LockedReaper posing a serious threat to sonar?

ORIGINAL: axe

Agreed, it is great to see something for free and their efforts are only positive to the industry...

Word. Any competitive product, whether free or expensive, is a good thing for consumers. More options means more choices and more pressure on producers to lower prices, add functionality, and improve quality. Cakewalk has been putting this kind of pressure on the "expensive" software platforms for years.

Reaper is a great program that does what it does exceptionally well. The fact that it happens to be free is just a bonus. It doesn't have every feature that Sonar has, but you can say that when comparing any two programs. As an audio recording platform, it's outstanding. Its bussing capabilities frankly blow Sonar's much-touted dynamic bussing out of the water.

Anybody who looks down their nose at Reaper for being free should remember that much of the pro audio world has been looking down its nose at Cakewalk for being inexpensive for years (unfairly, I might add).

Cheers.

well said yep.

Has a don't fear the reaper joke appeared yet?

Not to mention the fact that Sonar struggles with being a tad on the bloated side at times. Reaper and other lesser know DAW programs have a niche with the non pro studio guys, tracking there own or a friends band, or making personal music. Sonar is puting upwards pressure on the likes of Profools. Yet even in this forum we have heard rumbling of fear that Sonar is growing to large. As a long time Cake fan and user, i find myself using an indie program (multitrackstudio.com the most solid and stable program out there) more these days because simplicity rocks. Time will tell if reaper will continue to grow or hit aspot and the developer will move on to other projects. It certainly is a great option for the user that does not want to spend $500 on a software program, after all the lower end of cakewalk (MC) could use some help it is not all that stable.

Threat to Sonar? Not yet but it definitely has the potential, which can only be a good thing for users of all platforms! My initial impression is how incredibly efficient, simple, straightforward and intuitive it is to use, without any sign of feature bloat.

I've been a Winamp user since waaay back and I've always loved how lightweight it is and the fact that new features that I don't use don't get in the way of its core functionality. I'm looking forward to seeing how this project progresses!

It's not the cost of something. It's the worth of something.

My initial impression was how unintuitive it is. Want to quantize? Don't press ctrl-Q in the main window. That will close the program. Open the editor window, and you can now quantize with ctrl-Q. Great.

Initializing play of a soft synth is a chore. No input and output defaults or presets.

Much of what some call Sonar's "bloat" are features that, when you learn how to use them (usually a small learning curve), increase efficiency. That said, if Reaper's maker is taking suggestions, there are a couple right there.

Unfortunately, as you delve into the program, there may be more such oddities. Depending on his responsiveness, it may or may not be worth the effort to get involved. And, with such a project, you probably would need to get involved, rather than just use it, because it is most definitely a work in progress.

ORIGINAL: Howdy
Unfortunately, as you delve into the program, there may be more such oddities. Depending on his responsiveness, it may or may not be worth the effort to get involved. And, with such a project, you probably would need to get involved, rather than just use it, because it is most definitely a work in progress.

True, but getting involved and offering those (good) suggestions is a small price to pay for a free DAW host. Even if I end up never using it, I'd still like to help 'em out with suggestions/reports if for no other reason than that I like their power-to-the-little-guy philosophy.

Yo dude, the guy was worth more than a hundred million dollars a couple years back ...all he does is develop software, hang out, and do whatever else he feels like. He can afford to update it however long he wants to, he's not crippled by economics or financial concerns like the other companies, including our beloved Cakewalk, are.

So what happens if he gets bored of coding Reaper or tired of whinging users LOL? If the dude has all that dough I'd be worried about attention deficit di$order like a yacht or something. Peace.

Woohoo! It not only loads Kontakt 2, but it does program changes in VSTi mode! LMAO!

Time to get down with the manual and see what this thing can do...speaking of which, I couldn't help but notice the manual is almost 5 times the size of the installation file. Now that's efficient!

ORIGINAL: jimack
I'm not too sure about that with this guy.

I started using Winamp whan it first came out.. 1996? 98? So long ago... don't remember. It's STILL my preferred A/V playback program. It's STILL free, it STILL has a tiny footprint, and it STILL works flawlessly - although it supports many, many new features and video to boot. IMO, it blows away Windows Media Player all-around.

Jimack--How do you get Winamp to retain its video size (2X, fullscreen, whatever) when it advances to the next entry in the playlist?

AFA Reaper--It has no controller view in PR. done with Reaper. i'll check it out in 6 months or so.

I have Reaper installed and I am exicted about this program. I see using it for a number of different task including initial tracking in some instances. It is so lean and straight-forward. Fun would be a word that comes to mind.

What first led me to become more interested was a task I have of transferring analog songs to Sonar. I need to use Win98 (if MOTU would better support the SMPTE box I have - I would not need to do this). Reaper does support Win98 and to top it off it is free. On an odd note - I have Logic loaded on this Win98 box (long time usuer -Notator to Logic 5.51) and I decided to go with Reaper for this task. Imagine the indignation at Apple.

