It’s a little known fact that Propellerhead’s (now Reason Studios) decision to name its powerhouse music creation suite ‘Reason’, stemmed from a fanciful piece of software in Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Capable of retroactively analysing the decision-making process, Adams’ fictional program justified any choice you might have made mathematically, with inarguable reasoning. It’s somewhat ironic, then, that here in our DAW-saturated landscape, we find ourselves in the position of scanning for those key ‘reasons’ why the latest iteration of the Studios’ flagship is worth your money – particularly with its noteworthy rack-based recording system (emulating the traditional hardware setups of yesteryear) still being a prominent fixture of its make-up, and something quite unlike every other DAW.

Reason has its dyed-in-the-wool devotees, largely for its remarkable sound-generating potential which overshadows its competency as a truly standalone DAW. With version 11, we saw the long-requested ability to run its rack-based toolset into other DAWs as a VST/AU realised, and now this 12th coming sees a sublime new sampler, multiple under-the-hood performance tweaks and a considerable upgrade to Reason’s key blender, the mighty Combinator.

Twelfth night