Hey this thread is about Reaper - let's stop all this Sonar talk and stay on topic!

KIDDING of course...in the end, it's all about finding what works for you. The consumer is truly spoiled these days, so many fantastic programs out there right now! I've always thought Cubase looked great, but between the never-ending complaints about stability and the dongle, it's never been an option for me. BPM looks like a lovely Guru rip-off, but again the dongle takes it off my list. However, it's the same reason I'm thinking about getting Maschine (one the big update is out and stable)...as was said earlier, having a "groove production" tool like that takes some of the pressure of the host daw.

Neither P5 or Live can do it all for me, because the audio side (recording/mixing) just isn't full-featured enough. Not a biggie, as that's really not either program's primary focus. So for me personally it went from Sonar+P5 to Reaper+Live. While both Sonar and Reaper have made strides in terms of satisfying the "beat makers", it's really neither of either one's primary focus (or marketing demographic, for that matter). The best solution is NOT to try to keep beefing up those aspects of the host with things like half-baked step sequencers and tacked-on drum samplers, but rather to provide an independent solution that will work seamlessly from *within* the host application IMO.

If I love Maschine, Live is dead to me. I won't need it, as I'll be able to groove from within Reaper - no Rewire, no bouncing back-and-forth, just a symbiotic multi-staged production environment with everything I need.

And so it is with the situation here:

Mark my words Cakewalk, you have a chance at kicking ass and getting some respect from the demographic of groove producers who - aside from a small commmunity of P5 loyalists - don't consider Cake has anything to offer them. People have been requesting/suggesting making P5 a VST for use inside Sonar for forever. That's the ticket alright, but do it one better - integrate P5 into Sonar; leave the audio and traditional midi/score stuff to Sonar, and make P5 an integrated environment that can be called up inside it. Full drag-n-drop, groove matrix, pattern editor etc... Then maybe have Roland put out a controller with 4x4 pads which can function as drum pads or groove matrix cells, as well as enough controls to compete with the likes of Maschine and Akai's APC40.

You might be surprised...

I think it's great that Brandon Ryan and maybe some other staff are posting in here recently. Feels good to be heard and get responses.

ORIGINAL: Brandon Ryan [Cakewalk]

2) There isn't anything like ACT control.

Sure there is. I simply did the midi-learn feature 880 times.

That's 16 midi channels with Keystation's 55 controls. I change the global channel to work track features like vol,pan,mute,solo,eq,sends etc. and of course play that synth. Works like a charm and is really fast (I'd use the mouse if there was ever a track 17 or more). The Generic Surface with ACT can't do this. Example: The six Sonitus EQ faders wouldn't do what I wanted without putting the "focus" to it. With 16 of them it got weird.

I own both P5 and S8SE and made templates for both. While Sonar's CPU handling is much better, doing that kind of controller crazy stuff in P5 is waay faster. With a list to read from, I can see where I left off. If Reaper has it that way, I will be interested. I want to expose softsynth parameters per track this way.

4) Honor system or not, if you plan on making any money with Reaper my understanding is that you should pay the $225.

I thought that was about installing software in a commercial facility versus a hobbyist at home hoping for a hit record.

I'm that second guy.:)

Thanks, cry. I'm just about sold. Sonar 8 with it's ability to kick in and out of record while looping, combined with BPM which is following the loop. Now that's getting towards MPC-style recording!

ORIGINAL: Nick P

ORIGINAL: jamester

...integrate P5 into Sonar; leave the audio and traditional midi/score stuff to Sonar, and make P5 an integrated environment that can be called up inside it. Full drag-n-drop, groove matrix, pattern editor etc...

My guess is that you just described Sonar 9

Heh, maybe I'd be interested in Sonar again then...

I didn't realize BPM required a dongle. I've never used software which required one, but I don't think it would stop me from purchasing a product.

There's no easy (or "right") answer; personally I will not give in to intrusive copy protection like that. I like how Reaper does it - trust your customer to do the right thing. I feel it's punishing the honest customer for the fact that there's cracks. And as for the "all your licenses in one key, use in any studio" thing, any company could let you do that and not make the USB dongle mandatory. It could be either/or.