Now with that said - I love using Sonar5PE and it will remain my primary DAW for recording and mixing. Reaper is not there yet - nor does them competing with platforms like Sonar interest me all that much. I like Reaper for it's simplistic nature - (turn it on and go) - I like their excited user base who seem bent on keeping this program lean and high quality. I think it is cool that Justin is dedicated enough to respond to questions/issues directly. All very cool stuff. However, I have little desire to invest the learning time that I already have invested in Sonar if Reaper becomes a complex tool to use. There would be little time for music and no real benefit at this point. Sonar does 95% of what I want it to do and in many areas surpasses what I expected and now consider SOP in a DAW.

ORIGINAL: raggletaggle

Has a don't fear the reaper joke appeared yet?

Yes, but in the "fear the reaper" form (as in other DAWs should).

Reaper is a fine program, and I applaud the developer Justin for his generousity, but it won't probably won't replace Sonar for me, at least in the short term. Frankly, what I'm hoping for is that it will end up replacing my wave editor/mastering program (currently cool edit, wave lab lite). It is after all, 64 bit.

However, Reaper is much clunkier for me for plugin workflow that Sonar. This is 90% of mixing work (which is what I'm doing 80% of the time). I'm am used to/like Sonar's way much better.

And its don't think its going to change because the majority of the Reaper forumites seem to like it that way, and the way features are added seems to be who screams loudest and longest. Nothing wrong with that, I just don't have the time or desire to constantly post at that forum (or any forum).

Justin's vision for Reaper seems to be the forum's vision - which is very nice and democratic, but I think I like the way Cakewalk is going. However, I'll keep checking Reaper out every once in a while though.

I guess the bottom line for me is the Cakewalk "file not compatible" error that jumps up every once in a while to bite me in the &^% drives me crazy (and yes, I backup constantly). If Cakewalk could get rid of this error (PA9, Sonar 1 and 2 did not have this kind of problem) and fix the VST thing once and for all, then my eyes wouldn't bother straying.

I plan on working on my music on and off til I leave this planet. With Cakewalk, I'm hoping I picked a company that will be around in 10 or so years. I'd like to be able to access my old files and do remixes, etc later on. No guarantees, of course but I like Cakewalk's odds better than Steinberg and some of the others. Justin could say screw it at any point - why does he need the headaches (and some of Reaper forumites are really getting demanding - and its a free program!)

ORIGINAL: Howdy

My initial impression was how unintuitive it is. Want to quantize? Don't press ctrl-Q in the main window. That will close the program. Open the editor window, and you can now quantize with ctrl-Q. Great.

So because it doesn't work exactly like Sonar it's unintuitive? Even the simplest programs are going to come with some learning curve. This one's a DAW for Pete's sake, and it's not even at version 1.0 yet!

ctrl-Q for quitting a program and quantize based on which window is open is just a bad idea. Sonar has nothing to do with it. It's a fine program, and I'm sure it will get better, but posing a serious or even minor threat to Sonar or any other DAW, I don't think so. I might post suggestions to help improve it just because I think it's a nice idea, but if it's going to pose any threat to any existing DAW, it will need to improve. The title of the thread asserts the possibility of a "serious threat to Sonar." When that is challenged, the argument retreats to this being a beta program for free. If it is going to be anything beyond a novelty, it will need to take criticism the way any major DAW takes criticism. Cakewalk takes criticism made right in their faces, so to speak, on this forum. Certainly the Reaper project can. If it can't, there's no point getting involved.

ORIGINAL: jmarkham


for my usage, it's waveform and midi editing capabilities are too rudamentory ...
but, given time, it may well have the basics.

jeff

Jeff, I'm just wondering what you considered too rudamentory on the audio editing side of Reaper? I've been using Reaper and working with Justin going on 7-8 months now, and my main focus has been on the audio editing capabilities of Reaper. Justin has been listening, and I am currently not finding Reaper to be anything basic about it's audio editing capabilities. I have used Sonar and at this point I find Reaper has surpased it on the audio editing department. I also find it has surpased Sonar on it's audio recording capabilities as far as punch-in on the fly and auto-input monitoring, and multiple take options. Reaper has also surpased everything out there as far as audio routing capabilities.

I think Sonar has Reaper beat on the midi sequencing department at this point, but midi just started to be developed on it not too long ago. If it's midi sequencing features aren't up to par for you now, then don't worry. Justin has informed us, that they will continue to be developed after the v1.0 release with regular updates like we are currently seeing. So you won't have to wait for over a year for any feature updates like all the other S/W companies do.

Maybe you might be new to Reaper, but a few of us long time Vegas, Cubase, Samplitude, and Sonar users have been working with Justin for quite some time now and discussing implementations that would make us all happy. That almost seems like an impossible task in itself, but Justin usually comes back with something that exceeds all of our expectations within a week or 2.

