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Thread Who here uses Reaper as their main DAW?

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1 Who here uses Reaper as their main DAW?
I'm thinking of upgrading from garageband but don't have too much money. I've read good and bad things about reaper, but I like the open-source idea and the cheaper price. I'd like to learn more from those out there with Reaper experience before making a decision. Thank you.
2
I'm a huge fan of the absence of artificial limitations. You can rout anything anywhere, every track is a bus, there is no technical limit to the number of channels, sidechain channels, etc.

You can also use "folders" to both organize and bus your tracks. You aren't forced into a particular method as is often the case with other DAWs out there. Reaper pretty much gives you a bunch of tools then lets you do with them what you wish.

Recently an elastic audio feature has been added, bringing Reaper up to the same level as other truly professional-grade DAWs. Yet, instead of paying upwards of $500,it only cost me 225 bucks for a fully-featured license. And on a side note, I carry mine around as a portable installation on a flash drive.
3
I live track 30+ simultaneous channels through reaper every week, and still haven't come across another DAW that can beat it. It has NEVER crashed for me, running on a 2011 iMac with 8 gigs of RAM and an external 3tb hard drive helps, of course.

I'm a huge believer in reaper because their developers seem driven by pure passion and love for what they do. They don't put countless limitations like Avid does simply because I chose not to pay a year's rent for PT HDXR + SX2 v4 with limited edition iLok dongles...

Regarding use, Reaper is as simple or complicated as you make it. What you get for the $60 discounted license is nothing short of amazing. Some small interesting capabilities include being abble to add a new track, assign an input to it and arm it while the session is currently armed and recording, and it will simply pick up where you armed the new track. You can also change inputs on a track while the session is recording, arm or disarm tracks while a session is recording, etc.

I still use an older PT9 for mixing purposes, as it's simply what I'm used to and have done successfully for years. I'm sure Reaper is more than capable in this department, but above all, I use it for tracking. Truly a magnificent, yet affordable, piece of software :bravo::bravo:
4
Quote from beatdrop:
Recently an elastic audio feature has been added, bringing Reaper up to the same level as other truly professional-grade DAWs. Yet, instead of paying upwards of $500,it only cost me 225 bucks for a fully-featured license. And on a side note, I carry mine around as a portable installation on a flash drive.


Reaper never needed Elastic Audio to be considered an elite DAW. EA was imho a slight improvement, but Reaper has been dominating PT for years regarding functionality.
5
Maybe a silly question, but what's the difference between the $225 license and the $60 license?
6
Reaper is a more than capable DAW and possibly the best bang-for-buck option amongst all DAWs. Even if you ignore the lower price, it's quite comparable in terms of features and value.

Personally, I have used PT more than most DAWs, and admittedly, there are some features where Reaper falls short (scoring films, for example), but regarding the everyday needs of most home studios, there's absolutely nothing you can't do with Reaper that you can do with other options.

The most important thing when considerin Reaper or ANY DAW (for home studio use) is workflow. This is where most differ from one another. I find reaper's workflow to be very similar to the workflow needed in a tape-based studio, so if you're comfortable in that environment then you'll love Reaper.

The only time I would push PT or any other DAW over all others is if you have a paid project that demands you to ship files off to PT-only users. Otherwise, experiment with all the demos and find the workflow that suits you best.

Quote from blacksabbath:
Maybe a silly question, but what's the difference between the $225 license and the $60 license?


$225 is the professional license (if you use Reaper to generate income). It's pretty much honor system regarding which you purchase, but there shouldn't be many (if any) differences in capability.