Cubase uses a dongle as well, so unless they use the same kind (I honestly don't know), you might have two USB keys if you want both Cubase and BPM. For laptop users that's especially sucky and will likely necesitate a USB hub; now we're up to three peripherals for two pieces of software! I choose not to play along, but to each their own. Like I said, BPM looks fantastic otherwise...

Here's a question, which again has nothing to do with Reaper, but we sort of morphed our way in to it:

If you use a groove box plug-in like BPM or Maschine which has its own sequencer, how does it work when you set up a loop in the host DAW? For example, let's say you had a 32 bar tune in Sonar. You also programmed 32 bars in BPM or Maschine. Or you programmed a few patterns and strung them together to make a 32 bar tune. Then you want to loop bars 1-8 in Sonar. How does BPM or Maschine know to follow the loop? If it doesn't, then really you don't have an integrated solution. I've seen threads written about this with GURU.

Finally, sounding like a broken record, someone needs to come up with a virtual MPC. The whole thing - drums, pads, sequencing, the MPC transport buttons/functions, 16 levels, full level, the whole deal. Amazing this hasn't shown up on the scene yet.

Maschine syncs as a slave to the host's transport. I assume that's the answer to your question, as it would then follow whatever the host is doing.

I'm jazzed on Maschine because once this summer's big update comes out, I think it will truly be the closest thing to an MPC with software. And even better with 24-bit and Rex support. The hardware controller is crucial IMO, it's what sets it apart from all the other software samplers; integrated hardware is the next step that almost all major companies are now taking. It also functions as a daw controller as well.

What is this summer's big update? Should I wait? I sort of blew off Maschine for a couple of reasons. No 16 levels or Full Level option. And I like all of the feel settings that BPM offers, like the MPC swing and LinnDrum feels you can impose on the tracks.

Probably be worth it to have 'em both. Now the next thing is considering having all of these drum libraries strung all over the place. I've already got Battery 3. Maschine should have a feature to allow you to include all your Battery 3 stuff in its browser and sound generator, since both products are from the same company.

The option to load Battery sounds is interesting. You could probably simulate 16 levels just by setting it up as part of a program. It's just the MPC way makes it so easy. You find a drum you want to use and hit 16 levels. A great feature which all of these pad controllers should have.

True KB.

It should be more P5-like but still keep the linear stuff for that Sonar-only crowd in the other forums. Last thing Cakewalk wants is for those folks to get more whiny that they already are.

ORIGINAL: Brandon Ryan [Cakewalk]

ORIGINAL: DayDrumFour

I am seriously interested in Reaper. Been reading up a lot on this one. It seems more simple than complex.

Some questions for y'all....

1. Skinning - do I edit images with Photoshop or similar, or am I "programming" a look? What's the basic concept.

2. Midi learn - Is there a page like P5 where I can see what I've assigned? Or do I have to just remember what I setup like Sonar.

3. Is there a synth rack? Or is it track based like P5?

4. Does it really only cost fifty bucks?

2) There isn't anything like ACT control. Incidentally you don't have to remember everything in SONAR either as the ACT properties page will show you what is assigned. No need to remember although I setup my controllers to always have certain types of controls placed on particular knobs/sliders.

4) Honor system or not, if you plan on making any money with Reaper my understanding is that you should pay the $225.

I might mention that Reaper 3 is now officially out, and the "non-commercial" license has gone up drastically to *sixty* US American dollars, and now allows the user of a non-commercial license to use it commercially, provided they aren't grossing over twenty grand a year doing it.

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There is only one version of REAPER. We offer two licenses, depending on how you use it.

$225: full commercial license.
$60: discounted license.

You may use the discounted license if any of the following is true:

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ORIGINAL: Brandon Ryan [Cakewalk]

Ok....thanks.

On an unrelated note, I checked out some of your original stuff, and I really do like it. It did not want to play for me in Firefox though, and I had to use a product I love to hate (I-freeking-E) in order to get the songs to go.

ORIGINAL: Nick P

Sounds like a pretty bad-ass program.

Does bad-ass mean good? Or bad...? just wondered

Also, does Reaper support multi-core processors?

I just used Reaper this weekend for a bit, and here's my very quick thoughts on it:

If I were starting out fresh setting up a studio to track other people's stuff and didn't already know any software, I'd pick Reaper in a second. It's feature packed, cheap, and flexible as hell. Lots of great audio features, it's routing schema is awesome, and it's quick for things like tracking.