If you are finding Reaper only rudimentary in it's audio editing capabilities at this point, then I suggest you take a look at the keyboard short-cuts. I'm certain you will find that this is not the case. Currently it has Nudge Event Left/Right/Up/Down, Slip Editiing, auto-crossfade of events, Slide Edit point via either with or without a crossfade intact, keyboard short-cut event edge trimming. In other words....need to trim a tad off the right side of an event, then jump to the right edge via a keyboard short-cut and use the trim keyboard short-cuts and trim it to the left or right, then jump to the other edge and do the same thing. I haven't figured out how to crossfade 2 events and move the edit point between the 2 events while keeping the media in place in Sonar yet, or do edge trimming on an event without doing a lot of mousing around, so I would have to say Sonar is a bit rudimentary to me at this point as far as editing capabilities. I would like to be wrong, because the first things I tried out where these items when I was using Sonar and I found it a bit tedious with a lot of extra mouse moving around.

I've explore Reaper a little, and in many ways been rather impressed.

I haven't figured out a way of floating views and saving layouts across three screens - so that when I reopen the file it opens exactly as saved it - which is really important to me, but I freely admit I don't learn intuitively and need really good documentation, something that Reaper doesn't really have.

Heck, it's free, and I give 100% credit to the guy who wrote the Help stuff, but for myself I don't find it easy to follow.

It's routing and bussing is another thing I'm slow at getting a handle on, again this is not a criticism of the product, probably my own limitations.

Just my 2 cents.

Geoff

The routing can be a tad confusing at first when you come in with a background of how it works in other apps. At least that is what I found.

The way to think of it is that a "track" can be used as a bus. This is one thing that opens Reaper up to it's total routing flexibility. So say you want to create a bus and route multiple tracks to it. In Reaper, what you do is create a new audio track, then you can route multiple tracks to that new audio track. That track can be routed to any output or multiple outputs, or even other tracks. Thus a track is a bus. Now along with having the usual bus functionality, it additionally has a tracks functionality. Thus you can route those multiple tracks to it, and then record enable that particular track and record all the grouped signal being fed to it. Reaper also has folder tracks, but I'm not totally up to speed on that functionality yet.

Rednroll ....

Thank you, that makes sense now.

I think what the product really needs at this stage is really good documentation. I notice there's a couple of places where you yourself have used phrases like "I haven't quite figured out yet", and you probably have more of a handle on Reaper than anybody else on thia forum.

Heck, I'd even offer to write a few tutorials myself, if I could understand what I was doing!

Best,
Geoff

Here's a link to the Reaper quick start and other documentation.
http://www.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/Reaper_Documentation

Here are some tutorial videos if you are more of a visual learner.
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=deadbeef

Here's where you can download the videos.
http://www.reaper.fm/~pipeline/REAPERVideos/basics/

and more mixing toot videos in the works location, with an actual project:
http://www.reaper.fm/~pipeline/REAPERVideos/Rib%20Calendar%20Project/

Cheers,
Red

Hehe, I thought this was a Sonar forum. Isn't all of this advocacy kind of sleazy in this venue, like pissin' in their potato salad? LOL

Thank you ... I think I'll spend a few hours today exploring this ....
Geoff


On Edit: Well, my first attempt at creating a bus caused Reaper and the PC to hang while the sound card uttered a frightening spluttering noise. Seems it let me create a feedback loop. Just a tad too flexible for my liking. Think I might pass on that one!

ORIGINAL: Richard Brian

Hehe, I thought this was a Sonar forum. Isn't all of this advocacy kind of sleazy in this venue, like pissin' in their potato salad? LOL

Could be, or maybe you could view it as we're educating Cakewalk in a business model where it generates a lot of user enthusiasm, where users feel more in touch with the developers and vice-versa. I personally don't think Reaper is a replacement for Sonar at this point, unless you're doing strictly audio, but I personally have never been more enthusiastic about how this entire development is going. With every other software developer, I have always felt left in the dark with no indication of concerns regarding workflow/bug fix items where ever going to get addressed. I personally, like being informed about the products that I spend a lot of time with and that I have a passion for. I have a hard time keeping that passion when waiting a year plus with no indication that things will improve in the next release.

If a company like Cakewalk could follow that kind of business model, then think of all the marketing dollars they could save? Reaper isn't even released for it's official v1.0 yet, and it has more word of mouth user buzz then anything I have ever witnessed. I think Ron Kuper has a great interactive user relationship in these forums, but I think the secret squirrel cage stuff of "what is Sonar going to do next?" or the "will this ever get fixed?", unanswered questions is over emphasized.

A year or two ago, Live and Tracktion were the programs that were supposed to make Sonar obsolete in the near future. They had a fresher interface and seemed to do an impressive percentage of what the established hosts could do within their first few versions. We heard these same rumors of world domination then, before reality sank in. It seems that even though it's a great package, users are a little more underwhelmed with every new version of Live, which seems to be a common sentiment among Tracktion users, as well (even though I imagine they'd do anything to get a new version). As a programmer, I'm sure that a lot of it is just one of those facts of life in software development - at a certain point, adding a few simple features can increase the complexity and length of a program by several orders. I don't code anything like these audio apps, but I can tell you that the easiest part of writing a piece of software is always the beginning. Once users start demanding those tricky-to-program FRs, things will go much, much slower.

