bought!). 

Enjoy!


----------



## darkogav (May 28, 2021)

It's around 190 $USD from JRR. The one good reason to upgrade is you can use the FX in your DAW. I used it in Cubase/Dorico. No issues. I am not sure what 12 is going to have.






blowout.JRRshop.com | Propellerhead Reason 10 Upgrade for Intro / Lite


<div> <h1 style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://www.jrrshop.com/media/catalog/product/r/e/reasonstudiosreasonupgradeintrolite.gif" /></h1> <h1 style="text-align: center;"> </h1> <h1 style="text-align: center;">Reason 12</h1> </div> <div




blowout.jrrshop.com










Virtual Instruments and Effects | Reason | Reason Studios


Reason features a legendary collection of virtual instruments, effects and music production tools.




www.reasonstudios.com


----------



## easyrider (Sep 18, 2021)

Just logged into reason and saw that I had 65 reward points for some reason…😂

So I can get Friction for £49


----------



## lychee (Sep 18, 2021)

easyrider said:


> Just logged into reason and saw that I had 65 reward points for some reason…😂
> 
> So I can get Friction for £49


Quick, go take it before they find out it was a mistake!


----------



## rnb_2 (Sep 18, 2021)

easyrider said:


> Just logged into reason and saw that I had 65 reward points for some reason…😂
> 
> So I can get Friction for £49


Thanks for posting this - I had no idea about reward points, found them on the site, joined the program, and immediately had 93 points for my past purchases. Now to figure out the best way to work things to get the 12 upgrade and the couple REs that have come out since Reason 11 Suite.


----------



## darkogav (Sep 19, 2021)

thanks for tip. i had 45 credits and got another 5 for signing up.

you can also get Scenic. and also RV70000 patches are free.






Shop - Reason Studios







www.reasonstudios.com


----------



## cqd (Sep 19, 2021)

Hmm.. does anyone know if you can keep the voucher until black Friday or there's a sale?..
Been eyeing friktion, but I'd wait..


----------



## darkogav (Sep 19, 2021)

cqd said:


> Hmm.. does anyone know if you can keep the voucher until black Friday or there's a sale?..
> Been eyeing friktion, but I'd wait..


i think i saw that it says you need to spend it within 30 days.


----------



## rnb_2 (Sep 19, 2021)

darkogav said:


> i think i saw that it says you need to spend it within 30 days.


60 days from when you convert the points to a voucher.


----------



## applegrovebard (Sep 19, 2021)

I was thinking of picking up Reason Lite by way of an extra through buying Korg Nano Control but it seems that the Nano Control now offers not Reason Lite but a 90 day free trial of Reason +. However I did see that there are some Ebay sellers offering a Reason Lite license for $10-20. Maybe the last opportunity to pick up Reason Lite and thereby be able to use Friction relatively cheaply?


----------



## easyrider (Sep 19, 2021)

rnb_2 said:


> Thanks for posting this - I had no idea about reward points, found them on the site, joined the program, and immediately had 93 points for my past purchases. Now to figure out the best way to work things to get the 12 upgrade and the couple REs that have come out since Reason 11 Suite.


JRR Shop,

The rewards can only be used in the rewards store. NOT THE deals page…Black Friday will come and these will appear in the Deals page. If Friktion goes on sale it will be in the deals area so won’t be available to buy in the rewards area. So if you have a voucher spend it now. Both Friktion and Algoritm are currently in rewards area.


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## rnb_2 (Sep 19, 2021)

easyrider said:


> JRR Shop,
> 
> The rewards can only be used in the rewards store. NOT THE deals page…Black Friday will come and these will appear in the Deals page. If Friktion goes on sale it will be in the deals area so won’t be available to buy in the rewards area. So if you have a voucher spend it now. Both Friktion and Algoritm are currently in rewards area.


I have an email in with Reason support to see what I'd get in rewards for buying the 12 upgrade (I got 20 points each for previous Reason purchases, but I don't know if that's still the case). I want to get over 100 rewards points so I can apply a $50 voucher to each of the two REs I don't have (Algoritm and Pattern Mutator - I already have Friktion).


----------



## easyrider (Sep 19, 2021)

rnb_2 said:


> I have an email in with Reason support to see what I'd get in rewards for buying the 12 upgrade (I got 20 points each for previous Reason purchases, but I don't know if that's still the case). I want to get over 100 rewards points so I can apply a $50 voucher to each of the two REs I don't have (Algoritm and Pattern Mutator - I already have Friktion).


What are your thoughts on Friktion?


----------



## rnb_2 (Sep 19, 2021)

easyrider said:


> What are your thoughts on Friktion?


I wish I'd done enough with it to say, but the last few months have been very unproductive, so I'm more in "collect the whole set" mode right now (to give myself the equivalent of the non-existent Reason 12 Suite). I'm sure @lychee can chime in on that one, though.


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## rnb_2 (Sep 22, 2021)

Just heard back from Reason Studios - 20 reward points for the 12 upgrade. Since I just found out that the upgrade is going up to $199 on October 1, looks like I'll grab the 12 Upgrade in the next few days, then use my reward points to get two $50 vouchers to use on Algoritm and Pattern Mutator. That will have me at the equivalent of Reason 12 Suite (all Reason Studios REs included) for a total outlay less than the retail price of Reason 11 Suite, which is a kind of ridiculous amount of stuff for the money. Granted, I need to start doing something with it, but I can say that for all of the VIs, DAWs, and controllers I've purchased over the last 18 months.


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