I've been play with the demo and I gotta tell ya if I had demo'd it before Sonar I might have gone with it. Don't get me wrong it may not have many features Sonar has but I don't use half the features Sonar has anyway. I have Studio One 3 Pro which I have been using and like also but the more i use Reaper the more I like it. I'm going to buy it because it's a no brainer.
 
They also have good video tutorials

Plus you get updates very regular and for free for a long time(Officially 2 versions). My last REAPER license was purchased on
26th December 2013 and still going strong, about to enter its 5th year of free updates (Plus it never really runs out, the REAPER demo is fully functional and never expires) but I prefer to pay for my stuff.

Reaper continues to be overlooked. Must be the price. Or lack of advertising. Or maybe because it doesn't come loaded with a bunch of stuff that mostly never gets used. Oh well, it's your money.

i really love reaper. i will admit though to not using to its fullest yet. how is softsynth (3rd party) integration? easy as sonar? rewire?

Been checking out the vids explaining it. Encouraging stuff.
 
Also encouraging to read that it's said to run efficiently.

I really like the look of it, too. On top of its solid build and surprising depth, it has two features I've wanted for ages: varispeed and the ability to set the first measure as measure #0, allowing you to match bar numbers with a written score beginning with some material (upbeat, anacrusis, syncopated first note, etc.) before the first downbeat. Being able to label the first measure as "0" allows bar number one to come in the "right" place with its proper label, and not as bar number two.
 
 
Unfortunately, for me, the deal-breaker is that there's no ARA integration. So Melodyne, which I use very often, would again become a pain to use. This, so soon after having become so painless to use in Sonar with the introduction of ARA integration. So I'm reluctant to return to needing to resort to the multi-step, time-consuming, inspiration-killing workarounds.
 
The lack of ARA is also stopping me from further investigating Cubase.

Well I couldn't resist creating a NEW account here. My original one got nuked because of my singing the praises of REAPER!
 
I jumped ship and became an avid REAPER user after Sonar 5, which I beta tested for. In my most honest opinion, REAPER blows pretty much any other DAW software to pieces, and I ain't saying that so other folks will validate me buying it!
 
Some things I *LOVE* about it are:
 
Variable speed control that works just like a reel-to-reel. Slow the song down, and hit that highest note without cracking your voice or going falsetto.
 
A track is a track is a track.  There is no such thing as an instrument track or an audio track. Any track can record midi or audio, and if you want to be obtuse, you could even record both on one track. You can do crazy stuff like have multiple audio clips, all at different sample rates and bit depths, and it will let you get away with it.
 
More cool things it does outside the box are, a single track can have up to 64 audio pipelines. What that does for you is let you route the audio that you will hear, vs audio that will be used for side chain functions, or other totally bizarre stuff.
 
You can stack multiple softsynths into the FX bin and they ALL play so if you want to create a huge and complex instrument, it's a piece of CAKE.
 
The routing capabilities are farther out than you can probably think, and to lace up routing from one thing to another, you simply drag from the send of one thing to the receive of another, and again with more individual pipelines than you'll ever think of using.
 
The audio engine is probably the most efficient one on the planet, and Justin even compiles parts of it with older, non-bloated Borland C++ to achieve the least CPU hit imaginable. 
 
You can copy and paste envelopes, and the envelopes ACTUALLY WORK, unlike some other DAW software!!!
 
You can scale the entire UI up or down (every element) to sit on your screen well. I have an older net book and used to record my band playing live with it, and with it's limited screen res, I scaled REAPER down to 90%.
 
A track folder by default is also a bus, which I use extensively for grouping vocals, drums, and other things. You can put folders into other folders and create a complex hierarchies. You can also drag-drop around a folder, if you want to bypass the folder as a sub, but I can't imagine why you would want to do that.
 
In closing I will say that if you try REAPER, you are going to be intimidated, and that it has a STEEP learning curve, but that is to be expected with a piece of software that has almost infinite possibilities. Don't think that you can spend an hour or two with it, and make and educated decision about it. If you try it, I STRONGLY suggest you get on the forum and ASK questions, as well as watch some of the many videos there are for it.
 
Sorry to hear that you guys ship has abandoned you.  :-/
 
Peace
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Glennbo                      

I find Reaper adequate for my needs. My only criticism is that some of the text is too small for my 60+ eyes. Which causes eyestrain, which limits how long I can work. Other than that, it does what I need it to do. One thing I really like: it downloads and installs in two minutes. Of course, it's a much smaller program. I think everyone should try it, you never know, it may work for you. And you'll save a lot. I keep trying other stuff, most recently Cubase, but nothing has been able to lure me away from Reaper. I think the learning curve has been exaggerated. It's not that difficult to learn.

michael diemerI think the learning curve has been exaggerated. It's not that difficult to learn.

It is when folks go into it expecting that it will operate exactly like Sonar.  It is precisely due to the fact that it does not stay within the confines of legacy thought and coding that make it possible to do things like "Paramater Modulation", which I forgot to mention earlier. Parameter Modulation lets you automate any parameter on FX such that any plugin can effectively be side-chained, even if it doesn't have that function. As long as it has some automatable parameters, they can be governed by the amplitude of the track they are on, or from other tracks, ala pseudo-side-chaining. My point is, with so many things a user isn't used to, it's easy to shrug and just say "well this thing sucks", where a longer look, possibly with some additional help will likely evoke a different response.
 
 

Well, I fired up my copy of Reaper today, and wasn't impressed by the experience. For whatever reason, Reaper has decided that my Oxygen49 controller is no longer responding, and throws up this message:
 
"The following MIDI output device is not responding: Oxygen49
REAPER will wait for it to resume, but it may require a disconnect/reconnect"
 
This dialogue box won't go away, no matter what I do -- disconnect the keyboard, reconnect it, whatever. And while this box is up, Reaper won't let me access anything else. I have to use Task Manager to close the program. And every time I fire up Reaper, I get this same message. I searched the Reaper message boards for any solutions, found the question being asked a few times over the past year, most with no answer, or only a few half-hearted responses.
 
Not impressed. 
 
And the keyboard, for the record, is working perfectly in every other DAW I currently have on my system, including SO3, Sonar and Samplitude. Glennbo, have you come across this behavior from Reaper at all? Right now, my only option is to ditch it, I think...