Feel like a kid at Christmas.
The very first thing I did before even downloading R7 was to back up my homemade stuff from the …/Applications/Reason folder. Anything that you yourself have created…presets, songs, combinators, anything, if it is left in the Reason folder it will be overwritten during upgrades. And that means all those songs you wrote? History. All those interesting whatever the hell it is that you put together, more history. DO NOT forget to back up any folder that has your store bought collections of refills. I keep all my store bought refills in a folder I ironically named “Refills.” Usually the good folks at Propellerhead remind users that they should back up their own stuff up before upgrading. But you got to read and heed.
I learned my lesson the hard way with Reason 4, and I swore I would never let that happen to me again. It was rough to lose all that work, so I make sure that ALL my original Reason stuff of any nature, not just songs, is scrupulously backed up. I usually do a back up every 48 hours in general, depending upon usage.
Since I like mine minty fresh, I used an application called OnyX (yes, with a capital X at the end) to clean and restore my system. What is OnyX? Well here, read this description translated from the original French and stolen outright from the developers site…
OnyX is a multifunction utility for Mac OS X All which Allows you to verify the Startup Disk and the structure of icts [sic] System files, to run misc. tasks of system maintenance, to configure some hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, QuickTime, Safari, Mail, iTunes, Login window, Spotlight and many of Apple’s applications, to delete caches, to remove a some number of files and folders That May Become cumbersome, and more [sic]
I’ve used OnyX since I first started using this iMac, never had it screw up anything. I would have used CCleaner for Mac also, but both applications would have been overkill.
I went ahead with the download and it took little less than an hour for 3.6GB. Your results may vary. I waited a couple of days before downloading to avoid the crowds and the server fires and breakdowns. Who am I kidding. I had to get the money together. But I remember seeing something on Twitter concerning malfunctioning servers in connection with Propellerhead Software. If it’s on the Internet it’s got to be true.
Once the download had completed I deleted the Reason 6 folder from …/Applications. This actually made me sad. Like saying goodbye to a dear friend. I kind of felt nervous, too. What if the download is messed up or something.
I dragged the .dmg file to the Applications folder and everything appeared to install normally. Whew.
Actual Ignition Key
(the Red Thing)
Copy protection? You betcha. Reason uses a thing about the size of a thumb drive that they’ve dubbed The Ignition Key. It fits in a USB port. Is it a Dongle? Well, yes and no, according to the Propellerheads. They liken it to a car key. And it stores your license number for the product. And if you have Authorized your license number and had it written to the car, I mean, the Ignition Key, then the Ignition key allows you to start and run Reason normally and everything is right in the world.
Sometimes Reason has reason to be confused or curious, or just plain wants to give you a hard time. Then when you start it up it pops up a screen with the following three choices…
- Demo Mode:
If your dog eats your Ignition Key or you have no access to the Internet (the dog ate that also), you can run your Reason in Demo Mode. In Demo Mode you can do just about everything you can do in, uh, NON Demo Mode…you can work as long as you can stay awake (no time restrictions), you can write, arrange, and act strange and save your strange-ness to your computer. But in Demo Mode, you won’t be able to open any files you save. That’s right.
- Ignition Key Verification:
The simplest way to Authorize yourself is to have your Propellerhead Ignition Key connected to your computer. Then the Propellerhead servers will know it’s actually you, or at least the person who stole your ignition key. - Internet Verification:
In the event someone steals your Ignition Key or that dog ate it, you can use Internet Verification instead. Just enter your Propellerhead user name and password like when you go to the Propellerhead forums, and your program is authorized through the magic of the Internet. If your Internet connection gets hosed somehow, some way…you won’t even notice (I’m told) and you can keep writing, arranging, and acting strange as long as consciousness permits.
Next time we will take a look around and check out some of the improvements in Reason 7.
