As an exProTools user myself, Reaper was a nightmare to learn. I almost gave up until I found Reapermania, Kenny Gioia’s channel on KZfaq. He has well produced videos on virtually anything you could want to do in Reaper. Once you get the hang of it Reaper is faster than ProTools, and it can do anything ProTools can do, and a lot of stuff ProTools can’t do. The mistake I made when I first got reaper was trying to customize it to work like ProTools. Don’t do that, just learn Reaper. Then after you get the hang of it you can customize it a little here and there to suit your workflow.

hey, i know that guy! Thanks for the shout out!

Y'all gonna have me crying in the comments section 🤗 Feeling the love

Ok, lots to unwrap here but I can hopefully give you some tips. 1) the ReaInsert thing can be weird, on almost every system I've used it it can take a minute to work well. Make sure you "ping" the loop, meaning that, once you've set your IO, you hit the "ping detect". It will run an audio signal through the loop to sync the latency. The buffer size shouldn't matter too much, but it can definitely take some time. 2) Windows on top: every "floating window" (that's the name of any window that is not docked to the app) can be "pinned". If you look on the top right you see a pin, like on a board you use pins to put a piece of paper. The pin on your Mixer (or MCP-Mixer Control Panel on Reaper) was set to on, so the Mixer was on top of everything if you unpin it it will go to the background when you open a new window. You can also pin a plugin, any other window, and of course unpin them. So yeah, unpin the mixer 3) have a look at the "action list", you can change whatever you want there in term of shortcuts. And there's thousands of features that don't have a shortcut yet, and you can play with them and see if they could come in hand. There's a "go to next transient in item" that is very similar to the "tab to transient" feature.. Lots of things. One thing I'd suggest is to search for the action to open and close the MCP, and you can use the "find shortcut" feature in the Action List Window to find the action bound to a specific key command. So click on "find shortcut", enter the shortcut you have (by default Reaper has cmd+M for showing and hiding the MCP) and it will show you what action that is. There you can delete any shortcuts you want or add shortcuts. You can have multiple key commands for one action, making it easy for when people come in and they wanna do something and you can keep the stock command. You should also start learning the "custom actions", which are actions you can create by combining more than one action from the action list. This allows you to, for example, stop the session, go to the beginning of the project, save. All these three are actions, and you can combine them into 1 and trigger one single key command and those three will happen in a fraction of a second. You have no idea of how much stuff there is. 4) SWS: go on Google and download the "Reaper SWS Extension". It's a package of hundreds if not thousands of features that make Reaper probably 4 to 5 times more powerful than just the stock Reaper. Cool features are daily things like having a "red ruler" (a red stripe) that appears on top of the session when you are recording (to make sure you KNOW you're recording), analysing the loudness of some items (you can drag a whole album in a session, select all the tracks, go to "extensions, loudness, analyse selected items" and it will tell you LUFS-I, M, True Peak, Maximum short term and momentary, range of LU...), setting the loudness of a specific file to any LUFS-I you decide (to AB different recordings you can match the volume automatically) and thousands of other features I use daily, like the auto-colouring, where by inputting the name of a track it will automatically colour it of the colour that you want, or if you set the track to "record arm" it will be coloured differently and then will come back to normal when you un-arm the track, or a folder track might be white when turned into a folder track... Really, thousands of things. 5) ReaPack: this is another great addition, where you can find user built scripts and plugins. Things like a free version of Vocalign, that uses the stretch markers (Reaper's version of elastic audio) to align two vocal takes, scripts to move things around... Again thousands of other things. 6) For showing one FX Window at a time there's an option in the Reaper preferences (cmd+,) under the "Plug-Ins" menu that says "Only allow one FX chain window open at a time". You can play with that, although to then open two windows (like you would do on PT by clicking on the red square in the corner) you'll have yo do some trickery. There's a great video on it by Kenny Gioia, on the YT channel Reaper Mania. It's great and will help you lots when looking for things to learn everything Kenny has to teach. He's basically the biggest Reaper Guru. Also, the Preferences window has a "find" option, where you can type something in, enter and every time you hit enter it will show you any option that has that word in it. Very quick. Search is also possible on the Action List, meaning if you're looking for something that has to do with an item you can just type "item" and find anything that has to deal with that. Reaper has its own way of wording things so when you read enough Actions you'll see that you start thinking of how it could be named and you'll get very fast at it 7) Plugin Window: when looking for plugins you opened the window and that's great. On the left though you can see many menus, while you were on the "all plugins" there are other folders. The first thing you see is a division in AU, VST, JS... and all. If you keep going down Reaper will automatically search the plugins and list them in categories (when you were looking for a Delay for example) or brands. You can then also build your own custom folders, and add plugins there. For example I use custom folders for almost every manufacturer that I have since I might have bought a Waves Mercury, but I don't use many of those plugins. And I can have a custom Waves folder with only the plugins I use. 8) The power of ESC. On Reaper, almost every window you open can be closed by tapping "ESC". Since my left hand is basically almost at reach, it's super powerful. Close floating windows, fx, preferences, fx search window, all with ESC. You'll quickly see that when using any other software the thought of having to hunt for that "close window" button will feel like using Windows95 again. I hope I've given some helpful tips, and welcome to the Reaper world. Oh, and since I've seen you believe you have seen a rabbit hole, trust me. You're already in it. You just haven't realised how big it is.

Heck yeah! This was a great video! I tagged a few folks (and you) on my Discord server to assist with anything you might need, particularly the ReaInsert issue. Got a few folks on tap just waiting for you to pop in :)

I love that you gave reaper a fair shot. I salute you and this undertaking - it ain’t easy! If you’re willing to put in a few minutes to figure it out, have your friend explain “Parameter Modulation” to you. Essentially, you can side-chain the behavior of a plugin or channel parameter to the gain coming off another channel. I’ll give you a use case - imagine that the frequency of a boost in your EQ (or any other parameter of any plugin) is side-chained to the gain from another channel. Say, when your singer sings, the boost in your Rhodes scooches up or down and out of the way, but then comes back when the vocal rests. Lots of luck!

Sonarworks should go into your „Monitoring FX“, not your Master, or else you always need to bypass it for rendering ;-)

Regarding your „always on top“ problem: In the upper right corner of your mixer window is a „pin“. You seem to have pressed it… 😁

I was really happy you tried Reaper. I think it's a fascinating daw! Very looking forward to your Reaper YT updates!

A few small things you might have worked out by now anyway: 1. You can dock the mixer to the main window [you can dock just about any window to the main one] which might help the right-click bug you were having. 2. You can uncheck a setting by right-clicking the mixer to stop the mixer channels stacking on top of each other. 3. I'm pretty sure there's a setting that lets you only have on fx window open at a time. [there's also a search function in the preferences menu which can help a lot] 4. If you drag files directly onto the timeline you can position them exactly where you want, otherwise if you drag them onto the TCP [the bit where the controls are on the side] I think tracks are inserted at the playhead. 5. Oh, and you should be able to customise the theme you're using to show different/limited controls based on whether a track is selected or armed (or just by default). That's a thing you can do with the default theme and I think the person who made this theme kept that feature.

After 20 years of Pro Tools for 8 hours a day, I, too fell in love with Reaper a few years ago and fell down a deep rabbit hole....customizing it and using it for a great many projects including music, TV post, film mixing, etc. Then I found Nuendo and found my Forever DAW. Nuendo (&Cubase Pro) combines the best features of Reaper and Pro Tools, with its 3rd party clip effects, control room, ARA, monitor FX, incredible handling of MIDI, VSIs and video for post production, amazing stock plugins, etc. etc. I find its general appearance also extremely pleasing to the eye, which is a boon when you have to stare at it all week long. The control room feature is EXTREMELY important and eliminated my need for my Dangerous Monitor ST altogether. During your DAW dating phase, I'd definitely recommend demoing Cubase Pro and giving that a shot as well. Love the channel content!

I think my favorite thing about Reaper over pro tools, is the fact that a track is just a track. It can do whatever you want it to do. It doesnt need to be a Aux track, an Audio Track, a MIDI track, a Mono or Stereo track, it's just a track. You don't need to think about what kind of track you need to make, just hit ctrl T and do whatever. It's this one little thing that convinced me to try Reaper, and I've been in love with it ever since.

Try either "docking" the mixer window or putting it on a second monitor if you have one. Discovering Reaper brought the fun into mixing again. I could make do much progress so fast!! Have fun on your DAW journey!

One little tip I haven't seen anyone mention, when you're dragging in files to import them, it will put them at the horizontal position where you release the drag, so if you want them hard left make sure you release them hard left otherwise you need to drag them left after import.

I’m really happy you had fun with REAPER. I’ve been an user for a while and I’m 100% in this journey to see what other DAWS can offer. The insert thing is kinda weird. Never had that issue on my setup. Probably just a config thing somewhere. I know plenty of people who also use external gear without an issue. And oh boy, the moment you start to look into all the REAPER skins… I know there’s one that makes it look just like pro tools 🤣.

I made the jump from Cubase to Reaper about 5 or 6 years ago, and it was a breeze. I was never satisfied with Cubase performance, most of all, and that is what drew me into Reaper. I know there's a lot more you can do in Reaper flexibility-wise, and I know it's overwhelming at first, but my approach was to learn things one at a time only as I needed it. I would google "how to do X in Reaper" and the answer was a click away. I love it.

Bro, please keep doing these, I’m on the same path branching out of PT. Thanks for the video

To avoid dealing with dozens of plugin windows floating around, try this: instead of calling them out from the top of the mixer area, click the "FX" button on a track (in the mixer area or in the track area, it should be available from both places). That will open a track FX window where you can switch from plugin to plugin.

Reaper has a Monitor track where you can setup your Sonarworks and OBS whithout having it on the master bus. That way you don't even need to remember to turn off sonarworks when bouncing a mix down and it remains setup and follows on every session after that. Also the ability to have multiple sessions opened at once and copy/paste things over from one to another is super useful

I’m about 2years ahead of you, and it was about two years ago that I switched to REAPER. After trying them all (I was keen to S1 & Cubase, too), REAPER was the only one I felt offered a truly compelling alternative to PT. For me, it was mostly the early endless customization to turn it into a “dream DAW.” I kept enough of it the same as PT so it wouldn’t hinder my abilities in PT (not to mention years of muscle memory). There are two important PT features that, while not yet finished, are in the latest beta dev builds: Playlists and Track Groups. Reaper has its own versions of each, but as PT users we rely on those features rather specifically, and these new developments close that final gap. That said, Reaper has offered so much benefit in other areas that it’s still been worth it. Cheers!

Really glad to see your enjoyment of the routing structure in Reaper vs Pro Tools. When I tried using PT for a while, routing was cumbersome. Also, there are some themes that will help you orient from a pro tools perspective

Myk is fantastic. Very knowledgeable, and just a fantastic guy :)

the double row of faders... right click the lower left corner of the mixer and deselect "show multiple rows of tracks when size permits"

I've just moved from Cubase after 25 years of it. They stopped supporting VST2 and so my UAD plugins didn't work. Reaper is the only DAW I've found has what I need. It's a learning curve, but like folks have said, the tutorial videos and help will get you there. It's awesome.

As a Cubase user I was happy that I could change the Reaper to "feel" like Cubase by changing tons of actions and settings. I still use Cubase for my main recording productions I use Reaper for live show performances because its just more stable and CPU friendly than Cubase is.

Holy shit! Myk from let's talk about reaper is awesome. Such a genuinly chill dude and super nice.

I've been using protools for 10+ years and got sick of them. Then I've started using reaper, and never looked back. What a wonderful and charming 4 years!!!

I love REAPER. One of the things I considered when shopping for a new DAW was long-term independence. I wanted to know that I'd be able to bring up and edit projects decades from now, even if the software company behind the DAW had changed or had gone out of business. For this reason, I avoided the DAWs of companies that seem to be headed in the direction of web-based applications or subscription-based licensing. Although REAPER is not free open-source software, the Cockos company has that ethos about it. Besides all of the great attributes you usually see people praising REAPER for, another is the fact that the company behind it respects user independence.

Kenny Gioia have great videos on his YT channel, it can be realy helpful for you and speed up learning Reaper. After I watched your video I've few things on my mind which can be useful for you, for the beginning. - if you, like me, don't like multiple rows in the Mixer panel, you can right click in the Mixer Panel and uncheck 'Show multiple rows of tracks when size permits'. - When you insert plugin, in the right upper corner (on Win) there is the pin icon. If the pin icon is checked, plugin window will always stay in front. - In Reaper you can easly group tracks if you simply drag tracks in the Tracks panel. For example, you can create empty track above all your drum tracks, then in the Tacks panel you can select drum tracks and drag them to empty track you created. That empty track will act as VCA track. - If you love to color tracks, right click on track/tracks > Track color > Set to custom color. Spliting track/tracks - select track/tracks > hit keyboard S and selected track/tracks are splitted.

I track, arrange, and mix in Logic. The amount of available sounds and presets that come with Logic are super helpful for being creative when arranging. I use Pro Tools for audio editing, but I've been seriously debating whether or not to switch to Reaper to mix and edit. I'm starting to get frustrated with certain outboard gear routing options with Logic, and I've always a distaste for the Pan Knob, and the fact the stereo channels open with a default balanced pan. Thanks for helping to make up my mind.

Great video thanks for trying this incredible DAW I think that you will love it

My first reaper experience: i was hitting shortcuts i did not know were there 30 minutes after installing it. We clicked instantly, the job that i had struggled with PT that day was finished in a hour, and that included installing Reaper. I came from PT HD at the time and it was instant switch. All the things in PT i hated were gone and i could do ANYTHING i wanted, the way i wanted. I've used it for recording, mixing, foleys, SFX for theater, video and games, mastering, analyzing... I even used it on one theater play as portable install: all i had was a USB stick with the program and the project files in the same place, and any PC becomes a workstation. Just getting away from AVID was enough, but it also turned out that after using computers for music since early 90s, trying out about any DAW on the market since their invention: Reaper is most likely my last DAW. I don't see any reason to ever switch.

Thanks for your open mind! 😉 Good first look! I use Reaper about 2.5 years and I love it! The default look is ugly a bit, but it's possible to solve - I use "Default_Commala_5_2016" color theme and everything is nice to look at now! 😉

There's a video of Jon from REAPER Blog walking Joey Sturgis through a new configuration of REAPER. You might enjoy that.

I love that the mindset with Reaper is "I can sort this", where with other DAW,s it's"why is it like this". my big problem with Reaper is the theme rabbit hole, but my big problem with other DAW,s is I'm sic of looking at you, and your burning my eyes out. love your wotk, happy new year brother 🤙

Top game changing, workflows in Reaper for myself: 1. Split at mouse cursor (and also do what ever to the split clip: trim gain -1dB, add fx, crossfade, nudge, slip etc etc etc) 2. anything involving mouse cursor actions: move to mouse cursor, split (as previously), change gain, delete, add envelope point, pan, tune, etc 4. Can do anything just using the keyboard exclusively without touching the mouse and when used both it's like doing five things even before your thought process has finished 3. Routing is pretty GOAT level 3. Trimming, editing, slicing, slipping can be done in milliseconds, stretch markers for audio quantizing or aligning 4. 2 clicks and a keystroke to add clip fx and then bounce (with tail, 2ndpass render or not) 5. Normalise clips separate or in groups (rms, lufs, peak etc) 6. Separate grouping options for every track in a group 7. Automation and vca like overriding, one keystroke to have the last touched parameter's automation envelope visible 8. Selecting multiple tracks acts as a group 9. Bouncing / rendering has all the options I could imagine 10. Any keystroke from PT is available or possible to create as a macro (combining different actions together) 11. Mousewheel clip gain, pitch, pan, slip with holding opt or cmd etc (instead of only clip gain, you can have clip: pan, pitch, FX envelope on the clip. 12. Oversampling and delta mode for any plug-in instance 13. Mix scenes to save different mixes as a scene along with any save as workflow 14. Linking parameters of any plug-in with another one ie push and pull technique using to eq instances pre and post and controlling both from one instance 15. LFO like automation setup generating shapes 16. Automation items (like clips with automation envelope data) that can be saved and recalled, move around, duplicate, stretch compress or expand etc 17. Great JS utility included plugins for deep routing in an fx chain, ms processing, etc 18. "Quick adder" Script!! one key press+plugin name type+enter to add plugins, clip fx or sends 19. Sends can follow panning as in PT 20. Dynamic (transient) splitting, detect silence etc are working great I'll stop at 20 before I end up writing a book :) bonus: tab to transients, trim start and end, shuffle (ripple) and every mode all that is available. Happy to help anytime, if you have any questions or issues regarding Reaper (or Studio One) pretty deep in both of them + Cubase, ex PT user.

Other than unchecking the "pin" to keep the mixer on top of everything, consider the docker and see if you like that functionality. The mixer is hotkey open/close-enabled, so that makes getting in and out of it fast. If you ever need to lock a plugin window on top while working on other things, the same pin mechanic will do that. You'll find track management allows to you customize whether or not certain tracks are shown in the track view and/or mixer view, which can be handy if you only want to see certain tracks in the track window that you don't need to see in the mixer and vice versa. The routing window is crazy fast for assigning and unassigning sends once you understand how to use it. Actions are something you'll find overwhelming in terms of how much is there, but inevitably SUPER useful for specific tasks you want to automate (including making your own actions and even using actions to create chains of actions). And that's just the tip of it. You can even get yourself a Pro Tools theme so Reaper looks more familiar!

Been using Reaper since Version 3. You can actually import custom skins and layouts in REAPER, to point you can make it look and operate like any DAW you want - even Pro Tools. You can also undock and float some of the interfaces into their own window, if you have a dual monitor setup. You can also change the docking functionality from the bottom to the left or right side of the window if you'd rather keep everything together (it looks like you have an ultrawide, so that might work well for you).

Glad you found Reaper. Hope it all works out for you. Great video.

Even tho' I mix in Pro Tools, I use Reaper for MIDI composing and songwriting. What a breeze!

Considering to move from Pro Tools to Reaper, and this was a great insight. Thanks!

There’s a little bit of a learning curve but it’s definitely worth sticking with it to learn it!

As a long time Reaper user, it never occurred to me how much those fx windows not closing is to me. You acclimatize to things, I just always close them. (Like yourself, I do a lot of hardware work so I don't run into it super often).

I dig the content! I would love to see you make a follow up video on how Reaper is working out for you after you've worked out the kinks and learned more about.

Next, we need to get you on a Trackball mouse...The sliding and clicking killing me!

Loved the video. I had to come back to Reaper several times over the course of about 3 years because I found the number of choices to be vast and intimidating, but once I began to understand it a little, and to customise it a little to my workflow, I began to think "How could I use anything other than Reaper?" Aesthetically, Reaper gets two thumbs down (even with my colourful tweaks, it is still boring), but as you said, it is fast to use, and - once you understand it - you begin to expect that there will be answers to, "I wonder if I could do X here?".

Having all those plugins stacked up this is why I like to have three or four monitors so that way I can drag things out of my way and have my main window in the middle and I'll have my mixer off to one screen and then my plugins on another screen that is the beauty of reaper you can drag things out of the way same thing with FL studio you can detach the windows and then drag them over to different screens to get them out of the way

Love your content man. AU is for Logic. Also, if you load the midi first it will set the tempo and then load the audio files.

If you want a second Daw to use for pre-production purposes i would reccomend Studio One. To me its by far the best second choice DAW. Least amount of glitches by far. Pro tools is still king though.

Check out Cubase, I am looking at other options as a protools user myself, and I was shocked at how natural the transition with cubase was. Something about the way cubase’s UI is built just makes it feel very comforting for a PT user. I’d love to see your reaction to it in a future vid!

The mixer by default show be docked but you can put it anywhere. One reason I chose Reaper was that it worked well with my old outboard gear Once you get used to the routing matrix you can route things all over the place very quickly Side chaining is easier than most of the tutorials make it out to be. Like the other commentor suggests, parameter modulation is rather powerful Project tabs, and sub projects are a must have if I am doing any sound design. Its a very powerful feature as are all rendering options and the rendering cue. I find it very handy to use subprojects like scratch pads, work on variations of compositions in one large project. Render projects inside projects and much more One thing I didnt realize for a long time was that you can apply fx to items ie (Item take FX) instead of putting fx on the channel

I see you don't use control surfaces, but even if you don't in the control room, sometimes it's handy out on the floor to have one as you set things up / tweak things. Here's a couple of quick vids, nowhere near your vid production level :) and a link to the almost 6 year project the community has been working on, it's extremely down in the nerdy weeds, but the outcomes are impressive, shows off the great Reaper community spirit. Lastly, there is a pic of someone who used the project to whip up a great tablet interface similar to Avid Control. Took him bout a week using the tools we build at the CSI project -- Control Surface Integrator -- you can also use it roll your own poor mans (or maybe even better, some say) Avid S6, etc. These are, as is standard in Reaper world, free for all the Reaper community to use, it's a very special place. Also, this is important and you are already discovering it -- it takes commitment, don't try to make reaper like PT, watch Kenny's videos, as well as the ones from Mike and others and get into the Reaper groove. Don't know if you are hip to the pricing model -- $225 if yearly gross revenue does not exceed USD $20,000, $60 otherwise -- there is absolutely no difference in the software, it is in true Reaper fashion, an honor system approach, and no copy protection anywhere, as I'm sure you are aware. The license is good for 3 major revisions, right now Reaper is in the 6.xx realm, so the license is good until Reaper 9.0, typically about 3-4 years or so, once again all on the honor system. Releases are frequent, a few per month sometimes, and almost never break anything, very occasionally this happens of course, but it is rare indeed. Performance as of about 4 years ago, it's better now :) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qMemm6mrrcm9e30.html Shows mapping to multiple surfaces including wireless OSC tablet and phone. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mN-histlutHSmWw.html Link to project -- do not try to read, just notice there are as of this morning, 18.936 posts and 1,282,166 views -- Reaper community -- oh yeah baby !! :) forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=183143 Here's the tablet Avid Control type app that a community member did in a week ! atmanactive.me.uk/temp/AA_iPad_Mixer_v1.instructions.png

Reaper is one of my fave DAWs. So small and fast. And I use 8 of them! BTW, you can right click on the mixer window to dock it and arrange it like you want.

I'm now using Pro Tools and Reaper with the WT Imperial theme. Reaper's Custom Actions list and MIDI learn are key features you will want to dive into!

Reaper Features 1. 64 audio channels per mixer track 2. Advanced routing features 3. Advanced "side chaining" for All parameters 4. Built-in pitch correction (both auto & manual) 5. Great stock (fx) plugins plus use any 3rd party plugin format 6. Extremely Advanced render options & render queue with flexible naming options when rendering multiple items. 7. 16 customizable tool bars 8. Create your own keyboard shortcuts 9. Create custom macros which automates multiple commands into 1 action then map that to a keyboard shortcut 10. Portable install 11. Advanced multiple layered "track freeze" with the ability to go all the way back to the original state even after closing the project 12. Load project in offline mode to troubleshoot buggy vsts 13. Extremely low RAM & CPU usage 14. Amazing noise removal 15. Vocal alignment function built-in 16. Versatile time Stretch options 17. Open & switch between multiple sessions 18. Remote session collaboration tools (NinJAM) 19. Online repository with over 2000 community based enhancements including plugin 20. Sub-project linking 21. Remote control daw via any web browser 22. ChordGUN 23. MIDI key lock 24. Save "undo" as a part the project for unlimited "undos" at anytime 25. Loop record & create take lanes for both audio & midi to capture the perfect performance or use comping to achieve the perfect take 26. Tempo lock samples to your project with built-in sample browser 27. Delta solo 28. Ara support 29. Agnostic tracks... Meaning there are no specific track type. 30. Put Midi, audio, mono, stereo, video or image files, all on the same track 31. Media browser can show 🎶 notes being played in the sample being previewed 32. Video editing & rendering 33. Oversampling for any individual plugin 34. Oversampling for any plugin chain 35. Spectral audio editing 36. Separate slots for Monitor FX

Enjoyed this -- thanks for making it! If I had to give you two tips if you're carrying on playing with it it would be that all the things (notably the mixer) thjat were floating around annoying you can be docked -- find out about the docker (and you can save screen sets for different jobs, too -- I have a screen set for composing/comping, and a different screen set for mixing, for example -- and you can easily assign keys to these to change at the touch of a button). Secondly, if there's something you want to do, hit the "?" key and search through the Action list. I use this when I'm teaching Reaper (as I sometimes do -- makes more money than my music!). Reaper can basically do anything you want a DAW to do, but as you suggest finding it and usability might simply be the issue sometimes. The action list is the solution to that problem -- it has everything. You can make little macros combining muliple actions from here, too, and assign actions to your own shortcuts or customised menus for stuff you do all the time. Anyway, great vid, great fun, and great guitar strap. Thanks again! (PS I used to love Pro-Tools too -- but now I'm never going back. Not that big a fan of AVID really -- it's not just about the tools -- but that's another story...)

Why don't you make a live streaming and then Reaper experts can help you out. it would be cool for a lot of folks transitioning from PT. I was on the same boat coming from PT for 20 years and after trying them all I finally settled with Reaper.

Was hoping you’d give Reaper a go, been a user for more than a decade, and every time I have friends over that don’t use it they almost always are like, “How do I do this?” And it’s usually, you just drag and drop where you want or click here, and they’re always like, “Woah, that’s so easy.” I do agree it takes time to get used the UI, but I think that’s kinda the trade off for it being so customizable. Regardless, glad to see you give it a whirl, and if I’ve learned anything with Reaper, it’s that the community (folks like Mike) are everywhere and always willing to help or toss up some vids.

I was really surprised by the ReaInsert problem especially since it was just one the master track. My initial instinct says it might have something to do with the sonarworks or OBS, but have no reasonable backing. Also, now that you have an understanding of how to use sends in reaper, you could always try the “mix bus track” where you’re bypassing anything being sent to the master track (i think it’s select the track, hold down option and click the routing button), and then select all your tracks or folders to go to the dedicated mix track

I really think you’d love how clean Cubase pro’s interface is. Especially the mixer, the best in my opinion.

Thanks for playing with Reaper! It's a blast isn't it?!? 6.66 was released last night I believe and addresses the clicking issue I was told. :)

Love your content! Would love to see you test Cubase ;)

I know it's a year late but you can just dock the mixer and scroll the scrollbar to go left and right, much easier to work with. Better yet, I set my edit window track panels (on the left) to have a fader instead of knobs and always show pan, and do away with the mixer window entirely. Much much easier to work with that way at least for me.

Myk is a gem. Check out Reaper Blog and Reaper Mania, too. Jon and Kenny have been at it for ages and have tons of excellent content.

Reaper is always been talked of as a learning curve, I learned on it so never really knew the difference. The sends/busses being so easy and flexible has really spoiled me for other daws too. Good to see you jump in, it's probably not the most "like for like" replacement for pro tools, but the flexibility is king and some of the scripts out there for Reaper are phenomenal. I had a session last night with a vocalist and when doubling a scratch vocal, there's a vocalign style script to bust out and tighten the takes up. Or when the guitar was out of time, there's a script to chop or stretch audio with a quantise feature. Super easy stuff when needing fast edits!

try dragging in your midi to import your temp/project markers first then drag in your audio and the audio should be perfectly in line with the session

Congrats on taking this step!! You're going to absolutely love Reaoer...

There's scripts that you can download to import and use protocols shortcuts. In the cocos forum

Check out what you can do with scripts. You can program custom actions that don’t exist in Reaper yet!

It's funny because I was trained on Pro Tools years ago at Full Sail in Orlando. There was a time when Pro Tools and Logic where the best DAWs, but that is no longer the case. The first time I tried out Reaper, it seemed so unintuitive and not at all user friendly. It kind of reminded me of the graphics program GIMP after spending years on Photoshop (although I still think GIMP sucks). But then about a year ago I downloaded Reaper again, and everything just "clicked" with me. So intuitive and easy to get around in. I don't know if Reaper changed or just my mindset changed. Setting up templates, drag-n-drop from multiple sessions, creating custom scripts for common tasks, using folders and sub-folders (and sub-sub-folders) instead of just buses, I could go on and on. And it almost never crashes. So far it's crashed literally ONCE on me, and that's because I was being daring and trying something weird. To echo Mr. E, check out the Reapermania channel. Kenny Gioia’s videos are clear, to-the-poiint, and not a second longer or shorter than they need to be.

Brother, you need to do more vids! I could watch your channel all day. Love the content, love the presentation, love your take on things. This channel just rocks. Oh, and I switched to Reaper back in 2012 and never looked back. I keep PT10/11, Sonar Producer 8XL, and Acid Pro Suite on hand just in case, but Reaper is my go-to.

I am also considering trying other DAWS as well, This is a great series. Thank you

I’ve been using Pro Tools ever since I switched over from a rack of 4 ADATs…like 2002 or so. I ended up getting a really stable setup that worked really well, but it is way outdated (like PT 8 and Windows Vista…but it works, and works great! Lol)…looking at upgrading my computer and interface, and I honestly have been looking hard at Reaper, cause I just don’t like how Avid does business anymore. I don’t record commercially, just my stuff and friends/family, so I never saw the reason to upgrade a system that works. But the time is upon me, and as far as I’m concerned, Avid can jog on lmao…

I like your excitement once you start realizing it's capabilities because it totally matched mine when I started working in Reaper about 10K hours ago.

To prevent plugins appearing behind the mixer press the tack icon on the mixer window.

I wish there was (perhaps there is?) a simple video that just show a seasoned Reaper user mixing a song to actually show how things are done. No talking, just doing things. Just as if you would look over his shoulder. I think that would help guys like you to see how a configured Reaper speed up things remarkably and how things can be preset to suit your workflow. It's one thing to know what Reaper can do by looking at the menue, it's another thing, though, to see functions you would never know as a beginner. Saying that because someone mentioned Kenny Rogers, who really is a Reaper-pro guy. But the thing with such tutorial videos is they show you one thing at a time. Watching a mixing session is totally different because you see ALL things in one video that actually make the workflow

I switched from Pro Tools to Reaper when PT, my M-Audio interface and Windows XP didn't want to interact (service pack update or driver update). I hadn't really user.It much anyway and actually used it a bit like my old 4-track cassette recorder I used for demos! Quarantine at the start of the pandemic helped my learn more about Reaper as I was still using it like a.4-track and I don't think I could use anything else now. Plenty of KZfaq channels out there to help.

Something to try out for a different approach is to use folders instead of busses. You can drag multiple tracks on to one and it will make them a folder which is nice for organization but will also automatically route audio from all tracks inside the folder through the parent track. That way when making new tracks you don't have to think or worry about its output as long as it's in the folder. To top it off you can add an sws extension to make it so all tracks in the folder automatically get colored the same as the parent track. I came from ProTools as well but have been using reaper for 4 years now. Reaper is a sandbox where you can do the same thing multiple different ways, there are so many customizations to make but it's easy to get lost in trying to make it "your perfect daw". With all the customization inherently comes a few quirks and loose ends, or a feeling of being a bit more raw or unpolished. But how fast and snappy it is and everything just generally works usually makes up for it. Looking forward to more videos checking out other Daws, I've been thinking trying studio one and cubase to see if it fills my lust for having something glossy and neat, but it's hard to leave reaper. Goodluck with the hunt. Cheers

Myk was a game changer when i was learning reaper.

Funny thing is, for every question you have there is a simple answer. I was like "because you have to..., you didn't click..., go to preferences and there you go to..., " Regarding you Reainsert issue, this is something strange because my hybrid system runs flawlessly, so it can't be Reaper's fault. No idea what's going on here🤷‍♂️. But I highly recommend you take a look at the "Action" window to get an idea how Reaper can be customized. All actions are listed here (Caution: a LOT!) There you can create custom actions and macros, define short cuts or cycle actions...whatever one can wish for. Anyway, Reaper is kmown to have a steep learning curve. Please, if you want to evaluate Reaper properly, give yourself and Reaper a little time. You won't regret it

The protools theme helps ALOT lmao

Just come to Studio One.

The main thing is the fundamentals are so quick and just works, like, sending a send post fx pre fader into a sidechain compressor before a gate making the gate never open for a snare in the toms etc is just crazy fast to make happen, also in that scenario you can use lookahead etc on reapers stock tools

For the hardware issues were you having trouble with the latency? For me I solves that by getting my latency from DA/AD converters and put that value under Preferences -> Recording and set the input manual offset to my latency which for me is 47ms Not sure if anyone else addressed this but if that issue your issue that took me a long time to figure out. I think reaper has a hard time computing latency automatically so I had to set that value manually.

Subbed just because you gave Reaper a try. I've been using it since I came away from Apple. It's a steep learning curve for sure but it is such an amazing DAW. This video was really great. I am sure others have said but you can Dock the mixer I usually just use another monitor for it and my track control sheet.

Looks like you have the mixer "pinned" top right, pinning a window will make it always in front

Hey, once you get comfortable with the basics, look into the free SWS extension for Reaper. It gives VERY powerful editing and automation tools. You can make your own editing macros to do quantizing and time stretching. Another amazing time saver is that you can program it to automatically assign track colors and icons to tracks based on the track name. So, when I import someone else’s tracks into Reaper, it knows that I like guitars to be green and bass to be blue. My only negative thing to say about reaper is that it doesn’t work with most ProTools-specific control surfaces like my Avid S1. However, reaper is compatible with many other controllers. I’ve even used an Xbox 360 controller as a drum pad. I enjoy your channel, keep up the good work!

