Over the summer, a slew of new Rack Extensions has opened Reason’s modular, patchable rack to a variety of developers. I have to admit, I’ve been astounded by the quantity and variety, given this is just one host – it seems there was pent-up demand for Reason modules, and that Propellerhead made things developer-friendly.
FXpansion do wonderful work, have some of the best synth modeling tools on the market, and I say really entirely too little about them. Now, the guts from their DCAM suite are available in a Rack Extension called Etch, a modeled filter with loads of modulation. It’s worth watching the tutorial in its entirety, because you see the raw power of people able to take that effect instrument and freely control it through patch cords and modular routing. It has long been the strength of Reason that you can combine tools in this way, focusing on devices as much as any linear arrangement, and now with new developers on the scene, it all takes on a new light.
Yes, yes, this all gets a bit dubsteppy in the demo. But that’s largely about content: if that’s not your cup of tea (Big Gulp of Coke?), the general notion of elaborate modulation could be applied to whatever your music taste happens to be.
Reason users, Etch is yours for fifty bucks.
More:
http://www.propellerheads.se/ [Reason shop]
Etch is also available as a plug-in, and got a fine review from our friend Jono over at Resident Advisor.
Jono was back recently with a DCAM Dynamics review.
Here in the CDM tower high above the city of Berlin, the bustling newsroom is somewhat distracted by preparations for our MusicMakers party tomorrow, but I did want to share this – and we have more coming.
Via comments, there are some alarming performance results shared by some Rack Extension users. Because of the architecture of Rack Extensions, it is fair to test an RE and plug-in version running in different hosts. I hope to investigate what’s going on here, with Propellerhead and in my own tests; thanks for the tip. The challenge for journalists and users is the same: when something’s new, you don’t know how it will perform or even in some cases what to make of results you’re seeing. But that’s all the more reason to take a look.