In REAPER's defense....

Obitheincredible

Obitheincredible

Your Mom's Best Friend!!!
Obi is kinda sick of this. I understand, no really I get it. You like what you got, I don't blame ya. I understand Protools is great, or logic, or samplitude or cubase or live or whatever else you wanna add as your DAW of choice. I also understand loyalty. I just wanna say a few things. I own Cubase SX, FL, Reason, Protools and my main choice is FL and REAPER!!!. Alot of you know this, but people keep having basic questions about it and PM'ing me about them. Well this thread is dedicated to any questions you have about REAPER!!! I am not biased towards just one because it is all I know I love reaper for a few reasons...

1 - Support - TOP NOTCH! Great forum, great documentation, wiki, manual and a bunch of great tutorials.

2 - Updates - I kid you not when I say there are literally 2 updates a month. Not little ones either. The most recent as of this writing 2.5 supports rex 2 support! There are great updates every time!

3 - Programming! - I have yet to find such a tightly coded program. Seriously. 2 people. Thats it. This is the same guy who created winamp. It is a 3.4 MB download with a full effects sweet, including a sampler, synth and a whole library of JS (proprietary) effects! Great stuff!

4 - Layout - I know, I know. It looks horrible. Need I remind you..THIS IS THE CREATER OF WINAMP! The same guy who invented fully skinnable programs! This is where it shines! You can get it to look like anything! Logic? Check. Cubase? Check. Protools? Check. Most people look at it and say its too boring. True if you leave it with a default. Think about it this way also...It is less CPU resources being used for that so you can use them towards your MUSIC! Crazy notion right? Plus everything is "dockable".

5 - Routing - Wow. One of the first programs that really does remind me of hardware in this sense. It just makes sense. So easy. Took me all of 30 seconds to figure out!

6 - Portable - This can be run from a USB Flash drive! So anybody saying that protools is the most widely used and the indusrty standard can shut up. Sure you can take your sessions to other people with protools. What if it is 50 tracks an recorded on HD and you bring it to LE? Opps Only48 tracks? What!? What about plugins not always being on everybody's computers? Opps! Well with reaper you can have a 4 gig flash drive with REAPER!!! a bunch of vst's and vsti's and be good! No matter where you go! Any computer anywhere! Plus all your settings and preferences are the same!

7 - POWERFUL - 64 bit from the get go! Streamlined, tool-less work flow with context menus and item handles for fades, volume, per-item effects, etc. Unlimited sound processing - tons of included FX,audio support and support for thousands of third party virtual instruments, sample players, audio and MIDI processing plug-ins (VST, VSTi, DX, DXi, JS, WAV, AIFF, OGG, FLAC, ACID, APE, WavPack, MP3) compatible with TONS of EVERYTHING! Yep I said it! TONS of EVERYTHING! (ok I know that was lame but if people can come in here and say nah'meen then I can say TONS of EVERYTHING!) Plus with features like Integrated network FX processing - use spare machines for additional processing power how can you go wrong!?

8 - Light - If a PC with a 500Mhz processor, 128 MB RAM and Windows 98 can runs this then your dual or quad core will rock this! Not to mention Rock solid Multi core processing!

Now I know this is more of a rant but this thread is open for any questions people have about REAPER!!! or need any themes, skins, plugins, effects or the sampler template ReaDrums Let me know! If I can even create any template ask for them here....






This has been a P.S.A. by Obi The Incredible Boy Wonder. That is all. For now.
 
I have been thinking a lot about this lately. I tried it and have a couple of problems with it. I couldn't figure out the editing. I dropped in a song I wanted to sample, set the tempo and couldn't figure out how to line up the bars and edit a perfect 4 bar loop. This is something I'm very proficient with in ProTools and Cubase.

Another thing. I was very impressed with the feature and how great this program runs with such a small size program. Why can't ProTools and Cubase be written this way? It did seem very strong and everything. But this is my concern. When Winamp first came out it was light, very efficient, great to use and I loved it. Then came the newer versions that for some reason would tax my cpu without reason. I haven't used it since. (now I use a custom slimmed down iTunes) I'm worried that this will happen again.

But I'm glad to hear about multi-core support and 64bit coding. Very very good because this is what I have cussed ProTools techs constantly about. Protools doesn't even support 32bit operation in a 64bit environment. I might try it agian, but I wish the edit window was more like ProTools and less like Acid Pro. Can you make the edit and mix sections separate windows?

edit.... I finally figured out how to edit a little today, then Reaper crashed my computer. But I think I have some other problems that helped so I will look into it further when I do a clean windows install. I just got a new custom version of XP that's designed for high performance.
 
