Yeah, Reaper rocks over Protools !

[Lawrence]

No clue why you dug up this chestnut.

Who else, in this scenario, DOES know how to operate ProTools?

In the context I described pretty clearly, just about any professional on-call freelance audio engineer. The question was... "Who can you find on a moments notice that will be efficient in Reaper, or Cubase, or something else."

You talk about Reaper as if it actually works like everything else, when it clearly does not, it clearly does many things in an opposite fashion from most workstation software. It's not like driving another car, it's a car you have to - learn first - which is why this forum is chock full of new people asking about simple things like how to range select and delete media, or how to do a certain kind of edit, because Reaper doesn't work like anything else on the market.

In the major markets finding a competent PT operator is pretty easy.

Again, it's all pretty stupid, the idea that all that matters is the software "can do's".. not really, sometimes it matters who else - like the staff engineer perhaps? - can efficiently operate the software... which is why PT is kind of a standard in large studios, because many audio engineers know how to operate it already and nobody footing the bill is gonna sit there burning the clock while he goes and asks questions on the Reaper forum... instead of using something he already knows how to operate.

Again, all of those people still using PT actually aren't idiots. They made a conscious choice for their own logical reasons.

Down with PT hate. Up with common sense, personal choices, and maturity.

Thanks Yep.

[yep]

[QUOTE=Solar;1412280]...Remember when we've paid Cubase for 1000$???? Or Nuendo for 2000$, Samplitude, Logic etc.. /QUOTE]

They are increasingly rare, but there are still studios in the world where those amounts are pisshole in the snow. A friend of mine works at (a place that shall remain unnamed), that just built a new Neve Room. I mean, a room with a completely re-conditioned Neve Console. Like, half a million on the console alone. They have cabinets just full of multi-kilobuck mics. The main soffit-mounted monitors probably cost as much as a new Porsche.

It would be really interesting to see the economics of some of these DAW companies.

Software can be a tricky thing to price. The very first copy sold might cost millions of dollars, but each additional copy costs essentially zero to produce. The idea is obviously to maximize revenue, both to maximize profits, and to hire and invest in re-development. Is it more profitable, overall, to sell licences cheaply (as REAPER does)?

Most audio-software companies seem to stick to "tiered" pricing, where the more you pay, the more features you get.

Many years ago (probably mid-90s), I read an article in the Wall Street Journal, about the Gibson Guitar company, where their executives were remarkably candid about pricing. The internet was a smaller thing back then, and I am guessing that nobody at Gibson expected their core buyers to be reading the Wall Street Journal.

(I am paraphrasing from memory, here)

In any case, the ownership group that took over Gibson in the mid-80s had a notion that they could lower prices and increase sales-volume, without compromising quality, and even improving it, by streamlining bureaucracy and overhead, imposing stricter QC standards, and so on. They knew guitars, and were determined not to repeat the mistakes of Fender, who notoriously tried to cut costs by compromising quality, resulting in particular "eras" of Fender gear being significantly more prized than others.

By the early 1990s, they had achieved their cost-control goals, and could now make Gibson-quality guitars for about 1/2~2/3 the cost, and they cut prices accordingly. I want to say that at the bottom of their price-cutting, they were selling a Les Paul Standard at a street price of around $600~$800 (in roughly 1990 dollars). But sales-volume was actually going down, despite the lower price. Meanwhile the used and "vintage" prices for Gibsons kept going up and up.

The new Gibson owners were frantic. They were completely committed to maintaining or improving instrument-quality, and all of the reviewers, sponsored rock-stars, test-customers, etc seemed to agree that the new production-line Gibsons were as good or better than the old/"vintage" stuff. It seemed not to matter how much they cut prices or improved quality. Prices for old Gibsons were going up and up, but they couldn't sell new Gibsons.

Someone at Gibson suggested the seemingly-insane idea of *raising* prices. Desperate for anything, the new owners tried it. Lo and behold, sales went up. The exact same Gibson guitar, on the exact same shelf, sold faster, with a higher price-tag. They raised MSRP again, giving most of the profit to retailers. Retailers sold out at the higher price, and orders went up.

