Reaper 6 is out

[AlasdairEaston]

Hi all. Just found out that Reaper 6 has been released. I haven't tried it yet but I'm off to download it now.

There are a few headline "what's new" items on their homepage https://www.reaper.fm/

Cheers,
Ali.

[Aled Hughes]

I went in at the deep end and been running a session on it all day... so far so good!

Not many obvious changes really. Looks nicer I think.

[The Red Bladder]

Just remember that this is the basic platform or framework upon which new features will be placed.

[OneWorld]

I once tried Reaper, many many moons ago. And after running it, all the Reaper connections were listed in Cubase i/o - what's going on there. I wanted to try it again since but for it to be totally isolated from Cubase, or any other software come to that.

That said I am liking Calkwalk X3, seeing as it's free and some of the plugins are great, and it boots and shuts down in an instant, - _ am a user of Cubase10 and over thge years it has got slower, and s l o w e r and s l o w e r and in Cubase 8.5 I could easily work at 32 samples, Cubase 10 wheezes at anything less that 128 samples, so I looking for a viable alternative

[The Bunk]

Gordon Bennett, it's going to take my eyes a while to adjust to this

[AlasdairEaston]

Just remember that this is the basic platform or framework upon which new features will be placed.

That sounds interesting. Are you saying that this release is not only an upgrade but also a kind of core re-working/re-positioning to allow easier further enhancements? That would be cool. Maybe I'm reading too much into your post?

Cheers,
Ali.

[AlasdairEaston]

Gordon Bennett, it's going to take my eyes a while to adjust to this

Aye, suddenly my standard template's looking a bit too vibrant! Might need to tone down my colours a bit.

[The Red Bladder]

Just remember that this is the basic platform or framework upon which new features will be placed.

That sounds interesting. Are you saying that this release is not only an upgrade but also a kind of core re-working/re-positioning to allow easier further enhancements? That would be cool. Maybe I'm reading too much into your post?

That is what happened with V5. When it came out, you would be had put to it to find much if any improvements over V4, but then in short order came new MIDI tools, and notation and stretcher marks and video editing and . . . well, you get the idea!

As V6 is a far larger download, about double, it would suggest that all sorts of new routines and drivers have been added, whose potential has not yet been utilised. We shall see!

[AlasdairEaston]

Exciting times. It's already great, but who doesn't like shiny new features?! Hope you're right.

Cheers,
Ali.

[Sam Spoons]

Looks good, and as a bonus my current licence is good for up to V6.99

[Martin Walker]

Yikes, Reaper 6 IS bright (but not if you've selected Default 5.0 Theme as I had )

Martin

[The Bunk]

Yikes, Reaper 6 IS bright (but not if you've selected Default 5.0 Theme as I had )

Martin

Martin, I want your babies. Thank you

[N i g e l]

I once tried Reaper, many many moons ago. ........

That said I am liking Calkwalk X3, seeing as it's free and some of the plugins are great,

This Reaper thing does seem to have a following, I might give it ago before the end of the year.

I currently have 3 cakewalks on the go - 2 pricey editions + CBB, which is messy.
Although CBB is free, I dont like the WWW only installation model.
Now that the original Cakewalk SONAR people have wandered off, my discs cannot be authenticated online but at least I have the Licence files, if needed, for a rebuild.

Whats Reaper like for MIDI compared to cakewalk (who have decades of MIDI experience ).

Hmmm, reaper is an awfully small download ????????

[Drew Stephenson]

Reaper is a very small download (weirdly it's 50% larger for Mac) but don't underestimate it's capability. It's also a very low load on your processor.
I can't really answer your midi question though as I've not used Cakewalk.

[The Red Bladder]

Hmmm, reaper is an awfully small download ????????

That is because it gets written once.

Big packages that come from companies like Avid or Apple (ProTools or Logic) pass through many hands and so many routines get written into them. The next team to come along and try to update it with, say, a new feature, find themselves confronted with reams of interlocking code and very often disgruntled programmers that have destroyed all notes about what does what and how. In the case of ProTools, parts were written in India, then in Ukraine and then in Poland. Tyhe result is often page after page of dead and irrelevant code, some of which may perform a vital function but most of which is redundant.

Reaper is one guy heading the team and he and his team are all C++ Ninjas. The same guy who wrote version one, wrote version six.

There are other reasons it is so small, not least of which is that it is a non-destructive series of commands. If you cut a file or add a fade, you have not actually cut anything or altered any values, but you have told the SW to stop playing the file at that point or play it back at a reduced volume. This means that Reaper can wrangle far larger projects than most other DAWs on the same machine.

