How is Reapers midi functionality compared to Logic?

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Hello Reaper users,

I'm wondering if someone could let me know Reapers midi functionality compared to Logic. I mostly a midi musician (I write all my progressive rock music starting in midi & also do full orchestral mockups) and I'm thinking of switching to either Reaper or Cubase. I would love to get some honest feedback as to how well Reaper handles advanced midi sequencing.

Thanks!
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You can read some subjective opinions here or just download a free for 30 days fully functional trial and form your own subjective opinion :)
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I don't have a copy of logic sitting handy, but I'll be more than happy to tell you what I don't like about reapers midi ;)

-first and foremost, unless you use the groove editor (which is ok, but not super flexible) there is no way to edit more than one midi clip at a time. What this means is you must either glue all the midi clips together and edit, or do them one at a time. Oh, and the gluing doesn't work too swift for doing the next track obviously ;) It' a joke.

-@groove tool: Fantastic idea, but it doesn't always work. Frequently I'll have a groove I want to extract/apply and it will take doing it more than once to finally get it to take. Also, some of us have had crashing when applying grooves. I sent fingers the crash report, but he didn't have x64 to troubleshoot it :?

-There are what seems like an endless array of hoops to jump through. It is so difficult to simply want to quantize with 90% and a 17% swing. Don't believe me? Try the demo yourself!

-It doesn't always work :? Frequently, notes don't play right on beat one or copy correctly. This is especially true with "regions". The time spent tracking down the problem and correcting them is unacceptable.

The worst part is, I can't remember the last time there was an update (of any kind) to midi. People complain about it and the devs seems to be ignoring us completely. I'm not likely switching hosts again. Every host has some fatal flaw that just ruins my workflow, but these are things the just kill me in reaper. Up until a couple of months ago I had every confidence there would be improvements. I endorsed reaper religiously and praised all the great things about it. I have accepted that midi is DEAD in reaper.

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Try presonus studio one. I prefer the piano roll to logic or reaper or cubase. Its a great balance between complexity and efficiency. Very quick when you get good with it, the only one I prefer to it is FL studio.

As far as midi processing it lacks some things. The groove template implimentation is the bes I've seen. Plus you can load an audio clip into melodyne and drag it to a midi track AS A MIDI CLIP WTF. We're living in the future.

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Believe "Mutant".

I've been a Reaper user since version zero point something now, and to say it frankly: I don't know why I even bothered with any other host in the past.

A few months ago my drummer had to do a project in Logic, and being his "more experienced buddy" he came to me asking for help. We spent hours, trying to find out how the hell stuff works in Logic, and we spent ages searching for "Logic Automation Tutorial" on google and sh*t like that.
All i ever caught me saying was "holy crap, that's much easier in Reaper".

The same with MIDI and the whole instrument handling et cetera.

To be honest, I don't think Reaper's MIDI handling is perfect. But it's far more there than Logic's, and the only thing that's truly missing from it is something like FL Studio's step sequencer. I know, everything in the step sequencer can also be built in a piano roll with drum icons ... but it's somehow not the same.

As against hibidy, I have no problems with quantization or humanization.

The notes that don't play properly on beat #1 are an argument, but there's an easy workaround: make the MIDI item start a little early in the timeline, and if that doesn't help, drag the beginning of the note 1px left or right of the beat #1 line.
I know, it's just a workaround, but it works.

Other than that, Reaper's MIDI editor is as good as any other MIDI editor.
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automation IS a terrific PITA with Logic. Logic's way of doing things is unique! For MIDI, Logic requires to have a separate hyper edit window for each lane, which was one deal-killer here.

Other than [timing issues], Reaper's MIDI editor is as good as any other
vs.
more than one midi clip at a time: you must either glue all the midi clips together and edit, or do them one at a time.

yeah, so in Cubase you can have all the clips [events] you like with their own names in a 'part/track' and edit it in one window. once re-glued the key editor adjusts accordingly.

that isn't subjective. there are things other hosts do better than REAPER, I'm sorry.

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There are a number of glaring features missing like the ability to edit more than one clip at a time. The biggest annoyance though is the amount of small things overlooked. There are constant issues with zoom, display etc that are ignored, and have been for some time.

Really advising tryout out the demo; if anything to see if you can handle some of the annoyances in the way Reaper approaches midi. It's a shame as the setup for audio work is great, just the dev's keep ignoring these issues to tack on new features...

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stillshaded wrote:Try presonus studio one. I prefer the piano roll to logic or reaper or cubase.
Personally I don't think it has anything to offer over Reapers and is weaker in some respects (eg velocity editing is much less intuitive or direct than in Reaper's editor). On the other hand Logic is one of the most powerful midi handling environments there is - very few hosts compare to it and Reaper certainly doesn't (even though it does the job for me).

