Same goal with Bapu, try to do something complete in Studio One this year. With Sonar, Reaper and maybe buying Studio One, nothing is missing in my limited vision. Rewire, SMPTE, midi clocks coming into reliability finally. No DAW wars, just everything working in harmony for a successful project taking the best from whatever delivers.
 
Don't know if this relates to the discussion of real time fx, but if not, a worthy spotlight.
 
One of the highest benefits of Reaper is the expansive control of automation lanes. Can be done live or after the fact. Reaper in infancy was struggling with midi, and lately trying to (quickly) get notation right. The guys however went balls to the wall early in development toward the concept and implementation of automation while most products had the science of automation on the back burner and left it there. If I post out of ignorance, please send a lightning bolt my way, but there is no DAW out there anywhere that holds a candle to Reapers automation lanes.
 
Once a track is recorded, automation profiles, several of them, can be graciously selected depending on what mode you want to go forward with. All real time or saved.
 
Example is for instance, loaded a track and then added Cake's CL leveling amp. Every parameter and knob is now subject to automation depending on how I want to go forward with the task. A synth with a hundred knobs is processed so that every hundred parameters are open to manipulate in real time or saving into a session.
 
If it gets any better than this, someone clue me in. Would not otherwise be the first boat I've missed.
 
John
 
 

You don't see lists like these for AL parm selections?

or this in CV
 

After demoing Reaper for an extra month or two I finally bought my license today 
There are a few things that Reaper does that I absolutely Love ...
The media explorer has the ability to act exactly as the Acid Pro 7 Chopper does for both midi and Audio   ...
Love it , it means I can preview sections of anything I want,  audio or midi  in the  media explorer w tempo match on ,
highlight it , right click and place it into my project loop enabled (as a groove clip) 
I wish SONAR could do that in the browser view that workflow sure saves a lot of time and extra steps,It works great w drum midi's ..
 
There's a lot more I like about Reaper , I'll keep it at that for now ....
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny

kennywtelejazz
After demoing Reaper for an extra month or two I finally bought my license today 
There are a few things that Reaper does that I absolutely Love ...
The media explorer has the ability to act exactly as the Acid Pro 7 Chopper does for both midi and Audio   ...
Love it , it means I can preview sections of anything I want,  audio or midi  in the  media explorer w tempo match on ,
highlight it , right click and place it into my project loop enabled (as a groove clip) 
I wish SONAR could do that in the browser view that workflow sure saves a lot of time and extra steps,It works great w drum midi's ..
 
There's a lot more I like about Reaper , I'll keep it at that for now ....
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny

Hey Kenny, great tip on the Reaper media explorer!  Will need to check that out!  Have been demoing Reaper also lately, but only as far as VST plugins really, so had not run across that feature.  I have Acid Pro too, but it's no longer installed, so that would be cool!

abacab

kennywtelejazz
After demoing Reaper for an extra month or two I finally bought my license today 
There are a few things that Reaper does that I absolutely Love ...
The media explorer has the ability to act exactly as the Acid Pro 7 Chopper does for both midi and Audio   ...
Love it , it means I can preview sections of anything I want,  audio or midi  in the  media explorer w tempo match on ,
highlight it , right click and place it into my project loop enabled (as a groove clip) 
I wish SONAR could do that in the browser view that workflow sure saves a lot of time and extra steps,It works great w drum midi's ..
 
There's a lot more I like about Reaper , I'll keep it at that for now ....
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny

Hey Kenny, great tip on the Reaper media explorer!  Will need to check that out!  Have been demoing Reaper also lately, but only as far as VST plugins really, so had not run across that feature.  I have Acid Pro too, but it's no longer installed, so that would be cool!

