Your DAW Is...

[Kenneth R.]

Everyone's not using it. Look at the poll for a sample of recording artists among this forum. You might find similar statistical trends everywhere else.

And no, your rationale is flawed. People don't use the best thing. They use the easiest thing. Which is why Adobe still exists as a company. They have shite products, many of which can be replaced by other software that is far superior. However, a majority still use it for transferability between clients and vendors. That is the unfortunate state of things, which is slowly trending away as more and more people jump ship out of frustration to use better tools instead of the popular ones.

So no, Reaper isn't #1 by volume, and while I am partial to it, I want to acknowledge that and as well point out that in S.O.S polls it has consistently placed first for best DAW regardless. ProTools and AVID are the Adobe of the audio world. Everyone curses them, but a majority still use them. A shrinking majority.

 

[Harris The Epic]

Whatever. Why do you make such a big deal about it anyway? It's not your problem if I use ProTools.

 

[Kenneth R.]

Not at all. You're free to use whatever you want. I started this thread to see what other people are using.

However it is my problem to correct you spreading incorrect information, as it affects the choices of others.

 

[Harris The Epic]

What did I say that was false? I never said that it's the best. Maybe I said it's the most popular, but that's only because I've never seen a studio that doesn't use ProTools and also have some sort of computer with or for Logic. Other than that statement, the only false information I presented was an opinion. If you have a problem with an opinion, I don't know what to tell you.

 

[Marwen]

My guess is the reason Protools is the most popular in studios is because it's kind of the standard in schools. It's like with programming when the majority of schools will use one particular IDE (the DAW equivalent in programming) to teach a particular programming language, but it doesn't mean it's the best, just... well... the standard. Once a tool gets that status (probably due to being pretty good/the best/most famous at one point in time) it's hard to take it away from it, even when it's no longer the best in the market technically speaking, or even "great" to begin with (an example of this would be the NS10 monitors). But it still delivers, because 1) It functions properly, and 2) The producers know it really, really well.

Protools, Reaper, Sonar, Cubase... All these big DAW's, they're all great these days and if there's a difference in quality/features it's nothing huge (unless I'm missing something). So like going with the monitors you 'know' the most, I'd just stick with the DAW you're most used to. Personally I really liked Reaper, but it was kinda too late for a switch for me as I find I'm better with Cubase (which also doesn't disappoint).

 

[Harris The Epic]

It's a matter of preference. Most of the shit is similar as hell anyway. It's also the equivalent to a mixer (though mixers are much more subject to the parts they're using.) Most of them are laid out so similar that if you can figure one out, you can figure more out. (Except that shitty new Line 6 PA that totally sucks all need for knowledge of audio out the window.)

How big and processor-heavy of a program is Reaper?, and can it do the whole .OMF file business? I'll put it on my PC laptop and give it a good run. Most of the reason I've been such a little bitch is because I've never really tried it. Looking at screenshots it looks just like any other DAW. What exactly are the differences? Like really exactly.
So I get 30 free days with it, then no more until I buy the license. Ken, I thought you said it was totally free.

 

[Marwen]

It certainly isn't free but I believe it has the best value for money (it's cheaper than Protools, Cubase, Sonar, Reason and Logic). It's very customizable and is pretty good with handling cpu resources. It's better than you might think so do check it out. I see people who switched to it and now swear by it just like Ken does.

Don't know and don't care about the OMF stuff. I don't think it has native support for that but a google search brought this up: http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=97685

 

[Harris The Epic]

I just want the .OMF files so I can try moving stuff between Reaper and ProTools and really compare the capabilities with everything.

 

[Marwen]

I'd give the AATranslator a try then.

 

[Kenneth R.]

It's a matter of preference. Most of the shit is similar as hell anyway. It's also the equivalent to a mixer (though mixers are much more subject to the parts they're using.) Most of them are laid out so similar that if you can figure one out, you can figure more out. (Except that shitty new Line 6 PA that totally sucks all need for knowledge of audio out the window.)

