Propellerhead Announces New Software – “Record”
You’ve likely heard some buzz and rumors around the net the past few weeks about Propellerhead releasing a new product, slightly shifting focus away from their flagship Reason software. The hype monitor went off the charts when Propellerhead put a countdown clock on their main page, letting you know that something was coming… Well, the rumors were true. “Record” is here. Reason users have been longing for a way to incorporate audio within Reason for years now. Workarounds with the NNXT sampler and things of the like have been exhausted, and are incredibly tedious. So rather than simply finding a way to incorporate audio within Reason, Propellerhead has introduced an entirely new program to their line up, in a pretty saturated market. I caught up with Gerry Basserman, Propheads’ director of North American Markets at the Reason Producer’s Conference this past Saturday to get a quick video snippet for you all:
As you heard me address in the video, the tempo manipulation seemed to be the feature that had the most excitement around it. How frequently it will be used, I’m not sure. Gerry and Peff gave a quick demo of the software, and drew in a tempo automation for a false ritard at the end of a song. It did sound quite authentic, baiting the applause of all in attendance. There have been a few instances where I’ve completed a song, thinking it sounded great, only to have it drag a bit when played in the context of the album as a whole. How many times in my life has that happened? Not really enough to justify changing my entire work flow, but I could see the program assisting for scratch tracks and pre-production from that end.
Also mentioned in the video, the SSL 9000K emulation, acting as the primary mixer within record. The jury’s out on the accuracy of the modeling. I’ll play with the beta a bit this week and give a more in depth review next week via video.
The interface is clean and intuitive, much like Reason. It operates in three views, Arrange View (standard waveform edits, etc), Rack View (effects rack, just like Reason), and Mixer View (where the much hailed SSL 9000K model is featured).
Record can rewire into any rewire supported DAW (ProTools, Ableton, Logic, etc.), but Reason does not need to be rewired into Record, as the new software opens Reason sessions natively within it. The plus in that is that all tracks are handled the same; you heard Gerry alluding to that in the video, wanting to see tracks as music, not audio. That’s a bit semantic, but the point is that there aren’t “MIDI” tracks and “Audio” tracks per say, as all effects work on any of the channels, and all tracks feed to the SSL.
The next feature that seemed to get a decent amount of attention was the Line 6 amp modeling. The same modeling available in guitar and bass PODs is included with record. The program also can sync up with your hardware POD to exchange presets between Record and your POD. The whole system is designed for quick, intuitive and simple music making.
Propellerhead has been touting Record’s low latency. The months to come with dictate the depth of that claim. After I mess with it a bit, I’ll relay any thoughts I have to you.
Another key feature is Record’s comping. Most of us who are accustomed to vocal comping and the like have grown use to having multiple stacked takes on a single track in ProTools, then copying and pasting the good chunks into a new “comp” take. Record has a much more easy to use GUI for comping, where you can simply drag around the pieces you want from each take to a top “play” take to create your final comp. Nothing too mind-blowing, but the new comping system in Record should help speed up your workflow a bit.
One thing that I forgot to ask Gerry on camera, but did catch up with him about was the fact that Record does NOT support third party plug-ins. All effects, just like in Reason, are hosted within the program itself; everything is entirely self contained. While most would see this as a huge set back, it doesn’t come without reason (pardon the pun). With the incorporation of external plug-ins, you introduce the potential for a plug-in crashing your application. Reason is known for its stability, and the folks at Propellerhead wanted the same reputation to follow Record. Gerry said something to the effect of, “If we let you use whatever plug-ins you want, we’re not really going to be any more stable than any other recording program out there.” Sounds logical enough, though I do think this will impact their market share. For users, like myself, who have spent thousands on quality plug-ins, I want to be able to take those presets and plug-ins with me, to whatever audio program I end up in. I don’t know that Record’s target market is comprised of such musicians though.
On a similar note, all associated files are held within one Record session file. That means, no folders of MIDI data, audio files, and fade files. Everything is self contained. The good in that is the ease of use. The down side is having to bounce stems for use in any other audio environment. Record does take as much of the pain out of that as possible by offering a quick “bounce stems” option to export each track as a separate audio file.
Think of it as more of a sketch pad for your work. It will be the fastest and easiest way for Reason users to lay down song ideas from start to finish, with decent enough audio. If you’re thinking about a major label release, this isn’t really going to be your end all be all solution. For $249, you can’t really expect much more than that though. If you’ve already got Reason, Record is only $149. I’ve spent more than that on a single compression plug that I hardly ever use. Record would likely do more for my workflow than said plug-in, so to me, it’s a worthwhile buy. If you’re new to the computer recording game, this could be an incredible first program for you, a huge step up from garage band, and a bit sideways from apps like Logic Express and the like.
You can get more info about Record at Prophead’s site, and supposedly at RecordYou.com, though the latter wasn’t up last time I checked.
More thoughts to come as I experiment a bit more with the beta, but those are my initial reactions to the features presented. What do you think? Will you be looking for a new workflow when Record comes out this September?
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