seven reasons i <3 REAPER
1. parameter modulation
use any audio control signal to modulate any parameter. with independent envelopes, threshold, knee, direction and strength settings. and dedicated LFOs.
it's like sidechain 2.0. you can use the output from a synth to modulate the chorus depth on a guitar part, or the kick to open your lead synth's filter... every single automatable parameter can be modulated this way, with independent controls for each. fancy an LFO that fucks with master stereo width, shifts the cutoff on a vocal filter, pans a guitar track and makes delay lama go 'oooaaah'?
2. if you will it, it is no dream
the rate of development is unparalleled. every few weeks there's an update; in one month we got more new features than Ableton added to Live in a year, and for *no* extra cost. the interaction between the dev team and users is incredible; basically, if you want a feature, if it makes sense and it's possible - it will probably be done.
this means that heaps of funky useful little features get implemented, some cribbed from other DAWs, some unique. the REAPER team's approach ('don't let profits and clunky upgrade schemes get in the way of development') means that interesting stuff gets done with this software... for example, you can record directly to FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, or Monkey's Audio. and the CPU performance meter is broken down by plugin, and enables you to toggle/bypass individual plugins to see where you're using your resources.
3. some *ace* plugins
there are heaps of interesting functional 'Rea-' prefixed plugins bundled with REAPER. ReaFIR is an infinite-band realtime EQ / compressor / analyser which kicks serious ass. ReaRoute allows you to send audio from one DAW to another (e.g. use Ableton Live rewired with working plugins!!!!) or from one computer to another over a network for CPU saving. everything is 64-bit, and all native plugs support multiple channels; so you can easily split and process 64 channels within each track! many of the Jesusonic plugins are primarily intended as guitar FX. but there are also some really interesting signal splitting and processing plugs - and the best thing is that they're all editable. as in you can code them from the ground up, within the REAPER environment...
the Schwa and Stillwell plugins (optimised for, and cheaper, as REAPER-only versions) are ace. Spectro and Sculpto are teh sickness.
4. routing
REAPER makes no distinction between midi and audio; you can send anything anywhere. you can freely position items over a number of tracks. the routing is just insanely flexible, and the routing matrix provides a supercool mixing environment - you can instantly see which channel is recording/sending/receiving, where from and where to; you can re-route and create new routings, and access pan/volume/tap/fader settings for each routing. fuck it, it's easier to copy from the feature spiel:
- Tracks can be viewed and used as normal tracks, or....
- Each track can function as a track and as a bus
- Each track can send to any number of other tracks (unlimited multiple parallel sends*)
- Each track can send to any number of hardware outputs (mono or stereo) for monitoring or analog mixing
- Every send can send audio and/or MIDI, audio sends can be before FX, after FX, or after the track's volume/pan faders
- Every send has its own volume/pan/phase controls
- Tracks can have as many as 64 channels, for easy support of multi-out VSTi, as well as enormous sidechain flexibility
- Feedback routing is supported
5. actions
as i understand it (i haven't had time to explore fully myself yet) you can chain infinite sequences of user macros together in context-specific keyboard shortcuts. this means you can, for example, make a 1-key shortcut so that when you hover over a media item, the item is split at the mouse position, rendered as a new take with item FX, inserted in a new track and saved. the list of actions is huge, and you can have interactive macros (e.g. reverse item, open per-item FX - pause: prompt user to insert FX - then render & lock... all with 1 keyboard shortcut). i think this is going to prove seriously useful...
6. business model
REAPER is available as an uncrippled, unlimited demo; if you use it for more than 30 days, you're supposed to register. there are two licenses, non-commercial ($40) and commercial ($200). each gets you two full increments (e.g. i bought 2.41, so i'll be licensed up to 3.99) which, given the astonishing rate of feature implementation, is an amazing deal. the best bit is that the entire thing is based on a fluid and honest system. Justin, the head of the company, has even said in interviews that if you're selling 10 copies of your album, you don't need a commercial license; if you're shifting 1000 they'd appreciate it if you bought one.
it's also still only a 3.2mb installer, and can be run from a USB flash drive. it's pretty damn fast as well; load times are minimal and it seems to be able to handle as much as i can throw at it.
7. skins
you can design your own colour themes and icons, to be distributed via the REAPER stashbox. major elements of colour themes can also be edited within REAPER, so if you *love* a skin but can't bear the meter colours, you can change them. people have done Logic, Cubase and Live inspired themes... but the best of them are just new and wonderful.
i know it's silly, but i just take a huge amount of pleasure from any DAW which lets you design or use a 'blackboard' theme:
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=23137