So regarding REAPER, my guess is that it'll be fun to watch for a few more months, at which point, releases will be much farther apart (I think Tracktion's history will be the closest analogue). And anyone expecting it to come anywhere near the big DAW apps in the next few years is kidding themselves. Like every fledgling DAW, it will do one or two things cooler than other apps, but will be missing an alarming number of things SONAR users take for granted for several years, if it survives that long.

When it comes to competing apps, the ones I'm most interested in are the next versions of Cubase and Logic, both of which have been a long time coming. I think the user communities for those apps have been vocal about making the software more ergonomic and useable, so I'm curious where they're headed.

ORIGINAL: Richard Brian

Hehe, I thought this was a Sonar forum. Isn't all of this advocacy kind of sleazy in this venue, like pissin' in their potato salad? LOL

Richard -

I think you make a valid point, but at the same time I'll say that this sort of thing doesn't bother me. I'm always happy to at least have a look at what else is out there, it usually has two effects:

1. It reinforces my belief that Sonar really is the product that I want to use (like this little experiment just has)
2. It gives me ideas about how my workflow etc can be improved, just from seing something done differently.

All the best,
Geoff

Yes, you knew it was coming, pipelineaudio is here LOL

Lots of mean sprited YUK going on here

Its EXTREMELY poor taste for me to come in and advertise (if you could call essesntially a free deal advertising buyt hey) REAPER in SONAR's forum, and Im not here to do that. Just to offer some clarity

You guys who know (and those who dont could check my post history) I didnt sign up to sonar forums to schill this app, Im more of a convolution junkie and seeing Voxengo's impulse stuff show up in sonar is the impetus that nailed me to here, but I digress

A LOT of the push for REAPER on the users' end came from the Crossfade forums ( http://www.crossfade-forums.net/ )
This forum was made up in a large part of Vegas renegades who had been thrown out of the Sony forums or who just wanted a place to air their grievances without punishment. Of course its also a SERIOUS information powerhouse for both audio and video, but hey

We needed a new app, Vegas 6 wasn't cutting it. A LOT of us turned to SONAR and samplitude. Sonar's lack of mouse wheel zoom, while a minor issue to some, was an absolute showstopper for a large chunk of us. Sam had its own issues, but we had to go somewhere so many have and ARE going the sonar route

But along comes Justin, and we feel like we say "what would YOU do to have the ultimate app" and then we get 99% of it! NUTS

Vegas guys were used to insanely fast editing, that SONAR is lately pretty capable of except with the mouse wheel zoom thing. But we desired SONAR's MIDI, and SONAR's ability to have multiple tempos per song

But one thing we professionals have always lacked from app manufacturers was real routing. A patchbay. But Justin didn't give us a patchbay, he gave us a soldering iron, some log taper pots, some jacks and a centerpunch and said "here you go, make your OWN routing system". If you preview reaper for one thing, and you are from the tape machine and console days, you will get a warm feeling of fuzzies when you see the routing.

Those who know me, know Im a ****

Yes, Im terrible, even my drum sample and impulse packs come with rants against software manufacturers

So it wasnt easy for me to really jump behind a coder like this, but I can say for once Im truly happy.

For those quick to dismiss naysayers, who think you couldnt use this in a pro situation, heres a thread of me and Justin at Cherokee Studios in LA where I was mixing an album http://www.cockos.com/forum/showthread.php?t=536&highlight=justin

Note the PTHD system and the 2" machine sitting idle

Note the automated Trident A being used as a monitor stand for my REAPER screen

Those who know me, know I always have an up to date PT system (PTHD5 Accel right now) and also know that I only have it to say "yes we have PT" and to rent it out to CONservatory kids

I needed something a LOT better than PT to get my work done. Vegas usually cut it in most respects, but too many nagging issues. SOnar could have with some real estate fixes and mouse wheel zoom, Samplitude starting from V7 had a lot going for it as well

But if I put all my favorite things into one app...I'd end up with REAPER

Its updated a LOT because chasing UBER-ness is a lot of trial and error, unlike how these other apps are NOT updatred a lot, and when they finally are, they dont fix the major gripes anyway, but this is getting ugly so Ill shut up

Anyhow, go ahead and try the thing, at a 1 meg download what do you have to lose

Many of SONAR's best and brightest are in fact driving this application, and a trip to the REAPER forums will show you names you are all familiar with

ORIGINAL: saturdaysaint

When it comes to competing apps, the ones I'm most interested in are the next versions of Cubase and Logic, both of which have been a long time coming. I think the user communities for those apps have been vocal about making the software more ergonomic and useable, so I'm curious where they're headed.