The Wall Street Journal, being a business publication, focused on the business-lesson that sometimes people WANT a more-expensive, more-exclusive product. Gibson not only made more profit per-sale, but actually sold more guitars by selling them at super-premium prices.

Of course, whether rightly or wrongly, it is now an internet-forum staple that new $3,000 Gibsons are not bought by actual guitar-players, but instead by doctors and lawyers who want to own the guitar of their childhood rock-heroes.

I wonder how much of that psychology applies to home-studio DAW?

[yep]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

...
In the major markets finding a competent PT operator is pretty easy....

Um, we are talking about a mid-session recording of an orchestra, per your example. What kind of picture are you trying to paint? Where a "competent PT operator" shows up and cannot manage the basic controls of REAPER, but who does know how to operate the studio otherwise? That's insane.

We're not asking him to mix the record, or to set up routing, just to hit record/stop/play/rewind/undo etc, according to your own example.

(Let me check my studio calendar...) In the past 30 days, we've had 28 days with booked sessions, with at least 5 different primary engineers. Any single one of those could have finished the basic tracking on any of the 5 or 6 DAWs we have installed, or on the tape-deck, or could have had one of the girlfriends/boyfriends finish it, in your scenario, because there is nothing to do but hit the transport controls.

If the primary engineer has to take off before the mic-setup, routing, etc is done, or dies before the track is mixed, then yeah, the person filling in is going to have to do some actual work. But you're bending over backwards to imagine an outlandish scenario with a once-in-a-lifetime SNAFU, and even still, pretty much anyone at all could fill in and save the session, until the primary engineer comes back tomorrow.

Where you MIGHT have a legitimate point is if the primary engineer died or became long-term disabled, midway through the session. But then we're completely out the window, in terms of starting over.

If you know DAW, REAPER is not that hard to figure out, in terms of the basics. Way easier than figuring out a new console or patchbay.

Your scenario might carry more weight if the REAPER engineer died or was fired, and if some fast-finger McGillicutty PT wizard was called in to edit drum tracks or mult, comp, edit, and re-tune 100 bad vocal tracks into something good, or something. Then you might lose half a day or so while the REAPER-ignorant figure out how to import the tracks into PT, or whatever platform allows the specialist to work her track-perfecting magic. But it's not like the orchestra is sitting in the live room while that happens.

Everyone who works in audio these days knows at least SOMETHING about other DAWs. I mean, you have to AT LEAST have seen Garageband. There is no such thing as a competent ProTools engineer, in 2014, who cannot figure out the basic transport and track-controls of REAPER in less than 10 minutes.

If anything, it's the REAPER operator who is at a disadvantage, because so many things that are easy and obvious in REAPER (especially routing and bussing) are so convoluted and counter-intuitive in other DAWs.

Make no mistake, clients will absolutely turn you down if you don't offer Protools. But this scenario of having a lucrative, professional client-base drop you because some personal emergency required someone else to operate REAPER's transport controls for half a day is beyond the bounds of sanity.

[grinder]

Yep!

Grinder

[Lawrence]

Um, we are talking about a mid-session recording of an orchestra, per your example. What kind of picture are you trying to paint?

The hypothetical that seems to have bunched panties is related to recording and editing on demand. Where recording and editing is maybe happening all at once, punching, comping, etc, etc, etc. Maybe recording orchestral bits over a pop song on the fly, on demand, on request. Maybe you could do all that in Reaper in your first five minutes of using it, but most can't.

You kinda have to know - how - to do all that in Reaper or anything else or things will slow way, way down while you try to figure it out. It's a lot more than "just hitting the record button".

Again, context is key. Nobody here is dissing Reaper. It's a great application. If it wasn't I wouldn't be on my second license.

I give up. PT sucks. Everyone should just use Reaper. I hope that ends it all, and yes, my hypothetical was somewhat flawed. I regret even forwarding that hypothetical knowing the high levels of sensitivity here. The only point there was that - continuity - has a purpose in major rooms and PT is part of that continuity.

