Why you left REAPER?

[The Grim]

Or perhaps the question should be "Why didn't you stick with REAPER after you demo'd it?"

Now we all know most people just start up REAPER and see the hideously ugly UI, the complete lack of consistency and cohesiveness between various aspects of it's interface, going one second from the just plain fugly standard, to those hideous Windows 95 esq windows/screens like the add FX windows etc, and then the totally chaotic menus and what have you, they just shut it down never to return again. Even though REAPER is very customizable, that doesn't seem to fix the issue, as with custom themes, they all seem to come with their own issues and annoyances.

So why did you leave REAPER?, was it the above, or was it other reasons like it's reliance on dodgy, often time flaky, amateur user made scripts, themes etc, which quite often don't work correctly, and often times are just abandoned by their creator, and then when something changes in the main program, these amateur user made addons refuse to work even more so, and as they have been abandoned you are so out of luck.

Or is it that REAPER seems to require the user to have to get their hands dirty, to get in under the hood as it were, to fight and twist the program into something that is suitable for them to WANT to use? When all they want is to fire it up and use it, like 99.9% of other normal software, after all you want to create music, not be messing around endlessly with geeky stuff before you can use it to your satisfaction, your a musician after all, not a bitmonkey.

Or are it the similarities between the Linux and REAPER psyche that scare you off?, after all REAPER is often refereed to as the "Linux of the DAW world". The similarities are many and varied, and somewhat undeniable, from the seemingly complete disregard towards aesthetics, to the reliance on amateur user made additions for functionality, and on and on it goes.

?

[Forgotten]

Tried it, didn't like it.

[Ed A.]

I looked at Reaper, but compared to Logic Pro, it doesn't have the quality synths, instruments, and effects that Logic has. Those were a big selling point for me with Logic.

[Bombadil]

All of the above.

[anomandaris1]

I think you overrate how many people "tweak" Reaper. It is completely usable without any changing of the functionality and is quite popular among real (usually guitarists and vocalists) musicians and mixing engineers.

[excuse me please]

Ok, I'm just a simple person. So I drag a wav file track into Reaper. The track clips above 0 dB and sounds crappy.
Now I drag the same track into Bitwig and the track nicely peaks at -10 dB. Sounds good as well.

One of you geniuses care to explain?

[lfm]

Bought 3.6 and tried twice until 4.7 to really like it - though
- didn't not like the extra buffer used increasing roundtrip latency
- did not like realtime resampling principles - which create overs where there aren't any
- looks - spent days modifying themes I tried - never quite got is as I wanted
- only got video running through VLC - and computer felt really heavy doing that
- did not like VCA implementation - not moving faders, just show on meters

I started getting everything plugins 3rd party, so that part did not bother me.

[auron]

I think all of what the grim wrote is right. In my opinion you can customize like hell but it still feels uncomfortable or unpleasent, it is not your home , it is an everlasting construction area. And please, not everyone is a geek in using/installing scripts ... they forgot there are musicians as well

[CrystalWizard]

I’m using it, didn’t leave.

[antic604]

I never got past the demo (tried 3-4 times) because of the looks and endless menus (same reasona like for FL, actually).

[GaryG]

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.

[whyterabbyt]

But put the time in and you can do anything.

Can you manage plugin slots on a track directly from the TCP yet? (ie as can be done from the MCP)

[perfumer]

Ok, I'm just a simple person. So I drag a wav file track into Reaper. The track clips above 0 dB and sounds crappy.
Now I drag the same track into Bitwig and the track nicely peaks at -10 dB. Sounds good as well.

One of you geniuses care to explain?

That's because you're a simple person.

Reaper handles file import 100% correctly. If you have some option enabled to 'normalize', or to compensate, or to boost with a predefined level - it didn't get enabled by itself. Someone did it, and that's most probably... you.

Make a test: download a fresh demo of Reaper, install it as a portable app in some folder, then run it with default settings and then import file.

[excuse me please]

@perfumer

Ok. I have coincedentally actived/enabled 'some option somewhere.'

Please let me know how to perform such activity in Bitwig. Yes, I am using Bitwig since April 2014.

[Passing Bye]

Tried to take my soul