Reaper 7 released

[machinesworking]

Use whatever is best for you. Just because one feature is missing doesn't mean the DAW is terrible. It just has different priorities.
One thing that I will say about Reaper, is that I do hope that they update the GUI in a way that all menus can be themeable or look better.

Mac OS solves the GUI issues, maybe there's a Windows/Linux mod? Dark mode solves the awkward look of menus. At least on Mac OS the headers and all menus change to Dark mode when the OS does. I guess this is only useful if like me you like darker DAWs.

If DP ever goes under Reaper is the DAW for me. One simple reason, it also includes multiple choices for count in, like count in with metronome while playing, only while recording etc. Logic looks amazing for many things, but I just want a count in with a metronome that stops when playback starts and not only while recording. Reaper and DP do that here. It's a slightly weird DAW for sure, but the only "missing" thing is Live/Bitwig style looping. It covers every other base and them some.

[GeneralQ]

Let me guess, it's still got that horrid white FX window background, and still no thumbnail images for instruments and effects. No tabbing of instruments and effects like Studio One. No Multi Instrument like node system for instruments or effects like Studio One. No programmable drum-like system like Studio One. No new VST instruments and no effect units.

For thumbnails you can replace the icons of toolbars with images. Look at this video at 4:50 to see how it looks.
For your other points I don't have studio one, but if you ask more precisely what you want to do ,other reaper users will be able to help you on how to replicate the studio one workflow in reaper.
Or you can just use studio one if you like it more.

[whyterabbyt]

I feel sorry for Reaper users, in they not having a DAW built on a modern framework.

it's still got that horrid white FX window background, and still no thumbnail images for instruments and effects

[N__K]

Oh noes!!! How are we going to make music!!!

Haha. Amen. Separate the pros from the amateurs.

Using an archaic, unsightly piece of software doesn't make the one who uses it a Pro, it just means, their priorities are different from those who don't have time, or don't want to waste time getting from point A to B when there are environments that are far sleeker and more intuitive to get work done more quickly and efficiently. For me, these principles were just as true when deciding on what sound tracker I was going to use back in the early to mid-1990s to produce music with. That happened to be Octamed Sound Studio which had everything in an elegant design on an Amiga. As a kid in the 1980s, I was playing my Casio SK1 sampling keyboard almost every day. Creating music was never an object of making money from it, it's just in my blood to create it. Still, I appreciate using the best tools to take what is in my head for others to listen to.

(emphasis mine)

At the time of posting this, all 48+7 of those others, apparently - suggesting that contents of your head do not seem to be especially intrancing to the world outside of it.

On the other hand, you seem to be gaining good experience in provocation, judging from how many of us are biting in this thread. Perhaps your true skills lie in politics rather than musical and visual arts, as such?

[...]
I feel sorry for Reaper users, in they not having a DAW built on a modern framework. The development of Reaper seems more like a hobby project for the creator of it.

For someone whose website is a remnant of late 1990s vibe, maybe you're not quite the best person to lecture about shortcomings of REAPER? As in, the speck and the log, and so on - I'm sure you know the saying.

A bit of occasional introspection does good for any one of us. You seem to be late on yours, which would explain the silly bitching about other people's tools instead of using yours for a more fertile purpose.

TLDR: snap out of that silliness, unless you want to become a joke instead of a joker.


***

On-topic: REAPER 7 brings awesome updates in context of what the software is meant to be. Thanks to J & S for their development work, and the REAPER community for manuals, testing and everything else!

[lfm]

Reaper 7 still does not have video thumbnails and frame numbering, unusable for film score.
- thought it was an obvious major thing to add having video editing and stuff already
- but no

StudioOne 6 added thumbnails and this stuff, so closer to getting that as backup daw to Sonar if blackfriday nov 24th have 50% off on upgrades as often before.
- and some new stuff in v6.5 as well like surround

[Guenon]

The INTRANCER posts are like some sort of blast from the past for me, I don't frequent here much these days. There's something that bothers me about the need to post such stuff, seemingly just for the heck of it, in a thread telling you about any such creative tool's new version, of all places.