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aMUSEd wrote:
stillshaded wrote:Try presonus studio one. I prefer the piano roll to logic or reaper or cubase.
Personally I don't think it has anything to offer over Reapers and is weaker in some respects (eg velocity editing is much less intuitive or direct than in Reaper's editor). On the other hand Logic is one of the most powerful midi handling environments there is - very few hosts compare to it and Reaper certainly doesn't (even though it does the job for me).
+1 I moved to Studio One and like it overall, but I am constantly missing things from Reaper's midi editor. Studio One I would describe as 'spartan'. The multi-edit or whatever you call it though is great, overlaying your current edit in line with whatever other tracks you select, makes placing notes in relation to eachother very easy. And the groove functionality is wonderful. But Reaper IMO has a much more full and mature piano roll at this point than Studio One.
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Unfortunately, there's much more to midi workflow than the piano roll or any single midi edit screen. Try splitting up midi clips in Reapers arrange sceen and you'll see what I mean. if you split where notes happen to be crossing the split point.

I agree with Amused about Logic. Likely one of the top 3-4 midi sequencers ever.

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LawrenceF wrote:I don't disagree with any of that Braj. Unfortunately, there's much more to midi workflow than the piano roll or any single midi edit screen. I think what S1 is doing is laying a good foundation to build on going forward... getting the basic stuff right.

Definitely. If i could get more scale templates in S1 that alone would 'complete me', Reaper (with an add-on) has hundreds and that is really useful for working in the piano roll whether or not you know the scale already :) I wish you could define custom scales in S1 by clicking notes on that little keyboard, that would be brilliant. Like you say, the foundation is there ;)
Try splitting up midi clips in Reapers arrange screen and you'll see what I mean.
I don't get that, it is easy easy in reaper, just place the cursor and click S. Am I missing something that makes that hard? Maybe its a two-handed operation vs. using the split tool, but definitely not harder IMO.
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hibidy wrote: -There are what seems like an endless array of hoops to jump through. It is so difficult to simply want to quantize with 90% and a 17% swing. Don't believe me? Try the demo yourself!
What does this mean? 90% quantization? It's not hard, there's a "swing" setting in the MIDI editor with a percent slider that you can easily put to 17%.

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nineofkings wrote:
hibidy wrote: -There are what seems like an endless array of hoops to jump through. It is so difficult to simply want to quantize with 90% and a 17% swing. Don't believe me? Try the demo yourself!
What does this mean? 90% quantization? It's not hard, there's a "swing" setting in the MIDI editor with a percent slider that you can easily put to 17%.
So what you are saying is if you want an entire project to be 90% quantized (strength of course) and a swing of 17% then that is "easy" in reaper? We're not working on the same projects :lol:

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One great trick with Studio One is that you can grab a groove from audio or midi, and apply it to either as well. The way this integrates these two worlds is wonderful and why I went to Studio One. And Pro has melodyne integration so you can easily grab midi from any mono audio clip like your voice or guitar phrases. It is brilliant.
If you have requests for Korg VST features or changes, they are listening at https://support.korguser.net/hc/en-us/requests/new

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LGK_Dude wrote:I would love to get some honest feedback as to how well Reaper handles advanced midi sequencing.

Thanks!
Compared to Logic..?

Not a Reaper user, but I've used Logic since it first came out on the old Atari so I think I'm more than qualified to comment.

IMO when it comes to "advanced MIDI sequencing" as you put it, Logic rules and Reaper doesn't even come close.

Not saying you can't get to where you want to go with Reaper's MIDI, but it's extremely painful to use. It's slow, cumbersome, ugly, unintuitive, unreliable backward, and clumsy. At best, it's nothing more than a tagged-on afterthought to an otherwise quite okay audio program and it gets in the way of creative spontaneity. It's seemingly ignored by the developers who apparently only want to cater for the audio engineering user-base. And with Reaper now at version 4+, it really doesn't look like it's gonna get any better.

Not wishing to piss-off the Reaper fans but I have tried Reaper a LOT and it's the LOUSY MIDI that keeps me from buying it. I know how good it is for audio. That's not in question - it's great for audio. But advanced MIDI sequencing..? Forget it.

To the OP. By all means try out Reaper's demo and see for yourself. That's the best way. But if your choices are Reaper or Cubase, then I think Cubase might be more suitable for you. Cubase has a similar pedigree to Logic - they both began life as MIDI sequencers and in that respect they're both strong.

Hope I haven't offended anyone :wink:

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