Moving to Reaper from Reason

[avasopht]

It's a rather self-confident statement to be determinant of my 'worldview'.

It's not self-confident.

You made a statement on how other people's sense of morality and virtue must be structured, which was not a fact.

It was your opinion. This is irrefutable, by the way

Therefore, no self-confidence was required to state that this implication you made was only true in your worldview and that it was a determinant of your 'worldview'. You've made the statement.

Your response is remarkably bizarre and seems like a massive red flag for me.

The relevant parts of Reaper's EULA were quoted earlier. T's & C's are entirely objective, upon the words contained in the agreement. If you think otherwise, please show me where Cockos are supporting the notion of people using their DAW outside of the trial period.

They even remind folks of the agreement in the post-trial splash screen. It says REAPER IS NOT FREE.

How many hairs can we split ?

You're not making any logical sense.

I made no comment on the EULA or any statement implying anything contrary to the obvious license agreement terms you've just shared.

I've neither suggested nor implied Reaper is free. To claim I'm "splitting hairs" on that subject is putting words into my mouth (which is an abusive thing to do) as I have not made a single comment on that issue.

Maybe there is some language barrier here.

It seems you clearly want to create conflict where none exists, so I'll not entertain this bizarre line of argument as you've shown yourself to be hell-bent on putting words into people's mouths.

That's a massive red flag.

[kbard]

For the record, Reaper has been cracked, which I find kinda amusing given the above discussion.

It's been cracked for ages now this is not news. But so is more expensive stuff. Even the free stuff end up being cracked (as stupid as it can be). This is not what we are talking about here.

The point (my view) is that it's disheartening to me seeing people debate or can not understand a decent human being (Reaper developer) decided not to invest his time in nonsense invasive copy protection, but instead of that he put his hopes in people being fair yet from the debate it's clear that not even that is enough.

Like tell me would this debate exist if he opted for pace ilok protection? No it wouldn't. But then we would see 10 000 other people dissing Reaper because it is being protected by ilok.

Here you have nag screen which even allows you to get further after some time - yet people work against their own interest and complain or moralize even about that, while the case is simple as it can be.

Tel me if today in this time when everyone is trying to install their shitty copy protection on to your computer - this is not working against their own interest I don't know then what is.

I know a million ++ EUR studio which happily purchased 23 reaper licenses even though they use 3 computers and needed 3 licenses. I know a guy which is below average in financial plan yet he ordered Reaper license and is happy about it. He told me it's unbelievable that he can get such software for so low price while Protools gang milked him for decades. So to me this is a nice model which please in nice range from rich to less rich people (from the everyday fair group of people)

Respect to everyone.

Cheers.

[avasopht]

For the record, Reaper has been cracked, which I find kinda amusing given the above discussion.

It's been cracked for ages now this is not news. But so is more expensive stuff. Even the free stuff end up being cracked (as stupid as it can be). This is not what we are talking about here.

The point (my view) is that it's disheartening to me seeing people debate or can not understand a decent human being (Reaper developer) decided not to invest his time in nonsense invasive copy protection, but instead of that he put his hopes in people being fair yet from the debate it's clear that not even that is enough.

kbard, it would take him less than 23 seconds to make Reaper not open once the evaluation period has passed. This requires no complex copy protection or "effort" to do.

It's pretty much:

Code: Select all

if (isWithinEvaluationPeriod) {
  startReaper();
} else {
  MessageBox("Evaluation period has ended!");
}

Do not confuse what I just said with taking any side or position or anything like that.

He's not made an explicit statement, so it's always going to be speculation. But given how effortless and uncomplicated it is to do this (after all it already has a working nag screen), there is good reason to suspect it is deliberate and that he knows what he's doing.

There's a payoff matrix associated with these decisions. If you know, you know (and you'll also know why certain models have become dominant).

Do you think Reaper would benefit from it not starting after the evaluation period has ended?

Well worth watching:

Now, I'm not suggesting Reaper has the same customer profile as WinRAR or anything else. Just a reminder that it's not always that simple.

But one thing I am sure of is that if Reaper really needed a saviour to fight this "good fight," they'd be explicitly asking for it.

[Goriila Texas]

The first time I used S1 I made a beat with no issues that's how easy S1 is.

Reaper is for people who like to tweak a lot a customize everything under the hood of DAW. Diving deep into manuals instead of making music. No way you load it and create music right away, as someone already mentioned it's hotkey centric. I would recommend giving Studio One chance.

