Customer Reviews

Propellerhead Software Reason with CDROM (Quick Start (Music Sales))

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I absolutely agree with the general consensus here that Quick Start books are NOT recommended for those who have any significant experience in music software. However, the books have been well-received by people who find today's music software intimidating, and that is the target audience.

Music Sales, the publisher, has always stressed in their promotional materials that the Quick Start series is for *absolute beginners* who want to get up and running fast, but apparently that message is not getting across.

I appreciate the opportunity to clarify this, as like any other author, I want people to be satisfied with their purchases and not buy something for the wrong reasons.

First off, I have read and loved the writing of author Craig Anderton for many years. He has a way of both making complex topics easy for beginners, and for taking professionals to a new level.

That said, this book was a real disappointment. I would ONLY recommend it for someone who is very new to music software, very young, or who has no access to the internet to download the Reason demo or partake of the several Reason discussion groups online .

The Propellorheads team offers a fully functional (except "save") demo, so you can try the program out for free. Many online groups offer technical aid to beginners.

If you buy Reason, you get a very well written printed manual with a good "Quick Start" manual, along with an in-depth pdf manual. That, along with Reason's excellent free tech support team and robust online community, are more than you need to help you get up & running with this complex program, demo or paid.

Save the [$] toward your own copy of Reason.

This book is REALLY thin, large print, essentially a very basic guide to Reason. You'd do much better to download the demo of Reason and take a look at the accompanying documentation or simply go to the Propellerheads.se site and read the synopses for each of the tools included in Reason. It might seem complex (there's a lot in it!), but Reason is for the most part very straight forward-- you'll learn everything in the book by playing w/ the free demo in about 5-10 minutes. The only thing you may need to look up is how to output matching MIDI data for the REX files (that's in the docs).
As far as the book goes, I suggest looking at it in person first and get it only if you've got a bit of extra cash in your pocket. My recommendation: Pass on this and use the $[money] toward buying the real app.

Under the title of the book it says "The absolute beginner's guide..." Well take that VERY VERY literally. This book does nothing more than walk you through getting your feet wet with Reason. There is nothing here that you wouldn't get by going through the excellent Reason manual. Don't be foold by the promise of videos and samples either. You get 4 videos that tell you close to nothing and I have more fingers than there are samples on the CD. I also bought the Sonar Quick Start book from Wizoo. These books are blatently taking advantage of the fact that there's precious little info on these programs right now. The books are 48 pages with big type and lots of white space. They are the most insulting low content books I've ever seen or purchased. These are the kind of books that make you think twice about buying books online. They don't deserve 1 star, but that's the lowest I could give it.

Save your money buy the "Users' Guide to Propellerhead Reason 2" by Derek Johnson and Debbie Poyser. Even if you know nothing this book will get you going on the road a lot better than this waste of money (sorry still a little bitter).

I didn't know much about Reason, but I knew more than this book. This book is too basic even for the most green of neophytes.

Believe me.

I just purchased this "beginner's guide/CD demo" of Propellerhead's Reason program. This book is not worth the sticker price... It gives very basic info and the program demo only lasts 20 minutes before for it automatically shuts down (regardless of what your doing). Also the guide tells you to save certain settings that you have created for the purpose of using them in the the next lesson, however the demo won't let you save anything(isn't that stupid or what?). As a result, you find yourself rushing through the various sections of the book trying to examine this program before your 20 minutes expire. And if they do, you have to start all over again from the beginning (well you don't have to, but it would be good to do so if you want to see what the book is trying to show you about the program).
I do not recommend anyone buying this very thin "book". Most computer program companies give this type of info away in free demos. I believe that Propellerhead is taking advantage of people (like myself) who have never heard of their company and/or their Reason program before. You would be better off going to their website and downloading the free demo.
But I must say that the program itself (REASON) is a very good tool for creating music and I plan to purchase it.

Almost completely worthless. You'll be better off reading the "Getting Started" manual that comes with the program. The videos on the CD are kind of nice but there are few of them and they are certainly not worth the price of this book.

The QuickStart series is fantastic. I have several books for web design applications and they're great for getting into the middle of things. They teach you enough to cause a lot of trouble and have fun in the process. Not everyone has time or the patience to read the boring manuals that come with the program. This guide has great screenshots of the application and explanations of how it works and is very cool for anyone who has always wanted to get into making their own computer based music but was intimidated by the expensive and complicated tools of the trade...

it's very thin,
it's very basic,
it costs too much!
i'm sorry but you can spend 30 minutes on the demo and know it all.
i think it's for the first time ever user-music software encounter, if you are not new to music creation tools don't spend your money, belive me.
if you don't have a clue about music creation and soft-synths
then it's a very basic book that you'll read and won't touch again after an hour,sorry