Cockos Reaper

[Apratim]

Reaper is like a barebone pc with only nobody and some other stuff you can make it what you wand and how you want thus it is cheap

Fl is like a completely pre build pc
A complet setup but you are set up with a high cost and fixed instruments until you buy some more of your own

Nice comparison

Because I have FL Studio already, I will not completely dispense with FL.

So could have the best of both worlds....

BTW you can use sytrus and other synth from fl
I use sytrus even though I don't owe fl
Had to bought it separately but I warn you
Some vst from fl are not good with the gui
Before the latest update of sytrus. It used to crash in reaper but IL took care of it.

Plus a major feature of reaper I think is a single track is all type of track
You can put midi and audio in same channel
Helps me in some complex in track routing from instrument to sidechannel to the main audio channel transferring without any sidechannel track

And sorry for this broken ass English
This new auto correct extension is garbage for chrome

[Lucas-Paris]

at the Moment I produce my Music with FL Studio. It is really a great Program, but if the Project become bigger, it is confusing with all the automation stuff and effects, it is difficult to keep track of all that stuff.

Now, I have played a lite bit around with Reaper. The work flow is really great, a little bit like in Ableton. But the price of that piece of software is really interesting.

What I want to know is, how is the quality of the build in Plug-ins, effects, and so on. Is it comparable to FL Studio? Or perhaps better?

The look a d feel in FL Studio is much better, In my opinion. But Appearance is not everything.

For me, the workflow and the quality is on the first place. Anyone here who uses Reaper? Should I give Reaper a try, so, shall I investigate time to learn Reaper, or should I go with FL Studio? Or save my money for another DAW?

I have been using FL Studio for years and I made the change to Reaper 4 months ago, for one main reason: the difference in performance in the case of big projects. With FL Studio, every time my projects were growing big (>50 tracks, >100 plugins) I somewhere hit the limit with FL Studio: either I could not load any further plugins, or the sound was starting to have glitches, or both. I tried all possible work-arounds, I even changed from a 6-core to a 10-core CPU system, but whereas I had plenty of CPU capacity remaining, FL Studio was unable to use this in an efficient way while showing an almost 100% CPU usage!!

After just a few hours of comparing the multi-core performance of Reaper with FL Studio, the conclusion was very clear and it was totally confirmed afterwards: Reaper is only at a few percent when FL Studio hits the 100% ceiling. In addition, Reaper offers a much better work-around mechanism for the Windows limitation of the number of unique plugins that can be used in one project (for more info see my post halfway this page: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=468608&start=15). And the way in which Reaper can be personalized with custom-made themes, custom actions and macro scripts is a total difference from FL Studio.

FL Studio has also some advantages compared to Reaper:
- better choice of included plugins (especially for Instruments)
- better piano roll
- better look compared to the standard Reaper theme

So it all depends on what exactly you need. For large-scale projects with many plugins, Reaper offers a clear advantage. But if you don't face any CPU performance issues with your projects in FL Studio, and you do not want to spend any time on personalizing your DAW, then no need to change...

[Z3R0T0N1N]

I just want to say, as someone who uses FLS and Reaper extensively, I simply don't see this as an either/or situation.
FLS can be loaded as a VST, or ReWired to Reaper, so if I come up with something cool in FLS but it starts getting seriously messy, or I need some professional audio tracks, I can extend it in Reaper that way.

Or, if I have something going in Reaper but I find I really want some pattern-based goodness and step sequencers, etc. then I load in FLS and exend the track there.

[Apratim]

Oh and BTW checkout this site(not mine)
http://www.admiralbumblebee.com/ReaperScripts.html

It has many reaper scripts comparison in detail
From
Making Reaper's track vu meter work like FLs
To have midi editor work like FL and much more if you want to have the FL felling

[bill45]

Yeah reaper has a Reputation for being very efficient DAW.Have they made it more Efficient since Version3.66?
The reaper plugins may be basic, but they have a very good reputation.
A sound on sound writer said "Reaper is an efficient bugger".

[digitalboytn]

After just a few hours of comparing the multi-core performance of Reaper with FL Studio, the conclusion was very clear and it was totally confirmed afterwards: Reaper is only at a few percent when FL Studio hits the 100% ceiling. In addition, Reaper offers a much better work-around mechanism for the Windows limitation of the number of unique plugins that can be used in one project (for more info see my post halfway this page: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=468608&start=15). And the way in which Reaper can be personalized with custom-made themes, custom actions and macro scripts is a total difference from FL Studio.

