Why do you like Reaper?

I came from Cakewalk Home Audio and Sonar v1.0 'way back when'. Eventually I tried Acid Latin and liked the workflow so much that I upgraded to Acid Pro and stuck with it for several major versions. At one point I decided to jump on the PT band wagon (what a mistake), and in my frustration I installed Reaper after hearing a friend speak very highly of it.

I've never looked back. Reaper resolved every issue I had with Acid Pro and VST/VFX plugins (they actually work, and work WELL in Reaper), and all without the huge learning curve I found myself facing with PT.

I bought Reaper the day after I installed it because it was just that intuitive (for me at least). That was nearly 2 years ago and my license is still good through v5.99. I keep it updated, and the day they release v6.0 I'll pay another $60. It's worth every penny in my opinion.

All that said, I have friends who feel the same way about Studio One, Logic, Cubase, etc, etc, etc.

Best advice I was ever given and pay forward, 'use what works best for your specific needs'. There no 'wrong' choice if it helps your creativity.
 
What I don't like about Reaper is the limited MIDI toolset (which I need for working with VST's and so forth; probably Cubase is a little more MIDI-friendly. But if you're not also a MIDI composer or keyboardist, its probably not important.)

But Reaper is a compact little program that loads very fast and sounds great, and has few problems when it comes to working with VST's. It used to be when I had cubase that I would get these ridiculously long re-loads of my entire VST library just to get the friggin' program loaded up. It seemed to take support forever to figure this out, which wasn't very impressive. Reaper has more automation potentially (with SWS extensions) than most other DAW programs. On the negative side again, the type of stuff that guys do in Reaper seems a bit technical; some of it isn't documented in the available manuals, and the ideal way to learn these kinds of tricks and workflow enhancements is through knowing someone and seeing it face to face, or at the least having video tutorials. Since the Reaper community used to be much smaller than that of other DAW's, there were less tutorials and resources for this.

Thankfully the Reaper community is growing.

Also on the plus side is the fact that I've only had to upgrade my program once in about 4 years, and it is a ridiculously cool and ridiculously affordable program relative to all of the other DAW's out there, not of which seem interested in competing on that particular turf.

I use Live as well. I will also be getting back into Cubase at some point to learn its MIDI flow because it is probably superior (and arguably superior to the available Pro Tools MIDI workflow tools as well).

(Live has a MIDI record quantize, which I think is an essential tool, that Reaper does not have. Its not merely MIDI quantize. It is quantizing WHILE you record, so you hear the quantized notes as you play them in; and this is absolutely necessary to continue to build on them as improvisational fodder. This is a little gimmick that lets a non-classically trained keyboardist experiment with all manner of technical and syncopated keyboard parts that sound as if they were played by a Juliard grad. Reaper definitely should add this feature since it's very, very simple to program...)

For me Reaper has always sounded great and been very easy to use - just not for the more advanced features it offers.
 
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I have been a cakewalk guy since the early 90's so I am kind of use to it. I tried reaper and Studio one. But still always go back to Sonar. At present Sonar Platinum. Reaper is a good stable program but I didn't like the midi capabilities. Since I am very much midi (since the late 80's with alesis and Kawai sequencers, yeah that long ago) Sonar is it for me. But I agree that Reaper is a good program and the price is hard to beat.
So ,many good daw choices these days.
 
jesussaddle said:
(Live has a MIDI record quantize, which I think is an essential tool, that Reaper does not have. Its not merely MIDI quantize. It is quantizing WHILE you record, so you hear the quantized notes as you play them in; and this is absolutely necessary to continue to build on them as improvisational fodder. This is a little gimmick that lets a non-classically trained keyboardist experiment with all manner of technical and syncopated keyboard parts that sound as if they were played by a Juliard grad. Reaper definitely should add this feature since it's very, very simple to program...)
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Thanks for this heads up. I was contemplating eventually getting a set of Alesis drums. I haven't touched a drum kit in over 30 years, so I would definitely need some quantizing help. I will still use Reaper as my primary DAW, but may have to explore other options for MIDI drums.
 
