Randomelements :: Blog

After Warner linked to a post by Steve Lacey (here) in which he says that Reason (a music creation application) should be a killer Tablet PC application, I decided to dig out my copy and give it a try.
 
For some strange reason (no pun intended) it had never occurred to me to get this installed on a Tablet even though the whole interface is controlled by the mouse - or the pen. Perhaps it is because the Acer C111 has a 1GHz processor and music apps are inherently power hungry.
 
Well, all I can say is, Warner I'm so glad that you linked to Steve's post as this has totally rekindled my interest in the product. Using the pen to drag knobs and faders feels complettely natural - far more so than with the mouse, and drawing controller curves in the Matrix sequencer is a delight - you can get them so accurate with so little fuss!
 
Reason is pretty much unique in that it is an application with both a front and a back. When you press TAB you switch to the rear of the hardware rack and see all of the patch cables connecting everything together, these are completely at your control and it is a simple matter of selecting them and "drawing" where you want them to go - simple control over the routing of the elements of your composition. When in slate mode this does, however, require you to map a hardware button to the TAB key for ease of use.
 
I only really had one gripe when testing reason on my Tablet: the application width is fixed and is slightly wider than my 768x1024 resolution screen when viewed in portrait. As Reason is a vertical rack it makes sense to have the Tablet in the portrait orientation but, as the window is slightly too wide for my screen, it makes it difficult to use the scrollbar on  the riight unless I drag the whole thing slightly off the left edge of the screen.
 
I've attached a OneNote file (both MHT and ONE - if you have any problems with the MHT try a 'Save As') with a few notes and screenshots to help illustrate the points above. (No longer valid)
 
In summary, Reason really IS a killer app for the Tablet PC, it is far more intuitive using in on this platform than on a desktop PC due to the excellent level of control you have when using the pen rather than a mouse.