We knew something big was coming from Sweden, and Propellerhead certainly haven't disappointed us with the announcement of Record, a brand new DAW aimed at musicians and bands looking for an intuitive way to turn their ideas into reality, rather than hardcore 'engineers'.
Record can loosely be thought of as an 'audio Reason', and if you already own the latter, all of its devices become available in the former when installed, essentially giving Reason users the linear audio functionality they've craved since it was first released (albeit without plug-in support). That in itself should amount to about a zillion sales.
On its own terms, though, Record is every bit the Propellerhead app you'd expect. Totally self-contained, it features limitless audio tracks, an effects rack that can be flipped round for virtual cable patching, an impressive-looking mixer modelled on the SSL 9000K console (we're very eager to hear how that sounds), and an audio sequencer/arrange page that enables what looks like Logic 8-style 'swipe' comping. On top of that, real-time timestretching is catered for throughout, along the same lines as Acid and Live, so you can change your song tempo at any time.
We think that all of Reason's effects are built into Record (it's hard to tell for sure from the screenshots), but there are also a few new ones in there, aimed at guitarists and songwriters. The headliners in this area are virtual recreations of Line 6's Guitar and Bass POD processors, but the ID8 ROMpler should prove useful at the writing stage, providing a range of MIDI-controlled 'generic' sounds.
For more details, head to the official site here, and check out the genuinely funny promotional video below. Propellerhead Record will be available on 9 September 2009 priced for $299/€299/£249. Users of any registered version of Reason will be able to get it for €129.
We'll be previewing Record in Computer Music issue 141, and delivering our review and verdict just as soon as we can.
Propellerhead Record announced!
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