I'm hoping that there is a plan to overhaul Midi. That a large enough number of improvements have been identified that it in itself is separate project. With that includes Staff View which is tied into Midi just the same way PRV is. And that we'll see both views come forward to be more competitive with others.
 
 

michael diemer
Well, I downloaded Reaper for the first time. Not a very intuitive DAW. I can't get my Garritan Aria player to work right with it, and so far not much help from their forum. But I'll stick with it, I'm sure it can be done. I probably was just as confused with sonar at first!

I spent a couple of weeks trying out Reaper and, out of the box, it is not very friendly. You'll need to decide how you want it to work for you and then find a theme, menus and scripts/actions that will support your vision. Once you've got it setup the way you want, you'll find that it is really great for audio recording and mixing. Depending on your level of midi programming, you may find Reaper's midi implementation good enough. I found it somewhat lacking in that area, but it is workable if you really want to switch away from Windows.
 
I will also say that Reaper has it's share of compatibility issues, crashes and "forced to use a workaround" as any other DAW. Just the way it is.
 
Regards,
Dan

I have given up for now on getting Reaper to work. I can't for the life of me figure out how to set up my Aria player so it plays all 16 channels correctly. My left arm is so sore I had to switch back to the right. My brain is even sorer. I'm trying to figure out how to tactfully tell them on the forum that Reaper's midi routing is massively confusing. Maybe they will simplify it at some point, but for now it's just not worth any more farting around. 
There! I got the venting out here, so I don't alienate the good folks over there!

I have given up for now on getting Reaper to work. I can't for the life of me figure out how to set up my Aria player so it plays all 16 channels correctly. My left arm is so sore I had to switch back to the right. My brain is even sorer. I'm trying to figure out how to tactfully tell them on the forum that Reaper's midi routing is massively confusing. Maybe they will simplify it at some point, but for now it's just not worth any more farting around. 
There! I got the venting out here, so I don't alienate the good folks over there!

Well, with a lot of help, I have gotten Reaper up and running. Aria player works with 16 channels. However, I have to arm the one I want to hear, and disarm any others. A bit cumbersome compared with Sonar. I'm not sure if this is standard procedure, or is because my keyboard is ancient, and only sends on one channel. But at least I'm up and running. Still a lot to learn. Need to get some reverb going. Once I'm more familiar with things, I might download the Notation edition (pre-release). Or maybe just wait for it to be fully implemented. That will be the real test. Only if that works out for me will I consider Reaper viable.

michael diemer
Well, with a lot of help, I have gotten Reaper up and running. Aria player works with 16 channels. However, I have to arm the one I want to hear, and disarm any others. A bit cumbersome compared with Sonar. I'm not sure if this is standard procedure, or is because my keyboard is ancient, and only sends on one channel. But at least I'm up and running. Still a lot to learn. Need to get some reverb going. Once I'm more familiar with things, I might download the Notation edition (pre-release). Or maybe just wait for it to be fully implemented. That will be the real test. Only if that works out for me will I consider Reaper viable.

The monitoring/arming is a bit strange in Reaper.  It's not too bad though really.  There are two or three different ways to go about IM between MON and REC modes.
 
Honestly, I like Reaper a lot.  I installed the pre with notation and gave it a quick look, without trying to do any edits.  It *look* good, but ...
 
I think it's wise to get a head start on learning the Reaper way.  Make sure you install the SWS extensions and ReaMenus.  ReaMenus will help you hold onto your sanity as the default menu system appears to have been put together by a sadist.
 
There are also some very nice themes (skins).  My favorite right now is the LCS mod of Imperial; full folder support in the mixer is really nice.
 
Sonar is still my primary, but that's prolly because I have way more time and $$ invested in Sonar. 

Dark Star on the Reaper forum solved the problem of arming tracks. There's an auto-arm feature. You just turn it on and all the tracks play when selected. Now if I can just figure out reverb...

michael diemer
...and so far not much help from their forum...

Hi michael-
 
Well, that's not really fair, I don't think! A few of us have tried to help (especially DarkStar) and you seem to be getting closer. 
 
-Susan
 
 

Susan, that didn't come out the way I meant it. What I meant was, I was getting a lot of help (including from you), but the problem was still unsolved. I should have put it differently. And yes, I was venting. When you spend close to 20 hours on something with no progress, you get frustrated. I did it here so as not to offend the folks there.  And thank you for your help. Your example of routing did help me as I was able to compare and make sure mine was correct. It was the inputs that were the problem.

I solved the reverb problem. It turns out that the sends on the Aria mixer are for reverb. I always controlled that with the purple slider in sonar, so I never even knew what those sends do. So now I have good sounds in Reaper. I'm trying to get EWSO Silver up and running in it now.