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Any Reaper users here? Especially Mac ones?
I'm stepping outside the iOS music production reservation a bit and looking for a DAW to run on my Macbook.
I used Reaper years ago. Thought the UI was fugly, and left it for Studio One.
But my current use case for a DAW values speed and reliability highly. And a small footprint on the computer storage and CPU would be nice.
Based on my internet awareness, Reaper still sounds fugly, but has grown its fan-boy base.
So has anyone here used it lately?
Thanks,
Joe
Comments
Reaper is reliable and affordable. There may be prettier DAWs, but they are considerably more expensive. It does not come with a ton of stuff . So, it is pretty lean which can be a plus if you don’t need the extras that get bundled with a lot of DAWs.
I downloaded it again recently out of curiosity. The UI is a big blocker to get going still. I found it frustrating to get basics done. It's like the Linux of DAWs, there may be payoff if you put the time in but I don't have that or interest to devote it. Especially when there are easier and faster tools already.
I'm sticking with Ableton and Bitwig.
Thx, Yep, the cost of $60 or nagware is attractive. "The Linux of DAWs" sounds about right.
But maybe for people who don't want to live on their DAWs and can stand the clunkiness for a few use cases, this might be a good choice.
It's on another thread. But, yeah, AUM on MacOS would be perfect.
The good thing about Reaper, and something that makes it even more “the Linux of DAWs” is the tweakability.
The bad thing is that tweaking it is almost unavoidable.
The clunky interface bothers many users, so there are a good number of themes that reduce the ugliness issue. Maybe have a look at some and see if it solves the issue for you. Otherwise Studio One seems to have been updated pretty often with nice additions and Bitwig now offers a rent-to-own model via Splice if that suits you.
I use reaper for some things (been using since before version 1) and we use it at the college where I teach because everyone can access it. It’s easy to install new themes to reaper if you don’t like how it looks.
There are some things that are fiddle, but I think some if that works be remedied if I spent more time with it again and customized it to my liking. Logic is my main DAW, but I use reaper to do live recordings very often and it’s nice to do batch exporting when you mix a live show.
Logic runs really well on a MacBook though, so it’s worth it if you want a lot of content to create with. I’ll never sway someone from trying reaper though. The trial runs the same as a licensed version and doesn’t really expire, so try reaper out to see if it does what you want.
You can make Reaper's interface very good indeed, but it takes time and research. For some people its worth it (I like keyboard shortcuts, and Reaper makes that incredibly easy), for most people I suspect it isn't. That said, for power users it can be brutally efficient. I know people who use it for podcast editing, and foley stuff, and they've customized it in ways that save them hours.
Other than that the main pluses are its efficient, reliable and will run pretty much anything (AUV3s for example work fine on my M1 macbook). The routing possibilities are incredible (the UI for this is terrible - though as ever you can fix that). It has a built in scripting language support that is unmatched by anything, and its users have done insane things with it. For example if you want some really nice analog modeled filters - well Reaper's community has you covered. Some weird Mozaic like stuff. Absolutely.
I wouldn't use anything else. But I'm odd. And it drives me crazy all the time...
If someone has a theme or packaged files that make Reaper more palatable, please recommend away. I'm all for keyboard shortcuts.
I bought the logic like one, I’ll have to find it to remember the name. It was about $10
And we’ll worth it, very well thought out.
I've used Reaper as my main DAW for over 10 years and I'll never switch to anything else. Infinite customization, super flexible signal flow (this might be its greatest strength), great community and a responsive and friendly dev team.
if youre just looking for a host, have you looked at using mainstage, hosting au, gig performer, or .....
Check out the Tukan plugins for Reaper. By donation (free if you just want to check them out). Very lightweight. Quality FX. https://www.patreon.com/tukanstudios
I've used Reaper on Windows, Linux and Mac. I like having it around for quick audio edits. It's always had a very easy workflow for this sort of thing. It's not quite as plug and play as Logic is and it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it's development is constant and always a work in process and I think the latest updates have been a really nice step in a good direction.
As has been mentioned...it's easy to try it out for a bit and just see how you like it. It's a long trial that actually really never ends.
I use it from its 1st version.
It is the ONLY proper daw around:
fast, smooth, updated weekly (alive!) with a big community
and extreme versatility.
plenty of skins if you need another look.