Exactly, the point of my previous post. I would love to see Cubase and Logic get a more ergonomic user interface. That's exactly what keeps me away from using those programs. They have almost every feature imagineable....but trying to use them is what is frustrating for me. So what would be wrong if Steinberg came out today and said, "We recognize that a lot of users/potential users have issues with the current GUI of how things are laid out and one of our targets for the next release is to address this issue". But instead, as you're saying "I'm curious where they're headed". Well, wouldn't you be more inclined to hold off on purchasing the next release of Sonar,Live, Acid, Samplitude...etc., if one of your major reasons for not purchasing their app was the lack of ergonomics? What is the worse that would happen if they did that? What is Cakewalk going to say....."oh, Cubase is going to be more ergonomic...we better start working on Sonar's ergonomics". Well, hopefully they would be doing that already, no matter what the competition was doing. Ergonomics, and implementation of features that other competative software options is already doing, is not giving away any inside competitive edge new technology. It's kind of like, when they first started putting air in the tires of automobiles. Maybe Ford was the first to do this, so it was an inovative idea that they needed to keep a secret, but do you think the next design from General Motor was giving any secret competative information away if they said, "Hey our next car is going to have tires with air in them, since we realize our customers have a desire for this technology". It's just good communication with users that are interested in your product and where it is headed, so they can feel some kind of assurance.

This is something that I feel is currently really wrong with the entire audio software developers. It's a lack of communication with their customers and if there is anything the internet has done, it has allowed companies like Cakewalk the ability to communicate with a large segment of it's potential userbase with very little resource efforts or costs.

ORIGINAL: Rednroll
This is something that I feel is currently really wrong with the entire audio software developers. It's a lack of communication with their customers and if there is anything the internet has done, it has allowed companies like Cakewalk the ability to communicate with a large segment of it's potential userbase with very little resource efforts or costs.

Not only audio software developers, alas. But I feel it's getting better. I even vaguely recall being invited (along I'm sure with multitudes of others) to take part in an on-line Sonar about such things as what I'd most like to see new/changed in Sonar. Don't expect I'll get it though.

the only downside to reaper is that the VST view window is too big for me to see the entire VST. Scrolling = show stopper.

The audio routing part of reaper was superbly done. I didnt even have to openthe manual and i got the routing the way i wanted the VERRY first time i tried. Now, THATS simplicity for ye. :)

I see Justin has added stuff from other DAWs as well, such as scrolling tracks and zooming (ext), double click fader to return to unity gain(sonar), tabbed views (ext), and flexible routing schemes (reaper. ;-) )

Go to Options | Preferences | FX Plug-ins and put a check mark at both options next to Automatically resize VST/ DX Config Windows. Now the plugin window sizing should work more to your liking.

Bill

ORIGINAL: sambasevam
the only downside to reaper is...

Well the downside for me is that whenever I try to insert a plug-in while it's playing it crashes the program and produces a goddam awful noise. Sorry, but goodbye and good night on this one!

Geoff

it IS beta software glazfolk ;)

Kind regards

Dave RIch

Reaper seems light years away from being any threat to any of the major DAWs.

This reminds me of when Traction came out and everyone thought *that* was going to be the DAW killer, same with Orion, Live, and any of the other up-and-coming apps.

Since he was able to write his DAW from scratch, he intelligently took alot of Sonars core routing features and added them initially to his program, which of course, is the major upside to starting later, learning from other peoples mistakes, and also implementing other peoples ideas immediately.

The problem is that developing software does not follow a linear timeline/graph over time. As the program becomes more complex, the time it takes to add features while maintaining backwards compatibility becomes exponential in nature. While I have no doubt reaper will become 80% of what the major DAWs are rather quickly, thats not a big deal, the devil is in that last 20%.

That said, I"m def keeping an eye on this, in 4-5 years this looks like it could def be a contender.

it IS beta software glazfolk ;)

Kind of like when SONAR 3 or was it SONAR 4 came out w/it's "gapless" audio engine. Or better yet the "Beta Version of the wrapper" that has been ongoing ever since cakewalk bought the wrong wrapper--talk about a band aid job.
They don't call them software developers for nothing (the bakers included). Any software that has somebody continually workin' on it is constantly being developed, which is why alot of SONAR users will upgrade to SONAR 6. Simply to get a taste of the new developments. To think or purport that Reaper is an inferior product to SONAR is juvenile and arrogant.

have a good one
3Eo

ORIGINAL: three_eyed_otter

it IS beta software glazfolk ;)

... To think or purport that Reaper is an inferior product to SONAR is juvenile and arrogant.

have a good one
3Eo

i think you're playing out where you believe Reaper will eventually be rather than where it
is now. there is great potential, no-doubt.

this beta is surprisingly full featured. I noticed it does not handle the mackie extenders well, however that may be fixed in the final version.

i dont necessarily think its a threat to the existing user base. but when the 1.0 version comes out, those who have been on the fence about sonar, due to cost, may consider Reaper, which seems like it will be a much lower cost alternative with almost as many features. it may not be a threat to the "power user" base, but for the most popular DAW functions this thing works great.

it would be nice to see the specifics that are must haves from Sonar that are not in Reaper. Me personally, i like sonars FX bin much better than the Reaper implementation. much better for workflow.

