Old 03-05-2017, 07:20 AM   #1
heda
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Default Coming from other DAW?

I've been noticing that many people are coming from Cubase or Logic or ProTools. Nothing new. But I feel that maybe there are more people doing so now than ever. I'm also finding more and more companies in the film and gaming industries, moving to REAPER with very good results.

Is it just my impression?

If you are coming from other DAW, don't hesitate to reply here and tell us how has the experience been, what do you use REAPER for, what is the best feature you like in REAPER that other DAWs don't have, what is your most missed feature that other DAWs have, what has been the most difficult part, etc
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Old 03-05-2017, 07:26 AM   #2
Fergler
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There's a can of worms. :P
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Old 03-05-2017, 09:23 AM   #3
sonicowl
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Coming from Cubase 8.5 here, using it cca 20 years. I've been checking Reaper since several years, but in my view Reaper became better than Cubase only with version 5. Even MIDI editing in Reaper is really powerful now, in my experience more powerful than Cubase.

I use Reaper for music production, from songwriting to mixing and mastering. It works great for all tasks, it can be adopted for any workflow.

Reaper is very stable on my computer, and Cubase was not really. In general, it seems that Reaper is very stable for most users. Cubase was very unpredictable - some time it would work fine, then it started having problems, depending on updates and who knows what else. Preferences needed flushing regularly, and ASIO overload red light was always on... Any Cubase video you see on YouTube, ASIO overload light is almost always RED. I'd say Cubase is very sensitive regarding system configuration, but Reaper is solid and pretty much independent of system settings.

With Cubase, people who buy expensive specialized DAW workstations, top HP workstations, or have crazy expensive parallel setups like JunkieXL, seem to have good experience with it. But people on budget, on laptops and DIY DAWs seem to experience mixed results. Reaper, on the other side, works great even on modest system.

Best Reapers feature for me, besides stability, is customization. Scripts, custom actions, key shortcuts, themes... No DAW comes even close to Reaper in this area.

I don't miss much from Cubase internal functions, if anything at all. Maybe Chord Track, it was handy, although I never used it much.
But, I miss one thing, actually. Feedback for MIDI control surfaces. Damn, I tried programming that OSCII-bot "for nerds", but I'm not nerd enough for that, it is just too much for me. I was able to make one fader to work, but then I gave up, my eyes go criss-cross looking at that messy code of mine. Reaper should really have integrated midi control feedback, via OSC wrapper or whatever. Just make us a simple graphical matrix interface to simply connect MIDI controls with actions.

Cubase has good system with Generic Remote, although it is half-baked and most new functions are not included at all. But the system is good, you define controller matrix from your controller, then connect in a custom way it to faders and knobs, and you can have it as permanent setup. Anyway, now I'm simply not using my MIDI controllers anymore the way that I did with Cubase, but if Reaper implements MIDI/OSCII feedback, I'll surely use them again.
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Old 03-05-2017, 11:37 AM   #4
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I came from Guitar Tracks Pro which came with my Digitech GNX3 many, many years ago. At first I thought, "Wow, this is pretty cool!" and then a few months later I thought, "Wow, this is pretty useless!" and then I thought, "Wow, there MUST be something better and then I discovered Reaper and I've never looked back. They could give me Pro Fools free for life with all upgrades included along with free Waves and SSL plugs and I'd tell them to stuff it.
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Old 03-05-2017, 01:52 PM   #5
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There are two reasons I've been evaluating Reaper:

1. It's $60.00.
2. It runs on my old Mac.
3. It supported video I needed for a quick project and because of the above two points, nothing else would work for me.

Otherwise, I wouldn't even be considering it.
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Old 03-05-2017, 02:08 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sonicowl View Post
Coming from Cubase 8.5 here, using it cca 20 years. I've been checking Reaper since several years, but in my view Reaper became better than Cubase only with version 5. Even MIDI editing in Reaper is really powerful now, in my experience more powerful than Cubase. .
Did they remove the ability to select patches directly from the inspector in Cubase 8.5? Because if it still has those features, Reaper certainly does not.

That's a really major, major deal to me.

I had Cubase 5 and it did not have Step Entry (which is as big a blunder as Reaper not allowing you to select patches from the TCP). However you could draw or paint in notes of a particular value, select the first, then play notes and it would automatically change the note and advance to the next.

I recently saw that feature requested here for Reaper. It's actually kind of a cool feature but Step entry kind of does it already (which Reaper does have) so I'm not sure of its validity.

One thing I actually haven't tried yet - Cubase - version 5 at least - allowed you to "draw" or "paint" in MIDI notes and had some preset shapes like Line and Parabola tools.

[Edit: I just tried some keyboard shortcuts and found a way to draw the line a la Cubase. Now I know I can assign toolbar buttons to these].

But there are too many other "non-standard" elements in Reaper for me to consider it a viable alternative to the "big boys" aside from its price.

Cubase also had lots of other pull-down menus - for example, for selecting the quantization value or grid line spacing. Reaper lacks these. If you want to choose different quant values you have to open a window first.

[Edit: I just experimented a little and I could in fact probably create Menus within the existing menus but honestly they're already way too busy. I'm not confident enough to change the "Insert" menu into something like a "MIDI" menu were I could create a Qaunt menu with sub menu for values, a way to change tools, and so on - even on a contextual menu which seems possible. For now I'm going to create toolbar buttons that will bring up a toolbar that has the features I want on it and that way I know I can still right click on a feature to go deeper if I need to]

Basically, it seems that everything I want to do that I do in Cubase involves opening at least 1 if not more additional windows in Reaper.

But I would be curious as to what you see as more powerful in Reaper than in Cubase - I'm not familiar with 8.5 but I can only assume they've improved a few things since their version 5. I'm going to be working with MIDI a lot and need to inform myself about Reaper's features!

Last edited by levets; 03-05-2017 at 02:40 PM.
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Old 03-05-2017, 05:44 PM   #7
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I mix TV shows, films and Youtube shows amongst other things in Reaper.

Flexibility, stability and cost are the primary reasons, i.e. it is practical. The community plays in to all those reasons as well.

I use a stack of midi controllers and an MCU.

I used to miss the simpler form of selecting and marking of material, but have since given up asking for it. Area selection. I am used to it being there slightly different and less intuitive but that's fine for me now.

With my gear, I can do a lot of what I can do with an Icon and Protools HD, and a whole lot more besides.

Editing on Protools used to be the standard to beat for me for the past 20 years. Now it slows me down. Reaper it is all the way. Session translation is easy.

Concerning MIDI feedback, I am certainly for it and keep trying to persuade Cockos to give it a shot. I just had to write my own little midi feedback script to light up some buttons for bank changes I perform for my knob banks. Check. the JS forum for that thread from toda.
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