I'm contemplating a new DAW

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Which DAW should I buy

Poll ended at Thu Jan 30, 2014 1:00 am

Mixcraft
6
6%
Reaper
48
48%
Studio One 2 (artist)
23
23%
Fish
24
24%
 
Total votes: 101

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Save up and buy Cubase.
:borg:

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I voted for Reaper.

1) A track is a track is a track. No matter if audio or midi or cue: it`s a track. Reaper does not differ between those. It works universal. I like that.

2) Very helpful community. Problems often get solved within a short time.

3) Actions & SWS extensions: wow, workflow on speed.

4) Templates everywhere:Project templates, Track templates, FX templates. Set it up once and save it. Load it everytime you need it.

5) GUI: dangit, lots of very good themes. Screensets. Drag and drop fx & sends, Matrixes, Project Bay etc

6) js & reascript. Most non Reaper people don´t get the idea and the quality of such a system and those plugins. Look in the js section: if you need something you can ask for it. Chances are high that someone either coded something similar earlier, will code it on the fly because he finds the idea interesting, will share some code with you etc. And some js fx started "pretty cheap" but ended up as a workhorse due constant improvement and suggestions from the community. Eg sequencerbaby2 started as a raw and pretty simple step sequencer with lots of limitations and now it is one of the best and fastest sequencer I have ever worked with (development time from raw to workhorse: maybe 2-3 months). Or arpO! Or the whole Reabundle...

Just my 2cts

Regards
Sebastian
Underground Music Production: Sound Design, Machine Funk, High Tech Soul

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Sebastian,

Thank you for that. I've been reluctant to use reaper add ons. Call me old fashion but somethings should simply work out of the box. Templates should be included (at least one) I've grazed the reaper forums. Nice bunch, positive attitudes, good ideas passed around.

I know I shouldn't judge a daw by it's ui, but frankly it screams win3.1 or older linux ui. I have niether discounted fully. I promise to look back
Synapse Audio Dune 3 I'm in love

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tapper mike wrote:I know I shouldn't judge a daw by it's ui, but frankly it screams win3.1 or older linux ui.
:?:

(Imperial GUI for REAPER by White Tie)

Image

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Unfortunately I cannot use it because I have a smaller screen but I always dream of the Imperial skin, so I had to post it... :love:

Just to show that there are different skins for REAPER with great features!

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tapper mike wrote:...Reaper recognized my plugins but then doesn't want to load vst's for me but does load DXi's (Coyote) On the surface the midi editing and performance issues have much to be desired...
performance issues in REAPER? well, that's a new one, since REAPER has simply the best multicore implementation around, bar none, and is generally known for great performance.
I don't know what to write here that won't be censored, as I can only speak in profanity.

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REAPER doesn't load single VST(i) somewhere on the hard disk. You have to type in the folders where you have your VST(i) into "Preferences". Then REAPER scans all folders (at the start) and makes a list with the VST(i) to choose from.

http://wiki.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/P ... lugins_VST

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Tricky-Loops wrote:
tapper mike wrote:I know I shouldn't judge a daw by it's ui, but frankly it screams win3.1 or older linux ui.
:?:

(Imperial GUI for REAPER by White Tie)
In fairness to all involved parties....

1. Imperial is an exceptional piece of graphic design work. (imo)
2. The rest of Reaper (the plugin UI's, the browsers, you know, all the other stuff) kinda still has that Win 98 look since they aren't skinned.

So... you're both right. :)

When people say things like "that Win 95 look", whatever, whether it's harsh, unfair, or not, everyone kinda knows exactly what they're talking about, but someone always posts a screen shot of Imperial anyway. :). If they ever theme the rest of it and get rid of all the Windows common controls it will look universally better with any skin in Windows.

Along those lines, it currently looks much better on OSX due to the OSX common controls (buttons, lists, text boxes, all that) being... kinda... more visually pleasing in general. Which is probably why you never hear anyone say.... "It looks like old OSX 2.5 in some ways" ... or whatever... it's always a Windows reference in that context.

Put screenshots of it side by side on OSX and Win, with dialogs and all that stuff open and you'll kinda see what I mean... especially if those things are using light backgrounds.

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Nevertheless, I'm happy with the DEFAULT skin of REAPER... The only thing which looks pretty bad - Windows 98-like - are the ReaPlugs. But the sound for me is far more important than a stylish GUI. Rea(X)Comp, ReaGate, ReaEQ and ReaFIR are top-notch effects/processors that I don't want to miss; one of the things that could be better - effect-wise - is ReaDelay...

ReaEQ even has an analyzer:

Image

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Nobody is saying a stylish GUI is "necessary" to make music, only that apps with fully consistent gui's throughout look better overall. As a purely practical matter, one thing (the result of the work) has nothing much to do with the other thing (how consistent an app's graphic design is)... but nonetheless... if they skin the rest of the app and make all of it's windows look better, many people saying "meh" about all that now will have different opinions about that then.

