Reaper is stable-ish like all current daws, they don't typically crash by themselves but because of some miscommunication with a plugin. However, it's bloated with all the features you'll never need and a thousand more you've never even heard of, only two devs more interested in adding new features than in iteration and quality control, so there are more bugs than in software by proper companies with dedicated staff. The much-praised high update frequency helps patching them, but with their adversion to testing, each update also contains regressions and new bugs. Fanboys will stone my windows for this, but it is what it is and will never change.lingyai wrote:What I do need is basic reliability and stability, the ability to loop record (in "take" mode), a serviceable piano roll and event editor, straightforward workflow, works well with Kontakt, and can handle midi-transmittting VSTis (like Cthulu, or Kontakt in its "send midi to the outside world mode", etc. ) which drive other VSTis.
In these respects, how if at all is Reaper lacking?
It has a solid take system with lots of flexibility and various recording modes.
Piano roll is deeply configurable, feature-rich, snappy and extensible with user-submitted but mature, advanced scripts. It takes a bit of effort to get it to work in a sensible way (devs aren't really into MIDI and it shows in the default state), but once that is done, it can be really nice. The multi-track editing is well implemented, and there's an inline editor as well.
Event editor was unusably buggy at the time I gave up on Reaper (guess about a year ago). It was very basic and underdeveloped, so you might want to check it's current state if event list is important in your workflow.
I don't use Kontakt so can't comment on that. I did use various MIDI-outputting plugins and they all worked great, and using them is easy since can place them in the same track as the sound sources and do nice stuff like record the MIDI output and audio into separate tracks. I had no issues with any plugins, and it has a rock solid bridge so you can use 32-bit plugins if you like.
Wonder why I saved reliability as last? Because that just isn't Reaper's strong point, especially with MIDI. It used to have insane, ridiculous bugs, and as soon as they get they fixed, new ones appear. And you, the end user is the one to keep an eye on them before they bite you in the arse because no one else will. Checking basic functionality for regressions is not something I want to spend my music time on, so I first stopped using MIDI and the piano roll*, and eventually moved on completely. My hobby is music, not software, and Reaper pushed me more into fiddling with software than music.
* in the end this turned out to be a positive thing, I started recording live takes to audio, which has improved my playing and made me realize that there is some actual magic in performance that I never quite found in piano rolling about.
If you didn't notice, this is written by a person with negative, subjective experiences which might distort the view. Sort of an anti-fanboy input, so use your judgement.