Mike Jones Digital Basin
cinematic media rinse cycle

What is it that Adobe, Sony and Apple dont know?

Sometimes a software tool comes along from an unlikely source, from previously unknown developers, that not only greatly impresses with a bulging feature set but also with a seismic shift in concept and implementation.

I have written many times about Celtx in exactly this regard and now I have a second tool to add to this list of apps that seem to know something that the major players do not and seem incapable of learning from. REAPER is a software Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) that provides a comprehensive feature set for recording, sequencing, arranging, editing, mixing and mastering music and multi-track audio projects.



There's plenty of these around, even very capable open-source free ones in the form of Audacity. But there's something very special about Reaper. Having obviously drawn much of its interface and working functionality from the pages of Sony's Acid Pro, Reaper combines very musically orientated loop sequencing, with pitch and tempo correction, over a core engine of fast and accurate audio editing. A central routing matrix ensures a very sophisticated patching system that would be at home in any hardware rack and a fabulously open platform of file formats for import and export. Broadcast Wave, FLAC, Aiff, Ogg and Mp3 amongst others.

Reaper can use all manner of third-party FX plug ins – DX and VST – as well its own in-built host of very functional reverbs, filters and EQ's. MIDI is supported with a piano role midi editor and a video scoring window for moving image projects accommodating AVI, Mpeg, WMV and MOV formats.  All this built over 64bit audio engine optimized for multi-core and multi-cpu systems. This very well rounded feature set all laid out in a very clean and functional interface that is remarkably nice on the eye.

But of course at this point we still really aren't talking about anything all that special or unique. The price for some may put it into a 'special' category - just $225.oo for the whole setup. Or better yet for students and education facilities just $50 per copy.

There is no doubt that Reaper can hold its own with any of the software audio systems around – Acid Pro, Audition, Soundtrack. Indeed it presents far greater flexibility and efficiency than some of these (it certainly leaves the pitiful half-baked Apple Soundtrack for dead, particularly on format suppourt) But no, not even these factors are the real jaw-dropper....



What really sets the cat among the pigeons and demands answers from the big software developers is how Reaper can pack a DAW software app with all the functionality of its over-priced competitors into a software executable installer of just 3.1mb. Yes, your eyes dont deceive you, the entire Reaper software package, filters, effects and all along with a demo song with sound files, is downloaded from the web as a single 3.1mb file.

So please Mr Sony, Mr Apple, Mr Adobe; why is it that your bloated, inefficient audio applications, which really offer very little over Reaper, weigh in at between 100mb and 300mb...?

What is it you seemingly do Not know that Reaper does...?

if you are doing any audio work – for video, for music, for podcasts – you'd be mad not to take Reaper for a spin. Even Mac users are not out in the cold again with an OSX version of Reaper about to go into Beta. As soon as that happens Mac users will have no reason to put up with the tedious incompetence of Soundtrack Pro any more.

Download Reaper from http://www.reaper.fm/

and check out the Feature List

 and Technical Specs

Posted at 12:00AM Dec 07, 2007 by Mike Jones in audio  |  Comments[1]