Quote Scottdru:

---

If you call up a single FX window from one of the channels and you dock it, you needn't open additional FX windows and dock them as well.

If you have only a single FX window docked, all you have to do is click on the FX button for any given channel, and the docked FX window will switch to showing the FX window for that channel. This is just WAY cool, and it means that you don't have to have a million tabs' worth of docked FX windows!

---

Thanks for that. Another thing to try tonight!! I'm liking this more and more.

One thing I'm struggling with at present is automation. I'm trying to record some mouse generated movements of a VST plugin. I'll spend some time buried in the manuals later!

I'm quite excited by this. I felt at first that I was biting my nose off to spite my face with Cubase but I'm convinced this tool has a place in my armoury.

Quote marsnic:

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I'm quite excited by this. I felt at first that I was biting my nose off to spite my face with Cubase but I'm convinced this tool has a place in my armoury.

---

Personally, I think we need to send a clear message to Steinberg (and others) that we consumers deserve to be treated better. The only way they are going to listen is if it starts to effect their pocketbook.

Spread the word guys... Reaper Rocks! Samplitude Rocks!

--------------------
James
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" ~Napoleon Bonaparte~

Hear hear DH

..luckily enough I'm starting a new personal project in May so I'm going to bite the bullet, get me a reaper licence and give it a go.
Wouldn't want to take that chance on a commercial gig, but this project is perfect to give something new a try.

Quote marsnic:

---

One thing I'm struggling with at present is automation. I'm trying to record some mouse generated movements of a VST plugin. I'll spend some time buried in the manuals later!

---

Check the REAPER forum as well, as we are now up to version 1.804, and the last couple of versions have had some changes/improvements made to the way you set up an arm the automation envelopes.

And whichever way you slice it, it always seems to be about the right click.

Heh . . . here's a copy of the change log for the several versions that have come out in the last few days
(new versions coming at least one a day lately):

REAPER 1.804
+ importing type-1 and type-2 midi files will optionally separate tracks
+ preliminary AlphaTrack control surface support
+ faderport: "output" button toggles vol/pan flip, shift+solo/mute/rec clears all, etc
+ tweaks to make sure video/perfmeter/vkeyboard/navigator/docker are on screen when shown
+ MCU updates: (cycle button, better time displays, better seeking with scroll wheel)
+ better record unpausing (rebuffer)
+ vis plugin config fixes

1.803
+ splash screen window disabling tweaks
+ preliminary PreSonus FaderPort control surface support
+ made FX comment window not resizeable
+ automation mode is now set per-track (in the envelope panel)
+ envelope panel has "arm all/none" buttons
+ enabling vol/pan envelopes for multiple tracks can now be done via right click on envelope button
+ dx plug-ins: fixed automation bug
+ vst: better midi data passthrough for synths that misreport sending of midi events

1.802
+ vst: better support for VSTs that aren't fully thread safe between GUI and audio thread
+ removed & drawing bugs
+ fixed updating of track routing windows on play/stop
+ fixed ctrl+drag in midi editor
+ current vis plugin is no longer held in memory when not running
+ rewire slave: decreased midi input bus count to 1, to not flood other hosts that display all of them

1.801
+ added "clear filter" button in FX add dialog
+ fixed peaks building on save with copy media
+ JS: fixed initialization of slider9-16 on load of effect
+ better handling of loading project on startup, missing fx and splash screen
+ fixed load template browse dialog title
+ label of "clean project dir" in action list made consistent with menu
+ added available system memory option in performance meter
+ inserting empty items sizes to loop selection if visible or cursor in loop
+ fixed deleting of tracks that are routed to causing crashing on some SMP systems
+ midi editor: prevents accidental moves when clicking notes
+ rendering internals update (preparing for "apply fx to new track", and mac port)
+ (hidden incomplete alpha feature) if autoclosetrackwnds=0 in reaper.ini, track routing/env dialogs wont autoclose


1.800
+ added memory usage meter to performance window
+ projects can now be properly saved with no master outputs
+ optimized excess pre-fx send buffering (on tracks that dont have sends)
+ fixed pre-fx sends on monitoring with no items in track
+ better positioning and faster updating of track I/O dialogs
+ undocked midi editors now update with color theme changes
+ transport can show "Buffering" in initial prebuffer
+ fixed ReaMote FX selection box during dialog resizing
+ added some new plug-in APIs for something nifty coming soon
+ update 8pm PDT: fixed a new pre-fx send bug


1.79
+ track envelope dialog now will show up to 10k parameters (up from 256 per effect)
+ project and track templates are now sorted by name
+ improvements to doubleclick of ruler (context sensitive depending on which lane is clicked)
+ configurable marker/region depth in grid view (over/under/through items)
+ better non-zero-mode flushing for asio
+ reasamplomatic: fixed excess updating of parm fields when no sample loaded
+ autosplit: fixed bug when using track fx (VST track fx that want midi events)
+ midi editor: ctrl+drag left side of notes stretches notes
+ midi editor: increased snap distance

--------------------
Scott
--Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

Now if only someone would port Reaper over to Mac...