My sentiments exactly. There is the risk that it will never make it that far before the developer moves on to other projects, too. How free is free, then?

ORIGINAL: jmarkham

i think you're playing out where you believe Reaper will eventually be rather than where it
is now. there is great potential, no-doubt.

i think you're playing out where you believe Reaper will eventually be rather than where it
is now.

Apparently we don't understand the same english when it comes to reading spec sheets. I have P5v2 and P5v2 can do things that SONAR 5.2whatever can't do. If you were to strip both products (SONAR & Reaper) of the extra fluff you would find that they are very competitive and Reaper is growing much faster than SONAR ever has. The bottom line is Reaper is nowhere inferior as some SONAR users seem to want it to be.

have a good one
3Eo

ORIGINAL: three_eyed_otter

i think you're playing out where you believe Reaper will eventually be rather than where it
is now.

Apparently we don't understand the same english when it comes to reading spec sheets. I have P5v2 and P5v2 can do things that SONAR 5.2whatever can't do. If you were to strip both products (SONAR & Reaper) of the extra fluff you would find that they are very competitive and Reaper is growing much faster than SONAR ever has. The bottom line is Reaper is nowhere inferior as some SONAR users seem to want it to be.

have a good one
3Eo

spec sheets are a superlative form of English ;-) ... i understand and appreciate your enthusiasm for
Reaper, honestly. it's a remarkable undertaking by a true free radical. however, if one has to diminish
(or "strip") the features of one product or imagine where the development of another is headed, this
doesn't make for a reasonable comparison to me. i readily admit i'm being a curmudgeon here .. but for
those of us who lived through the dot-com software boom-bust .. this is a pattern i've seen before ...
very motivated small team .. a vision .. promising prototype and then blammo! bought or off to the next thing.
jeff

Okay, I just sent in my first batch of suggestions for improvements to Reaper. If they can get implemented, hey, I'm all for free.

I think the comparisons to Live & Traction are very apt. The-sky-is-falling/second-coming hype that happened on the internet when each of the products began to be rolled out was pretty loud. But as they sought to move beyond their early user base of excited early adopters life has gotten more tricky. It's a big, ever-shifting music technology world out there, with a lot of users needing different things; what some users are able to forgive, others absolutely are not; one user's bloat is another user's must have.

Yea for Reaper! But the truth of the matter, move beyond those of us who frequent and post enthusiastically on message boards, most users don't want to keep re-inventing the wheel. Every time some user of another music tool tries to sell me on their product, I just smile and say, that's great but I've already learned Sonar, I'd rather spend my time making music. And denizens of message boards probably don't even make up a fraction of Sonar's actual user base; there are licensing partnerships, technology agreements, pro-market support. Not that I am doing anything more than speculating, but Cake's revenue stream is probably deeper more varied than however many thousands of us are posting and reading here.

My guess, considering what happened to WinAmp (and you'll recall there was a major stumble in the WinAmp code when they went to v3, code they eventually dumped in favor of the original), this will be a viable alternative for entry to mid-level musos but to stay to truly viable program there are just too many corporate property rights for just one team of coders and a lot of excited users to navigate. Besides, the number of people who want to record multi-steam audio and download obscure VSTi/VSTs is most likely significantly smaller than those who want to play music/video on their home PC.

It's very cool that the WinAmp guy is developing a music production software. But if he wanted to be truly revolutionary he'd make it open source/GNU and release it into the wild. That, I think, would strike more fear into the audio software market.

ORIGINAL: bbarnes

Go to Options | Preferences | FX Plug-ins and put a check mark at both options next to Automatically resize VST/ DX Config Windows. Now the plugin window sizing should work more to your liking.

Bill

Thanks, but that didnt work. The problem i'm talking about is this :




If ONLY justin fixed this (which he's so adamant about), i'd be the happiest person on earth. GURU was just an example, there are lots of plugs bigger than guru and it doesnt fit due to the doggoned extra space the chain window consumes (unnecessarily).[image][/image]

You can just right-click on the plugin name and choose to float the window...?

ORIGINAL: glazfolk

ORIGINAL: sambasevam
the only downside to reaper is...

Well the downside for me is that whenever I try to insert a plug-in while it's playing it crashes the program and produces a goddam awful noise. Sorry, but goodbye and good night on this one!

Geoff

I'm sure you did the same thing with Sonar huh? Ran across one bug within your workflow and said that's enough for me......right. I guess if I did that I'ld still be editing on 2" tape.

Thanks for the open mindedness, I'm sure Sonar works flawlessly and has never crashed on you.

ORIGINAL: Sonifferous

Reaper seems light years away from being any threat to any of the major DAWs.

This reminds me of when Traction came out and everyone thought *that* was going to be the DAW killer, same with Orion, Live, and any of the other up-and-coming apps.

