LANDR, a Montreal-based company that focuses on AI-powered music production, has announced the acquisition of Reason Studios, the Stockholm-based company behind the Reason Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) and Reason Rack.
The company says that “The union brings together two trailblazers in music technology with one shared mission: to give creators everywhere more power, freedom and inspiration to create.”
“Our vision is to make Reason and the Reason Rack indispensable tools for every producer, regardless of what DAW they use,” says LANDR CEO Pascal Pilon. “Wherever music is made, Reason will be there, with its amazing instruments, effects, and iconic analog workflow–enhanced by LANDR’s value-rich creator tools.”
LANDR’s current offerings include AI-powered mastering, distribution services and a plugin marketplace.
While joining forces under one roof, Reason Studios will continue to operate as its own brand, maintaining its products, community, and creative DNA. LANDR says that it will “gradually introduce new value for Reason users through deeper integrations, enhanced collaboration tools, and creator-focused, AI-powered features; all designed to make the creative process more seamless, inspiring, and accessible.”
“This isn’t about changing Reason, it’s about giving it room to grow,” explains Pilon. “We’re preserving each brand’s identity and core market while unlocking new possibilities for creators everywhere.”
I’m liking this because I can now drop a mere $99 for Objekt, their cool modeling synth. I’ll remain a happy Chromaphone player, but this take on the method sounds good and looks like fun. I won’t go all-Reason, but splitting off their instruments is a smart move.
“AI-powered music production”? no thanks, i’d rather dip my nose in a deep fryer then work with a clanker…
Fuck AI
I know that reason 1 was still very primitive in 2000! It didn’t handle audio tracks + it was a slow closed system because it didn’t handle vsts either!
I see it has improved a lot since then and has become open. But it’s still far from the best daw!
That’s how I learned how to use workarounds.
I would record vocals and guitars in another wav recorder application, Import the full wav file into NN19 and trigger it from there.
Voila! Audio tracks!
I think they should just keep it as a plugin environment. get rid of the daw aspect. using reason for many years on and off and for me it’s great as a plugin. I was hoping they would have an option with all the official rack extensions to run as only a plugin for like 600 usd or something. one time and then have there sub model. reason is really wonderful sounding software. I think they just lost there way because they tried to make it a full fledge daw.
reason is a great sounding program and fun to use.
I recommend they focus on the plugin version . it works very nice will ableton
I think they went wrong when they tried to make it a full fledge daw.
I believe Reason started out as a DAW (albeit not in full) and not the other way around?
reason was a DAW – originally was a closed down one, with only internal effects and instruments – but it had this funky feature called rewire, that would let you send midi & audio in & out, so back in the mid 2000s i had both reason and live and i didnt like the piano roll/sequencer on reason so i used rewire to send midi into it and audio back to live to record and sequence – it didnt even allow for audio tracks either, you had to use the sampler or create loops and use a loop based sampler – of course over the years it became more open, introducing audio tracks and then vst support until it also had this funky feature of becoming a plugin on itself, which is very cool. thats how i remember things anyway.
I’m so anti-AI I can’t help being disappointed by this news. Hopefully my skepticism’s proved wrong in future.
Yeah LANDR’s AI mastering tools don’t seem to have taken many (if any) jobs away from mastering engineers. But the integration of AI at the artistic creation level? Ugh. That’s gonna lead to more slop being presented as actual work.
“… I recommend they focus on the plugin version …”
-> Complete nonsense, I love the DAW waaaay more than this plugin, many others do so, too. The should just provide a couple of the basic industry standards and listen to their user base finally more. Heck, they even don’t have simple markers!
Hope this finally changes now with LandR.
its not nonsense its an opinion. the sound of reason was great but the ui as far as editing waveforms was complete shit. they just recently tidied it up like 10- years later.
there time stretching is also genius but they should have just put that in a rack extension and kept everything in a single rack mount vertically.
the rack and cables are brilliant but the ui as a whole was not taken care of enough.
ableton + reason as a plug in is a nice combo
Okay, that’s your opinion, not mine.
Just basic QOL features that have been missing for ages, that’s all I want as a DAW user. And a mixer dark mode would be useful.
RIP Reason
RIP Reason
I have been using Reason since 1.0 – at first with ReWire into Cubase. Now with the VST-plug. I have never used Reason MIDI-sequencer or the DAW. The Reason rack has always been, and is still a damn good plug. But I’d whish they could make the GUI more scalable..
So the Sweedes sold out.. I had a feeling they were struggelin’ the last few years. Anyone remember ReBirth?
Good old rebirth, you can still get it working these days! Played it back a few years ago and was wondering and scratching my head how the hell I wrote music in my teenage years
still works on iPad if you got it when it came out for ios
same boat here as we’ll . I think this was prob there only option to keep going. but honestly reason is my only plugin in I use. and im ok with that . I hope they develop more of that and put here ideas into individual rack extensions. .
fun fact: technically an arpeggio function is “AI assisted”
Too bad – I really liked Reason.