[muzines]

Hmm... That's an awful lot of armchair programming assumptions there...

Distributed, or high turnover teams doesn't necessarily mean the code is full of crap, it's all to do with the management that matters.

I can assure you, at least on one of the products you mention, the team are pretty awesome code ninjas. Size is dependent on many things. Reaper is small and efficient for sure, but it's codebase is a lot newer than other products, and that's an advantage.

[Ariosto]

I've downloaded V6 but I see it says it is an evaluation version and it hasn't my licence details at the top. This means I will have to pay to use V6? I do not see any difference anyway with the one (V5) I had set up to my specs, so I've gone back to V5. If there are advantages that I feel I need then I might go to V6 eventually.

[Sam Spoons]

Reaper licences seem to run for the current version and the next version, I must have licensed mine e=for an early version of V5 as it is good 'till V6.99. If you do decide to go for V6 your licence will run until V7.99 so it's pretty good value, especially compared to a Cubase upgrade.

[ConcertinaChap]

There are other reasons it is so small, not least of which is that it is a non-destructive series of commands. If you cut a file or add a fade, you have not actually cut anything or altered any values, but you have told the SW to stop playing the file at that point or play it back at a reduced volume.

Bit puzzled by this. I thought non-destructive editing was the way all DAWs worked. Certainly the way Logic works. Clarification please?

CC

[Ariosto]

Reaper licences seem to run for the current version and the next version, I must have licensed mine e=for an early version of V5 as it is good 'till V6.99. If you do decide to go for V6 your licence will run until V7.99 so it's pretty good value, especially compared to a Cubase upgrade.

Yes, it is good value. I think I paid for my licence in 2013 as I had just changed to a Mac and the old licence I had from about 2006 was for Windoze and therefore i had to get a new licence. I will use V5 for a bit longer and maybe change next year - but have to decide about continuing with Mac or going down the Windows route.

[N i g e l]

In cakewalk I can edit the ends of an audio clip inwards so that it becomes smaller or add fade in fade out. I can then adust the edits as required as nothing was damaged.
However if I then "bounce to clip" all the edits on the clip become permenant [but I can UNDO EDIT, as you might expect in any other application ].

So the Reaper Guy is the Winamp Guy !
The price for two major versions doesnt require thought and 1 licence is good for both my desktop & laptop. Thats a box ticked.

Can it do elastic audio ? I use Roland V-Vocal which seems too integrated with cakewalk to run elsewhere as a VST.
eg I want to take a vocal and manipulate it by pushing and pulling the timing/dynamics/pitch

poooooosh and shove the timing
push and shoooooove the timing
psh and shve - the timinggggggg

etc

[Aled Hughes]

Hmmm, reaper is an awfully small download ????????

That is because it gets written once.

Big packages that come from companies like Avid or Apple (ProTools or Logic) pass through many hands and so many routines get written into them. The next team to come along and try to update it with, say, a new feature, find themselves confronted with reams of interlocking code and very often disgruntled programmers that have destroyed all notes about what does what and how. In the case of ProTools, parts were written in India, then in Ukraine and then in Poland. Tyhe result is often page after page of dead and irrelevant code, some of which may perform a vital function but most of which is redundant.

Reaper is one guy heading the team and he and his team are all C++ Ninjas. The same guy who wrote version one, wrote version six.

There are other reasons it is so small, not least of which is that it is a non-destructive series of commands. If you cut a file or add a fade, you have not actually cut anything or altered any values, but you have told the SW to stop playing the file at that point or play it back at a reduced volume. This means that Reaper can wrangle far larger projects than most other DAWs on the same machine.

Hmm.

Pretty much all DAWs work non-destructively without affecting the source files (unless you want to)

Also, a lot of Reaper’s functionality comes
from added extension packs that are not part of the main download.

But the main reason it’s so small compared to most DAWs is that it doesn’t have any bundled sounds/samples/instruments etc.

Aled

[James Perrett]

Can it do elastic audio ? I use Roland V-Vocal which seems too integrated with cakewalk to run elsewhere as a VST.
eg I want to take a vocal and manipulate it by pushing and pulling the timing/dynamics/pitch

It is very easy to adjust timing using stretch markers in Reaper. You can also adjust pitch and level manually using envelopes or automatically using the supplied plug-ins.

[muzines]

But the main reason it’s so small compared to most DAWs is that it doesn’t have any bundled sounds/samples/instruments etc.

Yep - Alchemy alone, just one synth in Logic, at 51MB, is just under half the size of Reaper alone (121MB)...

[Drew Stephenson]

You're an order of magnitude out there Desmond, Reaper is 12MB not 120...