KVR Audio

tomg · Post by **tomg** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:12 am

Reaper is $50-$225 so it's reasonably priced and Justin is a legendary master programmer that updates Reaper at a frightening pace.

So why aren't we all using Reaper? If you hate or don't like Reaper, what is it about Reaper that doesn't work for you? Is it the Reaper fans? The interface? Midi? No KVR forum? Are you already happy with what you have? If you're a mostly happy Reaper user but also need something else what is it you needed? What?

Me personally? I own a $50 personal license that I never use because XT is almost exactly what I want in a personal sequencer but I could use it. If I didn't have XT, out of everything that I have, I would use Reaper. Would you?

I'm asking because there is a thread on the Reaper forum asking why isn't Reaper more popular and that's a good question. So... Why isn't Reaper more popular at KVR? What would it take to make Reaper your goto app.

If you haven't tried Reaper in a while, please give it another spin before voting. The midi has been greatly improved. Once you get used to the right/left click and drag editing, the editor is not all that bad.

Even if you think it's stupid, no flaming for personal opinions please. People have a right to like or not like Reaper for any reason they want. Vote and discuss please....

krushing · Post by **krushing** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:16 am

I use & love Live. That's about it. We do use Reaper for band recordings, though, so...what was I trying to say again?

ericj23 · Post by **ericj23** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:18 am

becuase on the quick try i gave it a few months ago it crashed like a mofo with a number of my vsts - and it offered nothing so amazing that my main host didn't already whilst offering a whole lot of extra work beta testing it

no thanks

fgimian · Post by **fgimian** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:29 am

It is a good program, but I'm still on Cubase. My reasons are...

- Price is not everything, I do not base my decision on how much something costs
- MIDI editing is very poor and no scoring inbuilt
- Audio editing is unusual (no easy way to crossfade two audio clips unless autocrossfade is on)
- ReWire implementation is not finished (can't send MIDI to more than 16 midi channels)
- I miss my tools (sciscorrs .etc), they are much faster to work with when doing multiple cuts
- GUI / menus are very clutterred compared to Cubase
- No inbuilt audio editing with offline history like Cubase
- No high quality time stretching (e.g. MPEX, Radius)
- Too many dialogs to do basic things (e.g. adding a send, adding an insert)
- Very limited automation functionality (no way to draw automation with mouse, multiple automation lanes are messy)
- No audio organisation (e.g. audio pool in cubase / audio window in logic)
- No freeze
- Stop button in ReWire slave always brings cursor back to start position

The main reasons I considered it...
- Extremely rock solid audio engine at very low latencies
- Good multicore support

Cheers
Fots

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:32 am

I see no compelling reason to abandon the tools I already use, many of which Ive spent several with.

oh, and of course, it 'looks like puke', like all us KVR people always say.

tomg · Post by **tomg** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:36 am

whyterabbyt wrote:I see no compelling reason to abandon the tools I already use, many of which Ive spent several with.

oh, and of course, it 'looks like puke', like all us KVR people always say.

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:37 am

I think REAPER 2.0 is brilliant - truly superb for the price. And I am recommending it to students on a budget, for sure.

I've not yet sprung for it myself though because I'm very happy indeed with the tools I am now using - Audition 3.0, Sibelius 5.1, Live 7 and Reason (4 in the post). After loads of searching/questioning, I am now really pleased with the stuff listed for my own needs.

While REAPER does not add anything that I would personally need, I will probably get it anyway once I have students actually using it a lot (so that I can support them if/when they get stuck).

aallvor · Post by **aallvor** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:41 am

I recently decided on Cubase instead of Reaper. Poor midi editing (compared to C.) and no groove extraction from audio made me go with Steinburg. Very happy so far

fandango · Post by **fandango** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:43 am

I just find the whole interface confusing after adding a few tracks, forgetting what's routed to what, especially with multi-out multi-timbral synths. Possibly because Reaper's tracks can in theory be anything, MIDI or otherwise. Some might consider this an immensely powerful thing. I just find it provides the user with vague information. I was already on the Cakewalk train with Home Studio. With the MIDI improvements to Sonar 7, it has pretty much everything that I want from a host and I've never really been tempted to look elsewhere. So yeah, I'm just very happy with what I use and Reaper doesn't really have anything to tempt me.

koolkeys · Post by **koolkeys** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:49 am

Because what I currently use does everything and more than I need. I try Reaper all the time, every couple of versions as a matter of fact. I do give it a fair shake and have spent lots of time with it. But when I compare it to the tools I use, it just doesn't compare for me. Not as fast, not as deep, and not as "inspiring" when I use it.

