Reason VS Pro Tools
The battle is on for which digital audio workstation has the best workflow and usability. We’re putting Reason VS Pro tools in the ring to discover the challenge! Which is faster and can streamline your creativity? For a solid Reason Beat Maker we’ve dug into this amazing DAW
Lets start with
Propellerhead’s Reason DAW.
Reason has made a name for itself in the beat making world for sure. The idea behind this DAW was to give producers the confidence by providing loops to help kick start the imagination. It did just that and did it well. Our experience with reason has been quite the exciting one.
We used the NN-XT sampler to get a taste of some of the stock sounds and well as my personal favorite “Redrum”. Redrum is set up like a mixer where you can add addition instruments to the chain. It’s a killer beat maker. Like kick, snare, hat, cymbals. Basically you can create your own instrument.
Reason Beat Maker Tools
Then there’s the rex loop player. Now this was kinda a game changer really. You could scroll through a large library of prepared loops from which to choose from. This is where the Reason DAW shines. Those loops provide excellent inspiration for the modern producer. And they weren’t just drum loops either. We found some great bass lines as well as cool string lines and keyboard loops too. Additionally, there are plenty of third party loop and instrument libraries available in the market. These libraries are know as refills. The streamline the beat maker with creativity in mind. Do a search for reason refills on google and you’ll see that there’s a ton of third party libraries made specifically for Propellerhead’s Reason DAW. This qualifies as an independence tool for making sick rap beats!
Lets take a look at the pros and cons while we consider Reason vs Pro Tools for theĀ best hip hop beats:
The Good
- Easy to set up and works great with lap tops
- A fun beat maker to use
- Wide variety of third party libraries available
- Superb way of implementing loops to your songs with the Rex Loop Player.
- Easy on your computer’s ram and processor. Not too taxiing.
- Great sounding stock sounds.
The Bad
- I didn’t really love the analogue feel with the devices
- Working in project mode is a bit confusing
- Very limited trial version
- Took way too long to implement the 64 bit re wire application
Pro Tools
Now everyone has heard of pro tools. If not than I’m not sure what planet you’ve been living on. This is a professional industry standard digital audio workstation well known by top producers. Notorius BIG, DJ Premier, and Snoop Dogg all have and still do use Pro Tools.
Unlike it’s apprentice GarageBand, Pro tools comes with an arsenal of mixing tools right at your finger tips. It has the professional music producers in mind. Additionally, Pro tools works seamlessly with most other well known DAWs out there. When in comes to sharing projects with others like Ableton Live, Logic Pro, and many others, Pro tools stands out. Other rappers and producers like Mobb Deep, 50 Cent, and Tribe called Quest still use it on most of there projects.
Multi tracking is a native Pro Tools specialty.
We’ve seen this first hand with some of our own projects in the studio. Every thing just seem to work really. We tracked drums, bass, vocals, guitar, and a choir all at the same time. Of coarse most other DAWs can do this but with pro tools, everything just seemed to be natural. The work flow was really easy and if you were sitting there wit us you’ll see what I’m talking about. Something unseen in many of the other DAWs out there we’ve tested.
Avid Pro Tools focuses on hardware.
Some of the best recording hardware available today was made specifically for Pro Tools. I’ll be it, very expensive for “normal people“. That being said, just stunningly awesome hardware tools. There’s the Pro tools c24, awesome analogue to digital converters, and super high en sound interfaces.
The Good
- Rock solid Daw and ready to play with the big dogs
- Super recording sound quality due to converters and other high end hardware
- Officially the Industry Standard Digital Audio Workstation
- Superb stock mixing tools like compressors, eqs, and quality sounding reverbs.
The Bad
- Very expensive hardware
- Many versions of Pro Tools will only work with specific hardware
- Designed mainly for Mac computers although they have recently added the windows platform
- Doesn’t really specialize in making the best hip hop beats
So, Reason vs Pro tools: Which qualifies as the tool for making the best hip hop beats?
After checking out some of the loops and actually sitting down with both of these tools. We think that the Reason DAW will take the crown for some very specific reasons. And that is mainly due to actually creating beats. The Re drum Player, the rex loop player, and the NN-XT sampler. These tools are mainly used for making rap beats as well as hip hop music. The loop player provides an excellent way to simply just get inspired! Keep in mind if you will, our take is mainly only considering a certain type of production. You will have to test it out yourself to get a taste of the tool.
Conclusion
Although it is my personal opinion that when putting up Reason vs Pro tools for the purpose of making the best hip hop beats, by no means is it better than Pro Tools in general. When it comes to multi tracking and solid daw usability, we give the crown to pro tools. But for cranking out big heavy beats and rap music, Propellerhead Reason is the king!
Let’s keep in mind that even pro tools could qualify as a solid beat maker with the right tools. Let us not forget that Pro tools can host any third party virtual instrument library. This includes Reason by the way. If you really want to be ahead of the game, use Reason as a Re-Wire into Pro Tools. Reason itself have shown to be one of the more stable digital audio workstations we’ve tested. Crashes were quite infrequent which is always a good thing? But be sure to test out the re-wire with pro tools. From this you’ll have the best of both worlds!
Leave us a comment if you feel we didn’t consider something. We would love to hear your thoughts!
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