The main point: setting the tone and starting point for a conversation in this manner merely leads to low-quality debate. There's not much to be gained here. It's idle talk with a negative vibe to it, without enough actual motivation to see someone else's viewpoint.

In other words, there's no use in trying to "convince" someone, of the benefits of Studio One or Reaper or 3D Studio MAX or a specific suite of photographic plugins or whatever , when they approach the discussion in this way from the get go, lambasting some tool and its users, disregarding different use cases people might have for a complex tool like this. It's the sort of "can't do" attitude that would be pretty taxing in any creative team.

People have their own preferences and needs. Those needs can even be pretty elaborate and advanced, and for the people who know their tools and have chosen them for a reason, being confronted with something like this just instantly tells you more about the person with the combative attitude instead of the tools themselves.

So, as I said, there's very little to gain here: the people who have honed their skills on some specific platform, with real-world projects, already know of the strengths and weaknesses, and discussion openers that don't acknowledge those strengths actually outweighing the negatives in very real use cases... come across as merely misinformed, ironically lacking mutual understanding both between people and of the craft. That understanding would be a prerequisite of an actually constructive, lengthy and calm discussion of these matters. If you, instead, just talk down on users of a particular tool, as a group, as if they just absolutely don't "know better", or are otherwise just starting out / clueless... it might not be something that an experienced user even wants to get involved with.

Given that I'm familiar with INTRANCER's posts from the past, I'm just writing this as a counterweight of sorts

The "yeah/no/is too/nuh uh" level of discussion doesn't interest me, and it's more like... repulsive these days. This is not how creative vibes are nurtured - or curious, positive technical approaches for that matter. There are actually people who celebrate someone else's ability to produce new stuff in an efficient manner, no matter what tools they have chosen, and they can talk about their views in a constructive way, if it turns out someone chose differently. One might ask questions, okay wow you are using that, how's it working out for ya, what do you use it for, oh really? That's interesting, in turn I've solved this thing like so... I haven't felt the need to do x... oh I haven't even seen that before... And so on. Ask yourself, what's the actual need for an antagonizing attitude, in matters like this?

I'm in the fortunate position of being able to choose any tools I want, and have been using systems like this for decades. Just mentioning this extensive experience because INTRANCER brought up the history (and capability to choose and assess tools), heh. For my use cases, Reaper has been the most enjoyable, efficient and to-the-point environment I've ever used - for the things I personally use it for.

To summarize, Reaper is used here both for music and sound design, and in both realms it makes my own job snappier. It gels so well with the specific ways I wish to work, and with the specific workloads I usually throw at it.

This is already a wall of text oneshotting post, so I might as well describe some things
I like. Concentrating on the music side, some musings: for example, my default soundtrack sketching template in Reaper - this loads in under two seconds, and then I'm ready to start drafting my idea - currently contains 1355 tracks, most of which are MIDI tracks routed into Kontakt instances that are loaded offline at project startup, without sample preloading, and all multi-outs pre-configured and routed into relevant buses, with appropriate EQ and dynamics and reverb and so on in place.

There are 72 of those Kontakt instances in my default sketching template, each with 16 Kontakt instruments loaded. Also ten Zebra instances, a couple of Divas, a load of bread and butter instances of dynamics processing, EQ, and so on.

When I want to activate an instrument group, say, a Cinematic Studio Woodwinds selection which is all set up, I click that group's track (or activate it using the computer keyboard; in any case, the tracks are organized so that I routinely know where this is), and I use a single hotkey, which brings the relevant Kontakt instance online, instantly preloads the samples from SSDs, and changes the track colors to signify the changed state visually on the project level. This happens in an instant, with one press of a hotkey. Which ever instrument I want to start improvising on, it literally takes a shorter wait to already hear the first note I hit, than it took to read this sentence.

