Why you left REAPER?

[NERF_PROTOSS]

You really must be trying to miss the whole point here. REAPER is ugly af. This is not conducive to some people.
I am not reliant on a DAW for musical ideas, so I have no resemblence to this dull straw man at all. You have seized on the word 'uninspiring' to concoct a (fairly elaborate) story about people needing inspiration from the GUI. it's bullshit.
REAPER is SO ugly I simply want to quit it ASAP. It's not terrifically different than wanting a quality of light which is conducive to mood, but you're stuck with a glaring light where you need to leave the room.
Yeah, it sounds very condescending - in a reach - and as though you simply cannot recognize people might be different than you.

I was talking about the word 'inspiring' because that's the word people were using. I didn't say anything about workflow or functionality or ease of use, and I definitely didn't say you had to like reaper or find it pleasant to use or look at, so this whole weird defensive spiel calling my post a straw man is, funnily enough, a giant straw man

[digitalboytn]

These days I prefer the Reaper 5 skin with a few small tweaks...

It's very clear and gives me all of the information I need in both the sequencing and the mix windows...

I can't believe that they can wrap so much goodness up in such a small installer...

It must be the "modest" graphics...

Check out the Arturia Soft synths as an example on the other end of the scale...

The photo realistic GUI component is HUGE,but the actual .dll synth component is rather small...

We need to remember that music is all about what we hear with our ears and not what we see with our eyes...

The lines get blurred when we are making music in the digital domain,but our ears should still be the main contributor to any musical evaluation

[jancivil]

That thing again, sheesh.
it manages to stick to the least offensive colors, grey and white so it's far better than the default. Otherwise it's like fan fiction as regards a mixer.
So as an interface to use, well I want out of that room but quick as well.

[jancivil]

You really must be trying to miss the whole point here. REAPER is ugly af. This is not conducive to some people.
I am not reliant on a DAW for musical ideas, so I have no resemblence to this dull straw man at all. You have seized on the word 'uninspiring' to concoct a (fairly elaborate) story about people needing inspiration from the GUI. it's bullshit.
REAPER is SO ugly I simply want to quit it ASAP. It's not terrifically different than wanting a quality of light which is conducive to mood, but you're stuck with a glaring light where you need to leave the room.
Yeah, it sounds very condescending - in a reach - and as though you simply cannot recognize people might be different than you.

I was talking about the word 'inspiring' because that's the word people were using. I didn't say anything about workflow or functionality or ease of use, and I definitely didn't say you had to like reaper or find it pleasant to use or look at, so this whole weird defensive spiel calling my post a straw man is, funnily enough, a giant straw man

No, I stand by every word, it replies directly to your points. You came up with 'inspiring', people were not going around saying 'I need to be inspired by __', and you elaborated on your point by saying you go for a walk it you need "visual inspiration". You seem to think gaslighting me as to what I read and wrote is a good tactic for deflection but in fact that 'inspiration needed' bit was all you. "Defensive", look, I don't actually care about what you think, and find the whole matter pretty trivial in the end.

Maybe you could respond to the analogy or have a point.

I also am somebody who likes clothes to match well and keep a room a certain way, softly lit. I color code track types, I am acknowledging the visual aspect to the process for me. If you don't get it, no surprise there, that was quite clear.
You told a story and you keep telling stories, it's tiresome. Now you seem to want a different look than you gave, whatever. Rubbed me the wrong way at the moment and this only reinforces the feeling.

[NERF_PROTOSS]

No, I stand by every word, it replies directly to your points. You came up with 'inspiring', people were not going around saying 'I need to be inspired by __', and you elaborated on your point by saying you go for a walk it you need "visual inspiration". You seem to think gaslighting me as to what I read and wrote is a good tactic for deflection but in fact that 'inspiration needed' bit was all you. "Defensive", look, I don't actually care about what you think, and find the whole matter pretty trivial in the end.

Maybe you could respond to the analogy or have a point.