Don't understand that sentiment cause no daw can you open and use straight away. You have to learn how to use it? If I started usijg Cubase tomorrow, it'd take me a coupled of days to learn it's basic ins and outs.

You'd probably be in the same with Reaper. Everything else you learn as you go along.

[Creativemind]

The first time I used S1 I made a beat with no issues that's how easy S1 is.

Don't understand that sentiment cause no daw can you open and use straight away. You have to learn how to use it? If I started usijg Cubase tomorrow, it'd take me a coupled of days to learn it's basic ins and outs.

You'd probably be in the same with Reaper. Everything else you learn as you go along.

Used Studio One and didn't think it was overly simplistic in comparison to Reaper. Still had to look up things online and in the manual.

[avasopht]

Reaper's Omni track approach with not so good midi defaults made earlier versions feel uber counterintuitive.

Now that that's been improved and I'm used to the workflow it does feel a lot better.

I do suspect it's GUI design plays a notable role in how difficult is perceived to be.

But it's customisation could give it a leg up. There's got to be a few really good customisation scripts that could give it a perfect UI for most users.

[Billy+]

it would take him less than 23 seconds to make Reaper not open once the evaluation period has passed. This requires no complex copy protection or "effort" to do.

It's pretty much:

Code: Select all

if (isWithinEvaluationPeriod) {
  startReaper();
} else {
  MessageBox("Evaluation period has ended!");
}

Then someone with minimal knowledge of binary patch creation or a hex editor would simply need to modify the binary

Code: Select all

Find: (MessageBox("Evaluation period has ended!");)
4d 65 73 73 61 67 65 42 6f 78 28 22 45 76 61 6c 75 61 74 69 6f 6e 20 70 65 72 69 6f 64 20 68 61 73 20 65 6e 64 65 64 21 22 29 3b 0a

ReplaceWith:(startReaper();)
73 74 61 72 74 52 65 61 70 65 72 28 29 3b 0a

Don't forget to pad out the extra space with nops (00)

And before you know it the developer is in a constant fight with other developers who spend all day cracking software protection or spending money on 3rd party copy protection licensing instead of developing the features that they would rather.

Either way Reaper is $60 buy the license don't mistreat the people who have developed the software.

[avasopht]

d ykd dyk dyk dyik

[Creativemind]

So I downloaded reaper, watched a few tutorial videos, and yes it's almost too customisable. Everything can be customised. Which isn't a good thing. There needs to be a certain way of working with any software. If everything is custom, then you can't really have any commonality. Hence no certain ways of problem solving either. Every user will tell you different ways to do the same thing. Even the project structure is customisable, which is pretty stupid actually. There's no straight answer to where reaper stores your project media files. Although customisable, reaper should adopt a default way of working with default shortcuts etc. Even the menus are customisable, I mean you can even ask what action is available in which menu, as every user will have their daw setup differently.

Yes and no.

You still have basic universal principles. Like double click in the TCP adds a new track. Every track can be either audio or midi till you assign it, the media browser doesn't change, neither does the vst window don't think. Seen a couple of things (but slip my mind now) that you can customise or do in the vst window but when you first start off on Reaper, it works one way. Undo History window doesn't alter, the midi editor works the same for everyone. Just certain things can be modified. Like I've added one left click adds a note like FL Studio but strangely (considering how customisable it is) I couldn't add right click deletes.

[Creativemind]

For the record, Reaper has been cracked, which I find kinda amusing given the above discussion.

That's just tickled me pink.

[avasopht]

For the record, Reaper has been cracked, which I find kinda amusing given the above discussion.

Why should someone crack free software

[Creativemind]

Reaper's Omni track approach with not so good midi defaults made earlier versions feel uber counterintuitive.

Now that that's been improved and I'm used to the workflow it does feel a lot better.

I do suspect it's GUI design plays a notable role in how difficult is perceived to be.

But it's customisation could give it a leg up. There's got to be a few really good customisation scripts that could give it a perfect UI for most users.

Yeah, could be, they really should give it a really amazing looking gui in an update (think but not sure that might not be till the 7 cycle begins) as first impressions and all that.

[Creativemind]

I did a video 4 months ago (for any who's interested) on how easy it is to subgroup a ReDrum in Reaper, assign a drum kit to it and put it in a folder and save it as a project template with a kick and ride in there. I was gonna also show how you can also save it as a track template (as opposed to a project template) but for some reason forgot lol! Some of the dialogue is sketchy. It was my 2nd (or maybe 3rd) tutorial I've ever done. It's harder than it looks doing a tutorial vid.