Anyway, back on topic...

Dear Avid, please stop with your business.

Reaper is a DAW, Protools is a joke.

^^^ Self serving consumer level "...my daw is the bestest ever ..." bullshit. ^^^

I doubt - excluding yourself of course - most people here yammering have ever even worked behind the glass in a big studio. It's all consumer bullshit... these regular cycles of ... "We must beat PT to feel better!!!!".

Thanks Yep.

[yep]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

I give up. PT sucks. Everyone should just use Reaper. I hope that ends it all, and yes, my hypothetical was somewhat flawed. I regret even forwarding that hypothetical knowing the high levels of sensitivity here...

You're using strawmen here, Lawrence, pretending that everyone else is hyper-sensitive, and putting every opinion that differs from your own into the same bucket.

You started with a legitimate point, but then buried it in an outlandish hypothetical, and then doubled-down on make-pretend world. You're trying to draw bright-lines to define the shoreline, which side is open ocean, and which side is dry land, and then playing the martyr when the waves and tides mess up your efforts.

You bring a lot of useful insight and perspective to these forums, but sometimes more than one perspective can be helpful and informative. It's possible for one person to like red, and another to like green, and for both of them to contribute something valuable. You don't have to "win", or prove the other guy wrong, in order to contribute.

As for the trolls, bomb-throwers, and shit-posters, don't wrestle with pigs. The pig likes it, and you both get dirty.

[The Byre]

Originally Posted by yep

Software can be a tricky thing to price. The very first copy sold might cost millions of dollars, but each additional copy costs essentially zero to produce. The idea is obviously to maximize revenue, both to maximize profits, and to hire and invest in re-development. Is it more profitable, overall, to sell licences cheaply (as REAPER does)?

This is because SW was the first product to enter the world of zero marginal cost. Creating the SW can cost millions, but (if it is 'just' a download) manufacturing costs are zero. Even if you put it in a nice box with a handbook, you are talking about $2 max.

Marginal cost is the cost of producing the last item. It is the difference in cost between one million widgets and one million and one widgets. There is a school of thought that believes that everything is tending towards zero marginal cost and it certainly is beginning to look that way!

The marginal cost of most budget cars is under $1k for example. It is the staggering cost of tooling up, R&D, testing, building the factory and marketing that makes cars expensive items.

Originally Posted by yep

The Wall Street Journal, being a business publication, focused on the business-lesson that sometimes people WANT a more-expensive, more-exclusive product. Gibson not only made more profit per-sale, but actually sold more guitars by selling them at super-premium prices.

That is know as the 'snob effect' and is a very well known economic principle. You could also call it perceived value. If a guitar costs $500, there must be something wrong with it. If a guitar costs $2,000, that is a clear indication of quality.

Same guitar, same badge, same everything - different price tag and therefore different perception of value!

I have a concert grand. New, that beast costs about $150,000. Now for the life of me, I don't see $150,000 when I look at the thing. True, it's nice to look at and it sounds just great, but one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars? Come on! It's just a drop-forged frame, some mechanics and some wood in a pretty wooden box!

I don't hear any difference between my grand and an East European one for one-fifth of the price! They even have the same mechanics and the same strings.

The difference is that one has the badge Boesendorfer, the other says Estonia. That badge (and extra keys at the bottom end that nobody ever plays!) is enough to add $120,000 to the price.

Does this apply to SW?

All big budget SW is bought by industry and comes as a package. If you are manufacturing cars, the cost of the CIM package (computer integrated manufacturing) is pretty irrelevant. $10m, $20m, $50m - small sums compared to the cost of the factory or the cost of developing a new series of engines. At that level, the biggest cost for SW is if it does not work as it is supposed to.

Below the dizzy heights of huge multi-million packages from the likes of IBM and SAP, we have single work-place SW like AutoCad, Adobe CS and dare I say it, Media Composer and ProTools HD.