However, if you either: know a piece of kit already, OR, want software to anchor your PROJECT studio, I wouldn't go there. There's two bits that bother me about Reaper: it's features are all several layers deep and require heavy customizing to make easy (and the menus are frickin intimidating), AND, it doesn't have a lot of compositional tools.

Now that said, it's audio engine seems pretty robuts, it handled a lot of crap I threw at it. I think it just needs a usability person to whack it a few times with a pretty stick. But it also lacks basic music WRITING tools. Until then, SONAR plus/minus P5 are the tools for me.

Hi ...wicked-

I agree that the menus are intimidating, and you have to be fairly fluent in REAPER-speak (or brand-new to DAWs) to find what you're looking for in the first place. It's true that you can easily create custom actions via macros and assign them to keys, which is very cool, but you still have to wade through and understand all the verbiage to find which actions you're looking for. How much longer can the right-click menus get, when you come right down to it?

"Transpose"? You won't find it. What you really meant to look for was "Edit: Move notes...".

One big deal for me is the lack of direct MIDI support (not even Vol or Pan controls without an insert), and with 3.0 and 3.01 it doesn't look like this is a priority.

Things might change, but to me it seems like REAPER development right now is very circular and insular. Some things are new, yes, but at the same time they're clearly borrowing from other DAWs and in some cases trying to reinvent the wheel. The whole approach to the menu system and avoidance of "Tools" and some standard practices seems a little forced and strange to me.

I'll continue to watch REAPER's development, but I won't be switching any time soon.

Thanks-

-Susan

ORIGINAL: cryophonik

Ooh! I'm interested in what's in store and I won't tell if you give us the details, Brandon.

Nick - as far as Cubase goes, I've stayed current on it and just finished a couple of projects in Cubase 5 that nearly caused me to explode - for example, it took 2 hours to export my final mixdown of one song because Cubase kept freezing and crashing, I had to keep rebooting, etc. And, Cubase is still behind Sonar in many areas, particularly on the creative/compositional side of its workflow IMO. Now, these are just my experiences and opinions and I do like Cubase 5 in many ways, but the point is, you're deluding yourself if you think that the grass is greener over there. Steinberg simply does not listen to its user base, even when they are asking for very minor and simple features that would vastly improve its usability - go search for feature request threads over there and see for yourself how many of those are answered by fellow users with something like "yeah, we've been asking for that for years, but SB doesn't listen." And if you think the Sonar forums are bad, wait until you get a taste of the Steinberg forums. There's a very good reason that I've only posted a few dozen times in the past 6 years or so over there.

I switched to CB fulltime from Sonar PE 7 and after a few very happy years with Cake but I never updgraded to 8. Cubase 5 has given me no crashes, no freezing, no reboots solid as a rock and not one single regret. Steinberg forums are different they spend no time talking about none Steinberg related products, nobody appears interested in running down Cakewalk and Sonar, Steinberg staff do read and post input and information, searches work if you are looking for a particluar subject. You have to be a registered user to post on there, no pirates, no trolls and no off subject threads. possibly boring to some but heaven to others.

I still hold Cakewalk in extremely high regard but firmly believe that the Cubase knocking on these boards only damages Cakewalk and encourages people to go and find out for themselves as I did. Sure the grass on the otherside of fence may not be greener but take it from me its different and in many respects much more greener than some on here would have you believe.

Good luck either way,

Gerry

ORIGINAL: ...wicked
As for the compositional tools, they're a little scattered, and please tell me if I've missed them, but I found myself longing for:
step sequencing
pattern creation (at least a brush tool?)
song section/playlist mgmt
file explorer window/tab

To the best of my knowledge:

- Step sequencing is available in midi editor under options menu - F1-F12 and all midi inputs, also same place you can specify squares, diamonds or triangles for notes. Selecting View: Beats (source) in the Midi editor toolbar will give you pattern editor very similar to P5's.

- Pattern creation - dragging lower right edge of pattern unrolls pattern the same way P5 does. Brush of sorts.

- There is marker track with markers and sections (above the time ruler). Supports some rearranging of song sections via track selection and dragging.

- View->SHow Media Explorer (or Ctrl-Alt-X) opens media explorer window with file system view and auto preview. You can also dock it.

I just did some research, I'm using Reaper on OS X, which does not have the media exporer. Whoops!