--------------------
www.descentintomadness.com

A Mac port is in the works already, JJB, though the development is (not surprisingly) a good bit behind the development in Windows.

There's a thread on this in their forum here:

http://www.cockos.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4220

--------------------
Scott
--Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

The thing that's impressing/slightly confusing me, is how quickly Reaper seems to be developing into a complete product and in the process include a whole host of the functions on many forumees wish-lists, yet still absent from many established DAWs.

Why can't other developers do that?

Seriously.

Are they lazy good-for-nothings? And/or hampered by corporate/marketing jobbies.
Are the Reaper guys sh*t-hot?
Is it the fact that they can start from scratch?
All of the above?
Something else?

I suspect it's largely because Reaper's development is done by one person, rather than a huge team each with their own responsibilities. It is after all still a small (2MB) download, despite doing so much and incorporating so many features.

I can remember when I used to develop computer games, and did all the coding, graphics, music, and sound effects myself - if you got an idea for a new feature you could just get stuck into it without having to have team meetings, prepare proposals, reports and synopses...


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Quote Stoney:

---

Why can't other developers do that?

Are they lazy good-for-nothings? And/or hampered by corporate/marketing jobbies.
Are the Reaper guys sh*t-hot?
Is it the fact that they can start from scratch?
All of the above?
Something else?

---

1a. Not lazy, but I suspect that the Steinberg team are feeling pretty low at this point and when you are low, then coding can be a real struggle
1b. I suspect that the opposite is true : Justin (and his fellow developers - it does say that there is a small team although Justin seems to be the main guy) reads the forum and gets quick feedback about features. Companies that deliberately don't engage with their customer base won't be as fast to supply new features. Why do you think that Sonar and Samplitude have come from almost standing starts to major players in the last few years?
2. Yeah, probably!
3. Shouldn't be an issue - Cubase SX is only a handful of years old and was a complete re-write. They are claiming that C4 is again. It may even work one day ...
4. To a degree
5. Possibly. Reaper has a distinct advantage in that it doesn't use the traditional manufacturer / distributer / retailer pipeline and also (**Pure Speculation Alert**) the main guy doesn't need to make huge profits on it.

All in all, I reckon it's about adapting to the changing marketplace. Which is why Steiny seem to be having such a hard time - I think that they basically need to have a major upheaval and that is always painful. But then sometimes it's a case of taking the pain to continue successfully. Nothing would please me more than to see Steiny turn itself around completely, but can they do it before we've all adopted Reaper ...?

--------------------
Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)

Another new version update:

Quote:

---

REAPER v1.805 - February 16 2007

solo in place works when sip'ing folder and items in folder have sends
Render selected tracks to stem tracks (and mute originals) action (psuedofreeze)
import of multitrack midi goes on sep tracks even when prefs mode is set to "auto"
better TranzPort display usage (VU metering)
AlphaTrack: better touchstrip centering, blinking any solo light
AlphaTrack: sticky shift behavior (tap shift to hold)
AlphaTrack: F1-F8 send midi CC to control subsystem to be assignable
AlphaTrack: second two rotary encoders can be used to tweak plug-in settings
FaderPort: mix/proj/trns send midi CC to control subsystem
MCU: all unused buttons get passed through to control subsystem

---

That pseudo-freeze function actually looks pretty great, and looks like it may actually be a better way of handling it than a freeze function, given potential corruption problems people have run across with freeze functions.

The "Solo in place" feature should be very handy too!

--------------------
Scott
--Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

Quote:

---

v1.806 - February 20 2007
+ ReaInsert plug-in for sending audio/midi to/from external hardware from any fx chain
+ much faster updating (and vista compatible) main edit view tooltips
+ made ReaFIR tooltips vista compatible
+ File/Save live output (bounce) updates: configured on the fly, options for only-when-playing and to autostop on stop
+ automation: touch/latch write modes follow envelope when stopped/seeking
+ ReaGate: fixed midi passthrough
+ VST: optimized some behaviors for Cockos plugins
+ alphatrack/tranzport: optimized display updates
+ bonus: last working directory is now saved across instances
+ bonus: automation mode changes/arming changes now properly update surfaces

---

Wohoo One of my feature request got through!
Even Sonar still doesn't have this feature.

And for you UAD fans out there:

Quote:

---

REAPER v1.809 - February 23 2007
+fixed I/O dialog resizing messing with main window drawing
+VST: updated UAD-1 option to be a synchronous mode, that when combined with fx render-ahead off, should work well on most systems (especially low-end ones)
+prefs: updated apply button internals to not flush config for every page every time
+grid: start-of-beat now get slight hilight, new colortheme +setting, changed default theme's grid colors
+better track autonaming extension removal
+better focus setting on startup
+fixed bug where vertically locked items could still create tracks
+actions: fixed "Toggle record arming for selected tracks" to ignore modifiers
+virtual midi keyboard: keys show midi note number
+midi editor: updated grid to match main grid
+reainsert: fixed config display update on preset loading
+reamote: added protocol version check
+reamote: per-channel silence detection instead of per-block
+reamote: mono stream bandwidth optimization

---

Thank you for posting this thread. Ive been checking out the demo for the last week and i think this program is sh!t hot! I'm a long-time Logic pc user, been looking for something else for a while as theres no support and i don't want to go mac, but this thing does it all! Fantastic!

