Reaper

[cakewalkgg]

Im a reaper user for the last 3 months or so. It is very very good. Ive not used cubase, but I will say that Reaper is extrememly efficient and fast. The audio engine is rock solid. I had all kinds of trouble with sonar7 pd when getting aggresive with the audio engine. and example would be stretching clips while its playing or moving clips while playing.. Reaper is really solid. Its very rich in features and utterly customizable.
the user manual file (pdf) is 4 times the size of the program.. Its amazingly small. yet comes with a super set of plugins..

50 bucks for a personal license.. best bargain around. This is not 50 dollar software

[357mag]

Reaper is great for sure. That program is really going to go places. For a mere $50 you get a really good stable DAW. Nice looking interface that is totally customizable. You can make it look like Cubase or Ableton or Pro Tools among many others.

Most other recording programs will cost you anywhere from $300 to $500 or more. With them you shell out all that money and get plenty of bugs for your dollar. It takes a long time for the developer to release a new version, and when they do they may or may not have fixed the previous bugs. But very likely you will get brand new bugs.

With Reaper the developer has a real stronghold on the program. Bugs are fixed quite quickly and you can download a new version right away practically. He constantly updates the software and puts out new versions. No other DAW does that. And you don't have to keep paying an additional $50 to get the new version either. Your original $50 entitles you to download many, many updated versions.

Reaper has so much going for it. I'm scared to think how powerful it will be 2 years from now.

[alalien]

I am currently using Sonar PE v7.1

I fully plan on downloading and trying Reaper in the next few weeks.

It has some really good features, but I am tired of fighting the audio engine. Not only is it a resource hog, as eluded to in the above post, but it also literally changes the audio. This becomes very apparent in a good mastering room just how much of a discoloration it puts into the tracks. I've yet to figure out if this happens during tracking or if it's in the playback part of the engine.

One thing I am looking for is total transparency. Drum tracking with Sonar has proven to be a futile effort. Thank-God for Drumagog. It's pretty bad when I have to make gog's out of each individual part of the kit using something liek Wavelab in order to mix & master the drums. The snare, in the monitors, sounds great - SMACK! On playback, it's more like a SHMIT!

So, what's people experience in the sound quality difference between Reaper and other programs?

The interface looks easy enough to navigate. Not too worried about that. Once you've used Logic, most any other interface will be a blessing LOL!

[malk101]

I think the Reaper interface if from heaven

There is an option inside, where you can set the quality of playback rendering. So it may sound different, if you just playback an render with higher quality.

Reaper is a perfect multi-track recorder and a great mixing tool. Cannot state this often enough

[TAE]

Hey Pipe!

Hope to see you at westfest this year!

[Arji]

Originally Posted by alalien

I am currently using Sonar PE v7.1

So, what's people experience in the sound quality difference between Reaper and other programs?

If you are having a difference between playback or rendering sound you might want to look at the dithering settings. If you record in 24bit mode the music will always sound better than 16bit mode. So when you render your mix to wav, Sonar will use a dithering algorithm to convert it to 16 bit while retaining fidelity. Sonar uses Pow-r dithering.

[greybeard]

Reaper guy here. Ever heard the saying that a Camel is a horse designed by a committee? That is how other DAW's appear to me after using Reaper for about 1 1/2 yrs now. It went through a period of an update every other day for a while. I haven't gotten an update for quite some time now. I can't wait to see the next one. I went through the same agony of the Firestudio/Dell laptop thing last year. I tweaked and tweaked but was never really satisfied with it. A couple of months ago I bought a new 250gig HD that came with a copy of XPsp2 pro. I installed the new drive, formatted it and installed windows. Install the new FS drivers and Reaper. It runs without a hitch now.

[Deodar]

Figurine Grim Reaper Death Rider

[aristonrr]

Reaper is... I'm at a loss for words. The current 3.x version is brilliant. I've been looking for supplemental DAW to FLStudio, because there were things I used to do in Cubase that I found impractical and at times impenetrable in FL (audio recording, tweaking, editing, track management etc.). I was almost ready to buy Sonar 8 (and shell out 400$), when I stumbled across Reaper. To put it simply: all the other companies should be ashamed of themselves. For a meagre 60$ (as a non-professional user), you get a well-rounded product, replete with tons of high-quality plug-ins, a simple and intuitive interface, great sound (internal 64-bit, professional dithering, etc.) and great editing capabilites. Granted, most of the native plug-ins feature unadorned UIs (you might even say: downright ugly), but they do what they should do, and do it extremely well. Add to that the ability to flawlessly automate, midi edit, create complex FX-chains... plus, I like the workflow, and the fact that Reaper is a totally lean product (a little over 4 MB - imagine that). There's a huge commited and friendly user community, a Wiki, great hands-on documentation, plus, you can get right down into the bones of the program and edit your own templates. I can only say Grab it RIGHT now, before it's taken over by one of the big companies, who'll probably raise the price to 500$ while removing a lot of the plug-ins. I've tried Cubase, Sonar, Ableton - fine progs, but they don't compare, especially in terms of value-for-money. Some older posts mention problems with Reaper, but with those frequent updates, it has evolved into a lean, mean DAW ready for everday use. I've yet to encounter a serious problem, it's extremely stable.