I don’t recall seeing a Reaper thread for quite some time. Meanwhile, they continue to tweak it and provide updates on a regular basis. I thought I might try out the Razor Edit feature, but I haven’t availed myself of that yet, even after reading about it. Then the ReaLimit plugin was rolled out, I played with that a bit and it looks quite useful.
So I just downloaded and installed REAPER v6.57, and the notes said something about:
Timestretch
add new Rrreeaaa (polyphase synthesis) stretching mode, useful for artistic stretches
I was wondering if anyone has a clue what that’s about? Sounds cool.
Also, awhile back they added an item to the install menu. When you click through several screens and are about to install, where the screen says “Choose Components”, and in the list it says “Select components to install:” and “Optional functionality” - they added an item to that list that says “Configure Windows to save REAPER crash dumps”. I haven’t tried that feature yet, I rarely have a problem with REAPER crashing on me in Windows, but I wondered if anyone else has tried it and had any experience with it?
Anything else in REAPER you want to add or comment on, or discuss, I think it’s high time to have a little DAW discussion.
I BARELY do any recording these days but I remember these old DAW discussions! Used to live for this stuff!
I haven’t opened Reaper in years. It’s crazy though - looking back on it, it seemed like such a great company. Keeping code simple and clean, and prioritizing the features that the home studio guys need the most. No huge marketing campaigns or corporate BS… just a good solid stable working product.
The thing that I think impresses me about Reaper the most is about how the company seems to know who they are at their core, and it doesn’t look like they’ve lost sight of that. So many companies start to fail when they try to become all things to all people. Reaper does one market sector, one target audience, and they do it REAL well.
Generally I’d agree with that. REAPER kind of became the antithesis of ProTools in a way, though quite capable of replacing it. ProTools became the corporate brand, kind of like Microsoft Windows, and then REAPER became kind of like the Apple alternative years ago. REAPER does seem to have a keen focus, but yet also maintains a broad appeal as well IMO, to many styles and genres. The one exception I noticed was that they started naming their update releases - the current one is called “Big Pasta” (??) for no discernable reason to my faculties … but about 2 years ago they were naming them “REAPER Lives Matter” or some such “woke” nonsense, which was kind of a turn-off. But other than that, it appears they have a solid team that keeps moving the ball forward.
I can’t even fathom most of the minute changes they list in bug-fixes etc, a tribute to the most ardent power users I suppose, but the consistency of the program and its ever present value is something to marvel at. I just wish I could utilize the software to be able to appreciate everything that has gone into it.
For those using M1 Macs, from version 6.43, Reaper started providing Mac installers as follows:
macOS: now distributed in three flavors: Universal (x86_64/ARM64), x86_64 optimized for macOS 10.14 and earlier, and i386
Previously, the ARM64 version had been only released as a Beta version, but this was the first non-beta version. The install is aptly titled “Everything is Broken”! (The Reaper crew definitely have a sense of humour) I tried it and immediately reverted to the previous version as it completely stuffed everything up when opening projects, especially anything with Melodyne in it!
I finally got the courage to download the latest version (6.57). Everything worked, but larger projects glitched ridiculously and redlined the CPU. After a quick search online I realised that, because I am running plugins not optimised for Silicone Mac OS, I needed click on the right click on the app in finder, select “Info” and check the “Open in Rosetta” option. Now it all runs beautifully as before.
I still have version 6.42 installed, and as you can see, it did not have that option. I am guessing because it was not the ARM version, it automatically ran in Rosetta mode.
Thanks for the info! I believe you have spoken before about really liking the M1. I used to have a Mac laptop with Reaper installed, but went back to Windows exclusively for the time being. I’m kind of interested in trying Linux on an old computer though, and REAPER has Linux versions as well.
I remember a couple of years ago there was MacOS 10.15 (IIRC), can’t recall its ‘name’, and all the plugin mfr’s had to update their plugins for that new version because of some coding changes or something. It sounds like the ARM64 is causing some similar issues? Glad you got it sorted though.
Not really, it’s just a completely new architecture, and the plugin manufacturers have slowly been updating their products to work in it, but it’s taking some time. I’m still using some of the plugins that haven’t updated (because I have a number of projects in play that have been ongoing for some time). It just took a little bit of searching to work out how to get the latest Mac version of Reaper working in Rosetta (old Mac architecture emulation mode in Silicone Macs that allows you to run plugins and programs not updated yet for M1)… turns out it was simple as checking a box.
Did you mean to say NOT quite capable of replacing it?