Quote:

---

+ ReaInsert plug-in for sending audio/midi to/from external hardware from any fx chain

---

Excellent. That's another 'unique' Cubase feature that's bitten the dust. Having played with it some more, I'm still trying to understand some of the subtleties though - so I'll have to join the forum and ask questions. My main problem at the moment lies around multi-output VSTis (like Halion) and how to process each output individually. I think that I might have to have separate tracks for each output with the midi track outputs routed to each which seems a little complicated (although it's flexible I'll grant you). But generally things are getting more clear as I work with it more.

(Still want a 'drum editor' though ... )

--------------------
Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)

Dave, too lazy to link but i was on the forum earlier and there are some threads on this subject.

Ta ow, always good to know.

--------------------
Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)

Yep . . . the elves have been busy over in the Reaper community. A number of people have been hard at work creating the REAPER Wiki.

There is also a separate downloadable REAPER User Guide in PDF format, which one of the guys over there did a really nice job on.

It's more or less written in a tutorial format to familiarize people with most of the core functions of Reaper, etc. Gives some good insight as to how various bits of the user interface work, etc., so at least people will have a better idea of where to look for things that aren't yet covered in the documentation. There are also two sample project files there that you can work with as you go through the tutorial. Very nicely done, IMHO.

There are still lots of hidden and/or undocumented features in REAPER, but they kinda start to show up as you get to know the software a bit, or someone on the Reaper forums will discover an "easter egg".

Quote:

---

+ ReaInsert plug-in for sending audio/midi to/from external hardware from any fx chain

---

Yep, that's definitely a cool one. You just load the ReInsert plugin into a channel, assign the hardware sends to the appropriate I/O on your sound card, set your processor settings on 100% wet, and then press "auto detect". Pressing auto detect sends a short signal through the through the signal chain out through the external effects box, etc. and back in, and Reaper calculates the latency automatically and applies the appropriate compensation.

From there the effect can be rendered in sync.

Very easy and convenient.

--------------------
Scott
--Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

Quote Martin Walker:

---

I suspect it's largely because Reaper's development is done by one person, rather than a huge team each with their own responsibilities. It is after all still a small (2MB) download, despite doing so much and incorporating so many features.

I can remember when I used to develop computer games, and did all the coding, graphics, music, and sound effects myself - if you got an idea for a new feature you could just get stuck into it without having to have team meetings, prepare proposals, reports and synopses...


Martin

---

Though Reaper may be a great program, this is one of the reasons why I personally would choose not to use it. I feel a little better when the company is bigger and it has more of a team behind it. However the price for it is so cheap. So those who just want to make good recordings, it may be fine. But I have clients and need more compatability with what other studios are using.

--------------------
revelationsoundstudio.com

Quote Glenn Bucci:

---

Quote Martin Walker:

---

I suspect it's largely because Reaper's development is done by one person, rather than a huge team each with their own responsibilities. It is after all still a small (2MB) download, despite doing so much and incorporating so many features.

I can remember when I used to develop computer games, and did all the coding, graphics, music, and sound effects myself - if you got an idea for a new feature you could just get stuck into it without having to have team meetings, prepare proposals, reports and synopses...


Martin

---

Though Reaper may be a great program, this is one of the reasons why I personally would choose not to use it. I feel a little better when the company is bigger and it has more of a team behind it. However the price for it is so cheap. So those who just want to make good recordings, it may be fine. But I have clients and need more compatability with what other studios are using.

---

In this case I'd buy a personal license for Reaper and spend a little downtime to get familiar with it for when it becomes mainstream. If you find clients want it in a couple of years then you'll be armed & ready. Just up the ante for a commercial license when you think it's time.

--------------------
Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

My Rig:

Windows 2000, MOTU 2408 MI, UAD-1 card

Wow! <- -> Wow!

Hats off!!

I downloaded this morning, and after setting up a new partiton (and installing hardware/software), I found Reaper to be intuitive to set up, including using VSTs from another partition, and adding all my audio inputs.

After adding VST folders to the path, and re-scanning, I found several VST that were unavailable, and had a few exceptions during this process (7 I think), but once through this process, it was all smooth. The unavalable plugs were indigenous to the various version of Cubase I have installed, or to a VST install on another partition, such as Groove Agent or B4. I'll backtrack and install those VSTs on this partition later.

So I recorded a bit and tried out my available VSTs, and DX plugs (HA HA!), and found all that I would expect (including my UAD DX Plugs). Woohoo!!!

