Cakewalk is dead. Long live Cakewalk!

[dellboy]

Mine too...Reaper IS the Linux of DAW's. Does anything you need if you program it. Maybe if you have time after getting it setup(or answering posts, even ones not about it or in defence of it) you might have time to make some music.

Just kidding...

I wonder if there is a template or whatever Reaper uses that makes it behave just like Sonar ?

[EvilDragon]

Mine too...Reaper IS the Linux of DAW's. Does anything you need if you program it. Maybe if you have time after getting it setup(or answering posts, even ones not about it or in defence of it) you might have time to make some music.

It's not like there aren't any people using Reaper with its default setup to make music... Mainly those who don't have the baggage of using a different DAW previously, I'd assume. If you have no baggage, then you're not bothered by the way Reaper is setup. If you're used to certain things, then of course when a DAW has means of adjusting lots of prefs, you'd want to make it so that it worked as you've used to before. But really the best way to approach Reaper is as a clean slate and make it your own.


Incidentally, we've seen a decent number of Sonar refugees on the forum after the lights were turned off, and a number of them were very happy with what they found in Reaper and decided to stick. Some of them even said their eyes were opened after the initial Reaper experience, believe it or not.

Mine too...Reaper IS the Linux of DAW's. Does anything you need if you program it. Maybe if you have time after getting it setup(or answering posts, even ones not about it or in defence of it) you might have time to make some music.

Just kidding...

I wonder if there is a template or whatever Reaper uses that makes it behave just like Sonar ?

There's one guy working on Sonar to Reaper project file converter, as far as themes and keyboard shortcuts and mouse modifiers, I'm not sure if that exists (looks like there is: https://stash.reaper.fm/theme/1385/Alternate.zip). Reaper natively supports Cakewalk's .ins instrument definition files, btw, which can come in handy I'd assume, for certain workflows.

[dellboy]

There's one guy working on Sonar to Reaper project file converter, as far as themes and keyboard shortcuts and mouse modifiers, I'm not sure if that exists (looks like there is: https://stash.reaper.fm/theme/1385/Alternate.zip). Reaper natively supports Cakewalk's .ins instrument definition files, btw, which can come in handy I'd assume, for certain workflows.

Thanks for the link.

I have tried it,and it is a nice theme,but it does not seem to be Sonar related. Seems more like Studio One ?

[EvilDragon]

Nope, it actually looks like one of previous versions of Sonar, it doesn't look like Skylight theme, I think it's X1 inspired.

[jens]

Mine too...Reaper IS the Linux of DAW's. Does anything you need if you program it. Maybe if you have time after getting it setup(or answering posts, even ones not about it or in defence of it) you might have time to make some music.

It's not like there aren't any people using Reaper with its default setup to make music... Mainly those who don't have the baggage of using a different DAW previously, I'd assume. If you have no baggage, then you're not bothered by the way Reaper is setup. If you're used to certain things, then of course when a DAW has means of adjusting lots of prefs, you'd want to make it so that it worked as you've used to before. But really the best way to approach Reaper is as a clean slate and make it your own.

It's not just that - for typical needs, Reaper is not very user-friendly in its default state - it's pretty obvious that its creators do not regularly use it somewhat conventionally - here is just one quick (the first arbitrary thing that comes to my mind) super-simple example:

for many years Reatune's tuner has its "Window size" (a parameter that your typical DAW/VST tuner does not even possess) set to "30" - this however does not work e.g. on bass-guitars - for the latter, you need to set it (every time you load it up) to "50", which will work on most other sources just fine too.

Things like that can be found throughout Reaper.

Snapping? There are a zillion parameters, yet at some point I gave up trying to find a setting that does what I think it ought do - when I zoom out to move or copy-paste (say) 16 bars, it will look just fine, but then later on I often realize it's just a tiny bit off and I have no f**king idea what it snapped to - certainly not to the bar as I wanted it to. I got used to just shrugging it off and correcting it manually (not always as easy for me as one would think).

Perhaps I am just too dumb, however I typically get my head around sequencers just fine.


I could go on for hours...

I love Reaper for many reasons, but I got so tired of using it because it's a hack from hackers for hackers.
And just as is the case with Linux, the hackers will always pretend it's super-simple - just like that math-teacher in school.
He can't explain it and can't comprehend why you wouldn't understand the most simple things.

[jens]

I just started using Reason b.t.w. - oh what a joy to use!

[InLight-Tone]

Reaper is impressive in many regards but has some glaring problems, notably CC editing even with Julian's scripts which are fiddly at best. I would call it the Emacs of DAW's...

[dellboy]

Nope, it actually looks like one of previous versions of Sonar, it doesn't look like Skylight theme, I think it's X1 inspired.

Sonar X1 appears to be pre - 2011.

Not much good for todays Sonar,which seems to me to be light years away from that clunky old interface. I for one was never interested in Sonar until recently,and ironically that was after they went bust. They seem to have made huge improvements in recent years and have made it a very nice Daw.

I am surprised that Reaper seems to lack modularity which would enable it to imitate other Daws. For instance, is the transport bar stuck in just one place ? Can it have side browsers like so many othe Daws ?

[EvilDragon]

No you can put transport on bottom, or top, or undock it... You can dock the media browser to wherever (left/right/top/bottom)...

[EvilDragon]

for many years Reatune's tuner has its "Window size" (a parameter that your typical DAW/VST tuner does not even possess) set to "30" - this however does not work e.g. on bass-guitars - for the latter, you need to set it (every time you load it up) to "50", which will work on most other sources just fine too.

So save a preset for it like you would for any other plugin? Or you can save it as DEFAULT preset which would load up every time (every DAW has this option for plugins, so you can't say this is somehow different in Reaper).


Regarding the snapping thing you mention, this is a bit hard to troubleshoot like this without knowing which snap settings you had... I myself have no problems with the specific thing you mention.


By the way, Reaper's roots themselves are unconventional: it stems from Sony Vegas, since that was the DAW Justin used before creating Reaper, and sort of went along with many of its own idiosyncracies from the get go (the way looping items works, right-click for marquee, etc. etc. etc.)


It's VERY far from being Emacs, though.

[whyterabbyt]

By the way, Reaper's roots themselves are unconventional: it stems from Sony Vegas, since that was the DAW Justin used before creating Reaper

Vegas is a video editor, though, not a DAW.

[chk071]

Cakewalk is dead. Killed by the grim Reaper!

[EvilDragon]

By the way, Reaper's roots themselves are unconventional: it stems from Sony Vegas, since that was the DAW Justin used before creating Reaper

Vegas is a video editor, though, not a DAW.

Exactly, it is a video editor, but it also supports VSTs and up to 192k audio processing so it CAN be used as a DAW too. Justin wanted to do audio Vegas-style, but improve it his way. Cue Reaper. Also, Reaper does edit video, as well (not sure if it does so as good as Vegas did, I never used Vegas)...

[CTStump]

Cakewalk is dead. Killed by the grim Reaper!

Or so it would seem as this thread is considered.

[chk071]

I can understand it though. Not too much info about Sonar, or any other former Cakewalk product yet coming from Bandlab.