We've been waiting so long for Propellerheads to get around to putting audio recording into their hugely popular synth rack sequencer called Reason - it's been very quiet over at Prop HQ since Reason 4 came out 18 months ago, what can they be doing? I think we might have underestimated them. Rather than bolt something into Reason they've come up with a whole new recording environment which they've imaginatively called "Record". This is brilliant for two main reasons, firstly it's a stand alone bone fide bit of studio recording software with loads of good stuff in it (which we'll come onto in a minute) and second if you already have Reason then it will completely integrate into Record without any of that mucking about with Rewire.

Here's a bit of Propellerhead blurb - "Welcome to Record, Propellerhead Software's brand new recording software. Record gives you unlimited audio tracks, world class effects and mixing gear, and a whole new take on music recording. With an intuitive, straightforward interface and a hands-on approach to capturing performances, Record was designed for musicians - not audio engineers. This is recording done right."

There's been a bit of a move away from the traditional style of recording software in recent times. Ableton Live was the first to look at recording differently, then other programs such as Tracktion and Reaper sought to be an alternative to the likes of Cubase, Sonar and Pro Tools which all follow similar lines of layout and workflow building on the now ancient MIDI sequencer and arranger layout. Record attempts to bring a more intuitive recording environment to the party, something that's more instant, more creative, or something like that. We won't know how deep that goes until we can try it but by the looks alone it's going to be very interesting.

Record has four main functions - recording, arranging, mixing and integration (meaning Reason). You create a track, you record, either audio or MIDI. Comes with a bunch of synths, and also effects including guitar modelling from Line 6. The aim is to give you a fresh and uncluttered arrange window where you can start editing your music.

Next you have the mixer which is very traditional looking, based upon an SSL analogue desk, with lots of knobs and stuff that when you think about it are strangely missing from the mixers of other software. One of the criticisms of Reason was that the knobs were a bit small and fiddly and the text was not very clear and although Record follows the Reason style let's hope these things have been tackled.

And then you've got the integration with Reason. This has got to be the killer feature. Without Reason then you've got some decent and good looking recording software but with Reason running inside you've got a level of integration that no other recording software has.

So, here's the annoyingly long screen shot that the synth rack forces you into.

I'm currently working on some tunes combining Cubase and Reason and wonderful though Rewire is at routing the audio and MIDI in both directions, it's still a faff and annoying to have to be running two bits of software. Having all those synths and sequencing possibilities available within your recording software would be a very attractive proposition.

When Line 6 took over the distribution of Reason in the USA it seemed like a strange match but with guitar and bass POD effects built into Record it suddenly seems like a stroke of genius.

Record comes with it's own virtual instrument called ID8 which looks like a workstation synth along the lines of Edirol's Hypercanvas or IK's SampleTank. They say "ID8 ships with a wide palette of sounds useful for building a steady
foundation for your tracks, like pianos, drums, bass, strings and more." So that'll do nicely.

It claims to be multi-core and runs with ASIO drivers and can also be Rewired to other recording programs, and i'm running out of things to say in order to reach the bottom of the screen shot.

Release is scheduled for September to be priced at £249. It's currently under public beta test and you can sign up for the beta program on the website.
http://www.propellerheads.se

Finally, they produced a really cool video advert that'll give you the general idea as to what it's all about - see below.