My band reharsed yesterday and I ran cassette teap capturing the board out. I'm currently 60 minutes into a 2 track recording session with Reaper, capturing the audio from tape.

Just from this little bit of exploration, I'm certainly going to 1) buy the private use license and 2) follow things very closely. I am very, very excited about this application!

Num

--------------------
Num

Well, after some more exploration, I find that Steinb0rg's HALion installed fine, as well as my MOTU MTPAV Parallel midi device (8x8). I'm able to record and playback, and the HALion instance is DXi. I can load banks and patches. Very cool!!!

As a side note, since I installed the HALion instance, my PC doesn't shut down or restart fully. This is directly related to the HALion install, and adds insult to injury from The B0rg.

Hi Steiny!! :wave: :hahahaha:

--------------------
Num

After further exploration, I've been able to record audio from Groove Agent, midi data from Groove Agent, and play back that midi through another VSTi. Very cool!

--------------------
Num

lol .. another happy customer!

I have to say that Reaper changed the way I think about DAW development. It used to take ages or a complete full number upgrade for features to appear on my other daw's.
But I've seen features appear in reaper in a month that completely won me over.
It's still not quite there yet, but I'm sure that in a couple of months it'll have everything I need and better.
That's probably the same timeframe it takes other companies to fix one bug.

Quote Koed:

---

lol .. another happy customer!

...

---

So far, so good.

Yes, I will be following events.

BTW, after 4 or 5 failed powerdowns/reboots, the PC behaves normally (refering to my last post above).

--------------------
Num

Quote Glenn Bucci:

---

Though Reaper may be a great program, this is one of the reasons why I personally would choose not to use it. I feel a little better when the company is bigger and it has more of a team behind it. However the price for it is so cheap. So those who just want to make good recordings, it may be fine. But I have clients and need more compatability with what other studios are using.

---

From the file menu, hit "consolidate"

Now you're compatiable

Quote Glenn Bucci:

---

Though Reaper may be a great program, this is one of the reasons why I personally would choose not to use it. I feel a little better when the company is bigger and it has more of a team behind it. However the price for it is so cheap. So those who just want to make good recordings, it may be fine. But I have clients and need more compatability with what other studios are using.

---

I think your trust in the other software may be misplaced. They've made some fairly fundamental mistakes in the past which have only been corrected because the competition was doing it right. I've rarely had any problems running a studio with a non-mainstream DAW. I know that OMF has been mentioned in the Reaper forum so hopefully we will see that capability in a future release.

Cheers

James.

--------------------
JRP Music - Audio Mastering and Restoration.
http://www.jrpmusic.net

Well said James.
Hopefully the industry will take notice and adopt a more customer orientated approach.
Manufactured of pro audio hardware are already listening more and more to their customers.
Now let the software manufacturers follow or go broke.

Quote Glenn Bucci:

---

I feel a little better when the company is bigger and it has more of a team behind it. However the price for it is so cheap. So those who just want to make good recordings, it may be fine. But I have clients and need more compatability with what other studios are using.

---

As James said, perhaps your confidence in "big companies" is misplaced, particularly when you look at how long it takes these companies to fix bugs and implement features . . . and that's if they bother to do those things at all.

As an example, it would appear that the UAD-1 problems have been fixed in reaper (See here).

Someone sent the developer a UAD-1 card to work with, and he had the problem fixed within a month. Not only did he FIX the problem, it some tests posted on the Reaper forum show the UAD-1 cards (this user has four of them) are running smoother, with lower CPU overhead, in Reaper than in Sonar.

Quote:

---

Well, REAPER with the it's FX Render Ahead option disabled
still outperforms SONAR 6.2 (using both cores),on my E6300 Core 2 Duo DAW. I just did another little test to prove my point. I re-created the exact same project using the same PPI's, in both REAPER 1.812 and SONAR 6.2 and surprisingly here are the results:

Test project:
(30) audio tracks/(6) buses/ (24)PPI's (87% total DSP load across 4 UAD-1 cards) using a 512 sample (11.6msec)project latency @ 24/44.

SONAR 6.2: Native CPU usage during playback (19%-26%). Stopping and starting playback would result in an occasional native CPU spike (to 61%) and CPU munch (steady @ 51%). Stopping playback and manually re-setting the audio engine would get rid of the CPU munch. When setting and enabling a loop region there would be a slight gap in playback and the native CPU would spike (up to 40% and then drop), at the end loop point the first time around. Editing tracks/clips (moving clips, envelopes nodes, slip editing, applying fades etc.) during playback can sometimes cause a dropout.

REAPER 1.812: Native CPU usage during playback (13%-21%). No significant native CPU spike when stopping and re-starting playback. No native CPU munch and enabling and playing through a loop region was flawless. Editing during playback is drop out free.

At least, when compared to SONAR 6.2 (using both cores of my E6300), REAPER with the FX Render Ahead option disabled still out performs SONAR when using my UAD-1 cards:

Less CPU usage
No CPU munch
Better project looping

To top it off I even added a few more UAD-1 plugins and successfully pushed the DSP load to 92% in REAPER. When I tried to do that in SONAR it crapped out. I could not get above 87% DSP load.

