Propellerhead Balance / Reason Essentials Bundle

The music production package that has everything you need to create anything you want.

2-in 2-out audio interface
Sounds as good as it looks. Works as great as it feels. We've taken care of all the tedious stuff — calibration, setup, the works. You can concentrate on having fun instead: making music. With two channels of pristine audio recording, and with inputs for all your gear, your instruments are always connected and you are always ready to record.
Integrated music recording environment
Balance is perfectly integrated with Reason and Reason Essentials. With Clip Safe you'll never lose a good take to distortion again. Big Meter lets you tune your guitar and set the levels from across the room. Use it with our software, other pro audio apps, or even iTunes™ — Balance works with everything.

Balance Features:
Clip Safe
Clip Safe is a magical lifeline for distorted takes – a red-eye tool for recorded audio. Clip Safe records your take on two channels, one at a lower volume. If your recording clips, it lets you substitute it for the other one. Don't ask us how it works, it just does.

Recording Meter/Tuner
Just a button-tap away, Reason Essentials' Recording Meter lets you tune your guitar and set the levels from across the room.

All the inputs you'll ever need. And then some.
On the back of Balance you'll find inputs for all your gear: two microphone preamps with phantom power, high impedance guitar and bass inputs with pads, and four line inputs.

Hardware input source selection
With Balance your instruments are always connected and you are always ready to record. Use the buttons on the front panel to select the active inputs. We've put all the controls at your fingertips

Record Ready LEDs
When a Reason Essentials audio channel is active and armed for recording, the Ready LEDs light up. Just hit record and play. The software will take care of the rest.

Large main output and headphone level controls
On Balance the controls you reach for most often are the easiest to find.
 
Output muting and Direct Monitoring
Hit the Mute button once to mute the main outs. Press and hold the button to activate direct monitoring of the input channels, for latency free recording or standalone use.
 
Powerful headphone amplifier
No headphones are too tough for Balance's powerful headphone amp, ensuring earshattering volumes with even the quietest of headphones.
 
USB 2.0 powered
Plug and play – Balance is powered through the USB port. On the Mac, no drivers are required. On Windows, the drivers come pre-installed with Reason Essentials.
 
Built-in Ignition Key
Your license is stored on your interface. When you're at your friend's house, authorize the software through Internet Verification. Or bring Balance – it fits in your laptop bag.

Technical specifications
2-in by 2-out audio interface
USB 2.0 – bus powered
Hi-end pre-amplifiers
Hi-end 24-bit ADC/DACs, 44.1 to 96kHz
Low latency design
Clip Safe — Never again a lost take because of inadequate level settings. The “built-in recording engineer” watches over your session and automatically heals any clipped recordings.
Mac OS class compliant (no driver on Mac OS). ASIO drivers for Windows installed with the software.
Built-in Propellerhead Ignition Key
Direct monitoring (for stand-alone or DAW use)
Two XLR microphone inputs w. 48V phantom power
Two 1/4" guitar inputs with padding
Four 1/4" line inputs (two stereo pairs)
One 1/4” headphone output
Two 1/4" TRS balanced main outputs
Hardware input source selection
Input level control
Separate output and headphone level control
Output muting

What is Reason Essentials?
Reason Essentials packs in all the recording, editing, effects, instruments, and mixing tools you need to sound great.
Reason Essentials, just like its bigger brother Reason, puts making music in focus. From concept to completion, it comes with all the essential tools for turning good ideas into great songs.
 Reason Essentials comes with a great selection of instruments and effects in a virtual rack that builds itself or can be tweaked to your heart’s content – drum machine, loop player, sampler, synths, reverb, delay, distortion and more.
 Reason Essentials' masterfully modeled mixing console gives you flexible routing, a built-in two-band EQ on every channel, advanced effects handling, full automation, and that radio-ready master bus compressor gives you a big studio sound.

For guitar players, the built-in virtual guitar and bass PODs from Line 6 bring a wide range of top quality guitar amps, cabinets, and effects. The intuitive audio and MIDI sequencer makes recording and arranging your music a breeze. With its generous sound bank and familiar creative flow, Reason Essentials is the software that lets you focus on the music and finish that song.

Create
Recording music is all about seizing the moment. Capturing a perfect performance — or even nailing that idea before it goes away — requires tools that are ready when you are. Reason Essentials is always ready. Create record ready audio tracks in an instant. Simply plug in, breathe out, and you're ready to go. Reason Essentials gives you unlimited audio tracks and instrument channels.
Reason Essentials comes with a selection of great-sounding, easy to use virtual instruments.

The Subtractor is a polyphonic, subtractive synthesizer suitable for all types of synthetic sounds. The NN-XT is an advanced sampler for multisampled acoustic instruments and sample-tweaking trickery. Dr. Octo Rex is an eight channel loop player for that provides fast arranging and deep control of your loops, while Redrum is a simple but powerful drum machine with a built-in step sequencer.
  The MIDI sequencer also handles all the automation in Reason Essentials. Every thinkable knob, button or fader can be automated with ease, and then edited and fine tuned in the sequencer.
Arrange
To help you arrange your tracks in a smooth, effortless way, Reason Essentials comes with a fast and flexible sequencer. Immediate and intuitive, Reason Essentials' sequencer puts you in control of your arrangements, letting you move and edit parts as you go along.

As a perfect performance may be less than perfect from scratch, Reason Essentials features a swift and easy to use comp editor. Building the ultimate vocal track is as simple as selecting the parts that work and muting the ones that don't. Exit the comp editor and listen to the results; a perfect take containing only the good parts.
The acclaimed Propellerhead timestretch lets you play now and pick the tempo later. Change the song tempo and all your audio tracks will follow right along without any need for pre-processing of any kind. Need to slow your song down to nail a tricky passage? No problem. Just reduce the tempo, record your performance, and bring the tempo back up. The audio quality? Amazing.

Mix
Reason Essentials' masterfully modeled mixing console gives you flexible routing, a built-in two-band EQ on every channel, advanced effects handling, full automation, and that radio-ready master bus compressor gives you a big studio sound.

The Reason Essentials rack can be stacked with an infinite number of reverbs, distortion units, delays, dynamic processors, mastering EQs - everything you need to shape and color your sounds. Click and drag effects straight to the rack or load any of the expertly crafted patches.
With Line 6 bass and guitar amplifiers available for every single track in your Reason Essentials project, you are never short of interesting tones and timbres. As the amplifiers are insert effects and don't affect the original instrument signal, you are free to change your amplifier and cabinet settings at any point in time - even after laying down your track.

System Requirements
Minimum system requirements for Balance audio interface and Reason Essentials software.

Mac OS X
Intel Mac (multiple cores highly recommended)
1 GB RAM
DVD drive
Mac OS X 10.6.3 or later
3 GB free hard disk space (program may use up to 20 GB scratch disk space)
A MIDI interface and a MIDI keyboard recommended
Free USB 2.0 port
Internet connection for registration
Windows
Intel Pentium 4 / AMD Opteron or better (multiple cores highly recommended)
1GB RAM
DVD drive
Windows XP SP3, Vista or Windows 7 (Vista or Windows 7 required for 64-bit)
3 GB free hard disk space (program may use up to 20 GB scratch disk space)
A MIDI interface and a MIDI keyboard recommended
Free USB 2.0 port
Internet connection for registration