Is REAPER the current best long term choice?

[jancivil]

You must customise Reaper for each use case, and at best have a 'portable install' for each.
Kenny Gioia has made eight (8) Reaper portable installs for his different uses.
This is different from how other DAWs work. Not better/worse, just different.
That approach does not fit how I work now, but maybe in the future?

it's worse. sorry, that is a massive waste of time completely inessential to music making and in the way majorly, a completely different hobby actually.

[syntonica]

Yes Reaper doesn't have upgrade or update price

It does, if you are actually honest and pay for it. You get two major versions of updates before you pay again, which is cheaper than the majority of other DAWs yearly upgrade prices.

[jancivil]

Cubase can't even assign VSTi's to their proper midi input channels.

what does that even MEAN, "proper" input channels. one supposes REAPER then read your mind on that one magically. Something is very off with your understanding of some real basics. It's like in your head there are 'ought to be' automatic assigments? We have to work in our imagination from this point. this is some bullshit though.

[ghettosynth]

Yes Reaper doesn't have upgrade or update price

? yes it does, I have 6, 7 is the same price as what I paid for 6.
People confuse a generous nagware with free.

Once paid, reaper isn't nagware any longer. You can disable the check for updates and it just runs as it did before the update that you have to pay for if you want the features. Obviously if you have not purchased it, then you have an initial purchase price, after that though, the upgrade/update prices is the same as the purchase price after two updates. So there isn't a distinct upgrade or update price. Additionally, if someone is new to Reaper they might not realize that you only get one major version transition for free.

Summary for the noobs:

1) Reaper is not free, it costs either $60/$225 depending whether you are a commercial user. Details on the website, most KVR users don't need to buy the commercial license. Reaper is nagware and will continue to run indefinitely making you wait some amount of time at startup. This is the only technical distinction in terms of features. However, legally, you cannot use Reaper without paying past the initial demo period.

2) Whatever version you buy Reaper at you may use it through the next major upgrade and all minor upgrades to the next major without paying anything additional. So, if you buy version 5.0, you will get all updates until the last 6.x version for free and will have to pay at 7.0. The same holds if you buy at 5.9x.

3) Once you have to pay for a version transition, the price is exactly the same as the new purchase price of either $60/$225.

[Srae]

? yes it does, I have 6, 7 is the same price as what I paid for 6.
People confuse a generous nagware with free.

7 is free for you

I recently came across a plugin developer on youtube who's used it for 12+ years without ever paying. Made me wonder if some non-english speaking people actually think it's free.

[ghettosynth]

? yes it does, I have 6, 7 is the same price as what I paid for 6.
People confuse a generous nagware with free.

7 is free for you

I recently came across a plugin developer on youtube who's used it for 12+ years without ever paying. Made me wonder if some non-english speaking people actually think it's free.

Of course people think that it's free, or are willfully ignorant that it isn't. You have to wait for some seconds before the still evaluation button lights up so I really don't know how one could do that day in and day out and not know that it's not supposed to work that way.

[syntonica]

? yes it does, I have 6, 7 is the same price as what I paid for 6.
People confuse a generous nagware with free.

7 is free for you

I recently came across a plugin developer on youtube who's used it for 12+ years without ever paying. Made me wonder if some non-english speaking people actually think it's free.

Of course people think that it's free, or are willfully ignorant that it isn't. You have to wait for some seconds before the still evaluation button lights up so I really don't know how one could do that day in and day out and not know that it's not supposed to work that way.

Just never close the program.

[ghettosynth]

? yes it does, I have 6, 7 is the same price as what I paid for 6.
People confuse a generous nagware with free.

7 is free for you

I recently came across a plugin developer on youtube who's used it for 12+ years without ever paying. Made me wonder if some non-english speaking people actually think it's free.

Of course people think that it's free, or are willfully ignorant that it isn't. You have to wait for some seconds before the still evaluation button lights up so I really don't know how one could do that day in and day out and not know that it's not supposed to work that way.

Just never close the program.

Right, but, in order to know that's a strategy, you would have to be annoyed by the nag in the first place. Pretty unlikely IMNSHO, as while Reaper is very reliable, computers are typically less so. You'd also have to never upgrade your operating system to make that work.

Funny, but not buying it.

[Srae]

Of course people think that it's free, or are willfully ignorant that it isn't. You have to wait for some seconds before the still evaluation button lights up so I really don't know how one could do that day in and day out and not know that it's not supposed to work that way.

I meant from the perspective of "this is free, or you can spend $60 to get rid of this annoying popup" unaware that it's not actually free and you're supposed to purchase it after 60 days. I'm sure there are some innocent non english speaking souls out there that genuinely believe it's freeware with a nuisance screen.

[syntonica]

Just never close the program.

Right, but, in order to know that's a strategy, you would have to be annoyed by the nag in the first place. Pretty unlikely IMNSHO, as while Reaper is very reliable, computers are typically less so. You'd also have to never upgrade your operating system to make that work.

Funny, but not buying it.

There's also some "not caring enough to actually read the splash/intro screen" in there. People don't care, they just heard from a friend/read on the internet that Reaper is FREE! As in beer. I'm sure they read nothing of the website to download it, as well.

[rj0]

Reaper was in version 3 back in 2010, was version 6 until late last year (2023),
so 1 purchase, 1 upgrade for about 13 years of active current license.

That works out to about $10/year for the Pro/Small Business license.

After that, one could skip a version or so until some new feature catches one's attention,
and the last purchased version (e.g. 6) would continue to work without nag screens.

If people would prefer to put up with a nag screen rather than that, well ...

[machinesworking]

Reaper was in version 3 back in 2010, was version 6 until late last year (2023),
so 1 purchase, 1 upgrade for about 13 years of active current license.

That works out to about $10/year for the Pro/Small Business license.

After that, one could skip a version or so until some new feature catches one's attention,
and the last purchased version (e.g. 6) would continue to work without nag screens.

If people would prefer to put up with a nag screen rather than that, well ...

I bought 5.8 or 9 don't remember, so after a normal amount of time in three years it's now at 7 and I don't get 7 for free. It's better than most upgrades by a long shot unless you happen to be on Mac with Logic, or Luna, but it worked out for me to be what I consider a normal upgrade cycle of three years. Bes case scenario is upgrade at .0 and you get the best bang for your buck.

[ghettosynth]

? yes it does, I have 6, 7 is the same price as what I paid for 6.
People confuse a generous nagware with free.

7 is free for you

I recently came across a plugin developer on youtube who's used it for 12+ years without ever paying. Made me wonder if some non-english speaking people actually think it's free.

Context just hit me. A plugin dev probably doesn't care about the nag screen if they're only using it to test their plugin. I would take the cheapest route possible on all DAWs that were not ones that I used for music production as well.

[machinesworking]

? yes it does, I have 6, 7 is the same price as what I paid for 6.
People confuse a generous nagware with free.

7 is free for you

I recently came across a plugin developer on youtube who's used it for 12+ years without ever paying. Made me wonder if some non-english speaking people actually think it's free.

Context just hit me. A plugin dev probably doesn't care about the nag screen if they're only using it to test their plugin. I would take the cheapest route possible on all DAWs that were not ones that I used for music production as well.

I would bet some of the easiest NFR's to get are when you're a plugin developer.

[ghettosynth]

nm