How big and processor-heavy of a program is Reaper?, and can it do the whole .OMF file business? I'll put it on my PC laptop and give it a good run. Most of the reason I've been such a little bitch is because I've never really tried it. Looking at screenshots it looks just like any other DAW. What exactly are the differences? Like really exactly.
So I get 30 free days with it, then no more until I buy the license. Ken, I thought you said it was totally free.

It's not free. But compared to what you shell out for ProTools or Cubase, it might as well be free. $60 is chump change for the power of a DAW.

The installer is about 5MB footprint, because it doesn't come bundled with sample libraries. The idea is that everyone wants different sample libraries (or none at all) so why bother pushing the same huge set on everyone and charging more for it?

It runs fast. Very fast, very good optimization for CPU usage.

It is almost completely customizable. Every single UI element can be themed - make your own icon or slider or background or knob or whatever, and replace it. ALMOST every UI element can also be moved around, so you can have the mute button on the left, on the right, or no mute button if you never use it. There are therefore the possibility of having track layouts and mixer pane layouts where you can set an appearance for each track, including folder tracks, divider tracks, and big-big-meter channel strips.

The customizability is usually the axis of division here. Users are either drawn to and sold on the fact that they can change ANYTHING and also save and export that customized interface for use on other systems, giving them "their" experience anywhere. Or, users are turned off by the steep curve of setup to get from out-of-the-box to perfection. This is where people who are willing to settle for a cut and dry interface and feature set will go with another DAW for simplicity and accept all the bugs and quirks that go along with that. Others will go for Reaper because they can tweak out most of the things they don't want and end up with a interface that behaves exactly as they want it to.

Reaper does come with some powerful VST tools. Don't let their no-frills GUIs fool you, they are solid and heavily used by the Reaper community. Of course you can also use your own. Just tell it which folder to scan.

It can also control or slave other DAWs through Rewire.

For my work, I have a 32bit and 64bit version of 4.23 installed on a 2GB thumb drive that I can mix with on any computer I am using. In about 5 seconds I can have my interface up and running with my project open.

I use this theme currently: http://stash.reaper.fm/theme/920/Apollo 4

So far, I've found only one thing ProTools 10 can do that Reaper can't. And I haven't even gotten any verification that this is true yet, just advertised. That would be rendering an 8+ channel wav_extensible file mix-out with channel header data (dw_chanmask) populated right out of the DAW. Being able to do that would save me two steps in doing 7.1 and higher mixes.

 

[Harris The Epic]

Well, I downloaded it. Now I'm gonna go ahead and start messing around in it with what's there. Note that I have no extra anything on this computer. No virtual intruments, no signal processing plug-ins, pretty much nothing. I'll install Komplete and my Waves stuff later on.

 

[Kenneth R.]

There's native 32/64bit bridging, but I find the jbridge plugin to be another useful method, especially for Waves.

 

[Kenneth R.]

Lately I've been experimenting more with the ReaSurround plugin, which has caused me to generate a few more feature requests.

Tried to post a gif animation "video" but apparently all the free hosting sites are shit.

 

[Kenneth R.]

So, no animation. Just a teaser.

Also, any of you ever played with Ohm Studio? It's not a full on DAW, and it's probably only good for fun projects, but the collaborative tools are awesome.

 

[RomanNoodles]

Abeleton. It's terrible and I hate it.

 

[Smallstep]

You're 5 years late to this thread RomanNoodles lol, but I can say a few things about Reaper since 2012... it has evolved a lot, under its hood. I got rid of Vegas Pro because I can edit all my videos in Reaper (does everything I need: crossfades, reverse, text, effects), I can create music scores directly instead of using a piano roll in the midi editor, and a million other features. I have a 400 tracks template with Kontakt in Reaper... it runs so smoothly its beyond imagination.

That said, I also use Reason from time to time, it's another world (been a user since Reason 4 to Reason 9). Great fun to experiment sounds, for hiphop, electro or acoustic music... downside is having to ReWire it as a slave in Reaper if I need more tools (like Kontakt for instance) because it doesn't support VST. But still, it's also mindblowing on its own.