Audio ports that are actually available in the plug-in light up green.

Well, whatever the weather in the nether, from Reason 9.5, we can use VST plug-ins in Reason.

And plug-in support has been the number-one user request for a long time.

Now Reason can truly be a stand-alone, end-to-end music production platform.

But if youre ready to dive in, you need to go the Advanced tab of the Preferences and check at least one of your VST Plug-in folders (screen 2).

After this, if you go to Window Manage Plug-ins youll see a list of all plug-ins available for use with Reason, and can choose to enable or disable them, individually.

VST Instruments appear in the Instruments Browser below all the Propellerhead devices, along with your Rack Extensions.

Likewise, VST effects appear, sorted by developer, in the Effects tab.

You add them to your project like any other standard device or Rack Extension, by dragging into the Rack from the Browser or right-clicking and choosing from the sub-menus.

Adding insert effects to a mixer channel again follows the regular Reason convention: right-click on the channel and choose a plug-in from the Effects menu.

To get to the plug-ins user interface you click on the Open button (or anywhere in the display area above it) and the plug-in opens in a separate window like in any other DAW.

Initially the rack displays and Browser palettes just show a generic VST Plug-in label, but the plug-in window has a Snapshot tool that takes a picture of the plug-in in its current state.

This is then used in the Browser and VST rack device whenever you use that plug-in, as in the screenshots here.

Screen 2: VST plug-in folders are enabled in the Advanced Settings.

Leave everything unchecked if you wish to keep Reason running as before.

The VST Rack device also has a filepreset manager section, which works slightly differently to other devices.

The main load, save and updown buttons work with the Browser, so you can save it as a Reason patch and hot swap with any device patch.

This may be confusing as the plug-in itself will usually have its own presets, which are not accessible here.

Instead, if the plug-in uses the standard VST bank and preset format for storing patches, you can click on the patch name display to the right and get a pop-up list of patches.

Small up and down arrows will also appear in the name area allowing you to step through presets.

Many plug-ins now use their own internal preset manager interface.

With these plug-ins you might be able to see the name of the current patch but not change it, but youll have to open the plug-in window to choose patches.

A VSTi will get its own track in the sequencer and be connected to a fresh mixer channel, just like the built-in instruments.

Further connections are reached by unfolding the CV Programmer at the bottom of the device, providing up to a total of eight inputs and 16 outputs (screen 3).

Reason Studio For Mac