Reaper - my 18th anniversary summary

[whassup]

Disclaimer up front:
I don't want to start a DAW war, nor will I engage in one nor do I want you to feel bad about your choice of DAW.
Sometimes people have reasons to look for a different DAW (as I was 18 years ago) or want to choose their first one. Just my thoughts, so maybe this is interesting for you. If not, cool. Be my guest.


My first version of Reaper I remember using was 1.882.
Fun fact for that version, it says on the website:

REAPER v1.882 - July 31 2007

So today is "my 18th anniversary" with Reaper.
During that time I bought 4 licenses.
That amounts to $240.

I spare the tears of all users of a certain DAW that I used before by not telling you which one that was and by not directly comparing it to the upgrade prices I would have paid since. But I will do some math for myself for the personal fun of it.
I invested the "change" that I didn't spent on upgrading that competing DAW into many plugins and other music software.
Only to find out that most of that was not necessary or is unwanted now for various reasons. But that is another topic.

Today Reaper can do most of the things that I can think of that I would want to do.
Unlimited of anything: Tracks, plugins on a track, instruments, sends, folders, etc.
Automation is great, Editing is great.
Midi is still one of the weaker points but it does most things that I want and even there I didn't customize everything that I could to improve workflow even further.
Scripts, Macros, almost everything can be assigned to key commands.
Mouse modifiers to deeply modify workflow.
Thousands of possible customizations for almost everything.
I could go on and on like that.
Reaper does a lot. For a very small price.

Reaper is one of those things that defy normal money/value/cost logic.
There are other DAWs that can do certain things that Reaper can't. Or at least to my knowledge.
But after those 18 years I have customized Reaper to such an extent that I guess that it would take me quite some time finding all these functions in other DAWs if they are even available or if they are available by customization as they are in Reaper.

So cheers!
A BIG Thank you to
Justin Frankel the man himself,
all the Reaper devs,
the extensions heroes,
generous free plugin devs,
awesome YouTube contributors, explainers, turorial creators, etc.,
all other contributors that I don't actively think of right now,
and last but not least the awesome Reaper forum community.

[Awats]

I have settled on Reaper but only for the last couple of years. I agree with everything you said.

The only downfall is its excessive customization. It shouldn’t go away though. But there are various “standard” functions that are only available via the Actions. Some of these should have hot keys or icons. I would prefer they focus on the GUI for awhile and less on the many corner case actions.

I just consider this one of the minor points about it. It’s worth every penny even at the commercial level.

[audiojunkie]

I have settled on Reaper but only for the last couple of years. I agree with everything you said.

The only downfall is its excessive customization. It shouldn’t go away though. But there are various “standard” functions that are only available via the Actions. Some of these should have hot keys or icons. I would prefer they focus on the GUI for awhile and less on the many corner case actions.

I just consider this one of the minor points about it. It’s worth every penny even at the commercial level.

But... but... but you CAN assign icons and hot keys to actions......

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=6f6f3e83 ... HWkM&ntb=1

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=0a8efbec ... HWkM&ntb=1

And as for customizing the GUI:

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=cf63bcf7 ... daQw&ntb=1

If that isn't sufficient, you could try this:

https://www.houseofwhitetie.com/reaper/ ... erial.html

Reaper is awesome, and it continues to get better and better! Annnnnd it works on Linux!!

EDIT: If you want to save and recover all of your settings so that you don't have to redo them all by hand, try this:

https://www.reapertips.com/post/how-to- ... r-settings

[Awats]

Thanks, I understand all of that. That's how I deal with it. I've created tons of toolbar icons and scripts. My opinion is the still the same. I shouldn't have to for some actions. They should already be available. But for others it's great to be able to do it.

It's almost cluttered to the point of absurdity. LOL!

[pekbro]

I’ve paid twice, kinda want to renew, but also loathe to pay as ver 6 is still fine.

[audiojunkie]

I've paid 3 times, myself.

[Danilo Villanova]

The REAPER is mighty!

But it CAN be a trap, so keep your focus in the MUSIC, not customizing!

[Michael L]

I wish users could share all their settings as a template ( remote install), to save time customising.

[sandandpaint]

re getting stuck in customisations - rather than try and have the 'ultimate' setup perhaps try a lightweight approach. Customise away, particularly keystrokes and their icons, and just throw them away when not using. After a while it becomes very quick to make a toolbar or a few icons, macros etc. But dont think of them as something permanent unless for a very specific and often used function. All the zillions of things you can do with customisation can be a real trap unless you either have exactly the same workflow every time you use it or you go the other way and customise on the fly.

[audiojunkie]

I wish users could share all their settings as a template ( remote install), to save time customising.

You can. One person can back up their Reaper settings (See the link I added in my post above). That person can then send the customizations to another person who can import them.

[whassup]

Customization: Yes and no.
I can't count the many hours I spent on this!
On the other hand I now have a DAW that does so much of what I want that it is almost rediculous.
Back in the days that was so not possible.
Nowadays with AI it is way eeasier to get what I want.
"Write a script for me that does..."
But as always, if you don't know you simply don't.
I rather have a deeeeeep pit of "maybe Reaper can do this, let's find out..."
than
"Well, ProCubLiveStudioWig can't do that, so..."

[Michael L]

I wish users could share all their settings as a template ( remote install), to save time customising.

You can. One person can back up their Reaper settings (See the link I added in my post above). That person can then send the customizations to another person who can import them.

Great. Kenny told me that was not possible because each computer system is different.
Is there a forum where people share their settings for different use cases?

[audiojunkie]

I wish users could share all their settings as a template ( remote install), to save time customising.

You can. One person can back up their Reaper settings (See the link I added in my post above). That person can then send the customizations to another person who can import them.

Great. Kenny told me that was not possible because each computer system is different.
Is there a forum where people share their settings for different use cases?

If Kenny told you it wasn't impossible, then maybe it isn't possible (he's pretty on top of things as far as Reaper goes. But as far as I can tell, if both users are using the same version and don't need anything special (like externally made themes), it seems like it should simply work.

[Michael L]

I wish users could share all their settings as a template ( remote install), to save time customising.

You can. One person can back up their Reaper settings (See the link I added in my post above). That person can then send the customizations to another person who can import them.

Great. Kenny told me that was not possible because each computer system is different.
Is there a forum where people share their settings for different use cases?

If Kenny told you it wasn't impossible, then maybe it isn't possible (he's pretty on top of things as far as Reaper goes. But as far as I can tell, if both users are using the same version and don't need anything special (like externally made themes), it seems like it should simply work.

Is there a Reaper forum where users share settings?
I searched before I asked Kenny, but I never found one.
It would save a lot of time customizing, which of course is everyone's biggest complaint.

[whassup]

My educated guess is that a portable install is just that. Portable.
I haven't tried yet to port it elsewhere and I don't remember what motivated me to do one but my current Reaper setup is running as a portable install on my SSD.
Sure paths like VSTplugins folder(s) would have to be adjusted to a new environment.