I also am somebody who likes clothes to match well and keep a room a certain way, softly lit. I color code track types, I am acknowledging the visual aspect to the process for me. If you don't get it, no surprise there, that was quite clear.
You told a story and you keep telling stories, it's tiresome. Now you seem to want a different look than you gave, whatever. Rubbed me the wrong way at the moment and this only reinforces the feeling.

once again, I didn't say anything about workflow or functionality or ease of use, and I definitely didn't say you had to like reaper or find it pleasant to use or look at. hey, I'll do you one better - I think reaper is ugly and I don't like that its ugly. 'gaslighting' lol

I'm in agreement that this is trivial, so you may have the last word in another rambling straw manning essay

[lessera]

You really must be trying to miss the whole point here. REAPER is ugly af.

Really Jan? That's the 'whole point' here? That may be your point, but it isn't the 'whole point' of this discussion.

I am not reliant on a DAW for musical ideas, so I have no resemblence to this dull straw man at all. You have seized on the word 'uninspiring' to concoct a (fairly elaborate) story about people needing inspiration from the GUI. it's bullshit.

Are you inferring that NP adopted some random straw-man argument on a whim? If so, then perhaps the below quotes (taken directly from this thread alone) might clear-the-air as to why he/she brought up the 'inspiration' argument of a very multi-faceted discussion (yes, there are more 'points' being made within this discussion beyond simply, "Reaper = ugly AF").

To me Reaper represents the opposite of Ableton Live in the inspiration & user experience dimension (with traditional mainstream DAWs like Cubase, Logic and now Studio One sitting somewhere in between on the spectrum)...

The Gui depressed me, I tried various skins that made it feel good until I started drilling down into the dialog's that look like they were designed by someone who gets inspired by notepad...

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...

If your music creation tool looks and feels like a german turbine factory from the 90s it just might be a little bit uninspiring...

[Eclectrophonic]

I like the darkroom analogy; most modern DAWs are akin to those booths in supermarkets nowadays where you plug your SD card or whatever in, play with the options and get your photos printed. Reaper is more like an old school darkroom, if you don't put the time in then, yeah, you may see a complex array of options, it doesn't hold your hand. But put the time in and you can do anything. Though IMO you don't need to put the time in for the basics, more logically laid out than, say, Bitwig for simple real instrument recording.

Yeah I've been using it 6 months now (but had it a year) and at first Reaper is very complex seeming and the UI is horrible lol! but now I've got used to it, it's actually simple. I find it easy. Automation, adding stretch markers to audio and tweaking, undo history, midi editing is excellent and yeah, find it a breeze.

Just wish they'd put in a proper browser with drag 'n' drop (although got HeDa's Track Templates which is amazing) and UI's on the instruments and effects and obviously ReaSynth would need advancing too but if they just UI'd the necessary few, synth, sampler, EQ, Compressor, Reverb, Delay, that would be a good start.

[machinesworking]

I'm still in limbo honestly trying to decide on a solid MPE capable host. Reaper is always exciting to open, I love the new dark mode, it finally looks really good with some of the darker skins, no huge blank white canvases whenever I open up the track plug ins window.
It's currently buggy with MIDI editing while the transport is running. I've always hated it's default mouse section behaviors in the editor and I can't ever seem to get it to conform to something akin to Logic or DP.. Anyway, it's amazing, and frustrating all at the same time, selection in the arrange window is also just, ugly. I love pretty much everything about it, but some parts that do not seem adjustable drive me nuts.

[Eclectrophonic]

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.

What do you want Reaper to do, write the song for you? It's up to you to come up with the ideas and write the songs. I agree the GUI is crap, it does need a really really great theme that looks (not the same but as good as) like Logic or FL Studio and give a good 20 of it's plug-ins GUI's too and improve their functionality a lot, the browser could do with a good GUI too with thumbnails etc. Apart from that though, I find it a great really advanced daw but that is coming from Reason. There's just a few things missing:- dump to midi, wait for midi, chord / key display and scalable VST's (is that the job of the daw or the VST?) but apart from the GUI stuff, it's great.

[Eclectrophonic]

Justin should sit down with some power users and also power users of another DAW and go over every default, from mouse modifier behavior pref tabs to DAW terms. For all I know he may have regularly, but the result gives the impression of not. Why "exploding" instead of "splitting", like everyone else calls it for just one small example, which makes it frustrating to find this function, and turning a stereo track into two mono tracks, using either term, isn't in the manual, IIRC.

