Reaper.......fantastic

[nateb]

I can't for the life of me understand folks who actually _choose_ Windows for anything video, audio, or image related.

This statement completely confuses me. As far as I know, all the applications that Adobe provides in the Creative Suite are cross platform. And as a user of both Mac and Windows, I have been sitting here thinking to myself "What can you do on a mac that you cannot accomplish on windows?"

Well, you probably forgot what Windows was like by now

Lets not get even get started there. I remember how much of a craptastic piece of shit OS9 was.

But, yes... back to the subject. Reaper is killer.

 

[GM Arts]

Does anyone know if Reaper has any sort of MIDI programming language yet? I looked a while back and it didn't. I wrote quite a few CALs back in the Cakewalk 3 days (!) that still work in Sonar, mainly stuff to humanise MIDI backing tracks, etc. It's not practical to do this stuff manually, although I could probably develop backing tracks on one platform and record in another.

 

[mworkman]

Does anyone know if Reaper has any sort of MIDI programming language yet? I looked a while back and it didn't. I wrote quite a few CALs back in the Cakewalk 3 days (!) that still work in Sonar, mainly stuff to humanise MIDI backing tracks, etc. It's not practical to do this stuff manually, although I could probably develop backing tracks on one platform and record in another.

What do you mean by MIDI programming language? There is a MIDI editor and I use that to "draw out" my drum parts which I send to Superior Drummer. Is their MIDI editor what you mean by MIDI programming language?

 

[nikki-k]

Does anyone know if Reaper has any sort of MIDI programming language yet? I looked a while back and it didn't. I wrote quite a few CALs back in the Cakewalk 3 days (!) that still work in Sonar, mainly stuff to humanise MIDI backing tracks, etc. It's not practical to do this stuff manually, although I could probably develop backing tracks on one platform and record in another.

Mmm.. sort of. It does not have CAL (that is a Cakewalk property), but something similar should be able to be done. Reaper has so much under the hood, plus so much in the garage out back. That is the HUGE part of Reaper that can eat away at your precious store of time. You can *build* stuff to use with and within Reaper with their own code (sort of). ReaScript, Plug-ins, JS, and more. There are coders that hang there casually and write stuff, and others that are into it hardcore. Hop on the Reaper forums, spend some time searching and browsing. There are tons of add-ons that users have coded that might meet your wants, needs and even some wishes.

 

[GM Arts]

They're like scripts. For example, I have one where I can humanise for example a bass track to randomise start times within a certain timeframe, with a tendency to play behind the beat an average of another set time, and to vary the length of notes a certain percentage and to also ensure there are no overlapping notes.

It's much easier to use than it sounds (it has default settings), and turns mechanical tracks into something much more real-sounding. This is just one example - we've been able to make up our own scripts for this sort of thing since at least Cakewalk 3 (and they package a bunch of basic scripts for those who don't want to roll their own, for things like "set all notes to a certain % of their current duration", etc). Haven't seen this in other DAWs yet, but haven't been seriously looking either :lol

 

[Sidivan]

Well, I sat down today with the goal of making a youtube video of my live tones and it was actually surprisingly easy in Reaper. I don't know the program very well, but it took me a little under 2 hours to film 20 mins of video, sync it with my direct feed of my guitar + a vocal mic, and edit it down to 13 mins. Reaper is definitely my weapon of choice at this point.

 

[Stratman68]

Long time Sonar user here. I've been looking at Reaper and it does look good. I'm sitting on the fence at the moment trying to decide whether to jump ship. After 10 years with Sonar I know it pretty well but Reaper is very tempting, just don't know if I can go through the learning curve again. What do you guys think?

I tried it 3 or 4 differnet times-never liked it compared to Sonar-YMMV-I use a lot of midi so that has a big bearing on things for me and softsynths.

 

[Stratman68]

Does anyone know if Reaper has any sort of MIDI programming language yet? I looked a while back and it didn't. I wrote quite a few CALs back in the Cakewalk 3 days (!) that still work in Sonar, mainly stuff to humanise MIDI backing tracks, etc. It's not practical to do this stuff manually, although I could probably develop backing tracks on one platform and record in another.

Reapers midi is lacking big time. To argue that point would mean someone just wants to argue-their is no debate on that at all

 

[GM Arts]

Reapers midi is lacking big time. To argue that point would mean someone just wants to argue-their is no debate on that at all

cool, thx stratman - that's what I thought last time I looked. Powerful and popular audio though which is what most users need, I guess.

 

[AdamCook]

I haven't had a chance to sit down and A/B Reaper's MIDI capabilities with every other DAW out there....but they did make a serious improvement going from version 3.0 to 4.0 The newest version DOES have the humanize type MIDI controls that GM Arts was asking about.

 

[s0c9]

While Reaper isn't perfect... it IS being incrementally improved. And for me anyway, $60 ($50 when I bought mine) is one heckuva deal for what you get with "free" upgrades.. - much like the Axe
When you put it up against most DAW's out there today - and that includes everything that I have used/seen from "high-end" stuff like SAW Studio, PT and Samplitude down to Cubase, Sonar and others - it's no contest!