Yep, REAPER wins this UAD-1 performance test hands down!

Oh, and to top it off, I can reduce the project latency in REAPER to 128 samples (2.9msec) and still play the project. SONAR will only allow me to go down to 256 samples (5.8msec).
Any lower and it craps out.

---

Still more confident in the big companies? How many years has it taken all the big name DAW companies to accomplish something even close to what the developer of Reaper has accomplished in a MONTH?!?!

Why does it take them so long? Probably because, among other things, these companies are incredibly bloated and top heavy these days, and they are more interested in looking at short term bottom line and in creating a more controlled/proprietary market than they are in usability and customer satisfaction.

Gee . . . sorry . . . we just don't have the resources to pay enough people to get this thing that you paid so much money for together. So we're dumping it and pushing you to buy our new software package that we haven't completed yet.

Why do these companies get away with this? Because they count on people to say things like "I feel a little better when the company is bigger and it has more of a team behind it," and to dismiss up and coming companies that could give them any real competition. That's how big corporations will deal with the market any time they can get away with it.

Another thing, as I mentioned before, is that the developer of Reaper is the same person who developed Winamp, and ended up selling his company, Nullsoft, to AOL for a multimillion dollar sum. And one of the reasons he started Cockos (which is the company that is developing Reaper) was because he was sick of seeing the things that went on with big corporations, and wanted to develop a DAW that wasn't full of flaws due to the crap that goes on with big corporations.

From my years working in the largest Wall Street/multinational legal firms and investment banks, I've seen first hand, from the inside, what kind of nasty stuff these big corporations do, and how they work to control markets to the detriment of the consumers in the end. I have VERY little confidence in the way of the big corporate conglomerate these days.

--------------------
Scott
--Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

Quote:

---

However the price for it is so cheap. So those who just want to make good recordings, it may be fine. But I have clients and need more compatability with what other studios are using.

---

How many of your clients will be using Samplitude? Seriously.

And how many of your clients will be going to another studio to record other parts of their albums? Do you know what they will be using at any of those studios? Pro Tools? Samplitude? Sonar? Cubase? Nuendo? Digital Performer? Logic? Radar?

ALL of these DAW packages are being used in pro studios throughout the U.S. and throughout the world. (As an aside, the album we recorded with that blues band I was working with was done on combination of a fair number of different systems, including Pro Tools, Digital Performer, Cubase, and a Mackie HD system.)

How are any of these DAWs particularly compatible with each other? Sure, there are some ways, but . . . other than that, they are all competitors and are trying to get people to move to their platform as their DAW of choice. So they aren't generally particularly interested in making things compatible. But there IS interest in doing so with REAPER.

There are a number things that make REAPER *extremely* compatible with other pro studios and DAW packages:

1. If you record a project in REAPER, you can easily export ALL of those tracks in a single action.

2. REAPER supports ReWire, which means it can be used *together with* any DAW that supports ReWire.

3. REAPER has its own proprietary ASIO system called ReaRoute that will allow you to pipe audio between REAPER and *ANY* other ASIO application.

So, if I'm not mistaken, between ReWire and ReaRoute, you should be able to "fly in" audio tracks from REAPER to another DAW, much as you would if you were "flying in" tracks via ADAT lightpipe, etc. Pretty handy if the DAW you recorded a project in doesn't have a good batch export function! These functions will also allow you to use plugins, editing etc. from other DAWs that you might not have available to you within REAPER.

That's a pretty hefty amount of *compatibility* right there, and I don't know of any other DAWs that offer that range of compatibility with other DAWs.

4. You can run the whole application off a USB pen drive! Even with the incredible amount of features that REAPER offers (and new ones seem to come out on a *daily basis!!!), the installation package is still a mere 2.1 MB!

REAPER does not install anything to the computer's registry. This means that you can load the whole program (including a whole boatload of good quality, and very useful plugins) on a little USB pen drive, and take it with you to run at any studio (though at the moment I believe you'll need to be working in a PC-based studio, but a Mac port is in process).

So that means you can take your DAW (along with all of your presets, user customisations, etc.) with you to the studio of your choice. And that means any musicians who might choose to use REAPER have the option to take their entire DAW package to YOUR studio, with all preproduction work intact!

5. Human readable and editable project file format. You can actually open up a project file in notepad and manually edit the file if a project gets corrupted for some reason. I've actually done this myself a couple of times now, when I ran into a problem using Emulator X as a VSTi in REAPER (problem is being worked on). And believe me -- I'm no writer of computer code! I've never done something like that before! So it doesn't seem to be a terribly difficult thing to do.

6. EDL import/export for both Samplitude and Vegas (there's one for you, Glenn!)

7. Support for numerous different file types, including easy drag and drop import and on the fly reading and writing of all of these file types. Reaper can also run a project containing multiple different file types, including file types of different sample rates and bit resolutions.