[Creativemind]

Another update has arrived today (6.33) with about 30 features added.

Look at this for an update cycle this year alone:-

6.33 - July 28th 2021
6.32 - July 9th 2021
6.31 - July 6th 2021
6.30 - July 3rd 2021
6.29 - May 19th 2021
6.28 - April 22nd 2021
6.27 - April 11th 2021
6.26 - March 29th 2021
6.25 - March 5th 2021
6.24 - March 2nd 2021
6.23 - February 4th 2021
6.22 - February 4th 2021
6.21 - January 23rd 2021
6.20 - January 20th 2021

Then it was Dedember 19th 2020 before that. We have had 1 update from Reason in that time lol! There's been 14 updates to Reaper this year alone. Always about 20 features listed. It'd be 26 weeks tomorrow since the first update this year on January 20th. That's an update roughly every 13 days on average with 2 coders.

[jam-s]

Less coders = less overhead in coordinating a team.

[EnochLight]

We have had 1 update from Reason in that time lol! There's been 14 updates to Reaper this year alone. Always about 20 features listed. It'd be 26 weeks tomorrow since the first update this year on January 20th. That's an update roughly every 13 days on average with 2 coders.

Indeed, and if Reason was just a sequencer/host with absolutely no built-in instruments or effects (because let's be real - the stuff that comes with Reaper out of the box is laughable by comparison), we'd probably see as many updates in a year as you do in Reaper. But we all know that Reason is a far more complex piece of software than Reaper, so I'm unclear as to why people think this is an accurate comparison?

[avasopht]

Another update has arrived today (6.33) with about 30 features added.

Look at this for an update cycle this year alone:-

6.33 - July 28th 2021
6.32 - July 9th 2021
6.31 - July 6th 2021
6.30 - July 3rd 2021
6.29 - May 19th 2021
6.28 - April 22nd 2021
6.27 - April 11th 2021
6.26 - March 29th 2021
6.25 - March 5th 2021
6.24 - March 2nd 2021
6.23 - February 4th 2021
6.22 - February 4th 2021
6.21 - January 23rd 2021
6.20 - January 20th 2021

Then it was Dedember 19th 2020 before that. We have had 1 update from Reason in that time lol! There's been 14 updates to Reaper this year alone. Always about 20 features listed. It'd be 26 weeks tomorrow since the first update this year on January 20th. That's an update roughly every 13 days on average with 2 coders.

It's pointless trying to compare development by number of releases/updates or features alone.

Are those 200+ features mostly comparable to, say, one update to a custom platform agnostic plug-in system to render the platform agnostic UI in an optimised high resolution format for each user's computer? Or one feature that gives you an awesome sampler, or a Combinator upgrade?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting their pace isn't rapid, just that release or feature frequency is not a good productivity metric.

Another way of thinking about it is, 20 features done in 13 days will be pretty small in scope.

[Creativemind]

Another update has arrived today (6.33) with about 30 features added.

Look at this for an update cycle this year alone:-

6.33 - July 28th 2021
6.32 - July 9th 2021
6.31 - July 6th 2021
6.30 - July 3rd 2021
6.29 - May 19th 2021
6.28 - April 22nd 2021
6.27 - April 11th 2021
6.26 - March 29th 2021
6.25 - March 5th 2021
6.24 - March 2nd 2021
6.23 - February 4th 2021
6.22 - February 4th 2021
6.21 - January 23rd 2021
6.20 - January 20th 2021

Then it was Dedember 19th 2020 before that. We have had 1 update from Reason in that time lol! There's been 14 updates to Reaper this year alone. Always about 20 features listed. It'd be 26 weeks tomorrow since the first update this year on January 20th. That's an update roughly every 13 days on average with 2 coders.

It's pointless trying to compare development by number of releases/updates or features alone.

Are those 200+ features mostly comparable to, say, one update to a custom platform agnostic plug-in system to render the platform agnostic UI in an optimised high resolution format for each user's computer? Or one feature that gives you an awesome sampler, or a Combinator upgrade?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting their pace isn't rapid, just that release or feature frequency is not a good productivity metric.

Another way of thinking about it is, 20 features done in 13 days will be pretty small in scope.