I've had a chance to put my hands on just about everything over the years at work. I don't use them at work; we have people that use them, I just build it and fix it for them.

There's just nothing that I need that Reaper can't do. I like the business model, I like the price, I like the flexibility, I like the fact that it works reliably. I like the fact that there is a great user base, tons of training material and that it works with all of my hardware.

I just got sick and tired of dealing with products from other companies that were either tied to specific hardware or never worked as advertised. If you want the next version it costs an arm and a leg. I also appreciated the fact that I could download and use the full version for a while before I decided to pay for it. That speaks volumes about a company's confidence in their product. I didn't have to pay for it, but it works and for the price it's incredible value. That is the kind of company that I want to support.

There are other DAW's that do as much, may do more, but none of them come close to the value.
 
jesussaddle said:
(Live has a MIDI record quantize, which I think is an essential tool, that Reaper does not have. Its not merely MIDI quantize. It is quantizing WHILE you record, so you hear the quantized notes as you play them in; and this is absolutely necessary to continue to build on them as improvisational fodder. This is a little gimmick that lets a non-classically trained keyboardist experiment with all manner of technical and syncopated keyboard parts that sound as if they were played by a Juliard grad. Reaper definitely should add this feature since it's very, very simple to program...)
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Reaper does support MIDI input quantization. Right click on the red Record Arm button on the track and select "Track recording settings (Input Quantize, Format, etc)..." On the window that appears, check the box for "Quantize track MIDI recording" and select your quantize options.
 
mr_fender said:
Reaper does support MIDI input quantization. Right click on the red Record Arm button on the track and select "Track recording settings (Input Quantize, Format, etc)..." On the window that appears, check the box for "Quantize track MIDI recording" and select your quantize options.
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Sorry, its been awhile since I was looking into this. Live doesn't truly do what I am referring to in terms of MIDI input. Yes, it does do it in terms of clips but NOT in terms of actual MIDI performance. Its playback quantization that those of us in the Reaper community have been asking for. Such playback quantization ALWAYS quantizes forward in time, because it is meant to be a "live" and "near-real-time audible" function.

I'm having trouble explaining, so please see if this makes sense: In Live, let's say you have a MIDI clip in live, and you arm it to play back at the chosen beat/bar division. So with Live clip playbacks quantized in this manner you don't hear your mistakes.

Omnisphere does this sort of thing on a MIDI note basis, and outputs the audio resulting from this quantization, in real time. To understand how this differs from what I am asking for, I will need to break it down a bit more probably. What I am after is sort of a combination between what Omnisphere does and what Live does, and the basic role of MIDI editing of quantized data.

More in detail, Omnisphere has a Live mode with two functions. One of them is a "hold" function. Assume you are playing a pach, and you want the notes of that patch to continue sustaining while you switch to another patch. The other is a function whereby you set a time unit, like 16th or 8th or Quarternote, and thereafter anything you play will "wait" and be audible at the appropriate time.

What's interesting is that in normal MIDI quantize, the notes are moved forward or back. Of course, in a live situation this can't work. You can't ever move something you are "live" playing to an earlier position in "live" time (it hasn't happened yet, duh).

What Omnisphere and other programs that do this kind of thing DO NOT DO is allow a musician to route the values (that have "waited" and then sounded at appropriate beat divisions), into a recorded MIDI track. I am constantly hearing inspiring stuff come our when I play around in Omnisphere, that needs to be weeded out and a little groove put back in, but Omnisphere as of my last talk with them, has not implemented the MIDI generation and output of this data. Reaper could produce a stream of the MIDI quantized data, and route it into the input of another MIDI synth; this way you can not only edit the quantized data on your track, but use it in that fashion equivalent to Omnisphere's method. But thus far they haven't understood the benefit.

I don't think I could make this so overlycomplex if I were trying to.
 
steadystate said:
This is in the wrong forum, but I use Reaper for several reasons. I like the product, the price, and the company. The more I learned about the company's history and business model, the more I liked them and Reaper.

