How did you get those cool BUTTONS on your transport bar??? 
I tried all the themes and I didn’t see that at all. Do tell. 
Just look in the Reaper Themes thread…
Its not finished, so dont blame me if its a bit limited. 
Interesting. For me it was just the opposite. I ditched Sonar cuz if felt very bloated to me. Tons of plugs that I’ll never use or need, and the interface early on was wonderful, but as they kept adding features it kept feeling more and more cluttered. REAPER was a breath of fresh air. Small footprint, re: user resources, streamlined, “clean.”
Just goes to show that it really is a matter of persnal preference.
I’ve found it to be incredibly stable, intuitive, and powerful. Documentation is wonderful and the user community is pretty awesome as well.
I have spent the entire day trying to get Reaper to do what Sonar did. I think who ever set up Sonar had the same mind frame that I have because everything it did made sense and was the quickest way possible it seemed to do it, it was like they thought exactly like I do when recording. Who ever set up the defaults for Reaper thinks the opposite of me so I am trying like heck to switch it around. Things I don’t like about the Reaper default settings are the cursor just keeps playing away until you stop it, the transport buttons are all the way to one side, they don’t have a paste multiples of something. It looks like you can set up Reaper in just about any way but it takes such a long time to watch videos to find exactly what you want to do. With Sonar, they sold a great set of videos with Carl Rose going over every single thing Sonar could do and he was awesome to listen to with his chill British accent. So I like Reaper quite a bit but if I had my way, I would of stuck with Sonar because it did everything I needed it to do exactly the way I wanted to do it. I am sure in time Reaper will be the same way.
So I think it which DAW is right for others is kind of like cooking in a kitchen. Everyone has a set up they like for a sink and stove and fringe and they are comfortable with a certain layout. I don’ think one is better than another but each one just seems to feel right for others.
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Man that PDF is a handy thing. Thank you for that. Who ever made that up sure spent a lot of time on it.
i agree. i was a calkwalk user and when they shut down i switched to studio one. I tried reaper for the second time and still did not jive with it. Studio one on the other hand feels like home and i am enjoying it even more than I did sonar so that is cool.
Don’t be rushed. take your time and try some different DAWs till you find the one that feels like home.
@WeGotLost did you try setting up different drivers in Sonar? Maybe you’re picking WASAPI and need to do ASIO setup or vice versa, I think I’ve put up links earlier, but here it is again as I happened to have Sonar open:
Utilities-Audio and Midi Setup
Yes, I tried it a few days ago or so and it worked only for a few minutes and they it popped and dropped out again.
It’s not just you. Brings back memories. I remember when I first started out, coming over from Sonar, everything was different. Things that came naturally to me in Sonar were things I had to look up and try to remember in REAPER. The walk-over helped. It was a bit of a transition for me, but that’s just about familiarity.
I definately had to learn not just a new DAW, but a new way of thinking. But when I started catching on, I caught on fast. REAPER has a unique and logical way of organizing the workflow. It’s also very versatile in how it abandons traditional ways of doing things. E.g., a track is a track is a bus is an aux. Brilliant.
Anyway, I love it so much more. Never ceases to amaze me what a stable and quality product it is. Not for everyone, but it worked for me.
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Which indicates that driver corruption is possibly the culprit. Complete wiping of driver related files as well as re-installation of Sonar would be a interesting test.
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Yes, it is a rock solid DAW.
I track with Reaper, but mix with Harrison MixBus which is probably the most buggy DAW I have encountered.
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True story. On Tuesday I called my son to talk about recording and he said he was going to meet a guy who lives near him to do some apprentice work in his recording studio. So I tell my son I switched to Reaper and he said he never heard of Reaper. I told him he should try it. He called me after the interview to tell me the professional recording guy uses Reaper. Now my son wants to get Reaper. It’s like a rash that is spreading.
So, it sounds like the guy is a “professional” not a professional, if you know what I mean 
He’d have PT HD system at least to flash to his clients. That’s how it works in Houston, at least
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I don’t know exactly who the guy is, my son just said he charges a few hundred dollars to mix songs for people who send him songs. He is probably a part time guy who does it and not a full time studio perhaps. If my son works with him I will probably find out more. I just thought it interesting how the whole Reaper thing was going on.
We used to keep an old Protools rig around the studio for just that reason.
Never needed it one time.
Some cool references to said 90’s recording gear here…
https://rapmag.com/a/281-94/mar94/1115-test-drive-the-digidesign-session-8
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I think it’s becoming more common than we may realize. There’s really only two reasons to use Pro Tools now: 1) You absolutely need it to work in the circles you do business, 2) You can’t take the teasing and shaming by people who expect you to have it if you don’t have it 
, 3) You just love Pro Tools and don’t want to change. OK, that’s three reasons, but the last one is simply a preference. 
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So a week and a half of Reaper and I am done with it already. After a few crashes a lost work I have had it. Everything that is default on Reaper seems to be the opposite of what I tend to want things to be. Every step that was a one step thing in Sonar is a two or three step process in Reaper. Today’s crash would be the final straw. I feel like a guy who left his old girlfriend for some other women for that new feeling of falling in love. But after you get to know the new girl, you start to really see what you had in the old girl and you call her and beg her to come back. Now do note that I certainly have never done this with a girl, I have read about it in a book, that is where I got the idea. 
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So is your machine fairly up-to-date or have updates just been turned off for a long while? Aside from your interface drivers I’d also take a look at your video drivers. Make sure you’ve got the latest drivers for your hardware. If your drivers are pretty old and you’re running a relatively new copy of Bandlab that could possibly be problematic. Also … if you’re hard drives are making grinding noise then your first concern should be an external hard drive and backing up any data in danger. Then replace that noisy drive! 
I’ve actually got 3 interfaces I can use in the one machine: TC Electronics Konnekt6 (FireWire), Line6 POPDxt (USB) and an M-AUDIO 24/96 PCI card. All work (just not all at once!). I’m running Windows 10 Pro 64-bit with 8GB RAM and use both Bandlab and Reaper… I actually haven’t ever had Reaper crash on me, but I also wouldn’t really consider myself a ‘power-user’ when it comes to my DAW. My projects aren’t huge.
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