Digging Deeper into Reaper

[Burillo]

I hate REAPER. I hate that its GUI is from 1995, the built-in FX are uninspiring and awkward to use (and had glaring DSP issues for a long time), I hate that doing simple things can be a pain in the ass or downright impossible. I hate great many things about it.

But, I haven't found anything that could replace it. A lot of DAWs have stupid separation between instruments and effects, midi and audio, mono and stereo, and absence of these limitations is such an integral part of my workflow that I can't live without it.

[chk071]

You said it. It all depends on the workflow. I think it makes a lot of sense to separate instruments and fx, for example. They are fundamentally different, in terms of signal flow. Same with mono and stereo, or MIDI and audio.

I don't want to say that your way is wrong (whatever floats your boat), just that our way of thinking may be different. Actually, you pretty much make it very clear to me again why I stopped using Reaper.

[Tricky-Loops]

What I miss from REAPER is the big routing matrix. I used to activate some checkboxes there and suddenly my speakers were jumping around like Kris Kross...

[Burillo]

I don't want to say that your way is wrong (whatever floats your boat), just that our way of thinking may be different.

exactly. i treat all of them as just signal. instrument produces a signal, effects modify the signal. from that point of view, there's literally no reason to not be able to modify the signal right after producing it, and seamlessly have mono/stereo/MIDI signals on the same track.

for example, i routinely have "parallel" effects on the same track because i might have a compressor that's keyed to a sidechain signal, but a lot of times the sidechain in the plugin isn't flexible enough, so i add FX that only work on the sidechain, leaving the main signal untouched. i can even do all of this on the same channel - e.g. produce a sound with an instrument, and then apply FX in place, with sidechaining, all in one track. in a different DAW, i'd have to create three tracks for this and switch back and forth between them, but in REAPER, i can do all of that on one track, which is a huge workflow booster for me.

that's how i think about it, so that's why REAPER works so well for me, despite its huge, gargantuan flaws. for me, the negatives don't outweigh the workflow advantages i get.

[pekbro]

TWM? It’s pretty much the ugliest window manager I’ve ever used, although calling it a window manager might even be a bit of a stretch

Naw, pretty sure it was early gnome, back in the day, strikes me as a gtk look.
Maybe even far back as redhat 5-6 ish, when gnome was new.

[Biscotto]

I noticed that Haywyre is moving to Reaper from Ableton Live due to its custom scripting capabilities:

https://www.twitch.tv/haywyre/videos

Or maybe he ran out of installations

[CrystalWizard]

I use Reaper. It can be a bit complex with so many options but it’s like anything: learn how to use it, then use it.

Seriously, you have been on KVR since Aug 2017 and you haven’t seen much discussion about Reaper?
Thought you were trolling...

[statue]

For mixing and mastering, recording, sound design, sample editing and batch processing it is easily the most powerful and efficient tool.

It has fx chains, track templates, good routing, almost infinite customization options, is lightweight...

But boy do I still hate it sometimes. Too many options, too many ”you can’t do that but there’s a workaround, almost”. The UX is sometimes just terrible and is scary that there hasn’t been much interest in improving that.

For creative stuff and composing music I do not recommend it and personally should move to another tools.
But for the things I listed at the beginning, I don’t think there ever will be a better DAW.

[THE INTRANCER]

Search found 32108 matches: Reaper lol.

First ever Reaper thread on KVR...

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=117210&p=1586185&hi ... r#p1586185

I was over on the 3D Buzz & Reasonstation forums back then hehe, uploading and reviewing peoples music made with Reason 3.0.

[kvotchin]

I’ve found that between Reaper and FL Studio, my bases are covered.

Probably the two most hated DAWs, on here at the very least, lol.

And sure, neither is perfect, but having tried all the rest (yes, really), these two simply have more of what I need, in terms of features and workflow.

[jancivil]

The thing about all tracks being one type as it's all signal, MIDI volume to instrument is not the same signal as the instrument to the mixer. Not flexible enough for me, and I doubt I'm alone. MIDI volume is amount of energy to instrument, Instrument Channel volume is result of instrument/output. Same reason I wouldn't be able to tolerate Logic.

[Burillo]

The thing about all tracks being one type as it's all signal, MIDI volume to instrument is not the same signal as the instrument to the mixer.

they're not the same, but they're still a type of signal. hence, i don't see why a track can't carry MIDI and audio signals (of however many channels) simultaneously, and at each step of the way a plugin will react to either incoming MIDI or incoming audio signal (or both). it's for that same reason that a folder track in REAPER can act both as an audio and as a MIDI bus, and it makes perfect sense that "signal flows from child to parent tracks", regardless of whether it's a MIDI or audio signal.

that they're "not the same" doesn't mean they're not signals. i'm not talking about mixing them, just that each track having an audio and a MIDI path that work in parallel, just like each track already has multiple audio signal paths if it's not a mono track. it can already carry arbitrary amount of (independent) audio signals that don't intermix, so why not add MIDI to the list of signals it carries?

i'm not sure how do you arrive at a conclusion that absence of limitations is "not flexible enough". you maybe could make the argument that it's "too permissive" or requires too much fiddling to get to the same place, but definitely not that it's "not flexible enough", because whatever you can do with other DAWs, you can do in REAPER as well.

[e-crooner]

Just a little question, which is probably easy for you experts:
How do I make Reaper automatically "mute" all tracks except for the one whose plugin is in the foreground? Currently all tracks play when I hit a key, so I have to manually shut up the other tracks so that they don't react to my keyboard.

[Spring Goose]

"Deeper into Reaper". Is it only me who enjoyed that?

[BertKoor]

Just a little question, which is probably easy for you experts:
How do I make Reaper automatically "mute" all tracks except for the one whose plugin is in the foreground? Currently all tracks play when I hit a key, so I have to manually shut up the other tracks so that they don't react to my keyboard.

https://forum.cockos.com/archive/index. ... 95721.html

And I don't even have a copy of Reaper, i just googled "reaper solo track" and that came up.