Which Program?

[ajenkz]

Reason or Fruity Loops?I have friends who own both programs, but dont make my kind of music or else they would just be creating the songs. I have tried both before and am equally bad at each of them, but which would be better/easier to get a hang of with some work? The type of music will be R&B/Soul/Pop/Funk.

[mazz]

The question is: do you need to record audio? If so, Reason is out, it doesn't record audio. I haven't used Fruity Loops since it was free and I was torturing myself on Windows 95 but I hear it's pretty cool these days.Have fun!Mazz

[ajenkz]

Nope; just need to create the music, then i'll export it to my recorder. Fruity Loops seems like the simpler choice between the two but hopefully someone with more experience will be able to recommend one

[mazz]

Yeah, I only know (and love) Reason.I'm sure you'll get some more feedback!Mazz

[slideboardouts]

Never used fruity loops before, but aside from the recording audio issue most of the people I have talked with that have used both tend to say that Reason is better.I use Reason 4 almost exclusively and absolutely love the workflow and the synth sounds. The orchestral sounds I think are a little bit lacking. But, if you are doing mostly R&B/pop/hip-hop you can get a decent symphonic and orchestral refill for pretty cheap that should be sufficient for those genres.The other thing that is cool about being a registered Reason user is the plethora of free refills. I've downloaded a bunch of those and have put them to good use.As far as getting a program purely for doing pop, hip-hop, electronica, and R&B instrumentals I really can't recommend Reason enough. And with the exception of maybe Logic Studio (mac only), I really don't think there is a better value out there. But, I'm somewhat bias so take this with a grain of salt One thing to watch out for are people who say that Reason, and software instruments in general, are of lesser quality than the hardware synths. Don't let them influence your decision too much. There are a ton of great composers in every genre, both famous and not so famous, who use Reason and other software instruments. And in my personal experience, my stuff straight out of reason sounds crisper than my friends' stuff does coming straight out of their Tritons.-Steve

[ibanez468]

ajenkz,Like slideboard, I'm not familiar with fruityloops either. But I think Reason will do you justice for what you need to do. Plenty of samplers and synths and drum machines. And like slide said, just an abundance of free refills out there on the net. I just downloaded some nice refills from this guys website a few weeks ago. He's from Africa, and he's made a bunch of free refills with authentic sounding african instruments and all kinds of other stuff. Anyone that's interested, I'll locate the website and post the link. But I don't think you can go wrong with Reason. A very powerful program. Takes a little while to learn and fully utilize everything, but once you get the hang of it, you'll see it's value immediately. And when I say it takes a little while to learn, I mean I worked on Reason everyday at work for about a month before I really knew what I was doin' and was confident about what I was doin'. After that I was chuckin' out song after song. Like anything else, you gotta' put in the time if you wanna' be proficient at using something. Worth the investment in my opinion.ibanez468

[davewalton]

Quote:ajenkz,Like slideboard, I'm not familiar with fruityloops either. But I think Reason will do you justice for what you need to do. I don't think you can go wrong with ReasonNo doubt there. I started with Reason when I came back to music after a long time away. It's like a musical swiss army knife... self-contained and has everything necessary to create pro tracks right out of the box. You can't saw a branch or open a can with it though (and I haven't found the little tweezers yet), so it's limited in that sense of the "swiss army knife" example. Maybe it's more for dance/electronica or whatever but what about Ableton Live? Supposedly Reason is more for dance/electronica but I've found that stereotype to be pretty limiting to what it can actually do. Probably the same is true for Ableton. I've never used it but every Ableton review I've ever seen had dried-up drool marks on the page so apparently it reviews pretty well.

[slideboardouts]

Quote:ajenkz,I just downloaded some nice refills from this guys website a few weeks ago. He's from Africa, and he's made a bunch of free refills with authentic sounding african instruments and all kinds of other stuff. Anyone that's interested, I'll locate the website and post the link. ibanez468I would LOVE that link!

[ibanez468]

Quote:Supposedly Reason is more for dance/electronica but I've found that stereotype to be pretty limiting to what it can actually do. My point exactly Dave. The extensive amount of time that I put in with Reason, I had the opportunity to create songs using pieces of my own audio, and loading them up in the samplers, and then layering all the synths and other stuff around my audio. Lot of work. But I really wanted to put it to the test, and I didn't want to be limited to just the sounds that come with Reason. Tell ya' what, I'll post a tune that I re-did using Reason ta' show what I mean, more for ajenkz than for those that already know the power of this tool. I have to look for it on one of my external hard drives and upload it though. But check back later, and you should be able to hear it.ibanez468

[ibanez468]

O.K. Folks,Here's a little demonstration of the power of Reason. This is a jazz tune that I re-did by a jazz guitarist by the name of Dwight Sills. The guitars are real. Everything else is stock sounds and the bass is a refill. You guys will probably be able to tell right away. I'm only posting this to show that Reason (in my opinion) can be used for more than just dance/electronica etc... Like I said in an earlier post, this does take alot of work, but it is possible. And quite honestly, it was kinda' fun trying to test the limitations of Reason. I didn't find any at that particular time. The guitars are my own audio created on an external DAW, and imported into Reason as samples via the Combinator (which has multiple Dr. Rex samplers & one NN-XT sampler). I know it sounds MIDIish, and mechanical, but the real focus is on the guitars. That's what my test was really all about. I wasn't a TAXI member when I did this back in 2006. So I reiterate, this is strictly for listening purposes, and no other reason (no pun intended). If anyone cares to hear the original piece, let me know (that's if it's allowed). Enjoy!ibanez468PS-- If anyone wants to hear, PM me, and I'll send to ya'.