 

[Dinkledorf]

Very good value for the $. I am still battling some crashing issues in reaper (but have not upgraded in a month or two either so ...) that I do not experience with Sonar, well at least not as frequently.

 

[Philip]

Yes- just piling on. Reaper is a great DAW, even without considering the price. When you factor in the price, it becomes amazing.

 

[Manning]

While Reaper isn't perfect...

Having sunk over $30K into Pro Tools and Logic gear in the last decade, believe me when I say they are FAR from perfect as well.

The latest upgrade for Pro Tools 10HD costs $1000 and adds some features that Nuendo had back in 2003, as well as the memory isolation that Reaper already has.

 

[DNW]

What's the MIDI side of Reaper like? I do a lot of drum programming, as well as other synth stuff and whatnot, and for that I find Cubase is good. I've heard in the past that Reaper is a bit lacking on the MIDI side, but it's been a while since I looked into Reaper (I think since back when it was actually free). If they've improved the MIDI side though, I wouldn't mind looking into it.

 

[mworkman]

What's the MIDI side of Reaper like? I do a lot of drum programming, as well as other synth stuff and whatnot, and for that I find Cubase is good. I've heard in the past that Reaper is a bit lacking on the MIDI side, but it's been a while since I looked into Reaper (I think since back when it was actually free). If they've improved the MIDI side though, I wouldn't mind looking into it.

Check it out again. From 3.x to 4.x I believe there was a big jump. That was mostly from reading. I started on Reaper v4 so I don't know what pre-4 was like. I use the MIDI editor to create drum parts that I send to Superior Drummer. I am not very experienced and don't do a lot of complex stuff but I was able to pick it up quickly and get done what I needed to do.

 

[GM Arts]

Yes, it looks like MIDI is much improved now: REAPER | MIDI

Some quotes from this web page:
Edit in the built-in MIDI editor, or inline in the main arrange view
Use any of dozens of included JS MIDI processing plug-ins, or create your own
Route MIDI as freely as audio for creative audio-vs-MIDI processing or sidechaining

 

[Sammetal91]

As a person who owns four Macs (Powermac G5 2.5DP, Mac Pro 2008 model, Mac Pro 2010 model and an i5 Macbook Pro), I'm sorry, but Macs are overpriced s##t. They crash all the time, the file directory system is a nightmare. The standard reply is "oh, properly coded software never crashes on a Mac". Well guess what, properly coded software never crashes on Windows either. However it seems that almost every app for the Mac isn't "properly coded" and this includes Logic, an Apple product.

If I wasn't so hooked into to using Mac software (chiefly Logic, and PT9HD at the studio) then I'd dump the entire platform today. When my lease period is over for the Mac Pros, I'm switching PT over to to Windows.

I've sunk over $20K into Apple machines over the past decade, so no-one can tell me I haven't tried them. Give me Windows anytime.

the problem I've had with windows is that if it remotely doesn't even like one file from say pt, it will refuse to work. I tried installing pt 8 to two Windows computers and I got nothing. I installed it in my MAC, presto. Works like a charm. Until pro tools 10 at least. Now it pesters me with the "you need more RAM" crap every time I open pro tools. Damn POP up. But with that being said, no computer is safe from crashes and hold ups.

 

[Stratman68]

Well, you probably forgot what Windows was like by now. I can't for the life of me understand folks who actually _choose_ Windows for anything video, audio, or image related. I also don't quite understand why people buy Mac Pros (let alone upgrade them every 2 years), but I digress. Somehow my Macs don't crash (we have 3 laptops and a fairly recent Mini, which I use for recording). Neither did Windows while I was on it, but its audio system is essentially one big hack. It's a business OS, it was never designed for this stuff.

Oh great the mac windows wars all over again. 10 years ago macs were the ticket for Audio. Not anymore. Get real and stop the childish crap. They both work fine for audio or video- Now I'll hear the argument that-"how come the big studios have macs? Because 10 years ago they were better than windows with audio and video. Do you reallistically think the big studios ($100,000+++++) are going to switch? Why should they?
Both are good, both have their place-so get real. One is NOT better than the other. It is a matter of choice -PERIOD Mine is bigger than yours-right

 

[Sammetal91]

This statement completely confuses me. As far as I know, all the applications that Adobe provides in the Creative Suite are cross platform. And as a user of both Mac and Windows, I have been sitting here thinking to myself "What can you do on a mac that you cannot accomplish on windows?"


Lets not get even get started there. I remember how much of a craptastic piece of shit OS9 was.

But, yes... back to the subject. Reaper is killer.

to be fair, Windows xp has to be the best OS Microsoft has ever made. It just worked. I've tried 7 and I'm not too fond of it. There's a reason that a lot of pc games still support xp still. I still love my macbook pro and OSx though. So far no viruses. That I know of. If I hadn't thrown myself into pro tools, Reaper would be great. Except for the lack of a MIDI editor thing.