Is REAPER the current best long term choice?

[ghettosynth]

the best ones are the ones with spinning photo realistic reel to reel tapes, swappable to cassettes, DAT or vinyl in their transport, exchangeable glowing tubes in their mixer, and animated lava lamps in their track view

Right!

[digitalboytn]

the best ones are the ones with spinning photo realistic reel to reel tapes, swappable to cassettes, DAT or vinyl in their transport, exchangeable glowing tubes in their mixer, and animated lava lamps in their track view

[musicproducerdee]

None of the big name players are going anywhere. Ableton & Logic are everywhere and used on a massive scale, along with FL Studio (in the hip hop community mostly). Steinberg has been around for 30+ years. Others like Bitwig, Studio One are still building up their community/user base, and looks like they are going to be around for a while.

I personally tried Reaper multiple times, it's super lightweight on the resources, which I liked. Apart from that, nothing worked for me. The UI, the menus, the workflow, absolutely nothing. I like applications that are organized and look neat, yet do not restrict your creative workflow. Take Bitwig for example, even the setup menus etc look good, which helps me maintain my creative mindset throught my workflow. Meanwhile, in Reaper, as soon as I click on a menu, it's like I've moved out of my music production system and jumped into Windows 98 to do some app development. I understand Bitwig is themable and practically everything can be themed, but alot of it still cannot, and it's just not the same. Different graphics will always be different, regardless of the color. The only thing I liked about it is the resource consumption.

[3lu5iv3]

None of the big name players are going anywhere. Ableton & Logic are everywhere and used on a massive scale, along with FL Studio (in the hip hop community mostly). Steinberg has been around for 30+ years. Others like Bitwig, Studio One are still building up their community/user base, and looks like they are going to be around for a while.

I personally tried Reaper multiple times, it's super lightweight on the resources, which I liked. Apart from that, nothing worked for me. The UI, the menus, the workflow, absolutely nothing. I like applications that are organized and look neat, yet do not restrict your creative workflow. Take Bitwig for example, even the setup menus etc look good, which helps me maintain my creative mindset throught my workflow. Meanwhile, in Reaper, as soon as I click on a menu, it's like I've moved out of my music production system and jumped into Windows 98 to do some app development. I understand Bitwig is themable and practically everything can be themed, but alot of it still cannot, and it's just not the same. Different graphics will always be different, regardless of the color. The only thing I liked about it is the resource consumption.

Bitwig isn't themeable IIRC.

[Unaspected]

None of the big name players are going anywhere. Ableton & Logic are everywhere and used on a massive scale, along with FL Studio (in the hip hop community mostly). Steinberg has been around for 30+ years. Others like Bitwig, Studio One are still building up their community/user base, and looks like they are going to be around for a while.

I personally tried Reaper multiple times, it's super lightweight on the resources, which I liked. Apart from that, nothing worked for me. The UI, the menus, the workflow, absolutely nothing. I like applications that are organized and look neat, yet do not restrict your creative workflow. Take Bitwig for example, even the setup menus etc look good, which helps me maintain my creative mindset throught my workflow. Meanwhile, in Reaper, as soon as I click on a menu, it's like I've moved out of my music production system and jumped into Windows 98 to do some app development. I understand Bitwig is themable and practically everything can be themed, but alot of it still cannot, and it's just not the same. Different graphics will always be different, regardless of the color. The only thing I liked about it is the resource consumption.

Bitwig isn't themeable IIRC.

Typo. He knows that he loves Reaper as much as Bitwig - hence the unconscious slip.

[soulata]

I personally tried Reaper multiple times, it's super lightweight on the resources, which I liked. Apart from that, nothing worked for me. The UI, the menus, the workflow, absolutely nothing. I like applications that are organized and look neat, yet do not restrict your creative workflow. Take Bitwig for example, even the setup menus etc look good, which helps me maintain my creative mindset throught my workflow. Meanwhile, in Reaper, as soon as I click on a menu, it's like I've moved out of my music production system and jumped into Windows 98 to do some app development.

This.

[musicproducerdee]

None of the big name players are going anywhere. Ableton & Logic are everywhere and used on a massive scale, along with FL Studio (in the hip hop community mostly). Steinberg has been around for 30+ years. Others like Bitwig, Studio One are still building up their community/user base, and looks like they are going to be around for a while.