Hey abacab ,
 
You might be pleasantly surprised at how easy and fun it is to get something happening w that Acid Pro style of workflow in Reaper.
A couple of things off the top of my head ,
For example lets say I want to preview some Loop Loft midi drum loops . Midi preview in the media explorer requires you have a VST synth on your track to be able to hear the midi performance ..
Set up your favorite drum plug and you are good to go..with tempo match on in the media explorer you can slide up the file from the media explorer , or you can highlight a section of the clip just like the Acid chopper and place it in the tracks time line looped or not looped ...
Another interesting thing about the Reaper media explorer when working with midi is it is very easy to set up a number of different tracks all with different synths .You can blast through and create a nice little midi tune pretty fast ....here's how ..a small example
Lets say you have synths set up on each track ...track one keys, track two  bass , track three  melody / lead instrument , track four drums ...
When you want to preview midi parts for those instruments all you have to do is left click on the track that has the instrument you want ..let's say drums ..track four in my little example ..choose the track , and just go to your drum midi files in the media browser to hear them ...
if you have a bass midi part , just hit track two to highlight it in the track view and use the media explorer to audition your midi bass parts ...
Rinse and repeat
Another nice workflow you can do that is totally an Acid Pro style way of working is to  place a mix , or a stem , or a backing track , or a fill in the black / song that's still under construction into Reaper ...
Now here's where you have to be careful
Since there is no beat detector in Reaper like there is in Acid Pro ( that I Know of Yet ..it may have I don't know )
Make sure you know the correct tempo of the file and set Reapers tempo to that files tempo before you bring it into Reaper as a media object ....
I learned this one the hard way ...
I had a stem I was working on that was recorded in SONAR ..Bass Drums and Keys ..all audio parts I played
the correct tempo of my mix was 135 ...when I opened Reaper as a new project and placed my first media object
" my Tune " Reapers project tempo was set at a default of 120 ...For the record it would not have mattered if I was just looking to blow a guitar solo over it ...the thing is I was looking to build up parts and layers any way I could .
SO here's the RUB ..once I had placed my mix in Reaper it played at the speed I had placed it in..that part was OK
The problem was it now conformed to Reapers default tempo ..meaning when I tried to set Reaper to 135 ..my project just played faster ....
In a nutshell once I understood what happened I closed the project with out saving it ..then I started a new Reaper project
Before I did another thing , I made sure I set Reaper to a tempo 135 ...every thing from that point on was good to go ...
My metronome now lined up and played correctly plus I had the added benefit of having and I do mean everything from midi to audio now synced perfectly to my mix / tune under construction.....this also included the media explorer and all the files .
The interesting thing is when using Reaper in an Acid Pro type of mode I feel a lot can be done .
Nothing I have described here involves having to dive in deep and figure out all the sub menu's or hidden right click options that can get confusing to a person who is just starting to learning the program ..
 
I feel this is a good start ....I hope you try it out when you get the chance .
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny
 
 

kennywtelejazz
 
The interesting thing is when using Reaper in an Acid Pro type of mode I feel a lot can be done .
Nothing I have described here involves having to dive in deep and figure out all the sub menu's or hidden right click options that can get confusing to a person who is just starting to learning the program ..
 
I feel this is a good start ....I hope you try it out when you get the chance .
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny
 

Hey thanks, man!  I'll have to give that a shot. 
 
Reaper apparently has a lot going on under the hood, that is not obvious at first look.  Apparently the devs got to start fresh with a clean slate, no baggage from years past to keep older legacy features alive, as with the established DAWs.  So that can make it confusing for first timers when it does not follow established patterns.
 
I don't think that I will replace Sonar as my main tool, but having a few extra tools never hurt! 

BobF,
 
Appreciate the graphics. Going to do some A/B testing and see how the two compare.
 
John
 
(edit) guess what I'm still not finding in Sonar are the multiple automation modes (trim,read,touch,latch,etc) These cusomize the approach and give needed options depending on the environment and what you are trying to accomplish. This said however, automation can still get done in either program. In Reaper, these operations and the automation panel are best accessed on any horizontal track via the zigzag graph button in the lower left.

JohnKenn
BobF,
 
Appreciate the graphics. Going to do some A/B testing and see how the two compare.
 
John
 
(edit) guess what I'm still not finding in Sonar are the multiple automation modes (trim,read,touch,latch,etc) These cusomize the approach and give needed options depending on the environment and what you are trying to accomplish. This said however, automation can still get done in either program. In Reaper, these operations and the automation panel are best accessed on any horizontal track via the zigzag graph button in the lower left.

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR&language=3&help=Automation.04.html
 
Dan

Thanks Dan,
 
Explains why I don't have it since I stopped with X2. Looks like Platinum and Professional versions have 3 modes. Enough choices to get the job done.
 
John