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Rex files (what apps?) Besides Stockholm gadget

dustgoddustgod
in General App Discussion

Hey, long time Reason user, pretty new on iOS. Coming from Reason I've got thousands of Rex files.

Can I use these on anything on anything besides the Stockholm gadget?

I'm deleting Gadget because I've never been able to complete a track on it (absolutely despise the scene based sequencer. Unfortunate because I love many of the Gadgets.) Wondering if I should go ahead and erase my Rex files as well.

Comments

  • MrSmileZMrSmileZ

    I hate the gadget sequencer as well

    Rex files will probably be scarce in iOS due to licensing. If there was ever more money to be made in iOS app development we may see it come to be. It’s kinda like Elastique pitch/time having to be licensed...and the pro level costing even more to license, so standard ends up in apps like bm3 instead of pro. It would drive up the price of the app and make everyone b*tch even more.

  • ChaztripChaztrip

    @dustgod Check out Xequence. I never sequence in Gadget any more.

  • hellquisthellquist

    @Chaztrip said:
    @dustgod Check out Xequence. I never sequence in Gadget any more.

    +1

  • rs2000rs2000

    @dustgod said:
    Hey, long time Reason user, pretty new on iOS. Coming from Reason I've got thousands of Rex files.

    Can I use these on anything on anything besides the Stockholm gadget?

    No. Not under iOS.
    Logic and Ableton Live support REX files too.

    I'm deleting Gadget because I've never been able to complete a track on it (absolutely despise the scene based sequencer. Unfortunate because I love many of the Gadgets.) Wondering if I should go ahead and erase my Rex files as well.

    Pattern sequencing - some love it (I do), some hate it.

  • MrSmileZMrSmileZ

    Does xequence load Rex?

  • ChaztripChaztrip

    @MrSmileZ said:
    Does xequence load Rex?

    No Xequence is a super tight midi sequencing machine! You can use it to trigger anything in Gadget.

    http://www.seven.systems/en/apps/xequence/overview/

  • McDtracyMcDtracy

    Is there an opportunity for a developer to make a Rex-based App? Is the file format documented somewhere? What's in there?
    Slices and meta-data?

    Thousands of files... sounds like there would be users (buyers) for any app that can open them.

  • ashen_handashen_hand

    Propellerhead definitely could release a Rex based app if they had the will to. It probably depends on how things turn out with Reason Compact (user base & IAP). It seems propellerhead have a lot of breathing room across platforms with the way RE’s are developed and it would be awesome to have some of that come to mobile.

  • MrSmileZMrSmileZ

    @McDtracy I dont know what propellerheads charge for a license to use rex1 and rex2?! It would possibly be a great thing to create.

    @Chaztrip ty! I went and checked it out, might be on my christmas list :)

  • TelefunkyTelefunky
    edited December 2018

    Propellerheads (rough) description of the various rex file formats
    https://www.propellerheads.com/developer/index.cfm?fuseaction=get_article&article=rextechinfo
    The text contains a link to the corresponding SDK and dll, which atm only exists for Win and MacOS, not for IOS.
    ps: not shure if the link works, I've opened it via Google, but tapping it now ends on a login screen.

  • McDtracyMcDtracy

    @Telefunky said:
    Propellerheads (rough) description of the various rex file features...

    It looks like it's controlled by Propellerheads. Develop's must use their code to open and use the RCY, REX and REX2 files in their Applications. They don't disclose the file formats so you could write your own code to re-use these files on IOS.

    "Open Standards" are better investments for your artistic lifecycles. This REX files are like your VHS tape libraries. Still,
    full of great stuff but somehow just not worth continuing to invest time and money in.

    "Open Source" Apps are even better yet. Someone can change or update the application behavior too for any new formats.

  • dustgoddustgod

    McDtracy I stopped buying proprietary Rack Extensions as soon as Reason got VST support for that reason.

    Rex files open in pretty much every DAW I've tried though (up until IOS,) I didn't realize Propelleheads controlled the format (even though they invented it.)

