Kontakt sounds worse in Reaper when audio preferences are not set correctly

[himalaya]

Its also the case that most plugins which behave differently during offline rendering need to have their offline rendering behaviour configured. The best-quality options they offer are not the default either.

This is true, however, in my experience all the 'quality' options in synths are brought to users knowledge in one way or another, whereas this setting in Reaper is very obscure, perhaps dictated by the fact that all the other hosts that I've used do not require such an option at all, so why would I be looking for it in Reaper? Whereas it's common knowledge that synths use different oversampling settings.

Perhaps it boils down to reading the manual, but who does fully nowadays.

[himalaya]

I never had a problem with the FX button. I clicked on it, loaded a VSTi and a few VST, and everything was okay... I didn't even have to look in the manual to know what this button means...

Maybe some people are thinking over-complicated...

Well, I came to Reaper from Sonar and 'FX' meant actual 'effects' to me. So when I first looked at Reaper, I sat there looking for anything that would point me to 'synths', 'instruments', etc, and not FX. The right click menu didn't have anything relevant either. Now it has the 'Insert Instrument on a new track' command.

[trimph1]

BTW...which VST version is/was he using???

2.4, 3, or 3.5???

Could be one where he pretends to speak for some vast throng of users who have had 'vastly inferior quality' thrust upon them, or the one where he pretends to speak for the designers of the VST spec and their intentions regarding offline rendering, or the one where he pretends to speak for plugin developers who's plugins need to be protected from sound 'bad' in realtime mode, or possibly the one where he speaks for folk (that he absolutely didnt ever disparagingly call 'minions') at the Reaper forums who have (sob!) had to answer questions about this about fifteen times in the last 7 years and might possibly have to do so again.

Aaaaah. Yes. Could very well be that he was doing a special plea for version 1 then

[BachRules]

The thing is, the OP has a valid point - it does seem odd that the default setting in Reaper is not to tell plugins when they are rendering offline.

However, by putting that point in such an aggressive manner, he has alienated many people who might have supported him.

But really I never was seeking "support" from the drones, and I never cared whether they were "alienated"; and I put the point in such a non-aggressive manner:

By default, Reaper tells plug-ins it's working online even when it's rendering offline.

As a result, Kontakt, EWQL Play, and Vienna Instruments drop notes during offline rendering if they think they're running out of time.

Also as a result of the misinformation from Reaper, Kontakt renders using time-saving interpolation instead of best-quality.

If you imagine I care about affirmation from the drones, you must be projecting or something.

There could then have been a very interesting debate about why Cockos chose that default in the first place and why they have also chosen to keep that setting as the default.

But there already has been that interesting debate:

Speaking of "particular" reasons, is there any particular reason Reaper lies to plug-ins and sounds bad?

<no answer>

As pointed by other users, the title is ridiculous. In the worse scenario, you could just point out to a bug (which is somehow debatable, since you can change your settings) in rendering at high quality, not that "Reaper sounds worse than other DAWs". That title is completely misinforming and out of context.

Why couldn't it be pointed out that the bug makes Reaper sound worse than other DAWs? The title is good. People using Reaper at default with Kontakt is normal. What's ridiculous is your difficulty coping with a statement of the facts. If you have a problem with the facts, change Reaper's behavior, don't complain about truthful reporting.

Quit inviting developers to produce bad-sounding software, because they will continue producing bad-sounding software if you keep inviting it. If you can't handle the facts about a DAW being reported, you have issues more serious than bad sound from your DAW.

And now we can have an interesting discussion about the drones' dysfunction which causes them to seek inferior sound, and that could be a constructive discussion too. Is it like someone has a girlfriend and she's ugly, and you point out she's ugly, and he gets enraged even though it's the truth; except here it's not a human girlfriend but rather a DAW which certain autistic people are using as a substitute for a girlfriend?

[farlukar]

[Numanoid]

[Gamma-UT]

And now we can have an interesting discussion about the drones' dysfunction which causes them to seek inferior sound, and that could be a constructive discussion too.

If I render something I want it to sound the same as the real-time version that I've mixed unless I've got a very good idea that a rendering using different settings is going to work. So, having a default that applies the same processing to both makes sense to me. I would prefer that to chasing down why something sounds different after rendering if I'm unaware of the setting.

This idea of inferior vs superior sound based simply on a switch where you don't necessarily know the outcome just smacks of: "I have no idea which sounds better, but more compute cycles must be good, right?"

[aciddose]

[BachRules]

Seriously, this is how a course website looks at Stanford in the year 2014, not 1994?

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/320/Welcome.html

You probably should delete any software you're running that Julius Smith had a hand in designing, because you know better.

[HanafiH]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lXyup0De7Q

[ccDuckett]

[trimph1]

This thread is

All it takes is to make a choice. One single switch and it would be done....sheeesh.

[Numanoid]

Some guy went filibustering, seeming to be high on jolt-cola and doritos supplied by his momma