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Go with what works and what feels right. Ears are funny things. I've caught myself, tweaking an eq while mixing, making little adjustments and saying "yes, that sounds better now, then I'll change that here...okay, sounding good" - then, when I've needed a more major adjustment, realised that the eq wasn't even turned on! (I've heard other engineers mention this, it's amusing when it happens!)
In my experience, Reason sounded great when I was using it exclusively, then I bought some hardware and Ableton Live and it sounded...different...both due to the new sound sources as well as the different DAW. But then I trialled Cubase and my ears heard a remarkable difference. I can't speak for anyone else, but recording my synths through exactly the same hardware, they sounded better. I wasn't particularly keen to spend another chunk of money on Cubase but I couldn't go back on that gut feeling (I do love the mixing interface, maybe that introduced some subjective listening bias, but I'm not convinced)
So, yes - if you've given other software a fair, open-minded trial and your choice still sounds and feels better to you, then that's great. But you can't tell someone else to "unhear" what they've heard. Potentially I could go back to just using software, just using Reason, but I'd be doing so out of a sense of "seeing what I can do with self-imposed limitations" rather than a true feeling that that's the best way to realise my artistic vision. Heck, I love being able to see the actual audio, grab it, chop it, manipulate it, rather than have it contained in synths and samplers.
I think that the differences in actual audio engines aren't huge, but generally, the more Reason eqs or reverbs or other devices you use in a track, the more the track will take on the sonic characteristics of those devices. Same with ableton's eqs and effects, same with Cubase's. (I use a lot of Waves processors, so for better or worse, my tracks are coloured with the sound of those processors). My synths are the same - potentially, if you were to try and export a pure sine wave out of all of them, there might not be much difference, but if you're working with pure sine waves you're not going to go out and spend money on a hardware synth. The sound's going to be determined by the oscillators, yes, but also the filters and effects.
I could "kinda make a JP80x0 sound" with my Virus KC or Nord Lead 3 or Micro Q or Supernova II, but heck, it's easier to just turn on the JP8080. And the same in reverse. Otherwise it just sounds like a synth trying to sound like another synth. Every synth and effect, hardware and software, has a basic sonic character. Some of them have a much wider range than others, but underlying it all is the unit's basic character.
I don't think there's anything wrong with Reason's mixing algorithm. You take a piece of recorded music and run it straight from an NNXT into the Reason mixer and export it, no-one's going to be able to tell it's going through Reason. But if you start building up the use of the eqs, reverbs, choruses etc, more and more of their sonic character will come through.
I personally wouldn't use my Virus for the basses AND the pads AND the leads AND other sounds all in the same track, unless the moons happened to align right and it just so happened that I felt all the perfect sounds sitting in there. The Virus is extremely versatile and does all those things well, but if I used it for everything, the track, for better or worse, would sound incredibly virusey in character.
( Okay, I'm done. Every now and then people need to get things off their chest and this topic was the innocent victim! )
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