Yeah Pooled Items isn't in the manual either. I couldn't look up their behaviour and sometimes still (after 8 months) don't understand it. I end up turning 'loop item source' off in the Item settings and dragging the beginning and end of an item out and using the S (Split) to split the clips both ends and then turn the 'loop item source' back on and it sometimes works sometimes doesn't.

[Eclectrophonic]

If I wanted to use something that looks and works like Linux, I'd just use Linux, but I don't because like Reaper, Linux is a dog, and like Linux hardly anyone uses it, and like Linux it will never get anywhere, just sit there with 4 1/2 people using it, always waiting for that day that will never come.

REAPER is probably the most used DAW.

Look here:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=544889

Not too many Reaper fans

I'm surprised Bitwig and Ableton are winning on that thread (which I started btw lol!) then Studio One and Logic in 3rd place.

I would put either Logic or FL Studio at the top. Studio One and Ableton have horrible GUI's imo.

[david.beholder]

Does 6.x have proper session view and fast key/midi mapping?

[jancivil]

I am not reliant on a DAW for musical ideas, so I have no resemblence to this dull straw man at all. You have seized on the word 'uninspiring' to concoct a (fairly elaborate) story about people needing inspiration from the GUI. it's bullshit.

Are you inferring that NP adopted some random straw-man argument on a whim? If so, then perhaps the below quotes (taken directly from this thread alone) might clear-the-air as to why he/she brought up the 'inspiration' argument of a very multi-faceted discussion (yes, there are more 'points' being made within this discussion beyond simply, "Reaper = ugly AF").

So it was 'my' whole point; the context of the argument at that juncture.
I think the word you want is imply, am I implying something. It's pretty clear if you know the term. Here's another way of saying it, making up a story: about users who need inspiration from the GUI in order to get started. Now if you can find something where I said 'you're just adopting some random strawman argument on a whim'...
Which is nonsense and I don't know what the point is except to stir shit.
Infer means to induce or deduce by means of evidence and reasoning rather than have to go by something explicit like a statement. 'Reading between the lines' is similar.
I would infer NERF PROTOSS is the usual type of fanboi who likes to insinuate and impute stupid shit to people that just don't like the same things.

Here they did have an explicit statement reinforcing their point, they get out and go for a walk if they need inspiration. No inference needed.
So I was just being a stickler, 'it's depressing to look at' is one thing, but people who need the GUI to inspire them like a walk in nature or a sunset is another. It struck me how it struck me, without re-rehearsing that.
What was the actual statement? An exaggeration of people who are supposed to be something something. ie., deficient to them in their pure working by ears modi operandi, if only because they find REAPER ugly; to wit:

people wanting things to look a certain way to be 'inspiring' is alien to me because I make music with my ears. I know how condescending that sounds, people wanting things to look a certain way to be 'inspiring' is alien to me because I make music with my ears. I know how condescending that sounds, but seriously - how do we imagine anything is/was ever done on hardware samplers with tiny LCD screens? or a tracker?

Yep, it's still some bullshit. It groups every person with a certain disposition into this thing which is supposed to look silly. I stand by every word of my little objection to that. So my response, being a person that does want her environment to be as unobtrusive as possible if not downright pleasant, yet was doing music a generation before any of this tech even existed am just not part of that story or part of that non sequitur strawman.

I described loop points in hex on a display just about the size of my thumb in a day where all sustained samples were a result of looping. I come from when editing audio was typically a splicing deck on the face of the Otari with actual scrubbing, a greasepaint pencil to indicate where to cut, a razor blade, and tape.
In summation: PROTOSS is telling a stupid story (about another person they never had a conversation with) they know is condescending in regards to people insulting his choice of DAW. And I felt like saying something.

[machinesworking]

Just got back from a friends house that owns a recording studio. He's been trying out Reaper and had questions about comping and track takes. I had no good answers for him, IMO this is an area where Reaper is a PITA, comping is just prehistoric, compared to any other DAW with comping. Track takes are just, weird, the whole layering of takes without separate clean takes you can select is a head scratcher. It more or less treats takes as an 'item', so looking at a shorter take reveals and plays parts of the take under it.
Anyway, the whole system is just not intuitive or user friendly, if I have some time I'll look into it more but realistically he has Studio One, and that works just
fine comping and takes wise.

[trusampler]

the need for a decent browser. I can't believe after all these years, reaper still has one of the weakest browsers of any daw..