Reaper, PT, Logic and CuBase live in the murky world where work-place SW meets hobby SW. PT is trying to place itself with HD as work-place SW, similar the Adobe CS offerings.

The true problem is that if I commit my studio to ONLY using PT-HD, then there are too many tasks that it just cannot do (or does poorly). This is true for most work-place SW. And often, it is the simple and fundamental things that expensive SW packages get wrong, mostly because there is a basic flaw in the way the whole thing was conceived.

For example, ALL DAWs are pi$$ poor at tracking large projects. Even if I throw the latest and best control gizmo at a DAW, tracking across a big project is the Achilles heel of using SW to do something that hardware is clearly better at!

So what is the key to getting your SW to be accepted as the go-to SW for a specific task?

Well, there are several -

1. Early adopters. If you are early into the market, people associate you with the task.

2. Be better and easier. Your SW has to be easy to use AND it has to have all the necessary features - i.e. tick all the boxes!

3. Get into the schools and colleges. Kids become adults and if they know your SW backwards and to Ninja level, they will use it for years to come.

4. Have one killer app or feature. Have at least one feature that people start to use and then discover that they cannot live without.

5. Do what the pros want. Work closely with professional uers and give them the features that they want - they do have a trickle-down effect on the rest of the market.

You will notice that at no time do I mention price. Assuming that a normal working professional can afford your package, price does not play a great role. AutoCad, ProTools-HD, Adobe CS, all rather expensive, compared to most of their competition.

But all three (and similar packages in other fields) covered all five points above perfectly.

There was a time when Quark Xpress was the ONLY layout programme that you would ever find in any publishing house. But just as Quark Xpress started to jerk its customers about and was missing vital features, which resulted in Adobe wiping the floor with it and making CS the de facto standard for any layout and design task, so too is Adobe beginning to slip.

PT was the first functioning DAW that listened to the pros and integrated hardware the way that they wanted it. It got into the schools and colleges with a very agressive marketing campaign. The simplicity of the cut/paste and move commands were exemplary and the plugs that were available gave you features that no other DAW in the 90s could.

The only other DAWs that integrated hardware for processing were Soundscape and Sadie, but both were geeky little companies that only listened carefully to other geeks. Also both relied on Windows and the pro-audio community was on Apples. Both were very reliable, both worked quite well, but both made themselves irrelevant to the professional.

And both failed to market themselves properly or to innovate.

Standing in the wings and smiling menacingly was the music industry giant Yamaha. It bought Steinberg and made sure that the CuBase team listened very, very carefully to the musicians market and a lite version of CuBase was bundled with just about everything. Today, CuBase is the number one DAW (user base) on Planet Earth.

ProTools languishes at equal-fourth (user base) with snotty little up-start Reaper. Except that Reaper has just three core developers, spends approximately nothing on marketing and has minuscule fixed costs. Avid features a cast of thousands and spends more on marketing than on R&D.

Avid is a company that seems to want to play in every sandbox. It provides huge industrial packages for broadcasters (and loses tons of money in the process!) as well as providing work-place packages like MC and PT, as well as a lite version for home use, to compete with the likes of CuBase.

It is a classic case of a company that lacks focus.

Avid offers a bewildering array of hardware, some of which amazingly actually competes against other Avid products - and almost none of it is scalable. If I buy one version of ProTools or a control surface, it is as a replacement for a previous model. You can't 'side-car' or extend them in any way!

To state that the DAW market is up for grabs is to state the blindingly obvious! Not one of the four most popular packages ticks all the boxes. CuBase, Logic, Reaper and ProTools all come close and between them, account for two-thirds of all users. The need for hardware integration is just no longer there, but the coming Big Beast will be the creation of very high definition multimedia in the home (as well as in the studio).

Avid is pitching to broadcasters and studios - fine, except that the gateway function of the likes of the BBC, NBC, RAI, RTL or any other giants is slowly and inexorably slipping below that waterline. Big tracking rooms that poo-poo the idea of home recording and the producer studio and look to labels and big-budget films will be heading the same way.

