Who cares !!!!
Arturia makes PLUGINS which work with EVERY DAW on the planet with the exception of Reason. If Propellerhead considers their product a DAW now it should support plugins like the rest of the DAW world does.
Perhaps the problem could be solved by Propellerhead simply making a Rack Extension which hosts plugins? Don't you think that would be a far more elegant solution?
Sorry for the rant, but really ... standards are great! We do not need more standards. I have doubts 3rd parties will warm to Propellerhead's way of thinking.
Why should 3rd parties dilute their development efforts to support a minority DAW?
Propellerhead, WAKE UP!!!!
1) I care
2) Arturia makes virtual synths that work on established DAWs, yes. They had to... to keep the market wide enough to get the needed financial return. Something that was closed until recently in case of Reason. I know of many soft-synth/fx developers that love Reason and wished they could get into that market too. At least one of those are in the first group supporting Rack Extensions
3) Propellerhead have shown time and time again that they know how to make things work the way they think they should. That's why they made Reason like it is and that's also why they came up with ReWire prior to Steinberg's VST. If you get your history right and dig deep, you'll see why VSTs (then AUs and RTAS) are "the standard" today. That doesn't mean those are the best ways to achieve a virtual studio.
Ask Arturia or any other "plug-in" developer or even the users the headaches they have trying to develop to this "standard" where each DAW "talks" its own dialect of VST. This is why the same plug-in works great on some DAWs and has issues on others.
Becoming a "de facto" standard doesn't turn Steinberg as the best standard setter. Just check the initial VST specs and documentations. It left so many developers scratching their heads and going into trial'n'error mode until their stuff worked...
Speaking of early standards done right... you know the REX format, don't you? That's a Propellerhead "standard". Others hang to whatever is there to hang to. Sometimes because it just works other times because there's really nothing else around so they stick to that even if has issues (here thinking of the VST specs).
4) Yes, Propellerhead could make Reason a ReWire Master and/or could do a VST wrapper device that allowed VST parameters to be mapped to CV in/out (at the back of that wrapper Combinator-like device) but... the truth is, Propellerhead have always considered VST as a very badly spec'ed standard and prefered to take their time to design what they think is a better one.
From the little info that's been leaking, it looks like, from a developer perspective, this first version of the Rack Extensions SDK is a very good step in the right direction, technically speaking.
I'm sure you can understand why there's already some established developers supporting the Rack Extensions as soon as they realize that all they need to care about is the DSP code, workflow and some GUI (re)designing.
So why wouldn't established plug-in developers jump in and extend the life of their already developed DSP work with a couple of weeks (depending on the plug-in, of course) of workflow code adaptation and GUI work.
This is all my own speculation, since that's the only thing we can do at this point and only those with access to the SDK can confirm what I said. And from the comments of those that have, I'm convinced I'm not that far from what I said here.
http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2012/03/26/messe12-rack-extensions-developer-perspective/http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2012/03/22/messe12-new-prototypes-from-u-he/http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/musikmesse-2012-video-u-he-demos-reason-rack-extensions-5359725) You can rant what you want
You're entitled to that, more so when done in a civil manner like you did
I've suggested, requested, ranted and almost gave up, begging for a solution to the "closeness" of the Reason virtual Rack.
I complained about the lack of Audio input on such a good rewiring platform and finally got that.
Complained about the lack of sampling capabilities on Reason "samplers" and got that also.
Lack of audio tracks. Got that.
MIDI output and some other missing stuff ? erm... still waiting
(Edit: MIDI Output = Got that too on Reason 7!
)
Now, Reason users will finally get 3rd party devices inside "The Rack", like a true (virtual) rack should.
and... 3rd party developers, finally, get the chance to sell their virtual devices to a once closed market, at least those that wanted that opportunity.
6) Standards are good... but if there's a better and easier way to do things, I'm all for that to become the new de-facto standard.
7) 3rd party developers can decide for themselves if it's worth the time spent on porting their existing plug-ins versus the access to a once closed market.
The AppStore model might scare most of the establish developers but you know what this type of eco-system will do to indie-devs that have no eShop and just want to keep doing what they do best: DSP coding while knowing that their plug-ins don't get copied and used illegally and can actually start getting some income through this passion of theirs.
Let's wait and see
I for one, am very happy with this technology, even though I'm sure it's very limiting in this first incarnation, where some stuff isn't allowed yet (GUI-wise) but it can only get better with time.
I would love to mix'n'match (and finally get some decent virtual wires in) the Arturia ARP2600V, Arturia Mg Modular V, Korg MS-20 and even the Arturia Oberheim V and connect audio and CV how I want, just like in real-life.
But I'm sure others could care less about these possibilites and the current DAWs are just fine for what they do.
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