In other words, it's something like a second and a half to load a whole pallette of a project like this (I have several, this is the main one I use for sketching, but I have similarly large ones, for example with custom made ambience librarys in Kontakt, or specifically aimed at casual mobile games or retro games and so on and so forth). Then, by choosing an instrument group I wish to draft and improvise with and record, I bring it online with a single hotkey.

Similarly, no matter whether I'm working on music or sound design, I never load my most often used plugins by turning my attention to some menu or list and choosing it there; I just hit a single hotkey for said plugin. Working on some particular track/channel, and it needs an EQ? Pro-Q 3 is there in a twitch reflex, and I'm already setting the EQ curve, barely even thinking about the actual action of loading the plugin. Need a dynamics plugin, a VCV instance, yet one more Zebra - maybe a bunch of preconfigured tracks, maybe an empty Kontakt instance with separate MIDI tracks routed to different input channels? I just hit a hotkey, and I have what I need, in literally under a second.

This also goes for sidechain routings: need to load a Pro-MB, or a regular single band dynamics plugin, or something else to that effect, so that it's reacting to a sidechain signal from another track? Selecting the appropriate track and hitting a hotkey. Again, no menu selection, no browsing, instead it just is there already, and I'm listening to it and now setting the parameters.

Maybe, in turn, a studio has received a couple of thousand voice actor lines, and the subcontractor has delivered them in a handful of baked recordings, with the lines transcribed in SRT files for time indexes within those long bakes, as they have interpreted a comment of that studio's backend using SRT for cutscenes. Okayyy, this is weird, maybe we should...? Nah, gimme the files. Unwrapping the SRT to project regions, I can easily "zoom into" any single line, using free text search, and also do modifications to lines down the road, if there is any need to update something - also using those lines themselves when rendering out custom named file items, arranging them to the scheme that studio uses, and so on. This has only taken minutes after I learned about the state of the delivered material in the first place. A bit funny and weird, yeah, but an actual user story (of mine) in any case.

Indeed, in the sound design and audio editing/preparation/delivery space, Reaper is ubiquitous in game studios these days, and it's also listed in relevant audio job requirements. These are extremely tech-oriented and expert places that could use any software for these tasks. They simply choose the most efficient environment for the tasks at hand, the software that makes the most sense in a project. If something else made more sense and was more efficient for those workloads, they would use that.

There's just... argh, so much power in Reaper for tasks like this it still blows my mind from time to time

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I switched from Studio One - which I used more or less happily for some years as my linear environment of choice - so in closing I guess I should say something about that. Studio One is a fabulous piece of software that suits sooo many creatives. I liked it for a lot of things. Back when I switched from it, however, it didn't offer me track templates with routings, anything of that sort really. Similarly, there was no ripple editing in the piano roll back then, hahh, there must be nowadays, and that detail kind of grew on me in a bad way as time progressed ... Anyway, the ripple editing seems like a small detail, the track templates and project management stuff (for me) not so much, annnnd in any case I ended up wanting a load of MIDI tools for specific other things, too. Fast MIDI editing is one of Reaper's high points for me. In the end, it was a load of specialized things that just wasn't there, and I had to accept a lot of it seemed to be outside of the focus of that program for the time being, which is of course okay in the grand scheme of things.

All in all, I was left with a feeling that Studio One slowed me down considerably, and it wasn't ready for some of those more specific "now how I'm going to do THIS here?" types of professional situations that I happened to keep ending up with more and more. It is very smooth and comfortable in all the things that it does shine at.

Sooo anyway nowww, enough rambling. Congratulations to anyone who actually read through that. As I said, very little to gain here, but that's where I'm at with all of this, anyway. Nice bumping into you and so on, I just don't want to make a habit of jumping into discussions like this, lol. For anyone interested in these matters, as usual, I recommend trying things out and making up your own mind instead of listening to... well, threads like this, even. Hah. You will find the environment that suits you, and when happily working there, don't lambast someone for using something that didn't gel with you; if they've been at it for a long time, or even (gasp) get paid to do what they do, they might have actually pretty good reasons for that.

