Reason Free brings some of the best of Reason to your DAW of choice, totally free. That includes instruments like the excellent Europa synth, effects like Audiomatic and Scream 4, and more. And there’s especially good news for the Rack Extensions ecosystem: the full marketplace of third-party add-ons will run in the free plug-in, too.
For Reason die-hard users, of course, it’s that last bit that matters. Developers can now build Rack Extensions and sell them in the free plug-in — finally.
But if you haven’t used Reason in a while, this is a great freebie to bring it back in modern VST3, AU, and AAX form, too. There’s even a standalone free version of the Reason DAW with up to 16 tracks — which is well under where most of my projects sit anyway.
Here’s what’s inside (and which are the especially cool additions):
Instruments
This is actually kind of the reason to download this as a freebie for most DAW users. Europa is a real gem, even alongside other synth plug-ins. It’s an analog/wavetable/spectral/physical modeling/FM synthesis monster — but all in one screen. And you can draw your own waveforms and filter curves, load your own samples, and use a deep modulation matrix, plus semi-modular effects.
Putting my educator hat on for a second, that vaults Europa up alongside tools like VCV Rack and SurgeXT. If you stuck me on a desert island and chose me I had to use this and nothing else, I’d be pretty happy. Well, I might still want something with drum pads, which brings us to this:
Also included:
- Kong drum machine (meaning access to the many, many packs for that instrument)
- ID8 (simple bread-and-butter ROMpler — it’s giving SoundCanvas)
- Monotone bass synth (really lucious sounding, also underrated)
Effects
This is worth using just for Scream or Audiomatic alone. (Audiomatic has long been some secret sauce.)
- Scream 4 distortion/saturation.
- The Echo stereo delay with modulation and filtering.
- Audiomatic – a unique-sounding set of retro/lo-fi presets. It’s cute. It’s like the Maggi Cube of quick vintage processing.
- RV7000 MkII – a deep digital/convolution reverb with the ability to load its own impulse responses. I love the new reverb in Reason, and still go back to this.
- MClass Maximizer – okay, here they’re baiting you in a bit. But MClass has always been a great-sounding set of mastering tools; they sound great for a pack-in suite. And you’ve definitely heard them in some released music, because there are so many Reason lovers out there. Choosing the Maximizer isn’t a bad place to start, anyway, as it’s not like we’re short of this kind of plug-in these days.
Players/utilities
Reason Studios also through in some other useful stuff. I’m especially fond of Pulsar.
- Scales & Chords player/generator.
- Combinator (the thing that makes all the combined patches — essential if you want to use Reason Free to learn Reason chops).
- Spider Audio Merger & Splitter, CV Merger & Splitter.
- Pulsar dual LFO. You can never have too many LFOs.
- MIDI Out for routing to external gear.
Flip it
This is still Reason, so you can flip the Rack even in the Reason Free version to get full patching of audio, trigger/gate, and control voltage. It’s not as flexible as modular environments like VCV Rack or Reaktor or Softube Modular, but you still have way more options than a usual plug-in would provide, and there’s a lot — a lot — you can do with this.
Rack Extensions
The other great part of this is that it finally provides access to Rack Extensions without having to buy a full Rack license or subscription. That includes gems from hardware makers (Eurorack favorite Noise Engineering!) to gorgeous software like this superb Swedish shop I reviewed earlier this year:
And it’s about time third party Rack Extension developers got this kind of good news. VST hosting, while welcome, added competition, and the Reason+ subscription offering (and pushing Reason Studios’ own paid add-ons) frankly detracted from some of the awesome work done by their third parties.
But the SDK recently added some welcome UI features, and this could provide a much-needed boost.
With or without subscription
It’s probably worth saying what doesn’t change with the launch of Reason Free. You still have the same options. Subscribe if that’s what you’re into; Reason+ is now a LANDR subscription with a wider selection of stuff, though to me the main draw is still Reason Studios’ own devices and included upgrades. Or if you don’t want subscriptions, Reason Studios does still provide perpetual Reason licenses — and as I understand it, LANDR/Reason Studios have no plans to discontinue that option. (I think they’re aware that a lot of you would grab pitchforks if they did.)
The free version is completely unlimited, though; there’s no expiration.
Find it here — VST3, AU, AAX, standalone/DAW (limited):
https://www.reasonstudios.com/reason-free
I’ve got some more to say about extensions soon, too. Let us know what you think of this one.
And yeah, if these fifteen sound like a lot, try the full package. Reason really is fully of goodies.
I had this much to say just about the new RV-9: