Some other Reaper tips/features I think are super helpful: In the upper right corner of the plugin window, there's a tiny knob--that's a universal dry/wet knob. Reaper can do basic buss processing on any plugin really quick If you like the series of plugins on a track/set of tracks, you can select the track(s) and right click->save as template. This can even include automation, which would include lfos assigned to automation lanes. In automation lanes, you can altclick+drag to create clips of automation that you can move around or copy/paste like media items. If they're the same length as a media item above, by default (I think) they'll move with that item and come along for the ride when you cut or copy that item. Ctrl+click lets you free hand draw in either automation lanes or the midi cc lanes inside the piano roll. In the piano roll, select notes, then press Q will bring up the quantize menu. Pressing H on selected notes will bring up the humanize menu, a reverse quantize that's super useful for sample instruments like Spitfire audio Labs. Pressing T on selected notes brings up the transpose menu for quickly shifting down and octave or up a fifth or whatever. Pressing S on the main timeline will split items at the playhead. In piano roll, it will split midi notes at the playhead. If you go to the actions menu at the top, then show actions (in the main window or piano roll) you can see every single action you can keybind. It's a lot. I have a keybind to "split midi items to grid" in the piano roll, which makes it super easy to make stutterery elektron-esque retriggers. One feature other DAWs have I wishe reaper has was probability for midi notes. The way around that I've found is by using Stochas, a free midi sequencer plugin by the same folks who made Surge. Reaper's the DAW I moved to after having confirmed with garagesband I wanted to make music with a DAW and it's been working out great the past couple years

It's a bit misleading to call Reaper "budget DAW". It sure is cheap, but that's only because the devs are good people and their original goal was just to make producing accessible to wider audiences. Reaper is easily the most advanced DAW in the world.

Reaper is amazing. I do voice-over, audiobooks, edit podcasts, and have produced dozens of music tracks with it. It's A+ software and the best value in the industry.

Great intro to Reaper! Last weekend I had an emergency needing to record a track and Ableton UX installation failing miserably. Reaper came to the rescue.

Not sure if this was mentioned already but the automation is even easier than that. Just touch a parameter then click the param button in the FX window. From there click "show track envelope" and the last touched parameter will show up on your transport. No need to open the scary looking envelopes window.

I found an all-in-one computer in a thrift store that was only $20. I think they thought it was just a monitor. I added some ram and a SSD. For about $100 I had a windows 10 machine that I could dedicate to learning how to make digital music. I tried Pro Tools trial... after downloading the (what I now consider bloatware) it took nearly 3 minutes to Open! Maybe this thrift store machined won't cut it after all I thought?! Let me try something else... Installed REAPER (which is all caps by the way) and it opened in less than 10 seconds. Licensed it over 2 years ago for $60 and it's still kicking some serious butt installed on an old Intel Core i3. REAPER IS THE BEST for electronic music production because the code is mean, clean and super light on resources! It's included plug-ins are as good as most paid plug-ins and there are literally hundreds of hours of free education by top notch talent. You can't beat it for value, functionality or flexibility!

I have used Reaper for electronic music for a long time. I have been a long time user of FL studio , Sonar and recently Ableton Live (because my clients send me projets in Live). What I don't like: 1. Folders don't behave as VCA automatically like in Ableton Live. 2. Does not have a drum rack like the one in Live and handling grooves is not as straight forward. 3. Looks pretty utilitarian. What I like: CPU efficiency, absurd flexibility, routing, lightweight, price, customization, automation clips, MIDI ghosting, SCRIPTS!, Rendering, supports video... Actually after using them all extensively, I find it is way easier to make electronic music on reaper than in FL or Live.

the only bad thing about reaper is: there's so many tutorials for ableton.

Reaper is the best DAW period. (It's the most customizable, recognizes all plugins, and uses the least system resources. I have tried them all). All those late to the party keep sleeping lol. (Find the connection to the creator of the legendary Winamp for you younger heads unlike myself and, you will realize just how dope Reaper truly is).

Licensed Reaper user here 😂 It is just sooo flexible! I’ve been using it for years, and have no intention of changing to something else anytime soon. Nice to see Reaper getting some love

SUPER HELPFUL TIP!!!!!! ---- if you are used to easily moving automation around in Ableton (copying say an automation pattern from one track and pasting it onto another) have no fear of the Reaper, it can be done easily. This drove me crazy and I finally figured it out and everyone should know it. OK, make your automation (the volume pumping sidechain like Gabe does in this video is a good example). NOW holding Option on mac (you get the pencil icon) - "paint" underneath the automation data you want to copy elsewhere. A little line is created underneath. Ok? Now select that line (what you just painted on), and hold Command and you can copy and drag that automation data anywhere - on the same track or to different automation tracks... Enjoy! And Gabe you are like the only person on youtube talking about Reaper and electronic music. So crazy. Thank you!

i am so glad many people are giving reaper a lot of chances nowadays, i personally find it suitable for me, coming from someone who haven't tried using daws that much as standard as ableton or fl. also this is a excellent video, gabe. i might even use this for future reference whenever i do something in reaper. and also thank you for suggesting sitala.

Before I could afford Bitwig, I actually did a lot of messing around in Reaper. It really is a great DAW,. Loved it and actually preferred it over Studio One. It even supports ARA which I do miss alot having switched to Bitwig. Unfortunately it lacked scene launchers and automating was a bit of a hassle. Other than that it allowed me to perfect and streamline my workflow so I could quickly get results. My favorite theme was Hydra. It is possible to make any EDM track in Reaper, but you will need some good plugins. Some of the best are free such as Surge XT and Vital. Don't let anyone tell you not to do EDM in Reaper.

I use Reaper and Ableton. What I love about Reaper that's lacking in Ableton is the dynamic splits and items/clips export options that make it so easy when you are making one shot sample packs. I've been working in video game sound design and these options can save you litteraly hours of work with 2 or 3 clicks. I've also found a nicer and smoother workflow for mixing so essentially I make the beats on Ableton but I mix them on Reaper.

Long story short, I used to have a trial license to Ableton when I was doing my first year diploma in Music Production which only lasted for the first year of my course, after that trial ended I was looking for a free to use DAW for Electronic music production. Reaper has been my go to DAW since then and really like how versatile this DAW can be. So thanks Gabe for showing Reapers capabilities into Electronic music; great video! 😃

I've loved Reaper for probably nearly a decade now. Coming from Cubase and Protools at the time, Reaper was a revelation.

Thank you for this great/quick overview of Reaper. I've bounced around a few DAW's trying to figure out which one to get started with and I think what I'm looking for is "simple". Given what you've shown, I think Reaper fits the bill for me just starting out. Thanks again!

Do you know the producer Tristam? He went from FL to Ableton to cubase and now Reaper. He created scripts, for example one that replicates the duplicate function from Ableton, as well as many more to make his Reaper extra efficient for EDM. If you listen to his album WLUWD you'll hear that making EDM/pop in Reaper can be very high quality.

YO GABE, I just want to say your REAPER stuff is absolutely fantastic. I like your groove box stuff, but your REAPER demos are by far the best I have ever seen, and I know you did an "ultimate guide" but please do more if you have anything you think is useful to share,

About automation, reaper also has automation clips that you can copy, move, link... like a midi clip

You speak fast for my poor English BUT, I like the way you explain and how humble you are, even being so good at this job. Congratulations. I wonna learn music production. Keep it up.

Thanks for the video. I'm researching different DAWs and this is quite helpful.

after a 5 year relationship with Ableton and constant cheating on her with audacity, I finally decided to break it off after I discovered Reaper and it's amazing customizability and common sense.

I wonder how people get the idea that Reaper isn't good for electronic music. It's one of the most powerful DAWs ever made. Of _course_ it's good for electronic music. It wouldn't be a very good DAW otherwise.

Of course it is, I mostly compose orchestral, Black and Thrash Metal music, but also Electronic and I found Reaper outstanding and highly customizable for compose Electronic music and most genres. Also there's a paid script that emulate the scenes Mode of Ableton Live, so cool!

Neat that Scaler 2 works through the chain. Only Logic I know does that without routing.

My favourite thing about Reaper (in addition to its amazing capabilities in a studio production setting) is that I can essentially use it instead of a mixer in smaller live settings. Laptop, soundcard and Reaper. Plug soundcard into speakers, do live listening in Reaper and you've got a powerful digital mixer. So far I've had no latency issues doing this through Reaper. Although I haven't gone overboard with the FX either. But can easily run a few channels with all the essential plugins without my almost 9 year old Mac Book Pro running into problems. Can't say the same for other DAWs I've tested this technique in. And if you wanna look cool while doing it, you could just add some MIDI fader controls 😂

I don't mind that reaper has basic plugins... that's why I have Komplete Ultimate

Great video Gabe!