I personally tried Reaper multiple times, it's super lightweight on the resources, which I liked. Apart from that, nothing worked for me. The UI, the menus, the workflow, absolutely nothing. I like applications that are organized and look neat, yet do not restrict your creative workflow. Take Bitwig for example, even the setup menus etc look good, which helps me maintain my creative mindset throught my workflow. Meanwhile, in Reaper, as soon as I click on a menu, it's like I've moved out of my music production system and jumped into Windows 98 to do some app development. I understand Bitwig is themable and practically everything can be themed, but alot of it still cannot, and it's just not the same. Different graphics will always be different, regardless of the color. The only thing I liked about it is the resource consumption.

Bitwig isn't themeable IIRC.

I know Bitwig isn't themeable, I'd be happier if it was more themeable like Ableton, but it isn't. But then again, it doesn't look like Windows 98/Reaper, which is absolutely fine by me.

[sQeetz]

That's what I'm trying to say. It feels and looks like it's in a constant alpha build stage.

[musicproducerdee]

None of the big name players are going anywhere. Ableton & Logic are everywhere and used on a massive scale, along with FL Studio (in the hip hop community mostly). Steinberg has been around for 30+ years. Others like Bitwig, Studio One are still building up their community/user base, and looks like they are going to be around for a while.

I personally tried Reaper multiple times, it's super lightweight on the resources, which I liked. Apart from that, nothing worked for me. The UI, the menus, the workflow, absolutely nothing. I like applications that are organized and look neat, yet do not restrict your creative workflow. Take Bitwig for example, even the setup menus etc look good, which helps me maintain my creative mindset throught my workflow. Meanwhile, in Reaper, as soon as I click on a menu, it's like I've moved out of my music production system and jumped into Windows 98 to do some app development. I understand Bitwig is themable and practically everything can be themed, but alot of it still cannot, and it's just not the same. Different graphics will always be different, regardless of the color. The only thing I liked about it is the resource consumption.

Bitwig isn't themeable IIRC.

Typo. He knows that he loves Reaper as much as Bitwig - hence the unconscious slip.

I wish I could, whats not to love? It's priced very affordably. It's super light on resurces. It has an active community. But then it gets in my way of making music and obstructs my creativie mindset, and that I can't have.

[Unaspected]

I wish I could, whats not to love? It's priced very affordably. It's super light on resurces. It has an active community. But then it gets in my way of making music and obstructs my creativie mindset, and that I can't have.

That's a shame as it's the opposite for me. It's dramatically sped up my workflow - especially with those extensions. Not much requirement for menu diving once things are set up as shortcuts and the initial snow-blindness has passed. Took me a couple of goes before I could use it - had to force myself - so I do understand. Just had to break through the wall or lift the veil.

DAW choice is horses for courses though: They'll all get you where you want to but how you arrive will differ.

[tific]

I'm a Cubase veteran who recently switched to Studio One.I tried Reaper for a few days as it's so versatile.

I like the routing & Open Sound Control , The ability to insert plug in parameters directly in a track & will purchase it in the future.As it's the ideal daw for experienced users who also have third party plug ins.

I think it's main weakness is that the gui ,parts of the menu & it's presentation is polarising especially to beginners.Who will also be exposed to the competing free & lite software packages which are bundled with hardware or the entry level versions.

You can theme & customise many components but some new features can also disrupt the layouts. It's also harder to assist or troubleshoot if you don't know what the user has altered.


This video has a selection of Logic, Bitwig etc themes.


https://youtu.be/NrR8qzwh3nE

[Glyster]

I have tried a few. For me I bet my money on Cubase. It has some amazing features no other DAWs has. I use reaper occasionally. It’s probably perfectly fine for hobbyists. But for pros that do large commercial projects (movies, orchestration, etc.), I don’t really see reaper as compelling.

[Tj Shredder]

It’s probably perfectly fine for hobbyists. But for pros that do large commercial projects (movies, orchestration, etc.), I don’t really see reaper as compelling.

Well, I would prefer it over ProTools any time as you can get a ProTools skin for it. And I know ProTools from its debut…
If the only difference between hobbyists and pros is the price they are willing to pay you might be right though…
Its probably better suited for large projects than the so called industry standard… for 90% to 99% off… (consider 8 years of use until you would need a new license with the advantage that you can always use your possibly older version for free…)

[GaryG]

But for pros that do large commercial projects (movies, orchestration, etc.), I don’t really see reaper as compelling.

Apparently, Reaper is very popular in the gaming and sound effect industries, the sheer amount of scriptability means common procedures are easily automated. It was designed as an efficient audio processing environment after all.

[eluherlu]

Everytime I see new updates or new version of a DAW, I got excited to see what's new. And then, emm really? Reaper already had that.
And when I tried other DAWs, ohh where's my unique and only-me workflow/custom actions that I used to in Reaper? I can't find it anywhere.
About the UI, yes there are better UI out there but I steal some of other daws looks and implement it in Reaper