We kinda all know that... so... no point in going there. It's a really great product with kinda plain jane looking floating windows and lists and things... (- On Windows -)... which, of course, has no direct relationship to functionality.

You'd never really see only those kinds of standard common controls in most commercial Window's apps. In most cases they use graphics to replace those ugly buttons and use custom lists to replace the rather staid looking windows lists, and use gradients on the forms to make them look better. They even carefully choose the default fonts, often not using the system font, although, the Win 8 default fonts are nice.

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Burillo wrote:
tapper mike wrote:...Reaper recognized my plugins but then doesn't want to load vst's for me but does load DXi's (Coyote) On the surface the midi editing and performance issues have much to be desired...
performance issues in REAPER? well, that's a new one, since REAPER has simply the best multicore implementation around, bar none, and is generally known for great performance.
I've used linux htop to watch reaper in linux running Razor,
with both CPU's moving in the 80%-90% range.

It's truly some transmogrifyingly good fun, watching reaper
in action, when it's pushed to the limits, and knowing you saved
a few $hundred$ in the process, is suite! 8) :hyper: 8)

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LawrenceF wrote:Nobody is saying a stylish GUI is "necessary" to make music, only that apps with fully consistent gui's throughout look better overall.
I actually enjoy some variations in a gui, I think my memory
processes the data easier, when the controls are presented
with a variety of of hue and contrast. Even choosing shapes
between knob or slider in modules could be nice. Basic user color
and brightness selection, like with Synth1 and Sampletank, is even better,
and skin-able, like reaper, the creme at the top, in artistic hands.

Like the original Oatmeal and Voyager gui's, breaking up the
great wall of monolithic graphics, really helps usability,
assuming work-flow is also accounted for.
Cheers

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You have 30 days to learn how to use and to fall in love with REAPER. :)
It is quite different than any other hosts i ever tried, so allow at least few days to adapt to the new approach, then everything will become smooth and easy.
[====[\\\\\\\\]>------,

Ay caramba !

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steeper learning curve (to get the most out of it) but way better than S1 and alike. Reaper. if i would be starting from a clean slate (new daw) it would be my choice.

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tapper mike wrote:Sebastian,

Thank you for that. I've been reluctant to use reaper add ons. Call me old fashion but somethings should simply work out of the box. Templates should be included (at least one) I've grazed the reaper forums. Nice bunch, positive attitudes, good ideas passed around.

I know I shouldn't judge a daw by it's ui, but frankly it screams win3.1 or older linux ui. I have niether discounted fully. I promise to look back
Tbh Reaper has it flaws. It is way ahead of being perfect. One thing that annoyes me (like a lot of people) is the windows handling. Too many windows that can clutter your screen. But I have found some good workarounds in the last year to solve some those problems for me.

And if you believe it or not: a lot of the js are uberdope. The compressor is awesome, the REAFIR thingy can do really funny things and if you are a little bit into dsp (jast a tad) and math you can chain the code of every fx or modify to your taste on the fly. You wanna have a hold stage after the attack stage in ReaComp? No problem, open the fx while it runs and change the code, recompile while you are working on your project and try out what you came up with (tbh I have not done it but I would like to do it - just don't have the time and skills). Btw you should definitely check out the JS from loser (like the enhancers, exciters, waveshapers and the other sometimes "wiered" stuff). And if you can´t do it on your own ask for it in the forum. Someone will hopefully do it for you (because it is just some additional code that has to be pasted into the existing one). Actually I am surprised everytime how dang helpful the Reaper community is.

And with the latest update they introduced new graphic strings (or something like that) and I think we will see more GUI plugs in the near future.

I also recommend you to try out things intuitivlely. Can I drag this onto that? Works most of the time. Actually the first thing I always do is to drag and drop something. If that does not work I check out the excellent manual.

And lots of Themes come with pros and cons. Some of them resizeable, some not. Some more midi and fx orientated, some emulate vintage consoles (gui/workflow) or protools etc...

But you don´t need them when you start. I would keep the default theme at first (because of pictures in the manual). Btw rightclick on everything and take a look at the context menu. Most of it can be found via that. You don´t like how your default mixer looks like (pan pots on top???), right click and choose another one (pan pots on bottom or even no pat at all). You don´t need the meter in the Track Control Panel? Just change the appereance of it.

And PLEASE install SWS extensions and spend at least a 1-2 hours with the whole action thingy. Once you have a briefly overview over those thousands and thousands of functions (which can be chained too like "create new track, insert blank midi file from (timeline start) to (timeline end), open midi editor and automatically set everything to midi channel xx"). Stuff like that. Btw you can filter mostly everything inside the reaper menus so if you are looking for something specific but could not find it look for a small "search/filter" window and type in what you are looking for eg MIDI, CREATE TRACK etc...

I could go on and on and how I benefit from all those enhancements. It is just that I have not discovered them all and I always browse the forum for new ideas.

Regards
Sebastian
Underground Music Production: Sound Design, Machine Funk, High Tech Soul

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