Songwriters looking to plug a string or brass arrangement into their songs should now find that much easier. A chord or a line played on a MIDI-equipped keyboard (or a MIDI guitar synth, like I often use) will result in a big rich sound from the Combinator's layered instruments.
Reason also adds a mastering suite to their package, and a few other new details, as this review from Remix magazine explains.
Project5's "Arpeggiator" Makes Inventing New Synth Riffs a Snap
While Reason will work on both PCs and Macs, Cakewalk has, since their start in the late-1980s, specialized in instruments for the Windows-based PC. They released Project5 in mid-2003 with the headline "Beyond Reason"--nudge nudge, wink wink.
Perhaps because it was explicitly marketed as a Reason-killer, Project5's first version seemed somewhat lacking (at least to me). Its interface was nowhere near as intuitive as Reason's. And while there were some nice preset sounds, they didn't seem as extensive as Reason's huge bank of patches.
But the new version of Project5 represents a distinct improvement. It bundles one new sample-oriented synth, which Cakewalk calls "Dimension". Dimension has got numerous stunning presets built into it; one of my early favorites is called "Blade Runner". It beautifully recreates the haunting liquid-sounding piano tone, and underneath it, the ominous low breathy room tone that dominated so many of the scenes in Ridley Scott's classic 1983 science fiction movie, and instantly recreates that film's dark but lush "future noir" atmosphere.
Project5's interface has been much simplified, and while it isn't Reason's wonderfully iconic rackmount-look (and if it was, no doubt Cakewalk would have been hearing from Propellerhead's lawyers), it's now much easier to figure out what goes where.
One distinct advantage of Project5 over Reason is that its individual synths can be plugged into any DXi-based recording program, such as Cakewalk's own Sonar.
This has the advantage of keeping RAM usage down--and the bane of home recording is that you can never, ever, have enough RAM. No matter how much you have. (And I've got a gigabyte worth in my PC. So far.)
Article comments
1 - Temple Stark
Blogcritics' editors liked this one. It's a pick of the week. Congrats. Put the news up proudly on your site.
Here's a link to the rest of this week's picks where we say why we chose 'em.