Small and independent producers getting together with other similar operations using home recording and the producer studio to make films and recordings, delivered via the Internet, is the future of the professional market. That is where the battles will all be fought!

[airon]

So Cockos will/might/could/some-day-will listen to professionals ?

I look forward to more of that.

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by yep

You're using strawmen here, Lawrence, pretending that everyone else is hyper-sensitive, and putting every opinion that differs from your own into the same bucket.

Not really.

I forwarded a hypothetical - a completely made up situation - and people reacted to it as if it was forwarded as the - only - way that particular thing could ever happen, when it was presented as - one hypothetical example - of how lack of continuity might be an issue. It was an extension of my previous comments about how the engineers in Nashville I talked about work. It had a specific context but it was challenged as if it actually couldn't even happen at all.

It wasn't meant to be so literal , it was a hypothetical to express a basic idea, that continuity is sometimes useful. When someone says... "But I do string session and that wouldn't happen to me..." or similar that doesn't mean it actually can't or won't happen to someone else.

The point was mostly in the idea, not in the literal singular hypothetical circumstance.

And yes, there is hyper sensitivity to PT here, you see it in the regular threads that get started who's only intent is to bash on PT, a product that most people here don't even want to use or own. A never ending search for "respect" and "acceptance".

A long time ago there was a question here...

"When will Reaper really mature?"

... and my answer (mmv as usual) was...

"When users stop being so insecure about their choice."

If you do good work, like Karbo, who gives a shit who else uses your daw? Why is that so important to grow the collective, to convince people, to shit on good products like PT11 which is indeed a very good product.

To be fair, you see a little of that everywhere, people feeling insecure about PT because the people who really drive the industry - making hits and money and having great success in the industry - something that the vast majority of active daw forum users like us don't ever really do - mostly use it, and I suppose that makes people feel insecure or looked down on, dunno. But I see it more often here - and more aggressively - than most places I've experienced.

The question is, once you find Reaper to be your best choice... why care about any other software? What's the point of continually saying it's shit? Who does that serve?

I'd say the same about Reaper for people who unfairly bash it to make themselves feel better.

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by airon

So Cockos will/might/could/some-day-will listen to professionals ?

I look forward to more of that.

My view (mmv as usuallly applies to personal opinions) is that Cockos and some others like the Studio One devs (mostly) don't really give a shit about all that. The lions share of their sales isn't even coming from full time professionals.

They both have a very successful product, a great product, and they're doing well selling it to the people who buy it, whoever those people may be. They likely don't really give a shit if lots of famous people or major studios start dumping other things for it, more likely they only care that the product keeps selling well, to anyone, and they keep making money so they can support the business that feeds their families and pays the bills. It's making a living.

The "we gotta challenge all the big boys and earn respect and win the daw war" stuff is more for users, not for business owners.

Things like Pyramix cater almost exclusively to a smaller pro segment... but it's not popular with the consumer crowd (even though it has some really fantastic features... some things - if you cherry pick - that daws like Reaper and S1 can't touch). You can clearly see that by how it's almost always left out of the "best daw this year" consumer polling.

While demoing Pyramix I browsed the forum there asking operational questions. It was really - stark - the almost total lack of daw war stuff or insecurity there. They really don't give a shit. They like it and they don't really care who doesn't like it.

I didn't see a single thread thread titled ... "Reaper really sucks!"

But yeah, developers do care about adding some features that some full time pros want, but they're likely not stressing over it if they're selling X hundred licenses a week or month already.