The code is efficient and compact. No bloat. No copy protection. And it allows for portable installation. Even standard installation is not invasive. It works flawlessly with ASIO4ALL. It keeps getting better and better. Updates are frequently posted. For the price, it can't be beat.
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shasha said:
I just got sick and tired of dealing with products from other companies that were either tied to specific hardware or never worked as advertised. If you want the next version it costs an arm and a leg. I also appreciated the fact that I could download and use the full version for a while before I decided to pay for it. That speaks volumes about a company's confidence in their product. I didn't have to pay for it, but it works and for the price it's incredible value. That is the kind of company that I want to support.
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^^^^ these comments are a big part of why I use, and love, Reaper. Frequent updates, stable operation, lean, easily portable, and not tied to any proprietary audio hardware are some other ones. I support companies like this who 'get it exactly right' IMO. They are like the Fractal Audio of the DAW world; well engineered products that work extremely well and awesome support.
 
Reaper is constantly and quickly developed. If you haven't taken a look at it recently, it may well support a feature it did not when you last checked it out. Early versions of the program bear little resemblance to the current version.

Unlike Cakewalk, they won't release a bug-ridden alpha as a commercial release, using their customers as testers. I used Cakewalk from version 1.0 for DOS all the way through Sonar 3 (including Pro Audio in between). Paid for each and every version and update. I finally had enough after hundreds of hours tearing hair and swearing at the bugs. The lists of bugs in the maintenance release logs are insane. I'll take Reaper any day. Their focus is on stability before features. Cakewalk is just the opposite. Their ad copy is packed with features that don't work as intended or at all. If anyone disagrees, I'll steer you to the change logs of each and every patch they've released since early Sonar. Major functionality that was broken for months before being fixed (sometimes in the third patch for that product). Sorry for the rant, but this company has caused me more wasted time and grief than any other on the planet.
 
Really optimised soft, really light, and the customisation is so high, you can mod it at your own needs.
 
Price. And way more than I need for my meager purposes. (I mix some rehearsal recordings for practice, that's all). It does that beautifully.
 
Price, stability, lean, FAS like community and service, free updates + I still haven’t found anything missing for my needs. That pretty much makes it a no-brainer for me.:cool:
 
I've been a Reaper-user since 2009. Never looked back since I found it.

- Price. I pay what I can afford, and get what I need.
- Updates. Buy once, get two "major" upgrades is cool, but the real treat are small updates all the time in dialogue with community.
- I've never been angry with Reaper.
- I've never missed a feature, but then again... I've been a user since 2009.
- The community, and the stuff they make. SWS Extension, for instance, is simply superb.
- Customizability (probably not a word)
- Export configuration and bring it with you, or quickly set up after format. Even name maps of MIDI instruments, how plugins are sorted in my custom folders etc. - everything is kept.
- Speed, stability and download size.
- Portable installs
- If it's good enough for Kenny Gioia and Mike Senior it's good enough for me. Add Reaperblog to that list of tutorials, and you're set.
- A lot of nice themes out there. 4K monitor? Try imperial.
- Stock plugins (Rea-stuff) are really good, they just don't look "shiny". Just ask the aforementioned users... loads of JS-effects as well.
... list could probably go on.

The only thing that really bothers me on a regular basis are the time signature markers. I wish I could hide them once they're set, because they clutter up my view. Others probably have other issues. Depends on usage, I suppose.

I've also used Reaper for live clicktrack. Mapped out setlist, added own videos to the project in sync, added various audio effects etc. and ran that on a laptop (internal soundcard). Never had a crash, at rehearsal or gigs... probably ran through 50 times or so. Moreover, I got the SWS Extension people to add a marker function for me, so when a song finished it automatically entered a loop of audio and video while we tuned our guitars and drank water etc. Once ready to proceed, our drummer hit a button and on we went.
 
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I use Ableton, but would like to get back into Reaper because Ableton is buggy as hell sometimes with the dysfunctional buffer system. Reaper is awesome in every way
 
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