Anyone else here using Reaper ?

[cdtBEAST]

I have just started learning to use Reaper & it fucking kicks ass.

I started with protools but was dissatisfied, have been using Nuendo for a couple of years now, however there are a few things that shit me with it, most of which have been resolved in Cubase5, but  the price.
Then I stumbled across Reaper  & fuck me it does everything I want & other cool shit I hadn't thought of. A lot of things that you would rely on plugins for, it just does as standard operating options. It is encoded tight as fuck so you can run it off a usb as it doesn't install into the windows directory.
It is based on windows/Linux but will run on a mac.
It is open source design so it is constantly being developed.
If you install it on a usb key & your studio pc never goes online, you can just plug your usb onto your other online pc & it will auto look for any updates/fixes.
If you have a problem the developers also run the forum & being open source everyone on there gets cracking to fix whatever the bug is.
It will run most plugin formats.
It comes with some killer plugs as standard
You can upload a shitload of skins, so if you are used to say PT8 you can make it look similar to PT8 etc
It hasn't crashed
You can minimize Reaper whilst it is performing tasks & work on other shit & it won't crash or freeze.
It auto detects all 4 cpu's on a quad core & puts them to good use.
It has a cpu/ram/hard drive usage screen that can also propegate a list of all plugs in use & exactly how much cpu & ram they are individually eating up.
You can switch your plug graphics skins to a standard boring GUI skin, so you judge your plug by how it sounds not how cool it looks.
You can speed up/slow down the speed of a song without changing it's pitch with a simple slider bar.
The PDF manual is awseome & costantly updated.
You get Reaper free for 30days then it is $70 for a non commercial license & you never have to pay for any upgrades, unlike PT/Nuendo/Cubase. Which all cost a fortune & a small fortune again to upgrade.
Upgrades are constant not in bundles so things don't fuck up so much. If you have a problem with any of the upgrades they will get on it straight away.
The community forum is actually very helpfull.
Everything within this program can be acessed, so you can customise any aspect of it.
You can stem off an entire project into individual stems with one mouse click.
There are no track number restrictions
It has folder tracks to keep your page neat, which can be used as busses.
Audio routing is intense
It can do surround sound & video

The list is endless.   

[Merlok]

can this be use if im going straight from guitar through a effects board into my line-in on the computer.

ive been using a dodgy program called fruitloops to record but its suks!

[Khariot_G]

good one man, i still use my main program, but found Reaper recently as well.
work at UWA's School Of Music as a Sound guy and had to put together a portable recording solution for the students, and this was free, worked with both my M-Audio sound cards, the 01V96, and the Mackie Onyx with Firewire expansions. when i loaded it onto my own lappy, by default it loaded all my plugins from my other program.

for something that is FREE - it is crazy how up-to-standard it can be. the whole school is ProTools based (ARGHHHHHH) and my studio and the other main studios are all DigiRacks (002s or 003s) and ARGHHHHHHHH.
there is no problems, but Pro Tools likes to FUCK people. and slowly but surely, everyone has started to convert.

[Manny]

Hey Simon, I've heard of Reaper a fair while ago now....haven't used it, but have heard great stuff about it.  I'll have to give it a try...
PS Nuendo works well for me 

[cdtBEAST]

can this be use if im going straight from guitar through a effects board into my line-in on the computer.

ive been using a dodgy program called fruitloops to record but its suks!

Fruity Loops  Jesus Christ.
Yes go online & grab reaper dude.

[cdtBEAST]

good one man, i still use my main program, but found Reaper recently as well.
work at UWA's School Of Music as a Sound guy and had to put together a portable recording solution for the students, and this was free, worked with both my M-Audio sound cards, the 01V96, and the Mackie Onyx with Firewire expansions. when i loaded it onto my own lappy, by default it loaded all my plugins from my other program.

for something that is FREE - it is crazy how up-to-standard it can be. the whole school is ProTools based (ARGHHHHHH) and my studio and the other main studios are all DigiRacks (002s or 003s) and ARGHHHHHHHH.
there is no problems, but Pro Tools likes to FUCK people. and slowly but surely, everyone has started to convert.

I found pro tools LE way to restrictive. I went to Nuendo mainly because of the unlimited track count & that I was unrestricted with soundcard choice.
Reaper however is much better for me. I just upgraded to Reaper3 the other day & it kicks ass.
Having the stem project option is awse, if I need to send a project to someone in TOOLS say for mastering, it makes life simple. A lot of the guys on the Andy Sneap forum use it. Andy likes it as the stemming option makes for less fuckups when sending a non protools session to him for mixing/mastering.

[Merlok]

what would you guys recommend in term of sounds card options?

currently i use the on board sounds card as im just a bedroom warrior  but want something so i can put some tracks together

[Cortex]

I've been using reaper for ages as well just because I was interested in seeing it progress, always been a fan of justin frankel's work since winamp, ninjam, etc. Very solid program but I can't go past cubase for anything MIDI, and cubase 5 owns my soul.

But yes, fantastic program, cheap, amazing.

[cdtBEAST]

The latest version, 3 is a lot better.

Here are some other Reaper functions for anyone who cares.

Plugs can be dragged & dropped, also copied into another track by dragging & dropping from a track, also moving from one track to another like a cut & paste.

If you cut sections of audio onscreen, you can drag & drop VST plugs etc into just the cut section. So you can have seperate vst plugs running for seperate sections of a single wave file.

