VSTs in Reason

Propellerhead Software reveal the thing we’ve been waiting for for over a decade in this free update

Once at the forefront of DAW technology, Reason has been languishing of late, with the most oft-cited criticism from non-users being its lack of plugin support. For years, makers Propellerhead Software stuck to their guns, favouring their own Rack Extension format, which – to be fair – offers stability, easy licensing, and integration with Reason’s undo history and CV signals.

But all that changed last month with the announcement that version 9.5 of Reason would support VST plugins. Not only that, but the expanded level of integration users have come to expect from rack extensions will be available to almost every parameter.

Each plugin instrument or effect loads as a device in the Reason rack, and can be opened in its own window or bypassed from there. Device can accept note inputs using Reason’s sequencer or Gate and CV signals, and offers audio inputs for sidechaining. Crucially, you also get eight CV inputs, letting you send signals from the rack to modulate any automatable parameter in the plugin.

From our experience with the beta version, the VST experience is exactly as we’ve come to expect from any DAW, and the ability to run some of our favourite instruments and effects as part of the Reason rack is a very welcome addition.

Having CV inputs is something of a revelation, letting us connect LFOs, envelopes and sequencers to controls that didn’t have them before, bringing that ‘anything is possible’ atmosphere back to the DAW. Being able to undo plugin parameter changes with the keyboard shortcut is also brilliant, that being something we missed acutely in the past whenever coming out of Reason into another DAW.

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At the time of writing, Reason 9.5 is still in beta, but it’s scheduled for release by 29 May. It accepts VST 2.4 (ie, standard VSTs), but not VST 3 or AU plugins.