Maybe it's just being used to my own tools more, but that's good enough reason to not choose Reaper in itself without all the rest.

Brent

dover666 · Post by **dover666** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:49 am

honestly, i'd use it more, but i'm too used to modplug tracker. I generally use audacity to record, despite the bugs, because to edit the wavs i have to open it anyway, if i was to record from reaper.
whenever i notice major changes in it, i grab a copy and check it out, just to see the progress. i also recommend it to people who haven't heard of it. i've been using a qwerty and tracker for years now, and i don't finish songs, so it's kind of me being a complete dick. If i had the confidence to finish and master my tracks, the host i would use post composing would be reaper. the audio engine beats the shit out of modplug. I'm trying to get into more low level dsp myself, as i'd like to improve modplug, but i've been pretty discouraged by the proprietary nature of a lot of the useful math available in dsp. hence the lack of "advanced time streching" in reaper. if people would stop using restrictive patents on ideas, people could take the wonderfully complicated things in life we enjoy so much a lot further. (like music and it's algos) - meh, reaper's awesome, i need to make time to use it more.

Andywanders · Post by **Andywanders** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:52 am

MIDI isn't up to it

I'm happy with my current host

And...

The last version I tried crashed my home DAW really badly.

For those that are interested, it happened while loading the program - Reaper got to "Loading Sound Touch" then froze. Had to restart my box about 4 times.

All the same though; kudos to Justin for the whole Reaper thing. He's doing a great job and I'm sure Reaper's going to really mature one day.

neilpullen · Post by **neilpullen** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:57 am

I own it but use Live because it's unstable on my system unfortunately. But, in response to some of soundpalace's points, I find the time stretching in Reaper to be excellent (far better than Ableton's) and its freeze system (Apply FX to track as new take) is my favourite thing about it -- just a totally superb implementation of a freeze IMO.

My least favourite thing is having multiple automation lanes, they can be unclear as the automation curves are very thin and usually odd colours.

In hindsight that's a lie -- my least favourite thing is that it can't run for longer than 5 minutes without crashing and forcing a system restart

EDIT: Forgot to add. Adding an insert effect is also much easier now with the effect chain display above the mixer tracks.

soundpalace wrote:It is a good program, but I'm still on Cubase. My reasons are...

- Price is not everything, I do not base my decision on how much something costs
- MIDI editing is very poor and no scoring inbuilt
- Audio editing is unusual (no easy way to crossfade two audio clips unless autocrossfade is on)
- ReWire implementation is not finished (can't send MIDI to more than 16 midi channels)
- I miss my tools (sciscorrs .etc), they are much faster to work with when doing multiple cuts
- GUI / menus are very clutterred compared to Cubase
- No inbuilt audio editing with offline history like Cubase
- No high quality time stretching (e.g. MPEX, Radius)
- Too many dialogs to do basic things (e.g. adding a send, adding an insert)
- Very limited automation functionality (no way to draw automation with mouse, multiple automation lanes are messy)
- No audio organisation (e.g. audio pool in cubase / audio window in logic)
- No freeze
- Stop button in ReWire slave always brings cursor back to start position

The main reasons I considered it...
- Extremely rock solid audio engine at very low latencies
- Good multicore support

Cheers
Fots

dover666 · Post by **dover666** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 10:03 am

quite a few builds ago, before i upgraded my system, reaper would shut off my computer when i went to look at the media explorer tab. it doesn;'t do it anymore... i think...

GermanFafian · Post by **GermanFafian** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 10:12 am

I'm happy using FL and Reaper, but don't have much free time for music making anymore

At least right now I work making things I like

KVR Audio

So... Why aren't you using Reaper?

Why aren't you using Reaper?