Yeah they're not massive features in some cases but that's because all the big feature's (apart from chord / key display, slicing samples in the media browser, retrospective recording etc) are already there. This is today's feature list:-

[EnochLight]

On Windows, Reaper 64-bit is a whopping... 14 MB download.

Reason 64-bit is a... 4.1 GB download. That's 4,100 MB. Nearly x293 the size of Reaper.

Now, I realize that 4,100 MB's of Reason is not all code, but I can guarantee you that Reason is a far more complex program than Reaper.

I'd say the moral of the story is: if Cockos' 2 programmers can't update a 14 MB program that often, then there's something seriously wrong at Cockos.

[guitfnky]

I suspect that’s a significant oversimplification. if you stripped out all the instruments and all but the most fundamental effects from Reason, so you could do a proper apples to apples comparison of how complex the programs are, I bet you’d find Reason is on par, if not actually less complex than Reaper (or any other DAW). the reason Reason is such a big install is because the vast majority is content that’s got nothing to do with the core functionality. Reaper doesn’t have much in the way of content, so of course the install file is orders of magnitude smaller.

[mcatalao]

I suspect that’s a significant oversimplification. if you stripped out all the instruments and all but the most fundamental effects from Reason, so you could do a proper apples to apples comparison of how complex the programs are, I bet you’d find Reason is on par, if not actually less complex than Reaper (or any other DAW). the reason Reason is such a big install is because the vast majority is content that’s got nothing to do with the core functionality. Reaper doesn’t have much in the way of content, so of course the install file is orders of magnitude smaller.

Yes and no. The refills are a big part of that, so that content, is, as you say, a big part of it. But reason got a bit of a mammoth over the years. Since reason 6 the installed program without refills is more than 100 MB, it's a litle short of 10x the size of reaper, and if i recall the latest versions are even worse.

That being said... it bothers me more that reason is a worse Plugin host than almost any other daw. It also bothers me more Re's under perform (not sound wise, but the dsp toll is way bigger) the same devices in their plugin flavor. And it bothers me more the memory toll at restart (again, more than 400 MB in Reason 11, and it got even worse in 12). With these things in factor, who gives a frack about the size of the installation?

[sdst]

I feel bad for people that don't know how good this DAW is

and I've used every DAW in depth for 20 years

[guitfnky]

I suspect that’s a significant oversimplification. if you stripped out all the instruments and all but the most fundamental effects from Reason, so you could do a proper apples to apples comparison of how complex the programs are, I bet you’d find Reason is on par, if not actually less complex than Reaper (or any other DAW). the reason Reason is such a big install is because the vast majority is content that’s got nothing to do with the core functionality. Reaper doesn’t have much in the way of content, so of course the install file is orders of magnitude smaller.

Yes and no. The refills are a big part of that, so that content, is, as you say, a big part of it. But reason got a bit of a mammoth over the years. Since reason 6 the installed program without refills is more than 100 MB, it's a litle short of 10x the size of reaper, and if i recall the latest versions are even worse.

That being said... it bothers me more that reason is a worse Plugin host than almost any other daw. It also bothers me more Re's under perform (not sound wise, but the dsp toll is way bigger) the same devices in their plugin flavor. And it bothers me more the memory toll at restart (again, more than 400 MB in Reason 11, and it got even worse in 12). With these things in factor, who gives a frack about the size of the installation?

that’s a good point, but keep in mind, a significant chunk of even the base install for Reason has to consist of assets for all the stock devices. possibly even some sound files (don’t the drum machines include their samples outside of the FSB?)

but more importantly, to your point, it doesn’t really matter how big the install is OR how “complex” the program is (that’s such a vague statement anyway, you could give it to different people and they could come up with different, perfectly valid answers). laughing a smaller program size away as if it means updating the code is inherently more simple is itself kind of silly.

[avasopht]

Whatever!

It doesn't matter. With any DAW we have orders of magnitude more music making capabilities and production convenience than any music producer before 2005 for less than the delivery cost of their hardware based setups.

I've considered it a number of times, but the free version of Studio one that comes free with my hardware makes it hard to really get into it.

[DaveyG]

I kinda wanted to like Reaper but the fact is that it's the DAW that I've spent more time googling stuff for than any other.

Example:
How do you get back to the instrument plugin that is on a track?
Answer: Click the "FX" button.

That's just crap UI design. It's an instrument not an FX. You can learn this stuff but you shouldn't have to.