REAPER!!! Sweet vid, Gabe.

sitala is dope

I left Reason for Reaper when I switched to a Linux OS. I miss the Reason rack but as a DAW Reaper has been awesome. Plus Justin Frankel was the guy behind Winamp and Gnutella, so I like the homegrown DIY approach to his work. I'd like to see comparisons to Bitwig or Live. I know Reaper can have similar functionality.

its good for everything actually i was quite surprised

btw.... less bugs is enough to say is great for whatever the music is.... but i got your points... thanks

aand coolest thing about Reaper is, if you wanna make music videos or animations, you can throw in videos into Reaper, and automate video FX just like audio and synths, or even clone plugin automations to serve as video automations, wild shit to do :D

sick i did not know y can Layer like that can y with samples also

60 bucks for a rock solid fast loading, highly reliable, fully featured DAW is in my opinion a no-brainer to have around.

any chance you can explain how to do some of these examples from this clip ? Especially the first clip "7 advanced ABLETON TIPS in 400 seconds"

Wow your awesome. Thank you

Just for the record, since you mentioned it - you can do the whole adding tracks to folders and manipulating effects on individual drum sounds in Logic too these days 🙂

Reaper is a solid DAW

Thank you !!!! ❤️❤️❤️

I just got the latest Reaper update, v6.56

Great video. Time to take Reaper to the next level 👍

Lfo on all the things!

Don't forget, it's so lightweight & cpu friendly. It's stable, works well with all plugins, and it's automation & customization heaven. Sadly newbies are attracted to marketing hype & shiny colorful things. Reaper is a bit of a Cinderella.

Whenever someone asks if can they make EDM music in Reaper, my brain instantly thinks of Camellia's music and the insane amounts of layers and automation in his Reaper projects.

I say this with the utmost respect reaper is the " Super Freak " of daws ( it will do anything with anybody and never says no ) I test out things on it to see if I can do it in Ableton or Mpc software it always finds my vsts you can even edit video on it

Is there any option to improve the UI for the forms? on windows 10 they look really distracting, thank you Microsoft!

The flexibility throws people off, it's a tough daw for a beginner

You showed me a new plug in. And its free!. :-D 🙌

I like reaper I just wish there was more available stuff for Linux.

Reaper is amazing :)

I use lmms for basic beat making and mixcraft for effects and putting clips together. It's a system that works well for me but it would probably be weird for the average person.

I am making EDM in Reaper for years. Only thing it lacks is some instrument and FX plugins. The stock ones are not that great. Especially reasynth.

its not cheap by any means: you invest a lot of time to accustom it to your needs, and if you are into sound design - you will get nvk scripts and some other ones and they cost quite a bit, but its all totally blows every single other daw light years behind, because you can’t do this many things there ever.

How does this compare to waveform daw?

how to play samples chromatically on midi keys

i dont like how to choose a one shot.

I’m getting into Reaper at the moment, after using Ableton exclusively for about 12 years. There’s a bit of a learning curve but at least there are plenty of tutorials here on KZfaq. The only thing that bothers me is that the sidechain function doesn’t always work for me and I’m still trying to figure out why. Otherwise it’s kinda intuitive for a lot of things and gives you a lot more control over many things than Ableton does. It’s also much more CPU efficient

Rip to free sitala

Session view and easier MIDI looping / editing makes ableton preferable for edm

Yeah, my Reaper straight up crashes when I try to open Vital....

👍👍🏻👍🏼👍🏽👍🏾👍🏿

its cool when you come from pro tools or logic etc.. but everything you mentioned is just a few clicks less in Bitwig.

Speedrum by Apisonic Labs way more better than Sitala, try it

Bitwig best for Electronic Music Production!

What corporate stuff?

Reaper is THE DAW, you can simply do whatever you want, even edit videos... Yes, videos... So dude, if you're looking for an investment, buy Reaper instead of expensive softwares that will limitate your creativity and charge you a little bit more to unlock simple features you can have for free in Reaper... Yes, reaper is ugly at first sight, but that's simply because you can modify all the layout so it looks the way fits better for you, you create the shortcuts, insert scripts... What i'm trying to say is, value your money and buy a software with a good philosophy instead of a software with a exploratory philosophy. I used to be an Ableton Guy but since i understood Reaper and did my very own DAW inside of it, i don't see myself going back to Ableton... I have Ableton 2 or Reaperton in Reaper now hahahahahah.

Whoa-whoa-whoa, slow down buddy. Can you elaborate on how you did EQ modulation thing? Is it a plugin?

First!

Horrible 'DAW'