8. Support for NINJAM.

Among others. So . . . I'm not really seeing a compatibility problem here (and, if anything, certainly not to any greater degree than any of the big name DAWs). An understandable image/perception problem, perhaps, but not really a compatibility problem.

Don't get me wrong, Glenn . . . I can certainly understand why you chose to go with Samplitude. I think there are many things to like about Samplitude, and had been looking at Samplitude with covetous eyes myself (especially that spectral editing thing! w00 h0000!) And with the stellar cross-grade deal, I think it probably would have been more than a little silly not to jump on it.

But I also hate to see people dismiss something like this as maybe not being a viable professional tool (either now or after a few months or a year or so) without even really trying giving it a proper trial or even finding out more about the company that is developing the software (I've detailed a fair amount of that, at least from what I've been able to observe and gather for myself, in my earlier posts in this thread). Honestly, I feel that things like overly proprietary platforms, as well as platform snobbery, etc., hurt all of us in the industry -- as musicians and as engineers, etc. IMHO, we should be trying to work *together*, rather than being part of, or supporting, platform wars.

Also, REAPER *is* being used in some professional studios and other professional applications, even now. Below is a picture of REAPER being used at Cherokee Studios in L.A. in lieu of their Trident A and PTHD system. (Hope you don't mind my posting that, Pipeline!)



Here also is a quote from one of the REAPER forum regulars:

Quote:

---

Also on the reliability/stability/pro appeal of the program, I for one am using it for mission-critical live recordings of classical music for FM radio broadcast in Australia's state capitals (and for all subsequent post-pro), and no way would I do so if I had any misgivings on the trustworthiness of the program. I forget how long I've now used it for, but must be around a year? This includes recordings of internationally known musicians, and ranges from solo instruments through to symphony orchestras.

---

FWIW.

--------------------
Scott
--Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

I must say i do find it amusing the sort of logic in some peoples thinking. You lust after something like a DAV BG built by some bloke in his shed so you can replace your corporate Alesis pre amps but worry about a piece of software designed and "built" like the DAV....... most strange

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nibbled to death by an Okapi http://www.soundclick.com/tubilahdog

Quote Scottdru:

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Also, REAPER *is* being used in some professional studios and other professional applications, even now. Below is a picture of REAPER being used at Cherokee Studios in L.A. in lieu of their Trident A and PTHD system. (Hope you don't mind my posting that, Pipeline!)

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An interesting sidenote. REAPER was around three months old at the time!

Take a trip back thru reaper development
http://reaper.fm/timewarp.php

It would have been right around this guy

http://reaper.fm/images/reaper0931.gif

Justin met me at the studio and I worked thru many real life situations, with paying customers none the wiser. Justin fixed the bugs, came up with new tricks, and you should see his hands FLY, insanity

This is the big difference to me with this app. Its made by people who have seen the inside of a studio. Who undersand what its like to have to use the app in front of paying customers.

I cant say for sure what the other companies do, or what they know, but they seem to be made by marketing engineers usually, not audio engineers. I know for sure one of the biggies is NOT at all, in any way intimate with studio workings, yet they propose to tell us what to do

Reaper will be remembered as the app that changed everything in the audio software industry. Everywhere you look people are disgusted at the actions of Steinberg, Sony, Digidesign et al. Even 'alternative' apps such as FLStudio have become bloated and bogged down in marketese.

Justin is a complete breath of fresh air - I think the only reason people might be unsure about checking out Reaper is that this type of programming skill and customer support has simply never been made available before, and there is almost a 'what's the catch?' feeling out there. I think I felt that way for a while too, but spend an hour or two on the forum (an excellent way to gauge the health and integrity of any serious software outfit) and you can see many industry veterans and heavyweights contributing their knowledge and guiding the development in a 'best practice' manner.

This 'crowdsourcing' (groan) philosophy is the only way that I can see software businesses being able to survive. Firstly you get the best programmer with the best real-world knowledge, everything you needs to be 'transparent' and accountable (clear roadmap, sensible pricing), and then you attract those who have tried every other option and know EXACTLY what they do and don't need, and possibly most importantly, make passionate and persuasive arguments for these features.

Finally - don't spend one minute or one penny on marketing, glossy boxes, schmancy Flash websites or all that other smoke and mirrors crap. People are through with that nonsense, nowadays they look for personal recommendations from trusted sources (i.e. this very thread) and then are more than happy to evangelise when they realise just exactly what has taken place.

The only other company that I know of with a similar skillset and philosophy is Rane/Serato who collaborated on Serato Scratch Live. They ticked all the above boxes and went on to destroy all competition in their sector.

Quote Gelled_Fringe:

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Justin is a complete breath of fresh air - I think the only reason people might be unsure about checking out Reaper is that this type of programming skill and customer support has simply never been made available before, and there is almost a 'what's the catch?' feeling out there.

