Propellerhead RECORD
Just on my way back from Montreal where I attended Propellerhead’s Producer Conference. There were a number of keynote speakers from a variety of backgrounds, but the raison d’être for the whole shin-dig was to demonstrate Record’s capabilities to the world.
I wasn’t disappointed at all! As soon as I sat down, amongst some idle chat prior to showtime, I piped up with my disappointment over the beta features missing, namely opening files and exporting audio. Well, turns out I just didn’t understand the copy protection schemes on offer.. .apparently I could temporarily authorize the demo via an active WIFI link without the dongle that comes with the package. SWEET! I knew it didn’t add up, so I was happy to find out I was wrong on that point.
We spent some time watching a video, and then touring a few different genres worth of demo songs. I have to say that Record really shows well as song-writing tool, especially for musicians on the move with a laptop. It’s really light on system resources given how much is packed into the package, and if you have Reason, you’ve got a boatload of instruments to work with to flesh out ideas. The workflow is really quite simple for those who don’t like patching cables a la TAB key in Reason, but if you figure you’re a tweaker, you can pretty much connect anything to anything as much as you like. Neat.
In my time inside the program (including the entire 2 hour drive home in the backseat on the laptop), it’s shown itself to be a killer solid application – not a glitch in sight. I suppose I could be disappointed that there is no VST support, but honestly, configuring it to run into Cubase via ReWire is no trouble at all, and the fact that I can bring my laptop, my guitar and a small controller keyboard with me anywhere and do full-on writing with all the effects you could want to play with… well, that speaks to me, especially at the cottage or on the road.
Really the only thing I haven’t got a handle on yet is how well the “sound” of the audio and finished work out of the Record environment sounds. I’ve always found Reason to have a slight “sound”, which has kept me from using it exclusively for instrumentation in a track. I use it for individual sounds here and there, or to work up ideas, but generally move to Komplete 5 for my vsti’s, or any of my other soft instruments. That said, some of the complete song productions we previewed today sounded pumping and really hot, so I’m sort cautiously excited to think that this might really turn out to be that killer toolbox, at least for writing on the go, and maybe much more.
Either way, it seems the $250US suggested. retail price is more than worth it, and if you own Reason, the $150 becomes a no brainer. Nice job, Propellerhead – I’m sold.
NOTE-after working with it more tonight, I’m super sold on workflow points alone… this is one fun mobile-worthy package, and I’m pretty stoked about bringing a total production kit with me on the laptop wherever I go. I’m going to have to get it installed on the main desktop to see how it sounds through the Dynaudio monitors to be really critical though.
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