[egbert101]

I would absolutely love it if a developer created a minimal DAW for beginners and lazy people. I would use it alongside Reaper.

[carrieres]

I like. Concentrating on the music side, some musings: for example, my default soundtrack sketching template in Reaper - this loads in under two seconds, and then I'm ready to start drafting my idea - currently contains 1355 tracks, most of which are MIDI tracks routed into Kontakt instances that are loaded offline at project startup, without sample preloading, and all multi-outs pre-configured and routed into relevant buses, with appropriate EQ and dynamics and reverb and so on in place.

are you not bothered by what lfm said ?

Reaper 7 still does not have video thumbnails and frame numbering, unusable for film score.

Is this not a problem for you, why ?

[N__K]

[...]
The "yeah/no/is too/nuh uh" level of discussion doesn't interest me, and it's more like... repulsive these days. This is not how creative vibes are nurtured [...]

There is, perhaps, one exception: at best, polarized exchanges can nurture inspiration for writing dramatic content - especially when tools include personal experiences and emotions (aka "write what you know").

A well-argumented forum drama with deeply personal outbursts, precision expletive strikes and some repulsive moments can be inspiring in that regard. After all, almost any product of dramatic entertainment relies on writers' skill of creating a tempest in a teapot and making the audience feel it as something more than that. However, like any scene in any narrative, there is a point after which even the spiciest [forum] exchange becomes dull - and, indeed, cannot serve any creative purpose.

[...] This is already a wall of text oneshotting post, so I might as well describe some things
I like. [...]

Interesting read. Thanks for taking the time to write it!

[chagzuki]

This is OT, though I was wondering if the update might change things and it appears not. I'm probably at some point switching from Logic to Reaper, and while trackpad zooming is perfectly smooth, my MX Master 3 mouse wheel zooms in chunky increments. Would this be peculiar to my mouse, and do other brands result in smooth zooming? The MX Master has optional notched mouse wheel action, but I use it in smooth mode and I don't see why it would interact with Reaper in the manner that it does.

[Guenon]

Is this not a problem for you, why ?

When composing or doing sound design to-picture, I haven't looked at thumbnails in any host while doing the bulk of the work. I have the video output always visible at all times, and this is great use for an extra physical display, btw. For me, seeing the video itself is important, and if there is need for frame-accurate edits, the display corresponds to the edit cursor position on the fly, of course, as it does when selecting regions and time ranges and so on, showing the relevant frame. Also when positioning items in relation to some exact moment, which happens a lot in sound design; grab the item(s), and while positioning them, the video display shows the position you're at. This is my natural workflow, so just describing it and answering your question , not saying that it's better heh.

In any case, thumbnails, for frame accurate edits, would require zooming into the material so that every frame is visible, anyway, and it hasn't generally felt "natural" or faster for me, as I do know what happens in the scene, and I can see the edit position at all times.

+100 for native support for thumbnails, of course. I mean, some currently prefer to automate rendering thumbnails that show on the timeline, within Reaper, when there is the need, but having that happen natively would be a lot slicker and smoother. I haven't had the need to do that.

[Guenon]

Interesting read. Thanks for taking the time to write it!

No prob, thank you, and wishing all the best

[Charlie Firpo]

Regarding automation with vst2 in Reaper: Is it still processing 1 block per buffer? Using buffer size 256 i get some timing issues at different bpm's (for example: no issues at 120 bpm, but increasing it to 122 bpm it starts to miss some sharp stuff). Have to lower it to 128 to manage instant sharp automation. Or is there some preference/option i've missed?

[lfm]

Reaper 7 still does not have video thumbnails and frame numbering, unusable for film score.

Is this not a problem for you, why ?

The text says I am having a problem with that.

[whyterabbyt]

Reaper 7 still does not have video thumbnails and frame numbering, unusable for film score.

Is this not a problem for you, why ?

The text says I am having a problem with that.

he wasnt talking to you, he was asking Guenon.