Reaper Question

Splat88

Splat88

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Jan 31, 2006
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I transferred a project I was working on in Cubase SX3 over to Reaper to have a crack at mixing it there, but so far Reaper is handling the massive amount of plugins and VST instruments very badly.

CPU utilization has already peaked 100% for drums only! I haven't even loaded the guitars, bass, keyboards and vocal tracks and plugins yet. In Cubase, I can run the drums and all other instruments together and the CPU is not even maxed.

So something has to be wrong here. I have tried fruitlessly to scour the manual, alter buffer settings, multiple CPU settings, project settings, etc. I can't even get the drum tracks to play without stuttering unless I disable some effects. I wanted to really give Reaper a go despite how clumsy I am with it before I go on and buy Cubase 5.

Can anyone offer assistance?
 
Thats a shame Matt. If I had any experience with it I would help, but all I can think of putting it down to incompatiblility. Is it meant to open and be used flawlessly? i just cant see it some how?
 
Whoa there dude... this sounds strange. Something must be seriously wrong and I hope you find a solution for it (and post back if you do! :)). I haven't tried Cubase really but I always thought it was a bloated piece of shit software that had a bunch of junk code in it from legacy times, but if it's running smoother than Reaper... hell if I know.

Reaper isn't based on 10 year old code, which is why it's so small in its size unlike other DAWs. This should also mean Reaper is more "fluid" and just generally faster but... well... we'll have to see if someone knows the reason to your problem =/
 
After some experimenting, I think part of the problem is nailed down to the effects I'm using on the output channels for VST DFHS 2.0. When I run the same effects on an actual audio .wav bounce of the instrument channels, they don't use quite as much CPU, but its still a lot higher than Cubase. Another huge disappointment is with the send busses. I mix drums with a lot of different sub group channel busses and each time I route a new send, the CPU tax increases a significant amount. I do not notice any such increase in Cubase. After 19 tracks of drums with sub sends and effect sends, the audio just stutters.

This really pisses me off. I love the routing options of this program.
 
I'm watching this thread closely... because I'm actually thinking of buying the commercial license for Reaper soon but I'll just fucking spend a few extra... hundreds... of bucks... and get something else if it sucks dick. I still haven't tried Reaper myself due to lack of time but soon... sooooon.... (well, I know the basics but I haven't mixed anything complex yet).
 
Has anyone else done a DAW shootout for plugin efficiency? I just can't believe this is happening. The CPU meter in Reaper is around 60% when sitting idle, but then when I hit play, it shoots all the way up and the audio stutters.

I tried the same project settings in a cracked version of Sonar 7 and its running about like Cubase did with no complaints.

So far it looks like I'll continue to give Steinberg my business in Cubase 5.
 
Splat88 said:
So far it looks like I'll continue to give Steinberg my business in Cubase 5.
Click to expand...

....and mix with that dildo up my ass. Just kidding.

Honestly, other than routing issues (which still are not as good as Reaper's in Cubase 5), and some minor automation stuff, I can honestly say that I have no problem with Cubase SX3 and I really like the environment. I can crank things out in no time and it feels like second nature.
 
Well I'm glad to hear that it works for you. As much as I try I can't seem to take to the UI as well as I do ProTools. It just seems infinitely more intuitive to me, and I'm really really really tryin'. Regardless, it seems like we'll both be getting more familiar with Cubase 5 soon.
 
I have a friend that already did a plugin efficiency test..... Reaper was far way better than Nuendo in his quadcore computer.... that's very strange...... i will ask him if he could show up to enlighten his situation.... besides, even newer than others, the Reaper code was more experimented and tested than any DAW's code so far i can see....
 
Dom Ostarig said:
I have a friend that already did a plugin efficiency test..... Reaper was far way better than Nuendo in his quadcore computer.... that's very strange...... i will ask him if he could show up to enlighten his situation.... besides, even newer than others, the Reaper code was more experimented and tested than any DAW's code so far i can see....
Click to expand...

Well this is encouraging. The difference is so dramatic in my case that I feel that I'm missing something. My PC is a bit of a dinosaur though, its an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ and I've got 3GB of memory. I don't think that should make a difference though.
 
Okay, I screwed around with this more and I finally got the project to work in Reaper without audio dropouts and stutters. The only way I could do this without removing any effects was to completely disable the group sends I had set up and just send everything to the master bus. Unfortunately, this defeats the whole purpose of why I wanted to use Reaper. There's got to be some sort of issue in the application that makes the routing very CPU intensive, or perhaps its just specific to my computer. The routing is really not all that complicated and as I mentioned before, I get no CPU increase in Cubase or Sonar when I do this. Here's the setup:

1 instance of DFHS 2.0 for drums only (no crashes)
The kick, 5 snare drums (multiple mics and samples), bullet mic, and toms are routed to the master drum bus. The 4 stereo room tracks are routed to their own bus and then bussed into the master drum bus.

1 instance of DFHS 1.0 for crashes and hats
The hat, and two stereo OH and AMB tracks are sent to their own Cymbals bus and then into the master drum bus.

Finally, the master drum bus then has an aux send to another group where I've got some parallel compression going on.
The last to aux groups are dedicated to reverbs. One group for certain elements of the kit, and the other for a bit of reverb on the crashes.

Again, this method of routing just makes Reaper shit the bed. I'm puzzled and frustrated.
 
Has anyone else done a DAW shootout for plugin efficiency? I just can't believe this is happening. The CPU meter in Reaper is around 60% when sitting idle, but then when I hit play, it shoots all the way up and the audio stutters.
Click to expand...

It's obviously an issue other than Reaper quality itself. My Cubase 3 couldn't handle the 4 cores on my Q6600 right, but Reaper just happens to manage it perfectly. Lots of Wagner Sharps on highest quality.
Have you tried absolutely everything on Reaper's settings? I'm asking this because on the beggining I had some very strnge problems too, and the dropouts and lack of stability was happening due to my CME MIDI Controller drivers. Once I switched to my MOTU 8pre's MIDI instead of crappy CME USB MIDI, everything got ok.
Other common problem: incompatible plug-ins. And this is a bit strange. I had problems with Aixcoustic EQ here (crashed Reaper) and a fellow of mine, using the same version of the plugin, had no problems at all.
 
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