Since he was able to write his DAW from scratch, he intelligently took alot of Sonars core routing features and added them initially to his program, which of course, is the major upside to starting later, learning from other peoples mistakes, and also implementing other peoples ideas immediately.

The problem is that developing software does not follow a linear timeline/graph over time. As the program becomes more complex, the time it takes to add features while maintaining backwards compatibility becomes exponential in nature. While I have no doubt reaper will become 80% of what the major DAWs are rather quickly, thats not a big deal, the devil is in that last 20%.

That said, I"m def keeping an eye on this, in 4-5 years this looks like it could def be a contender.

This is just silly-talk

While looking for the new daw to replace Vegas, many of us contended that without mouse wheel zoom, sonar was just too slow to use in front of a customer.

But many saw beyond that and did just fine with sonar, the slower editing was probably made up for in some way by some of Sonar's other features

But to suggest reaper isnt useable or a contender, not just now, but for the last two months (half of its existence) is just silly talk

It FLIES as an editor and its routing allows stuff that I thought I had to give up when I left the hardware world years ago

All this heated talk made me go get REAPER.

It might be good some day. But for what I do, manual entry of MIDI notes one at a time with the mouse, REAPER doesn't cut it. SONAR is still the best choice for me - even though I much prefer SONAR 2.2's interface over 5.

I can't jump ship quite yet. As good as the audio-routing is, the midi-routing aint quite there yet. Being able to have 3 separate midi tracks all set to one midi ch. input but outputing on 3 separate channels to 3 instruments in one instance of Kontakt 2 is about the only thing it doesn't currently do (at least not that I can figure out) that I can't live without. If this thing has really only been around for 4 months, I can't wait to see what it's like 4 months from now.

I like the saveable fx chains. Project 5 v.2 has this, except for having multiple soft synths. I'm hoping Sonar 6 will address this issue.

ORIGINAL: JTANK

All this heated talk made me go get REAPER.

It might be good some day. But for what I do, manual entry of MIDI notes one at a time with the mouse, REAPER doesn't cut it. SONAR is still the best choice for me - even though I much prefer SONAR 2.2's interface over 5.

If you were king for a day, how would you like to see note entry handled? How did it do it in sonar 2.2 ?

ORIGINAL: Howdy

I like the saveable fx chains. Project 5 v.2 has this, except for having multiple soft synths. I'm hoping Sonar 6 will address this issue.

SONAR5 actually addresses this rather nicely with the Track Template feature.

Hmm. So it does.

4) MIDI input Quantize

There is Midi input Quantize in Sonar? When did that happen?

very interesting responses.

just remember, its easy to see through certain ones ;)

anyhow, just a question, how does SONAR handle time signature changes and tempo changes....

does it restretch material or just play them faster, how does it deal with loops, etc....

In Sonar you insert Tempo or Meter (time signiture)/ Key changes from the insert menu or a key binding. There is also a Tempo View where you can see and edit everything with a pencil, line. eraser and snap tools. And a Meter / Key View where you can see all the meter changes and measure they are at as well as edit add and delete. Very elegant really. And I might add this is something Reaper is lacking thus far.
As far as time stretching Sonar can use ACID clips and you can make and export your own audio and midi Groove Clips as well as using REX in the RXP plugin.

Bill

Hi, Jason.

About this thread:

I don't mind people talking about competitive products on our forums. Obviously it happens all the time here. But this thread is turning into discussing detailed feature wish lists for Reaper. Would you all mind taking this elsewhere? I'd appreciate that.

By the way, I started Cakewalk as one guy with $4,000 of friends and family financing. I wrote the code, I packed boxes, I did tech support on the phone. I somehow sold enough to keep going, and it slowly grew over the years. I enjoyed those early days when it was just me writing the code. So I think I understand what you're doing, and why, because I did it all myself almost 20 years ago. It's a lot of fun, and I wish you luck pursuing it as long as it's still fun for you.

Again good luck, and I'll look forward to reading more of your thoughts ... elsewhere. :-)

Thanks.

Cheers,

Greg Hendershott
Founder & CEO
Cakewalk

ORIGINAL: Rednroll

ORIGINAL: glazfolk

ORIGINAL: sambasevam
the only downside to reaper is...

Well the downside for me is that whenever I try to insert a plug-in while it's playing it crashes the program and produces a goddam awful noise. Sorry, but goodbye and good night on this one!

Geoff

I'm sure you did the same thing with Sonar huh? Ran across one bug within your workflow and said that's enough for me......right. I guess if I did that I'ld still be editing on 2" tape.

Thanks for the open mindedness, I'm sure Sonar works flawlessly and has never crashed on you.

Yes, there have been occasion when Sonar has crashed on me, but they are few and far between. No it is not flawless but on my DAW by and large it is very stable. If it wasn't, I would have abandoned it and changed to something else.