Again, I really admire Reaper, but it’s geared toward a hobbyist/pro musician market. I haven’t looked at their shareholder statements in years, but the last time I did, Avid make the majority of it’s money off enterprise production. I doubt this has changed.
Well… other companies (avid included) are doing that as well. You can see from the number of patch updates against PT and Sibelius ultimate that roll out per year. The main difference is that Cockos is more ‘verbose’ in the consumer facing change logs. This ultimately boils down to administrative directives. More on a different thread on why.
From my own experience switching from Pro Tools to Reaper, and reading other reviews/opinions, lots of people have made Reaper work for them about as well as Pro Tools did. While Pro Tools had good features in its standard build (speaking of older versions here, I haven’t used it in some years), you could replicate a lot of those features in REAPER with customizations and workarounds. So in that sense, even professionals who made the switch to REAPER were able to get along quite well without Pro Tools, and even found enhanced capabilities with the vast customization possibilities it offered. Add to that the cost difference and REAPER’s slimmer design and generally more reliable performance (less crashes than Pro Tools), it was a completely viable choice as a replacement - if you were willing to put in a little work and learning curve.
It did seem like Pro Tools got more aggressive with updates than they had been 10-15 years ago. Back then the updates were few and far between. Maybe when they got more competition, they had to try harder to keep up?
Yes, I’m sure Pro Tools still has their niche in the enterprise realm, and maybe much more of the hobbyist market goes to REAPER and other platforms. My sense is that when Pro Tools encountered much more competition in the hobbyist market, they made an intentional decision to double-down on enterprise, which was already their specialty anyway.
I’ve wanted to revisit (Reavisit?) the various features and plug ins of Reaper and learn them more, or at the very least, add a few more tools to the tool belt. There are almost certainly a handful of features and functions that I am oblivious to that I would surely use, if I knew they existed. You don’t know what you don’t know, right!?
But like many, that divide between how you spend that free time - make music or learn about the software you make music with - generally seems to fall toward the former.
Ha, maybe they need to introduce a Reavisit plugin to prompt us to try the new features!
Absolutely! That’s one of my mottos.
I think you make a good point, between “Production” and “Production Capability”. It’s always good to enhance your capabilities, but that requires taking time away from Production (i.e. the production line) to take on the learning curve and invest in enhancements. Maybe that’s like the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule? Spend 80% of your time in production, and 20% in enhancing production capabilities (learning and practice). Or it could be 90/10, but I think that’s the essential idea.
All I can say is that my recording output has been very sparse, so it seems like every time I crank the rig up there’s an update, which I religiously install, not knowing what it does. I did notice Steven Slate Drums and the orchestra in there, as well as editing being easier.
They do a great job of keeping you interested, but you definitely need to use it daily to keep up with it.
Yes, you could really just stay on the same version for awhile and not mess with it. But there’s that update “nag” every time. I do think you can turn off automatic update notifications though. I would keep the user manual on hand that matches the version number. May not be a big difference, but could create some confusion at times using a different user manual version than the software.
It seems like a lot of the changes are bug fixes or “tweaker user” features. I don’t always understand some of the update features, and just look for a new plugin or major interface change or feature.
In Reaper, stock software? I don’t think I have seen anything like that. Could you be more specific on it?
Both were scaled down versions of course, but Steven Slate drums 5.5. and the BBC Orchestra Discovery plugs are probably in your VST folder if you’ve scanned recently. If not, they pop up on Google with tutorials. The orchestra is actually very good although the samples seem to have a lot of ambience . I asked someone here a while ago about a cello patch, and he suggested this one. I had to wait 10 days to get approved for their trial version. Shortly after that it was in a Reaper update.
I took a look, and I already had SSD5.5 (full version) in my plugins, so I didn’t see any duplicate demo version or anything. I searched for BBC Orchestra etc and nothing. Are you sure those weren’t already installed 3rd party plugins and you just happened to notice them after a REAPER update? From my experience, REAPER doesn’t include 3rd party plugins or demo’s in their software.
You are probably correct: There’s a free Spitfire version of DSO BBC that provides a tutorial, so Spitfire is probably providing the plug and doing Reaper oriented tutorials, so they both probably came from outside of Reaper, and I learned about them through the blogs about updates. Either way, it is nice to see Reaper collaborating with people like that to provide more options.
My mistake.
I think they have integrated some code and/or plugins from outside their design focus. It might be nice to see more, and I’m not sure why we don’t see even more, given the presumably wide popularity of the DAW. I guess a lot of that happens on their forum, so people can choose what they want to add.