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I can think of a few examples of similar levels of help but not many from mass market software companies. Zefiro Acoustics who made the first non-proprietrary digital audio interface card for the PC were very responsive when I suggested changes to their software. I've seen many similar examples on the Sadie forum too but Sadie isn't cheap.

I've also heard good reports about Wavelab's Philippe Gaultier - probably the only Steinberg product with decent support. I've even seen one of my suggestions incorporated into Cool Edit Pro (although I'm sure I wasn't the only one who suggested that particular feature).

The thing is that the Reaper team are one of the few people who are this responsive at this end of the market.

Cheers

James.

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JRP Music - Audio Mastering and Restoration.
http://www.jrpmusic.net

Reaper indeed does look tasty!

My biggest concern is slightly different than Glenn's, but along the same lines. It looks great, but feels like it is still "unfinished" somehow.

Constant updates are great, but when you are releasing multiple updates per month, it just makes me feel that it has some ways to go before it is finished.

Now this is just the opposite of Steinberg who have not released anything for Cubase in about 5 months now.

So what will make me happy? Too many updates, and it feels unfinished, not enough, and I complain that the developer does not care about the users. What a complainer I am!!!

In some ways, it almost seems as if Justin is so passionate about his program, that he has turned into a tinkerer that will never be done! It has become an obsession with him to get it perfect, and that is commendable.

But is it like our music projects sometimes that we continue to tweak and never finish? There is always "one more thing to fix...".

So what is up with the constant releases? Lots of problems that need fixing? Lots of feature requests that keep getting added? Either way, that feels to me like an unfinished program.

No program can be the "be all and do all" program, but in some ways, that appears to be Justin's goal here! How cool is that???

With regard to the UAD-1 "fix" that Justin came up with... "Render ahead option disabled", does this disable the Automatic Delay Compensation for the UAD-1 stuff? I remember reading an early solution that he came up with did just that (disabled the ADC). Can anyone confirm that? It would be great to be able to use the UAD-1 plugs without CPU munching, but not at the cost of losing of ADC.

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James
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" ~Napoleon Bonaparte~

Quote Doublehelix:

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My biggest concern is slightly different than Glenn's, but along the same lines. It looks great, but feels like it is still "unfinished" somehow.

Constant updates are great, but when you are releasing multiple updates per month, it just makes me feel that it has some ways to go before it is finished.

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Unlike your experience with Steinberg, where they always release a finished product, right? Then, when bugs are found, it takes forever to get them fixed -- if they fix them at all, and when THEY decide the project is finished, it is finished, and you'll need to pay for the next upgrade -- even when they never properly implemented the features you were so excited to pay for in the last upgrade!

Yeah . . . I can totally understand your reservations.

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So what will make me happy? Too many updates, and it feels unfinished, not enough, and I complain that the developer does not care about the users. What a complainer I am!!!

In some ways, it almost seems as if Justin is so passionate about his program, that he has turned into a tinkerer that will never be done! It has become an obsession with him to get it perfect, and that is commendable.

But is it like our music projects sometimes that we continue to tweak and never finish? There is always "one more thing to fix...".

So what is up with the constant releases? Lots of problems that need fixing? Lots of feature requests that keep getting added? Either way, that feels to me like an unfinished program.

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The program is only a year old, and in that time Justin has accomplished what it has taken other developers YEARS to accomplish (which relates to another one of Glenn's expressed reservations).

ALSO . . . something that I have seen happen a number of times that gives me a large degree of confidence in REAPER as a professional solution is that, if it is found that a new version breaks something that was fine in a previous version (which issues always seem to get reported on the forums within an hour or two after a new version release), Justin will often release a patch for the existing version that fixes the problem, and then incorporates that fix into the next version.

Some of the bigger problems (such as the UAD problem) might take a little longer to get sorted, but they do seem to eventually get sorted.

Part of this is also related to the fact that the code of Reaper itself is developed in a modular fashion. This allows the developers to isolate and fix problems quickly, and in such a manner that fixing a given problem less likely to cause problems with other parts of the application. That is not an insignificant feature!

But the thing I'm seeing with this that I really like a LOT is that, if you upgrade to a newer version, you don't end up stuck with something that's broken for days, weeks, months . . . or years. And, even if you have to backtrack a version or so, it isn't a huge ordeal, and you don't run into backward compatibility issues, because Reaper is intentionally set up to be both backward and forward compatible.

Please compare and contrast this with your experience with Steinberg, and explain your reservations to me again.

I seriously fail to see any of this as a problem. But I was happy to see that, in a release from yesterday (or was it that day before), now we have the Dirac pitch shift and time stretch algorithm (which is the same pitch/time algorithm used by Wavelab) in Reaper, and we can choose between Dirac and Soundtouch. Sweet!

Gee . . . I hate it when an application continues to get better and better on a daily basis. I much prefer to wait around for and be dissatisfied with my DAW. Dagblastit, that Justin! He needs to slow da f**q down, I tell ye! We're not used to having our needs met and our concerns responded to so quickly like this . . . not to mention we might pee our pants for all the excitement!



