Reason2 by Propellerhead will have countless drumkits, two great synthesizers, and a good sampler. In my opinion it is the best all in one solution. It sounds really good and...
It's super easy to use, pro quality is debatable, it's got a very lofi quality to all but the drum kits and it's hard to get anything resembling warmth out of anything filter related. This isn't a matter of opinion, it's a matter of fact when comparing it to any other software synth, vibra, pro-53, fm-7 etc... all sound a lot better than the reason synths. Sampletank, Kontakt and Unity sound a lot better than the samplers in reason. It's just not night and day unless you're used to working in 24bit.
...lots of people have gotten movie deals and stuff with reason only made music.
Yeah right, Brian Transeau by any chance ? classically trained to the point where you can score an orchestra is different from twiddling around with a little dance toy that good for sketching ideas down. I can't imagine ANY movie having an entire sound track done in reason, it doesn't support surround sound, quality is 'prosumer' at best and there's no way a £300 all-in-one toy like reason could match the realism of a live orchestra.
I can see the connection though.
In a BT article and video in Macaddict he recommends anyone starting out with music on the mac should use Reason. He also advocates both reason and the mac all the time in music tech interviews.
He also composed the sound tracks for the Fast & Furious, Under Suspicion, Zoolander and Go! amongst others.
The connection would be easy to make if you twisted everything out of context
You will need a midi keyboard. I have a Midiman Oxygen8 and it works great. If you want to use live sounds there are ways of doing it with reason2
I have the Evolution MK-249C, it's the same price as the Oxygen except it has a full 4 octaves instead of 2 (good if you just play basslines I suppose). As far as live sounds in reason, you really need to load up on RAM to add anything of any real length to a reason track. It's perfectly possible though.
but you may be better off getting Propellerhead's Rewire and Digidesign's Digital Performer free version. It can support up to 10 tracks of live audio to add to your reason stuff. This is a world renowned multitrack software (Digital performer) and can be as simple or complex as you like.
Rewire is an I/O protocol not an application.
Digidesign make
Protools Free and it supports 8 (mono) audio tracks, there's also no easy way of integrating it with Reason because it doesn't support rewire. It is far easier to use than other DAW software because it's only got 2 windows and that makes visualising and arranging every part of a track down to effect audiomation and track mixing really intuative.
Reason2 is OSX ready but the rest I mentioned are not. If you don't mind booting into 9 this setup may be what you need. Propeller head has a good forum so you could ask questions there or download a trial version of reason. I have never regretted my reason2 purchase. With some enginuity you can make some fantastic music with it. Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions.
Reason is you're best bet to start out, it's not perfect but it's only a few hundred pounds/dollars and offers the basics of everything you'd need to put a track together.
Not trying to flame here, I just think giving someone an answer to a question that doesn't even get the facts straight and mentions software that doesn't exist "Digidesign Digital Performer Free ?" is a bit unfair.