[bobruzzo]

I guess the bottom line is whatever works for you. In my opinion Pro Tools is an over-bloated, expensive and unnecessary program for the regular user. What are these Pro Tools users doing so magnificently incredible that you can't do with any other DAW? The human eye can only detect so many shades of any color....same thing with our ears. Who is going to want to split hairs that minutely using a program like Pro Tools when the average LISTENER doesn't pay attention to those barely audible "nuances". Another thing is the "Industry standard"....BS. Who puts standards on ART anyway? The so-called standards didn't seem to exist before all this technology came about. Just listen to how horrible alot of recorded music sounded in the 50's and 60's. But thats all we had. I just started using Reaper about a month ago. I had previously been using another program. I CHALLENGE anyone (Pro Tools users) to make a BETTER sounding mix than I have made myself on my recordings. And of course it depends on the style of music as well. I think for the type of music I do, I do a pretty good job with the whole process, start to finish. I just don't see why they tout Pro Tools as being some kind of holy grail of DAW's. I am sure it is an adequate program. But you'll NEVER use everything in the program. I think it is all hype and BS myself. After using Reaper for the last month I don't see why Pro Tools users wouldnt use it for some things. Reaper does everything and more for me that I need.

[Lawrence]

for the regular user

I fully agree. From a purely practical perspective PT is maybe not the best financial and/or functional choice for the regular or casual user. But of course that has little if nothing at all to do with the many other people making a really, really good living using it.

That's where the discussion most often gets contextually conflated. It's really silly to tell any other person doing much better than you financially and otherwise (musically?), that their choice is shit. They'll probably tell you... "I've engineered records that have collectively sold in the millions, and made me hundreds of thousands of dollars, what have you personally done with Reaper (or S1, or Cubase or cool new DAW X)?"

While we're having a popularity contest, they're making money... and lots of it.

But yeah, in my personal opinion, paying $600 for "PT Light" to make beats to put on YouTube is kind of a waste of money. There are far better contextual choices for the regular (most typical) user.

[karbomusic]

In my opinion Pro Tools is an over-bloated, expensive and unnecessary program for the regular user.

LOL, I would hope so, it's in the name. That's why it wasn't called "Regular Tools".

I kind of don't get it, to be honest. A real studio as in the classic one, needs to get work done, period. Point being much of this "I can't work without 450,000 fancy post edit features" is generated or at minimum unreasonably sustained by the armchair PHD bedroom, demo downloading, shootout voting amateur.

They are two entirely different worlds and no matter who tries to blur the line between pro an amateur, the line still exists and is very real. I'm not knocking amateurs, by now I am one because I don't do much real studio stuff any more. Just noting they are different and always will be. The bottom line is use what works for you regardless, it should be the entire point. Never compare brands with blanket statements, it's an exercise it stupidity IMHO.

[Lawrence]

I CHALLENGE anyone (Pro Tools users) to make a BETTER sounding mix than I have made myself on my recordings.

That's a challenge nobody worthy of it would take unless you pay for it. If you pay $800- 2000+ to one of the guys who's been mixing great records for decades, you'll probably get something much better than you're capable of ... with the only caveat being that I obviously don't know you personally and you might actually be one of those guys.

But as I suggested before, that a person may be using PT for that is a mostly irrelevant fact having not so much to do with the end result. These are just really highly skilled people. The only remotely relevant part of that in this context is that PT very obviously doesn't prevent that from happening.

If it was shit, you'd think it would, prevent that from happening?

Like Karbo said, it's really two different worlds.

[novaburst]

Originally Posted by bobruzzo

I guess the bottom line is whatever works for you. In my opinion Pro Tools is an over-bloated, expensive and unnecessary program for the regular user. What are these Pro Tools users doing so magnificently incredible that you can't do with any other DAW? The human eye can only detect so many shades of any color....same thing with our ears. Who is going to want to split hairs that minutely using a program like Pro Tools when the average LISTENER doesn't pay attention to those barely audible "nuances". Another thing is the "Industry standard"....BS. Who puts standards on ART anyway? The so-called standards didn't seem to exist before all this technology came about. Just listen to how horrible alot of recorded music sounded in the 50's and 60's. But thats all we had. I just started using Reaper about a month ago. I had previously been using another program. I CHALLENGE anyone (Pro Tools users) to make a BETTER sounding mix than I have made myself on my recordings. And of course it depends on the style of music as well. I think for the type of music I do, I do a pretty good job with the whole process, start to finish. I just don't see why they tout Pro Tools as being some kind of holy grail of DAW's. I am sure it is an adequate program. But you'll NEVER use everything in the program. I think it is all hype and BS myself. After using Reaper for the last month I don't see why Pro Tools users wouldnt use it for some things. Reaper does everything and more for me that I need.

