Can REAPER Really Do Anything Other DAWs Can Do?

[DrFolder]

Haha, folks, let's get back to the thread-title: It's not about
"Do I want to use Reaper?"

Instead I read:
"Can Reaper really do anything other DAWs can do?

This title implies the question, if Reaper belongs
to the circle of "capital DAWs" which are capable of
doing everything or almost everyting. This circle
consists of the big ones:

Logic Apple, Steinberg Cubase, Cakewalk Sonar
and Studio One.

Now we can rephrase the question to:
Does Reaper belong to this circle, if we only look
at the features?

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And the answer is: "Yes - if we add all the scripts
and the SWS-Extension."

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Ergonomy and personal preferences are an entirely
different topic!

Absolutely I think Reaper belongs on the list, I haven't even used any extensions in it as far as I can remember. Reaper for me is the one that I like based on how I work with external gear, audio and it's the best one for vsti's for how I work so I think it certainly deserves to be on the list for me.
What the best daw is I believe is down to how you work and which one you are comfortable working with.Everyone is going to have a different opinion and experience with the tools they use. Why are any of the other daws on that list? What's the criteria?

[DrFolder]

The spectral editing, spectral peaks and spectrogram views are awesome in Reaper. Being able to visually see the tonal content of an audio file directly on the track lanes and in the media browser are incredibly helpful.

Had forgotten about this feature. Spectral on the track. Great!
Is there any possibility that one day editing the spectral as in Iris will be added?
Select 4 tracks and edit as if in Iris.

You can have the spectral views on all channels and on any audio file. You can create spectral edits on the waveform to apply spectral processing on any selection. As for editing multiple waveforms at once I'm not sure. I just brought Iris2 on special last week and have only just started learning it so I can't comment at this stage as to any comparison.

[Dasheesh]

i have been using reaper for a little more then 2 yrs now. before reaper i used ableton and bidule. i think i can offer an honest opinion. the answer is it can do anything, but it takes some getting used to. especially if you are coming from the apple platform. the engineering behind it is very much a pc mindset. what i mean is the amount of options and functionality are pretty much endless, but you might have to dig around for it. finding what you want can sometimes be chore because it has so many options. reaper is all about being customizable. you make it whatever you want it to be. if you want a logic set up, you load a logic skin, if you want a cubase setup, you load a cubase skin. there are mountains of cunstomized flavors of reaper available, or you can roll your own. you will have to do a LOT of digging to customize your own tho. the amount of options is endless. luckily, all the standard option settings out the box are 85% what you will want to use as default, and there are so many detailed tutorials that you can learn the rest of it by watching videos. what isn't already available for you (doubtful) you can script! reaper is scriptable and the reaper forum is pretty active. i have no idea how to script, and find it the most tedious thing man ever attempted to do, so i have no idea how to do that side of it and have little use for it, but it's there for you. many usful scripts are available. in short, reaper might be the most capable of all the DAWS, but there is a learning curve because of the amount of options. my advice is learn the hot keys! reaper shortcuts make life so easy! and use the reaper stash reasources. it makes reaper fun. https://stash.reaper.fm/tag/Themes

[Dasheesh]

^^^ also, you will want a good sample recorder/ player for live performance if you want to use it like that.

[Kalamata Kid]

The spectral editing, spectral peaks and spectrogram views are awesome in Reaper. Being able to visually see the tonal content of an audio file directly on the track lanes and in the media browser are incredibly helpful.

Had forgotten about this feature. Spectral on the track. Great!
Is there any possibility that one day editing the spectral as in Iris will be added?
Select 4 tracks and edit as if in Iris.

I thought it was, afaik it incorporates this

https://www.stillwellaudio.com/plugins/spectro/

but built in now

Thanks aMUSEd,

I was hoping something with more features such copy and paste and lasso selection.
The idea was to be able to do spectral edits directly on the track(s).

[DrFolder]

The spectral editing, spectral peaks and spectrogram views are awesome in Reaper. Being able to visually see the tonal content of an audio file directly on the track lanes and in the media browser are incredibly helpful.

Had forgotten about this feature. Spectral on the track. Great!
Is there any possibility that one day editing the spectral as in Iris will be added?
Select 4 tracks and edit as if in Iris.

I thought it was, afaik it incorporates this

https://www.stillwellaudio.com/plugins/spectro/

but built in now

Thanks aMUSEd,

I was hoping something with more features such copy and paste and lasso selection.
The idea was to be able to do spectral edits directly on the track(s).

Yes you can do that. Just create a new spectral edit. No lasso option though from what I see. You create a selection directly on the waveform to access the tools.

[Kalamata Kid]

^

the Spectro page does not have much info about the edit tools.
https://www.stillwellaudio.com/plugins/spectro/

[Psuper]

Dasheesh got it right about Reaper. Reaper is for people who want pure customization and performance for specific things they'd like it to do.

[chk071]

Yes. That's why i always called it the DAW for people who know what they want (and who probably have a lot of experience with other DAW's, to know what they want). That's the thing though. I'm convinced that many just want to have a certain workflow, and don't want to fiddle and customize, so they opt for a more simple, streamlined DAW, which fits their uses cases.

[jonljacobi]

Reaper is a great DAW, but it’s kind of like trying to read a legal document. It makes sense, but only after a lot of studying. Many trying it for the first time get overwhelmed and look elsewhere. But it can be honed to a very precise tool if you have the patience.

[Psuper]

Reaper is a great DAW, but it’s kind of like trying to read a legal document. It makes sense, but only after a lot of studying. Many trying it for the first time get overwhelmed and look elsewhere. But it can be honed to a very precise tool if you have the patience.

It was absolutely painless for me to go from Sonar to Reaper, which is why I choose Reaper after Sonar to begin with.

My timeline after hardware:
Cakewalk
Cakewalk/Reason
Sonar w Reason Rewired
Reason/Reaper
Reaper w/ Reason Rewired

[Deep Purple]

^^^
Related to that point, I moved from Cubasis to Reason, then over time I tried other DAWs when I realized that I could use more than one DAW. Initially I worked with 8-track and mastering on 1/4", but haven't recorded to tape since the 80s.

I eventually dropped Cubasis for Ableton Live, and now I use 3 DAWs:

Ableton Live for performance-type recording
Reason for its modular approach
Logic Pro for its more conventional DAW approach

Reaper was among the DAWs that I tried out, but I found it wanting in many areas.