Good to see you trying other daws. I have been hunting myself for a year. I have several years with reaper and studio one. I recently got protools abs while mixing sounds the same in any DAW, I get better sounding recordings in protools. I don't like the pt workflow, it's complicated ABC clumsy but sounds great. I live reaper for the most part, but the track take layers is a little weird, but better than Playlist imo. Reaper has a lot to offer, but do a test recording and see if you get as good quality as with protools, maybe it's something with me, but the rest of my band agrees

I'm not a musician but I do sound design for video (indie short films and the likes) asnd REaper works so well fo rme for that workflow. The video systems work great, I love the fact that the tracks are type agnostic ... A track can have midi, stereo, mono ... on it ... it doesn't care. For Foley works this is awesome.

Enjoyed this video man. Funny to see you struggling. As a logic user it seems a little less intuitive but I can see if you stuck with it, it’s probably better than PT, especially with PT’s many known drawbacks

Hey there, awesome that you're giving another try to Reaper! As a more structured reference (almost encylopedia like), if you want to learn Reaper properly (if you commit to learning and getting good with it), there's barely anything else better than the Reaper Mania KZfaq Channel - kzfaq.info - their videos are even referenced in the Reaper's Official documentation in their website! - Couple extra tips: . When learning any new software I avoid customising any UI at first, especially in Reaper where UI Themes can make it look whatever you want to look like - I'd stick with defaults to learn at first. . In reaper when you float windows instead of docking them you can "Pin" that window - that makes it to stay always on top, so I try to be mindful of that esp when starting to add multiple VSTs, things can stack and be a bit confusing in "pinned" mode. . Don't forget to have a look into the Actions window and install the SWS EXTENSION! It's a must! :D

Reaper user for over a decade here. I tried a few others over the years and settle on reaper. I use ableton for edm stuff sometimes, but reaper is a song writing daw for me. I use it to edit vid audio also. Anyhow, it took a hard year of me mucking with it, to get the flow. From sws extensions to self customizable icons and skins, its a lot to take in. Reaper is only user friendly, once you realize you have to tell it everything. Your track settings and vst chains and workflow needs be imported into reaper and it gets easier. I find that making custom actions is a life saver. Single button presses and extensive actions can be done. Reaper is an awesome daw. The only thing its not GREAT at, is launch and loop type production. Of course, reaper is more a workstation than a performance daw. Depends on the performance. I can totally see reaper being a solid go to for foh duties. Light footprint, rock solid. Before getting too lost. Scroll thru EVERY preference option and read them. Right click everything and read it. Spend an hour or so, making all the preferences how you think you want them. Go to the 'show action list' and read thru that mess a bit. Dont forget to install sws extensions, to make that action list more extensive. Your initial mixer troubles.... you didnt right click to read "dock mixer" and you didnt hover over the little push pin rh top corner. Remember....RIGHT CLICK OR HOVER OVER EVERYTHING!!!!!

Reaper is all you need, continue the trial

10:15 your reaction when you thought you crashed reaper but then it came back hahaha 🤣🤣🤣

Congratulations man. 👍

There is a great series of scripts called 'Pro Tools to Reaper', which will really help you get used to Reaper, because it will be a lot more like Pro Tools

This track is teetering precariously close to 80s TV theme song :)) I'm really enjoying the DAW vids. Perhaps Digital Performer 11

I'm a multi-DAW user -- Ableton/REAPER/LUNA. There's a surprising amount of instances where I think one of the other DAWs will be better at some task, yet REAPER actually ends up winning. Latest example was tempo mapping free-time played MIDI. Thought Ableton would be able to do it, turns out it can't but REAPER makes it pretty easy.

To me, an amateur user of Cakewalk, and having tried out Studio One, Reaper was very easy to use. The tracks are just tracks. You don't have to tell it if it's midi or audio. It took a bit of watching youtube videos to figure some things out though, no different from the other 2.

Excellent video. I was trained on Pro Tools in 1999-2000 working in radio broadcast imaging. I didn't like it then, and I still don't. Been a die-hard Reaper fan since 2012. As pointed out by the top comment-- it can do anything Pro Tools can do, and a lot of stuff Pro Tools can't, at twice the speed. The "Actions" menu alone, is life-changing, not to mention scripts and the infinite (and beautiful / unique) themes/skins. Anyone who is sleeping on Reaper really needs to wake up and realize the industry is changing, and all for the better. Always remember: Reaper is maintained by two people... the creator (Justin), and another Reaper person ("Schwa" on the Reaper forum). And Kenny Gioia (god of ALL tutorial videos) is technically a Cockos employee, too... so, what... three people? Three people made a program this incredible and versatile. THREE PEOPLE.