I think I have finally settled on Reaper as my main DAW. I was a Cubase user, that was back in CubaseVST days though. I tried every DAW under the sun and just found Reaper easy to use. I don't do anything too fancy so I guess it is just a matter of getting used to something. I've used it as my main DAW since version 3 and these days I only use Cubase for recording vocals, then exported back to Reaper for mixing. I just find Reaper really easy to use.
On a par with some very expensive plugins out there.
So do the skins only change the appearance? Or do they change which features you seen and how to navigate to them?
If it is only appearance/ visual design, I might not care. If it is the basic UX of Reaper that is customizable. I care. BUT I don't want another layer of potential bugs and confusion to track down problems and how-tos because everyone is seeing different screens.
So far, I'm inclined to stay with Reaper. But just to hold some virtual instruments, handle my MIDI keyboard and controls surfaces, and do basic multi-tracking recording.
Thanks for the replies!
Also.... the feature list is pretty stunning. Music notation?? Auto-tune and pitch correction? And apparently, some of the "Rea__" plugins are quite good, including ReaEQ.
They are. The compressor may not look like much, but its actually extremely useful. Also the reverb (IRs) is pretty decent, though I tend not to use it. Some of the JSFx plugins are also surprisingly good.
Depends on the skin really. I don't use any of the skins as the basic design doesn't bother me that much - and you can tweak it sufficiently (colors, spacing, layout, buttons) using the built in theme tweaker. I think you pretty much have to do this if you want to use the MIDI piano roll - but once this is done, and you customize the mouse/keyboard behavior you actually end up with a really powerful/nice MIDI editor that's the equal of anything else out there.
The other thing to remember is that Reaper supports multiple layouts, and its very easy to customize each layout for a particular function (e.g. mixing, editing, MIDI) - or even for laptop vs desktop. As always the defaults aren't great (do I want a new window for each MIDI clip? No I really don't. Easy to change, but why is it the default?).
The thing about the UX in Reaper is you can customize most things the way that you want. What I tend to do is when I run into an annoyance I make a note of it, then do a google search and there's usually a way to get the behavior I want.
There are also a lot of plugins which can improve UX in ways which aren't really matched by other DAWs. For example there's a radial menu plugin that's quite nice (press a key to bring it up), a couple of command palettes and so forth. If you like to do things from the keyboard then Reaper is very good, provided you put the work into customizing it (the default shortcuts aren't great imo).
Why not keep using Studio One? Great, stable light weight DAW right there and you already have a license for it.
I have Studio One 2, and, yes, it works basically. An upgrade to the current would cost $150. And I'm keeping Studio One for now.
We'll see. One thing Reaper has in its favor is speed.
Have you tried GarageBand? Free, easy to use, some nice extras. Plug-in support isn’t great but there are enough included instruments. It isn’t annoyingly cute like GB on iOS.
Thanks, and yes, I've tried GB. But AFAIK it doesn't let me specific MIDI channel input, which will be coming from the KeyStep Prol.
For my purposes, the combination of GarageBand on iOS and GarageBand (or Logic Pro) on macOS is unbeatable. Cross-platform compatibility is everything if you want to be able to be productive on any device you happen to be working on at the moment.
https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=267221
New script for creating your own custom theme. Looks interesting.
Ugh. LOL. I did not know that and would never have guessed. Wow, that is lame.
TBH, most people I know that use Logic Pro are satisfied. I personally have owned Macs basically since Mr. Jobs introduced them last millennium, so going with a "Mac" only solution isn't a problem for me.
I've become an avid user of the iPad Pro (even used one exclusively for about a year, no desktop computer) and now also use an M1 iMac that I really like (and I used Apple computers sporadically since the Apple III, the first one I owned for myself was the Quadra 840av). I exclusively use GarageBand on both platforms.
I've never taken to Logic Pro's workflow, preferring GarageBand's straightforward approach. I know, it's not what pros prefer but getting bogged down in production minutia versus actually making music is less of an issue with GarageBand.
BTW, I also tried Cubase this week. It labored under the weight of the plug-in, UVI Falcon. I was hoping for a Cubase / Cubasis integration because I like the UX of Cubasis on the iPad.