Reason 6

So, I've bought Reason 6 after all.

Few things to note, that may interest other potential buyers:

It can be used right away without waiting for The Dongle to arrive.
However, you have to install special Code Meter software, which causes an annoying Administration Rights dialog to pop up on every Windows start.

Another thing, using "Internet Verification", you have to enter your username and password every time you start Reason. There is no "Remember password" check-box. This is quite stupid, as even all the online poker game clients have "Remember password" option and they are dealing with real money!

Now, after the dongle arrived few days later (and took up last free USB port on the back of my computer), these annoying issues seem to be less disturbing, of course.

I installed Ableton Live 8 Demo and tried to do the Rewire setup and it didn't work at first. After quick internet search I learned that it's because Live is 32-bit software and you got to have 32-bit Reason installation for rewire to work. Not a big deal, but I now have two Reason instances on my computer :)

Now, about the good features. Frankly, the software is great.

The new ID8 instrument is very convenient for learning to play piano. It reacts to different velocity much better than the NN-XT sampler I've tried to use before. You can have fun choosing some alternate instrument patch, like a guitar, if you grow tired of the vanilla piano sound. They all sound great.

Add some guitar amp, and you'll forget about the piano playing and play with the knobs for a while :)

The new built-in mixer probably deserves it's own story. You hook up every device through special Mix Channel Device, thus not having to pull the long wires across all the rack. Every channel automatically get's it's own filters and compressor, that supports side-chaining.

After little hacking I've also figured out how to put together a system, where I can control every channels priority, so that main drum-kick and other short/sharp sounds never get suppressed by longer-sounding pads and background noises. 

This way it is possible to quickly and easily achieve pretty tight, loud-sounding mix having a lots of sound sources that all play together simultaneously.

You can check out how this sounds on SoundCloud:

worshipers of future by drone_lv

UPDATE: I've upgraded to Reason 7 now and also managed to install it on my laptop. It appears that the dongle is no longer required and you can transfer the licence on-to your computer's hard drive too.