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AUDIO BASICS79
Buffer Size settings
The Buffer Size can be adjusted on the Audio tab in the Preferences dialog (accessed from the Edit menu (Win) or
Reason menu (Mac)):
D Select Buffer Size by clicking and dragging the slider sideways.
The trick here is to find the optimum relationship between audio quality, DSP Load and latency. Experiment with dif-
ferent Sample Rate settings in combination with different Buffer Size settings to get the best result.
A professional audio interface used together with a state-of-the-art computer should normally be able to handle a
combination of a high sample rate (96 kHz) and a small Buffer Size (64-128 samples) without problems. A budget
priced audio interface normally requires a lower sampling frequency (44.1 kHz) in combination with a little higher
Buffer Size (256-512 samples).
See “About latency” for more information about buffer size and latency. Also see “About audio rendering using the
audio card buffer size setting” below for information on how to improve the DSP performance.
About MultiCore Audio Rendering
Reason fully supports multi-core audio rendering. This means that if your computer has multiple CPU Cores (Quad
Core, for example), or multiple CPUs, Reason takes advantage of this to significantly enhance the performance. A
higher system performance allows for more tracks and devices in your songs.
If your computer has a multi-core CPU, or multiple CPUs, MultiCore Audio Rendering is active by default, as indicated
on the “Audio” tab in Preferences:
q Also try the “Use hyper-threading audio rendering” to see if this improves the performance even further.
About audio rendering using the audio card buffer size setting
The “Render audio using audio card buffer size setting” function should be selected (checked) for best plugin perfor-
mance. When selected, the audio batches are rendered internally according to the set Buffer size (see “Buffer Size
settings” above). For example, if you have a Buffer size of 512 Samples, each audio batch will be 512 samples inter-
nally. Raising the Buffer size will let Reason process larger audio batches in one go, which is often more efficient.
Many plugins are also more efficient when doing larger audio batches. if you are using DSP-heavy VSTs (mastering
effects, for example), these will run a lot smoother with this function selected.
! Note that old songs might sound different with this function selected, if the songs uses feedback routings and
CV connections.
If unchecked (off), all audio batches are rendered internally at a fixed size of 64 samples - regardless of the Buffer
size setting. This might be desirable if you are using feedback signal routings and CV connections in your songs, and
want the internal latency of those connections to be fixed at a short value all the time. This might result in perfor-
mance problems for DSP-heavy VSTs, though.