Perhaps all of this is a little bit like staying in dysfunctional or abusive relationships with people because we're just so used it being like that . . . and then when we finally break free we end up in another abusive relationship with someone else, because we don't trust that it can be any different?

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With regard to the UAD-1 "fix" that Justin came up with... "Render ahead option disabled", does this disable the Automatic Delay Compensation for the UAD-1 stuff? I remember reading an early solution that he came up with did just that (disabled the ADC). Can anyone confirm that? It would be great to be able to use the UAD-1 plugs without CPU munching, but not at the cost of losing of ADC.

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Of course I can't verify for myself as I don't have a UAD card, but from the reports I'm seeing I believe that issue is indeed properly fixed (and any remaining issues are issues that UAD need to sort out in their own drivers, etc.). There are a couple of threads on the Reaper forum about this.

Here are a couple of threads other than the one I linked to earlier:

http://www.cockos.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4207

http://www.cockos.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6255

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Scott
--Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

I should also point out, DH, that Reaper will work in versions of Windows from Win 98 all the way through to Vista, and is also apparently showing itself to be working well with "bleeding edge" technology like Octa Core, not just dual core processors (i.e., better multiple processor usage than at least Sonar, that I know of). So it seems that Justin is developing this application with the future firmly in mind.

Again . . . compare this with the moaning and gnashing of teeth with other DAW companies that has happened as new technologies and operating systems come up, in getting things properly implemented for the changeovers, and look at how quickly they drop software and hardware support now for older operating systems.

As I keep saying . . . I think there is something very different going on here. Sure looks that way to me, anyway.

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Scott
--Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

To add to the portability question.
I went over to my girlfriend the other night and brought along Reaper on an USB stick and the latest mixes of our little private project.
She runs windows 2000 on a Pentium 500 with 384MB memory with some kind of onboard soundcard.
There was no problem whatsoever playing back the 12 track mix and adjusting some of the stuff.
I just had to remember to freeze all the tracks with UAD effects before I went over

I dare you to find another current DAW that will let you do that.

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Perhaps all of this is a little bit like staying in dysfunctional or abusive relationships with people because we're just so used it being like that . . . and then when we finally break free we end up in another abusive relationship with someone else, because we don't trust that it can be any different?

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What a great quote Scott, and ya know, it is more true that not to be honest!

I am very excited by the stuff that Justin is doing, and I can't imagine that he isn't going to take over the DAW world, and I wish him well!

I am going to play with the Demo tonight, come hell or high water!!!

Thanks for the encouragement... you make a great cheerleader! (Nice boobs too!!!)

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James
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" ~Napoleon Bonaparte~

After being so comfortable with Cubase for so long, I have found out that there is life after Cubase. There are a lot of DAW's out there and Reaper appears to give you the most for you money. It seems that with today's technology, all the DAW engines are very good. It was not that way 6 years ago, but it seems that Logic, Samplitude, Nuendo/Logic, Sonar, Digital Performer, and the latest Pro Tools all have great engines. I have not heard the engine on Reaper but I know many say it's great.

My suggestion is to use what works for you. It's work flow, it's looks, compatability with other sofware, stability, and good customer service. The one you like the best, is the one you should stick with. Trying to convince others to use what you have is not really productive. However bringing out pros and cons that you have experienced on DAW's may be helpful. And with that, I will stick with my Samplitude thank you. I still have Cubase SX3 which I can use if I need deeper midi features (which I have not needed yet). But I have enjoyed checking out Sonar, and Sampltiude. I had Logic 5 on my PC way back when. It seemed like Cubase, a very deep program, but a great program. Now with Version 7 it is another great program. If I was running my DAW on a Mac, that is the program I would use hands down. Ever since version 6 it really gave a lot of great features that a lot of other company's started to copy.

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revelationsoundstudio.com

Edited by Glenn Bucci (01/03/07 03:50 AM)

Well I'm looking forward to tumbling prices after Reaper upsets the market and blows the myths away. The lower prices will mean that he software is too cheap to steal so dongles will go out the window too.
If one man can do all that then I reckon any of the big boys only have 5 bod's max working on software. That's why all the updates and bugfixes take so long to arrive and 64 bit seems to surprise them so much after 4 years.
One famous company hasn't said a peep for 6 weeks now since Vista's sudden release on the market made them drop all their doughnuts and sploot coffee everywhere. I'm not going to advertise them, poor darlings.
I have no high hopes of any new product as they never finished any of their old product in 15 years trying and I don't think they're up to new fangled ideas like having good customer relations. They're just too old.

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Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

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I have no high hopes of any new product as they never finished any of their old product in 15 years trying and I don't think they're up to new fangled ideas like having good customer relations. They're just too old.

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Why would a company want to produce a finished product when they can charge you for the next version?

I've had a good run out with Reaper and while in some ways I still prefer the maturity of Cubase, this is probably more due to familiarity. The only thing I really miss from SX are the right click tools. Otherwise, in so many ways Reaper is already preferable. Simple yet effective.