Propellerhead Software on Tuesday announced plans to bring its music creation software Reason to Intel-based in a new 3.0.5 version that will undergo beta testing starting on March 20, 2006.
Reason is a “virtual studio rack” for musicians that includes a loop player, pro mastering tools, mixer, vocoder, synthesizers, samplers, drum machine and more. Reason costs $499.
Propellerhead did not volunteer a release date for the new version, but indicated that the new release would include no other changes besides Intel Mac support. “There is no reason for obtaining 3.0.5 unless you have access to an Intel based Mac computer,” said the developers.
“Preliminary performance tests provide astonishing results,” reads a statement on Propellerhead’s Web site.
Propellerhead indicated that the 3.0.5 release will not be a Universal Binary application — to wit, a version that works on both Intel and PowerPC-based Macs. This is contrary to Apple’s recommendation to Mac OS X software developers, but Propellerhead said that Reason developed using Xcode — Apple’s compiler — is slower on PowerPC systems than reason using Metrowerks’ CodeWarrior compiler.
“For this reason we have decided to keep the two versions separate for the time being,” said the developers.
After testing has been completed Propellerhead plans to make the new version available as a free download for registered Reason 3 users.