Reason 7 unveiled in London

Propellerhead has just unveiled the latest version of its flagship and increasingly multi-functional DAW, Reason 7, at a press event in London. Members of the music press and assorted other music luminaries crowded into the prestigious Red Bull Studios in London to see a hands-on demonstration from Propellerheads’ product specialists and some big-name DJs and music producers.

The new features were demonstrated by a product specialist who quickly built a funky house track, blending live bass and MIDI-triggered hardware synths to quickly knock up a great-sounding production. The key to this was Reason 7′s new improved time-stretching algorithm and the new automatic audio slicing that turns every recorded clip into a sliced part that can be easily manipulated, quantized, and even transferred straight to the Dr. Octo REX loop player or exported to your desktop.

There’s also a new MIDI out feature with full CV support which was demonstrated, making it simple to control external MIDI hardware from inside the rack. The simplicity of triggering hardware using MIDI racks, arpeggiators, and CV-based effects, then recording the input and having it automatically sliced up is amazing and really looks like it will greatly enhance the utility of Reason as a serious studio tool.

Next up, James Wiltshire of remix specialists Freemasons took to the stage to demonstrate the new parallel processing and grouping features in the mixer, showing how parallel processing can be used to boost and add punch to everything from drums and synths to vocals. The results are impressive, making it much easier to create powerful sounding mixes with a few relatively simple mixer tricks. There’s also a new EQ available on every mixer channel with a large display that lets you paint in EQ curves much more easily.

2021 Update: Reason 12 DAW Comes On September 1st