With Reaper on the other hand, it crashes every time I insert a plug-in, any plug-in, while it is playing. Not on the odd occasion, every time. For me, this renders the product unusable. You seem to be blaming me for having this experience, which I find rather strange. Quite possibly I am the only person in the world this happens to. But that doesn't help me.

If I understand it correctly, its bussing, by the way, also appears to let me create a feedback loop, which I find also strange, though I'm not 100% sure that that was the problem - it might have been some other bug.

You posted some information about Reaper for which I thank you. I did try it with an open mind, and have posted the result. Your sracasm really isn't necessary and doesn't do you justice.

I'd be quite happy to try Reaper again some time in the future, but for me, this behaviour on my DAW isn't just "ome bug in my workflow." It renders the product unusable.

Best wishes,
Geoff

Agreed.

All the fuss is really more of the same. This is what happened when each of the following came out:

+ Live
+ FruityLoops
+ Orion
+ NTrack Studio
+ Tracktion
+ Reaper
+ Reason

I think they're all great and they'll all find their user-base. In the end you use what you like, which is why many of us are here.

I will say, though, regarding FX Chains:

SONAR5 actually addresses this rather nicely with the Track Template feature.

Actually, the templates are kind of a pain for basic fx chains. If you already have a project and you want to add a series of effects, you need to deal with the import filter and all that stuff. I'd much prefer fx chain presets that are independent, as you often decide on your effects AFTER you already have your tracks.

ORIGINAL: Greg Hendershott [Cakewalk]

Hi, Jason.

About this thread:

I don't mind people talking about competitive products on our forums. Obviously it happens all the time here. But this thread is turning into discussing detailed feature wish lists for Reaper. Would you all mind taking this elsewhere? I'd appreciate that.

By the way, I started Cakewalk as one guy with $4,000 of friends and family financing. I wrote the code, I packed boxes, I did tech support on the phone. I somehow sold enough to keep going, and it slowly grew over the years. I enjoyed those early days when it was just me writing the code. So I think I understand what you're doing, and why, because I did it all myself almost 20 years ago. It's a lot of fun, and I wish you luck pursuing it as long as it's still fun for you.

Again good luck, and I'll look forward to reading more of your thoughts ... elsewhere. :-)

Thanks.

Cheers,

Greg Hendershott
Founder & CEO
Cakewalk

Greg ... I commend you for many things here, but above all for your dignity. Good call.
Geoff

ORIGINAL: Greg Hendershott [Cakewalk]

Hi, Jason.

About this thread:

I don't mind people talking about competitive products on our forums. Obviously it happens all the time here. But this thread is turning into discussing detailed feature wish lists for Reaper. Would you all mind taking this elsewhere? I'd appreciate that.

By the way, I started Cakewalk as one guy with $4,000 of friends and family financing. I wrote the code, I packed boxes, I did tech support on the phone. I somehow sold enough to keep going, and it slowly grew over the years. I enjoyed those early days when it was just me writing the code. So I think I understand what you're doing, and why, because I did it all myself almost 20 years ago. It's a lot of fun, and I wish you luck pursuing it as long as it's still fun for you.

Again good luck, and I'll look forward to reading more of your thoughts ... elsewhere. :-)

Thanks.

Cheers,

Greg Hendershott
Founder & CEO
Cakewalk

Sorry from here as well

We appreciate your work....all the way back in time to my old Intel 486 :)

ORIGINAL: Greg Hendershott [Cakewalk]

Hi, Jason.

About this thread:

I don't mind people talking about competitive products on our forums. Obviously it happens all the time here. But this thread is turning into discussing detailed feature wish lists for Reaper. Would you all mind taking this elsewhere? I'd appreciate that.

By the way, I started Cakewalk as one guy with $4,000 of friends and family financing. I wrote the code, I packed boxes, I did tech support on the phone. I somehow sold enough to keep going, and it slowly grew over the years. I enjoyed those early days when it was just me writing the code. So I think I understand what you're doing, and why, because I did it all myself almost 20 years ago. It's a lot of fun, and I wish you luck pursuing it as long as it's still fun for you.

Again good luck, and I'll look forward to reading more of your thoughts ... elsewhere. :-)

Thanks.

Cheers,

Greg Hendershott
Founder & CEO
Cakewalk

Whoa.

Let me set something straight. My name is Jason Brian Merrill, the same as my nick --

I AM NOT THE DEVELOPER OR AM CONNECTED WITH REAPER IN ANY SENSE

I am a user of Reaper. Formerly of Samplitude 8.31

Justin Frankel ( i think thats it ) is the main coder, along with a couple of other ppl. I am just someone who has contributed to *some* ideas and thoughts regarding it.

I came here talking about Reaper in response to some interest and erroneous thoughts regarding it. IMMEDITATELY i posted links to more relevant places to discuss it. If the regulars here cant help but continue to discuss/criticize, that ISNT my problem.

Anyway, I have withheld my comments regarding sonar (a host i have tried) and have not criticized anyone here...

and the last thing i did was ask a question regarding sonars handling of tempo changes.

-- regards

Jason