I take it you are a pro tools user,

[Colox]

Even over in northern Europe, Protools is pretty much considered a nessecity to be considered for serious work.

Older, very seasoned engineers and studio people have respect and understanding for people's different choices of DAWs, but among younger and people with less than 15 years in the biz (i.e. the vast majority), you get frowned upon if you're not on Protools. There's no reason whatsoever not to, stupid not to - according to them. You're "dissin'" Protools, that's how they perceive you. It's black or white: If you don't use it, you're pissing on it. So silly. It's perceived as unserious to not use PT. You're perceived as some pimpled cockalorum wannabe who has yet to receive the true salvation. That you don't know better, you're still in a musical development phase or something.

Been around the studio world since I was 10 y/o, thanks to dad and such. Worked as session musician for 10 years too. I've seen PT on Macs around studios for soon 20 years. I don't diss PT, it's a very competent platform, certainly in the top 10 list of DAWs. The general impression is that if you run all Avid stuff, well configured, it is very stable. For an entire decade, it was arguably the best digital substitute for an analog multitrack. PT wasn't originally made for private musicmaking using softsynths and MIDI. It was a multitrack recorder and semi-mixing engine.

But 20 years of seeing it around has taught me that there is a big difference between the general perception of PT, and the actual performance of PT. From seeing PT around, seeing it crash, act up, do what most DAWs do every once in a while, and annoy the crap out of engineers with its constant warning dialogs and stiff procedures to ensure stability, I tell you without a doubt: Reaper is more stable than Protools, even PTHD 7.3-7.4 - which is still the most stable PT platform to date. And when it comes to resource utilization (i.e. less CPU usage on the same plugs) Reaper leaves PT native far behind in the dust. PT is older and more mature in the overall picture though. Reaper feels young and a bit less uniform, more fragmented in comparison.

I tell people who are starting out, that if they're planning to provide services for other people's productions, consider Protools.
Crazy or responsible advice? Pissing on Reaper? Well, from the way things are, you will loose customers, simply from not complying with their prejudices. And other professionals will think twice about recommending you if they are otherwise occupied. Customers won't understand, nor care to listen to a single line of argument from you. And even if, you'll sound like desperately trying to justify a therefore questionable DAW-choice if you go polemic on them.

Myself, I'm staying on Reaper. I've been so impressed that I'm actually quite nervous about v5. That v5 is going to muck things up or take things in some new less thought through direction.

Crazy world, eh?

[karbomusic]

you will loose customers, simply from not complying with their prejudices. And other professionals will think twice about recommending you

I'm cool with everything you said but the above is precisely why I don't run a studio. If you hire me, you are hiring me and my mad skillz. If you can't figure that out (the proverbial you), go find someone else. Again, I wouldn't put up with it as I simply do not have patience for brand idiocy, hence I don't run a studio.

Now I will challenge all of you who actually have real paying customers, sell "you" and educate the ignorant whenever possible because regardless of prejudice, that is really the only difference that matters. Regardless of what you actually do, at least do your part in trying to turn the tide by planting the seed even if you succumb to brand prejudice in order to pay the bills. Somebody gotta do it.

[studio 1311]

I have paying customers and maybe half of them ask what I'm using. Most know that I've been on PT for over 10 years. Also, most know I've been enchanted with REAPER for the last 4 or 5 years (when did it start?). I've only used 2 D.A.W.s for pay. REAPER for 2 location dates and 1 tracking date.

This week I've been deep in RPR to mix an EP for a regular client that tracked in RPR and I seized this opportunity to give it a real test. D Gauss over at PRW gave me some excellent advice on send alignment via track order and with my tracking date next week I feel pretty good about RPR.

I had a client the other day, a friend of a friend, ask if I was using PT still. I said yes, among others. He comes back with " oh, you're old school. Everybody's on Logic now".

Cheers
Greg