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Hey guys,

iv been lurking around these forums for a few weeks now, browsing through posts and learning and awful lot. having seen reaper talked about on here - as well as MANY aweseom free vsts and things iv gathered thanks to you lot - i have to say that its a seriously aweseom bit of kit

im currently working in a track using only free vsts and software and will be more than happy to put up my creation when im done

im still feeling my way thru things and tho i have experience using reason 4, ableton, fl and acid im certainly not pro so if i can get my head round it im sure anyone can!

id recommend it fully to anyone
 
lol I still need help re-wiring Reason and Reaper

I just want to use it so I can use VSTs/Vstis
 
Reaper is ridiculously inexpensive for what you get.

$50 for a personal license, and $225 for professional?

There's no dongle or iLok or obtrusive piracy prevention to inconvenience legitimate customers and users.
They trust their customer base and the quality of their product enough to give out the full program for people to try, and then purchase a license if they choose to continue to use it, and it's all the honor system.

Bravo to the Reaper team. Support the developers who care about their customers!
 
as20gp said:
lol I still need help re-wiring Reason and Reaper

I just want to use it so I can use VSTs/Vstis
Click to expand...

same here. ive been too busy to really give it a go but i want my VST's!!!
 
Ok I will tackle the notorious it looks boring by posting links to some of the best Themes they have....

Reaper Pro

Blue Light

Audiobe Audition 3

Vintage

Easy Mix 11

Creame Sixty

Transparent Aluminum

Plasticity

Dark Big Wood* (lol)

Vintage UI

Vintage Blue

Ted Warigo Neon Green

Pro Tools

ReaLogic

Reaper Logic 1.2

Ted Warigo Orange Logic

Logic 5 Home sickness Cure

And My personal Favorites!!!

Easy On the Eyes 2.05

Easy On The Eyes 2.09

VST's and VSTi's/Rewire

Now as for setting up a vst. Its kind of different the way they work. You have the FX window. They go in order from top to bottom. So if you put a VSTi on top then any vst after it will affect the sound. Anything before it will not. Its kind of cool because you can trigger more than one vst at once or even have 10 vst's lined up and simply switch them on or off. If they are off even though they are loaded they take 0% of your resources! Same with when you mute a channel. On the left everything is organized by type. JS, VST, VSTi, Rewire apps and favorites. You can even create your own folders and save certain effects or instruments there. Select away! Now you have a VST, VSTi or a REWIRE APP!

Midi

Now if your trying to send midi to a channel for REWIRE or a VSTi you need to enable it to record. Then select the input source. Select a midi interface (Duh) then select a channel or select all midi channels on that midi source. Then make sure the Monitor button is enabled (that means on) or green. Now play your midi instrument or record stuff!

Editing

You can edit in Reaper just like any other app. Only difference is that there are no tools. No scissors, no painter or anything like that. Now whatever channel you have highlighted or selected and wherever the cursor is hit the "s" key and it slices the audio. This also works for multiple channels also.

Snapping

If your have Snapping enabled then your cursor will only snap to the closes 8th or 16 the note usually depending on your settings. simply hit Alt+S to enable or disable it. Great for working with loops or creating loops.

Tempo

Reaper has a tap tempo function. Just click the actual tempo word and tap away! It changes with what your tapping!

Docking windows.

You can have a separate window for mixing, editing, midi piano roll, effects or whatever else. )navigator, performance meter, blah, blah, blah...) Anytime a window is open right click on it and click dock window. It moves it to the bottom and you can select the tabs ( much like firefox) to view the different windows. Right click again to have it be its own window. You can choose these windows in the view function in the top tool bar.
 
That Dark Big Wood is hot, I wish FL was fully skinnable.
 
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word Obi...great thread!
Reaper seems like an awesome program and I have heard nothing but great things about it's vst's that the Cockos team actually give away as freeware.
 
I'm about overdue another check on Reaper. Having said that, I'm not sure it ever needed defending. I've only played with it a few times, and never seriously. However, there were no showstoppers I found yet. The MIDI set still isn't where I need it to be to complete real work, but other than that, it's really cool.
 
Kool aid?

Well the only reason I am defending it is because everyone agrees that its boring and never get past it. I just wanted to say that its more than what they think! And as of right now it is 90% to replacing fl for me. They only need a solid step sequencer to murder em! So no questions as of yet?
 
I might give Reaper a test drive.

It's cool that it runs on OS X and Windows...

and it's tiny which is a great plus, I can probably even use this program at school if I wanted.

Obi do you work for these guys or something?

MAAAAN... if FL Studio was Mac compatible... *cries*
 
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