  • ashen_handashen_hand

    Magnus touches on developing for Reason @ the JUCE conference,
    and comments on iOS and browser platforms.

  • rs2000rs2000

    @McDtracy said:
    Is there an opportunity for a developer to make a Rex-based App? Is the file format documented somewhere? What's in there?
    Slices and meta-data?

    Thousands of files... sounds like there would be users (buyers) for any app that can open them.

    Since years, almost decades, the propellerheads have enabled 3rd-party REX support on Windows and MacOS by providing a binary library that can read and decode REX files.
    It is neither available as source code nor available as a library or SDK on iOS but who knows, one day they might offer it as such.

    As of now, it seems that this binary code is hard-coded into Stockholm, and that's it for iOS so far.

  • McDtracyMcDtracy

    Can someone watch that video and summarize what he says in text form please?

  • hellquisthellquist

    @McDtracy said:

    @Telefunky said:
    Propellerheads (rough) description of the various rex file features...

    It looks like it's controlled by Propellerheads. Develop's must use their code to open and use the RCY, REX and REX2 files in their Applications. They don't disclose the file formats so you could write your own code to re-use these files on IOS.

    "Open Standards" are better investments for your artistic lifecycles. This REX files are like your VHS tape libraries. Still,
    full of great stuff but somehow just not worth continuing to invest time and money in.

    "Open Source" Apps are even better yet. Someone can change or update the application behavior too for any new formats.

    Interesting that you say that, as I also noticed on the URL of the link to Propellerheads that they use Cold Fusion as their website coding/programming language, which basically suffered exactly the fate you describe. It was closed, where the competition was open, it didn't gain enough ground compared to other competing languages, and it died silently. In a VHS world, Cold Fusion was Betamax. Propellerheads using it is the first sign of usage of it I've seen in 7-8 years, but it could also be indicative of their general mindset.

    In my mind Propellerheads are only for desktop. I loved Thor, but to not be able to put in simple requests like "please make the midi controller list scroll past the first 10" or "please let us organise our presets in folders" after years of waiting, along with not giving it any other significant updates (link, au etc) and only giving it the absolute minimum updates (6 updates in 5 years, basically fixing IAA/AU protocol updates) since its launch 2013 indicate they care more about the first-sale money, than they care about their actual users and needs on iOS.

  • McDtracyMcDtracy

    @hellquist said:
    In my mind Propellerheads are only for desktop.

    I think they need to figure out the IOS market too. Usually this behavior happens when they have a cash cow they need to protect and won't adapt and enter new markets. Like ColdFusion which Macromedia sold off to Adobe and Adobe rode it as far as possible while open source consumed the software development world for web apps.

    iPads and other tablets are slowly eating the desktop market for general mass markets.

    But for the Creators the desktops will still be strong. So, expect desktop pricing to go up with fewer customers and iPad Apps to compete for increasing customer bases at great prices.

    We should see more desktop development shops try to figure out the IOS market or smaller developers target IOS as the place they can compete and not fight the Ableton's, Apple and the Plug-In czars.

  • McDtracyMcDtracy
    edited December 2018

    @McDtracy said:
    Can someone watch that video and summarize what he says in text form please?

    TL;DR This Propellerheads talk goes a long way towards explaining why Reason Compact is called that and why only Europa is there at first launch. Reason Compact allows up to 500 3rd Party Plug-ins to be moved to IOS without a lot of developer effort. Just platform work by PH. So, it's a proof of concept/marketing test case for moving a huge bundle of 500 plug-ins to IOS. Let's hope it works... what an IAP Store that will be.

    Sorry about line-wrap ugliness but the indenting was worth saving in my notes.