If your cpu starts to hurt you can stem render tracks that are overloaded with plugs. It puts the rendered version of the track under the origonal & deactivates the origonal track, to free up cpu. If you need to change the sound of the track later, just enable the origonal track, moldify what you need to & re-render. 

It also has folder rendering. So you can say render all the guitars down to one track. If you need to get back to individual tracks ust re enable the bastards & render.

You can adjust the pan law centre. Which is extremly handy for those who are physically restricted for speaker placement & find that they have no choice but to have the speakers too close or too far apart.

It supports Rewire

You can use external wave editors ie: Soundforge, from withi the program.

[Nosaj]

Well I have just downloaded reaper as well as the manual. After reading all the good stuff about it. I thought fuck it.

[Nosaj]

Starting to get the hang of it. Made a midi test song. Musically it's crap. But I was more concerned about sussing out how to use reaper than my musicianship at the moment. But so far so good. Trying to suss out the drum samples was a bit of a bitch.

[Nosaj]

If your cpu starts to hurt you can stem render tracks that are overloaded with plugs. It puts the rendered version of the track under the origonal & deactivates the origonal track, to free up cpu. If you need to change the sound of the track later, just enable the origonal track, moldify what you need to & re-render. 

I think thats a problem I have encounted using Reaper. When I use more than five tracks the record/playback function starts to slowdown and sort of freeze. But I use VST for all five tracks.  But I'm assuming thats a symptom of PC overload.

Another thing. when I recorded a synthesiser part using Arturia Jupiter 8-v. I have had static on some of the synth sounds.

Apart from those 2 issues it's all dandy.

Sorry about bringing up an old thread. But I didn't want to start another reaper thread. Plus this is kind of important.

[cdtBEAST]

What are the specs of your computer. I am running up to 90 tracks ALL with some form of plugin with no issues.
Are you using the regular online update? It will tend to fix these kind of issues.
You can speak to the developer online on the reaper forum.
Also go to the forum & look up your problem, it will most probably be there & will be piss easy to fix, the forum is gold buddy, use it aye.

[goat]

when mine dicks out like that if im recording i just turn the plugins on the tracks that arent required off.
If youre using EZdrummer sd2 with all the comps, filters and eqs in the mixng window cranking, then it'll suck cpu like something that gets sucked really hard and profusley. for lack of a better sucking description. like a milkmaid sucking a golf ball thru a garden hose, there ya go.

try changing youre virtual memory in windows also.

at the end of the day though, record everything first, then mix etc. things will work alot easier with those buffers higher. cant expect the compy to run too many vst's on 192buffers and not get all pissed off.

[Nosaj]

Computer is an Intell(R) Pentium(R) 4CPU 2.8GHZ
2.79GHZ, 1.73GB of  RAM.
Plus a 37.2GB Hard drive with 11.5GB freespace. Had been looking at upgrading. But I might look at the forum first.

[cdtBEAST]

More ram will help.
Also get a bigger faster drive. The size & drive speed were the reason every DAW kept glitching for me. Upgraded to a fast terrabyte size drive & no problems. Also always have the software on c drive but the job you are working on on a seperate drive. This poses less of a problem with reaper as it can be run off a thumb drive, however I suggest installing it on the c drive & having your project on a seperate drive.
Also when mixing, not tracking give yourself more buffer latency dude. 

[goat]

1. get your axe from back shed.
2. proceed to assert major aggressive authoritaux on offending equipment. (computer)
3. laugh heartily at your new artistic creation.
4. Proceed to purchase a new and improved.

make sure you can afford it first though of course. i learn these little tips the hard way. tis funny though.

[Nosaj]

More ram will help.
Also get a bigger faster drive. The size & drive speed were the reason every DAW kept glitching for me. Upgraded to a fast terrabyte size drive & no problems. Also always have the software on c drive but the job you are working on on a seperate drive. This poses less of a problem with reaper as it can be run off a thumb drive, however I suggest installing it on the c drive & having your project on a seperate drive.
Also when mixing, not tracking give yourself more buffer latency dude. 

Thats what I though the problem would be. I had been looking at more powerful PC's. Theres a brand of PC advertised in one of those computer music magazines, that is specialy designed for DAW's. Can't remember what it is offhand though.

As for the second drive. I happen to have a external hardrive. I use that for backup, incase the PC shits itself and I lose everything.

[cdtBEAST]

External drives are great for backing up. However when using a DAW you should have 2 drives internally, 1 c drive for the program & a second drive for the work, most DAWs don't like having the project on the same drive as the program. 

[Nosaj]

I might look into the 2nd hard drive this weekend sometime and maybe a bit more ram too.

PS: I feel really uncomfortable using Ram and Hard drive in the same sentence.

[Alcoholocaust]

I save everything on my HDD and back it up on my external HDD
Lost a couple of tracks a while ago and i'll never do it again!

[Nosaj]

I need a new car more than I need a new PC. But the second hardrive would keep going for a while. Although considering the type of PC I have. I'm suprised there wasn't anymore bugs. I figured I'd make sure I knew what I was doing first before upgrading.

[Bherstuk]

I need a new car more than I need a new PC. But the second hardrive would keep going for a while. Although considering the type of PC I have. I'm suprised there wasn't anymore bugs. I figured I'd make sure I knew what I was doing first before upgrading.

Your computer is a shitload better than mine... Mines over 10 years old. :S

[Nosaj]

Just installed the 2nd hard drive and moving the work from the c drive to E. Hopefully that does the trick.

[cdtBEAST]