Reaper is a CPU miser and many people are waking up and realising just how powerful a DAW it really is

Myself included

[inkwarp]

Reaper is fairly stable, and it is probably the best performance wise.
I seem to be able to use plugins that i have problems with in FL. it's solid and, sorry to repeat this again, it is the most configurable DAW i have ever used.
learning a DAW or any software for that matter, usually involves the banging of heads on the desk. I had a nightmare when i used FL a few years back. It was so counter-intuitive ( for me at least) but now i zip around it and have gradually started to produce work so that's a success in my book. I agree with comments about remembering that you can use FL as a VST as well as rewire etc. so you don't have to just remain devoted and loyal to just one app. however if i was asked to keep only one DAW to use, these days at least, i will choose reaper. there is something really satisfying about progressing with it and finding new things in it all the time. Don't get me wrong, I still have some incredible frustrations with it, but i think it is worth persevering.
and yes, there is no need to just use one app.
i will also say that, for the most part i love FL BUT it has some INCREDIBLY irritating things mostly to do with shortcuts and accessing menus can be a bit of a chore. the number of times that i have to change snap setting is infuriating at times yet there seem to be a lot of keys that have no assignment. this baffles me. a right-click menu would be amazing. anyway, small potatoes...
i am a software whore anyway.. I still use Acid and on occasion.
i don't think there will ever be a 'one size fits all' type of program. so just have to learn to adjust to each apps idiosyncrasies..
: ) sorry to blather on ...

[Obsolete236871]

Is Reaper still such a cumbersome DAW for midi / VST - instruments based production?

I really tried to like Reaper ever since I tried 1.x version. But coming from Cubase, the process of recording, editing and arranging midi items never felt like an intuitive, straight forward process in Reaper.

Whenever I see videos about making music in Reaper, I usually see people either recording audio directly (real instruments, microphone) or they just arrange premade audio items and loops to create a basic musical pattern.

But the classical way of composing inside the DAW using virtual instruments and effects - Reaper does not seem to be well suited for that (not saying it can not do it, but it's not doing it in a straightforward manner last time I checked).

[aMUSEd]

I’m 90% virtual instrument based, never had a problem composing in Reaper. For a start it has some of the best automation editing in any host I’ve used (only Podium has better handling of Bézier curves). Don’t use midi roll so not bothered if that’s not as good.

[Boone777]

It's true that it's not as straight forward in Reaper. But if you are willing to put the time to learn how it behaves, or how YOU want it to behave, it's well worth it IMO.

[bmanic]

What has always bothered me about MIDI editing in Reaper is how the mouse cursor never intuitively "snaps" to what I want it to do at that position. Simple stuff like dragging a note length, moving the note up/down semitones and octaves, dragging out the selection etc.

It's minor things like these that makes the day to day usage frustrating.

Also, the way reaper creates midi items and the midi "sync" after playing in real time, especially on systems where latency is not all that good (my studio using the prism orpheus that sucks). You'll need to use the option "preserve PDC delayed monitoring in recorded items" to keep the timing tight and exactly as you heard it being played... this then creates very weird untrimmed midi containers that are a real chore to work with.

NONE of these things happen in any of the other major DAWs. I don't exactly know why or how the others work.. but they just do. Reaper doesn't. Go figure..

This is probably what some people mean when they complain that Reaper isn't "tight" sounding like the other DAWs. It's because whatever you record is altered and not at all identical to what you just heard live.. unless you use the "preserve PDC delayed monitoring in recorded items" option on all tracks you record.. which makes the weird containers.

Don't get me wrong though, I love Reaper and think it's by far the best mixing environment but for content creation from scratch it definitely isn't at all intuitive. I use other options for this and then combine and mix it all within Reaper. This has been the case ever since Reaper version 2.x when I started using it. I don't find that has changed yet. I'm still not comfortable creating large compositions from scratch in Reaper. The devil is in the details and those details are missing in my opinion in Reaper.

[BMoore]

At one point I took the time to research and find out my niggles with Reaper, and now both the workflow and looks are 95% there.

It's so customizable, that if Reapers default way of doing things nags you like an Intrancer thread, it almost certainly can be adjusted to your liking or turned on/off.
Same with looks. There a several great themes, and everything in them can be adjusted, moved, and tweeked.

And it's stable and fast.

[BMoore]

And has yet to implement a command center or an assistant.

[Distorted Horizon]

You can install it on an usb stick and take it with you where ever you go <3

[bmanic]

At one point I took the time to research and find out my niggles with Reaper, and now both the workflow and looks are 95% there.

It's so customizable, that if Reapers default way of doing things nags you like an Intrancer thread, it almost certainly can be adjusted to your liking or turned on/off.
Same with looks. There a several great themes, and everything in them can be adjusted, moved, and tweeked.

And it's stable and fast.

That's the thing though.. not everything can be adjusted. Where and when the mouse cursor changes to another tool is one of those things. How reliably things are "moved" when click+drag is used etc can't be changed.

These are the internal mechanics or "engine" of the GUI/usability that are deep rooted in the various DAWs and in my opinion the main thing that makes them different. I like to use a car analogy here.. you can have 4 different cars that can all take you places but they all have their own distinct base handling which is too deep rooted to be "modified". A car with a weight distribution of 40/60 will inherently handle differently to one with a 50/50 weight distribution, no matter how much you try to mod it (even adding weights to change the distribution!).