    Magnus Berger, CTO of Propellerheads talk on PH's "Rack Extensions" API's notes:
1-3 min - Personal history
3-5 Reason overview 2012-2018?
5-  Rack Extensions for 3rd Parties to add devices to Reason (500 exist in their store)
   API and SDK multi-platform - develop and then sell through PH
   Plug-in headaches (threading, file systems, serializing yourself... JUCE solves a lot of this)
   Reason - Windows, MacOS so 
      plug-ins should move with the Host "write once, run anywhere"
      Crash proof (use the same address space as Reason)
   plug-ins - trial, buy, install, uninstall
   Layers
      UI
      Undo
      Async behaviors
      Data Model
      Save/Load State
      DSP
   Details on API connections
   Code Subsystems
      UI
      Data Model <-> Realtime Controller <-> DSP
   Data Model
      declared in LUA language
      Host manage threading and protects the data model
         note: threading is really hard so this is great
      Host offers Save/Load State with Undo
   UI
      Declarative in Lua
      2D and 3D (2D added to make it easier for non-graphics savy dev's)
      "If you're running this on a tablet in the future." THAT''s US RIGHT?
   Realtime Controller
      Register Lua functions
      Lua can call C/C++ for DSP, allocate memory (no side-effects in C++ allowed)
   NOTE: LUA Virtual Machines used for portability of code/behaviors)
   LLVM Tool Chain provided (Deep Programming Voodoo folks, state-of-the-art)
   LUA is 
  DSP in C/C++
  LLVM uploaded to Reason Servers
  Reason has a repository of Rack Extensions

  Sandboxing
     Reason allocates memory and can clean up for you
     Exceptions not allowed
     Background memory scanning
     Vitual fuse(?)
   Distribution
     Repo of Plug-ins
     Pipeline model

Prototypes of Implementations
   Reason Compact 
       Europa Rack Extension (Bit code converted to IOS)
       19" Rack was converted to a custom GUI for iPhone
       Scales & Chords
       Dual Arp
       3rd Party Plug-ins could be run on IOS using this code
  ELK - Realtime Music OS
      low latency implementation
      "My Music Boards" run Reason Plugins on ARM hardware boards
      Korg's MonoPoly/Poly 6 code that runs on ELK Hardware boards
          Korg/Propellerheads cross-marketing over Plug-In Hardware
      DEMO's the hardware live and needs to reboot - a little Demo Hell - reboot 10 seconds
  Xenomai Linux Kernel (Data Model and RTC) running 
      a Real-time Cobalt Kernel as a sidecar (DSP?)

Web Audio (Browser)
  Web Audio API
  WASM (Web Assemby)
  500 Plug-ins ready to test using LUA to Javascript cross compiler (at PH only)
      LLVM -> WASM w DSP code
  Compiled Rack Extensions releasable on the Web too
  * Spectre Web Bug * stopped Chrome from having these features. Back now*
  Chrome Demo
     Starts Reason
     Shows "Players" FX
     Starts Chrome
        opens URL locahost:8080
        adds Europa to Chrome Hosted Reason instance
     Any Plug-in could be re-complied for this new runtime platform
    The only thing running in WASM is the DSP code
    Loads PARSEC, Korg Mono/Poly, Dual Arpeggiator

So Reason Compact is a market test of a Europa Rack Extension running on IOS.
500 more to follow? Maybe not since the GUI required new coding but if they add that behavior more could follow.

6 Years of effort towards these multi-platform goals.
Korg sees PH's Reason as yet another Platform to sell Synths.
(PH tested their code running in Gadget so maybe Gadget is using some PH tech?)
Korg re-deploys their Synths as "Rack Extensions".

Q&A: So different from other Plug-ins how should we plan?
A: Start with Rack Extension and get something working and re-code for other plugins.
  • ashen_handashen_hand

    Pretty deep stuff hunh? IF PH ever fully commits to the mobile platform I could use the Dr.Rex/ Kong /Groove combo in my pocket. The little slicer in blocks wave leaves me wanting a little more power.

  • rs2000rs2000

    @ashen_hand said:
    Pretty deep stuff hunh? IF PH ever fully commits to the mobile platform I could use the Dr.Rex/ Kong /Groove combo in my pocket. The little slicer in blocks wave leaves me wanting a little more power.

    +1000. Sounds ReasonAble :smiley:

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