Why you left REAPER?

[antic604]

I gave Reaper another try yesterday and I think I know what bugs me about it.

1) It's not really designed for MIDI work - in order to get to the instrument you need to press... FX button, you can't easily add an empty MIDI clip to instrument track, the MIDI editor is incredibly wonky, automating stuff requires to dig through huge list of available parameters, editing automation is a joke: need to hold Shift to add points, Alt to delete points, can't see any way to box-select stuff

2) Everything is customisable, but defaults are just wrong. For example 2-finger swipes on trackpad don't scroll vertically, I already mentioned the ridiculous automation editing, whenever you add a MIDI note the playhead jumps to that position, etc.

I KNOW most (all?) of the above can be adjusted, but one would have to spend half a day to go through all the menus & settings. Other DAWs I tried are 90% there out of the box. Reaper is maybe 20-30%.

I'll definitely be back to check it on v7, but as of now it's simply not for me, even though I really see how hugely powerful it is.

[RafaelMorgan]

The same reasons others have described.

We all know Reaper is very powerful, but its features are all very badly organized.

It comes to a point that it's just uninspiring...You know, I'd like my DAW to help me think outside the box (or at least not stay in the way), not keep demanding me to interact with boxes within boxes within boxes.

All Reaper needs is a deeply extensive UI and ergonomic reconstruction. They should really start from scratch.

[chk071]

Everything is customisable, but defaults are just wrong.

I tried Reaper v6 a couple of days ago, and wondered why automatic record arm when changing track focus isn't the default option in it (it's the default in any other DAW I know). So, yeah, can confirm that.

[Trancit]

Tbh I encountered not a single DAW where the defaults suited me...
In every DAW I have to go inside to change things to my need, develop my own workflow by using/adding/changing my keycommands etc...pp...

I don´t think that´s a disadvantage of Reaper... this is it´s biggest strength that you can dive deep in (if you want to) and even define what your mouse does...
My biggest issue with Reaper is that it lacks of many advanced features and therefore heavily relies on user scripts to fill more or less efficient the gaps... while it´s a good thing that user can add their own stuff and I appreciate their work very much but the end results when needing a GUI are simply unuseable for me respectively too complicated... this stuff is so ugly and cluttered that everytime I try to use it I loose my enthusiasm immediately and can just think WTF...

If I compare professional designed tools like S1 new Pattern Editor with "Mega Sequence Baby" or S1´s, Cubase´s or even Waveform´s Chord Track to the Reaper user scripts (again much appreciated that they try to come up with something) I have really to smile and say to myself: Good joke...

Reaper is a great tool and my biggest respect to all the nerds (this is meant in a positive sense) who are smart enough to be able to do cool stuff with this but I really prefer to have something which doesn´t cause eye cancer and has a good oversight respectively is useable out of the box...

[JoseC.]

Same here. I gave it a serious try some years ago, and I go back to it from time to time to see how it is going. I call it the Ikea DAW. I don´t like the DIY paradigm in software, sorry. I can see its potential value, especially for creating customized workflows for audio recording and editing, but as a creative tool is a mood killer for me. Midi used to be horrible, but for what I can see now it has improved to be barely adequate. Midi timing still seems to suck, though. I don´t know how it is in version 6, but I used to be able to crash version 4 repeatedly throwing live midi to it from external hardware synced to it . A couple of arpeggiators and a sequence or two and Reaper went belly up. Or placed the recorded midi wherever it could, almost always out of place. Anyway, I think it is a nice toolbox to have around, and I can certainly understand why some people swear by it.

[antic604]

Tbh I encountered not a single DAW where the defaults suited me...
In every DAW I have to go inside to change things to my need, develop my own workflow by using/adding/changing my keycommands etc...pp...

True, but - at least for MIDI workflow - Reaper was for me 20-30% there, whereas Bitwig, Live, Reason or S1 are 70-80%. That is hell of a lot of difference to inform the initial impression.

[dupont]

I left Reaper 5 for Reaper 6

[jonljacobi]

Reaper is like reading a technical manual rather than a good novel.

[chk071]

[TheMaestro]

Reaper is like reading a technical manual rather than a good novel.

As if anyone here reads good novels.
And no, FL Studio trance lead tutorials are not novels.

[Stormin Norman]

[Danilo Villanova]

My problem with REAPER can be summarized like this: it keeps me in an uncreative, left-brain mode.

[Milford]

I haven't left Reaper, but I'm taking a break.
I love Reaper, it feels like home, but tbh, I don't have a lot of experience with other DAWs. I've been taking advantage of recent "at-home" time to learn FL Studio, because I wanted to try something completely different. It's messing with my head, but I really like FLS too and I think the two combined will be a good combination for me.
My day-job - I've been a software engineer for 30 years, so I'm used to making software bend to my needs, and I'm cool with that with Reaper. And the $200 I paid for FL Studio Pro is the most I've ever paid for a piece of software, so in that respect, all those "big-boy" DAWs are out of my league. (I'm a hobbyist, obv)

[spigmu]

" I dived into the customization even more, determined to make it exactly how I want it, and now I’ll never look back."

That there, still remains a fundamental problem with Reaper, as it doesn't matter how much customisation you do, the end result always ends up looking horrible and dated regardless, and it's still the case today.

That there, is your ignorance.
You can make Reaper look like what ever you want. Skin it, color it, make the layout the way you want.
And your horrible taste in GUI's doesn't matter to me anyway.

Not true. The ability to change the theme in major ways is a plus, but unless you're into coding you can't change much beyond the Theme Tweaking, which is mostly for changing basics, such as colors, sizes, positions, etc. You can't make Reaper look however you want. For a completely different look you can choose from the many themes in their Stash. The new user cannot change it to these on their own and neither can 98% of users after a year. And honestly, reviewing every theme in there many are worse than the default, many are wonderful eye candy that don't make the experience better except that you don't have to look at the Windows95 default.

The GUI has less to do with the theme than what the app can do, and it's not everything in the world. Mainly, for me, everything, from file editing to track manipulation is item based. When you really want something to be track based the option is sometimes quite a kludge. Track grouping and the take system come to mind.

But where Reaper really fails, for me, is in midi editing. It's good if you do EDM or disco. Extremely unproductive if doing unquantized piano or multiple unquantized/played keyboard parts. I still use Reaper for what I feel it does well but I'm done with torturing myself for anything but the simplest midi (as in the same kind of midi tracks played on every Reaper tutorial I've ever seen) and multitrack audio moving around and track editing. I use it for ideas and as a very efficient DAW that can take any plugin, thanks to developer not having a dog in the race of aligning with any format. But it started out as a DAW that seemed like the developer had never been in a recording studio, and graduated to a DAW that could be used in a recording studio but the dev had never witnessed a session or talked to people working in the field, until now, as it has evolved beyond that but still has too many ties to its original concept.

[himalaya]

automating stuff requires to dig through huge list of available parameters

There is an easier way to do it. Touch a knob you want to automate and then select 'Show track envelope' from the 'Param' droop down menu. Quick and easy.

2) Everything is customisable, but defaults are just wrong. For example 2-finger swipes on trackpad don't scroll vertically.

This is what I loved about Reaper from day one. For me the default behaviour is how I want it. But, all you need to do is to move the mouse cursor to the track pane and the two-finger swipe will move everything vertically. A smart design that does not need a key-modifier to manoeuvre vertically and horizontally.