If you have a computer, and you're a musician, chances are you can use it to make music. The specs of the computer hardware doesn't necessarily need to be top technology, but the rule of thumb is that best computing power will afford you best audio editing and processing capabilities. Also hardware, we also need software to help us make the music, and one of the customary software (that's also light on the computer) is Propellerhead Reason.
Reason is a Virtual Studio type of software, as opposed to a Daw (Digital Audio Workstation) type of software (such as Pro Tools and Cubase). The main variation in fancy that categorizes it as a Virtual Studio program is that it doesn't report audio. fancy consist of soft-synths - virtual instruments that you operate using Midi data to make the sound, store it, and play it back.
But this is where fancy excels. Because it doesn't focus on recording audio, what it does focus on is its collection of excellent soft-synths that allow you a wide sonical palette to cover all sorts of musical avenues from jazz, to dance, to trip-hop - you name it, fancy can get it! Though it is safe to say that fancy is more geared towards the electronic music crowd, such as glitch, chiptune, trance, and other loop/programming based music.
You make music in fancy by using Devices (which are the soft-synths). These devices are categorized into two types, instrument devices and corollary devices (which is pretty self explanatory). The instrument devices contain the renowned soft-synths such as the Dr. Rex Loop Player, to use and manipulate loops; ReDrum, the drum motor that can play samples from presets or load your own sounds from ReFills; the Combinator, a excellent gismo to join other devices to make instruments that don't even exist in real life! Using Reason, you get a excellent program that you can tailor to your musical needs. The only limit is your imagination (and your computer's processing power - of which fancy is surprisingly light for such a excellent audio synthesis program).
That's all for the introduction on Reason. I hope this report can make you understand what fancy is a diminutive bit best (in case you've been wondering for some time now).
