Do I Dare Switch to Reaper?

If you're good with Cubase just use it dude. Cubase has caught up a lot in efficiency and has a more purposeful workflow in many ways.
Reaper is good to get a grasp on because all the punk and metal guys use it because you can "evaluate" it forever. A lot of stuff like comping and midi in it just suck.

I use Reaper. Works for me, but I'm no power user. We need svart to give you some insights.

Reaper is great because it’s small, easy to install, update, compatible with everything, and has a way to accomplish almost anything I want from a DAW… like the remote thing, for example.

I think the reason it’s a pain, I guess you don’t really learn to use Reaper: you learn how screwed up the defaults are, and then learn how to change them so it works the way you want them to.

Reaper is highly customizable, so you imagine how you want it to work.. then google YouTube “how to do X in Reaper.. “

It’s been good, but I don’t need as many features anymore, I’m thinking of trying other stuff. It’s hard to though with Reaper’s support so nice

Reaper is the Sudoku of the DAW world.

I tried it and found it to cause me cognitive overload - probably my age!

What I like about Cubase is, I can get at most of its features without even reading the manual as it’s very intuitive in its operation.

My main schtick is composing/writing and VI’s/MIDI are handled so well in Cubase.

The cost of the updates spread throughout a year is without doubt the cheapest part of maintaining my studio so no complaints there from me.

Personally, I’d stick with Cubase.

Did someone say Reaper??

I dunno. Reaper can do anything any other DAW can do and a whole lot more save for some very specific things. You've already mentioned a few reasons to use it over others, but it's also constantly being updated, and bugs are fixed immediately. You can even reskin it to look like cubase if you wanted.

Now I totally disagree with the community being "toxic".

The problem is that Reaper draws a large number of those starting out in recording due to it's "no-cost" fully featured trial.

This creates a TON of "I downloaded Reaper and hit record and I don't hear anything! Everybody stop and tell me what is wrong!!" types of threads.

Let's face it, new users are not compelled to go search for answers anymore. They create a new thread and get inundated with "go search" replies or links to tutorials.

This usually elicits a response where the OP thinks people are being condescending or unhelpful while those who reply are simply tired of the same questions over and over and you see a lot of bickering about it. I've personally tried to help folks in some of those threads and they get MAD that you aren't replying fast enough or not fixing their problem to their expectations as if you were some kind of free tech support. If anything, the toxicity is the entitlement of the younger generations, but I digress.

But once you get past those things, there is a ton of information out there and there is ALWAYS a way to do something in Reaper, even if it's a workaround. Eventually the developers will add new features as the users require but they work on priority, so some things get put aside for a long time.  My guess is that something like Playlists is fairly low priority.  Regions in Reaper work similarly and you can download SWS scripts that add Playlist functionality if you desire.  There's always a way in Reaper.  Try adding scripts and extensions for PT or Cubase to add functionality..

I've worked on PT, Logic and Cubase over the years and ended up using Reaper for the majority of my personal work. Sometimes when I go to other places to do something I have to use PT or Cubase or Logic or something and I can usually find my way around them enough to keep working, or I can download Reaper and have it set up in minutes, or take it on a USB stick with my templates ready to go. I don't find it really easier or harder than any other DAW to use in the same way that I find my Netflix app different to my HBOMax app. They do the same things, just laid out differently.

I also disagree on stability. I've never had Reaper crash without it being due to a plugin causing it. I also update just about every release now and have never had a problem.

I also own the corporate license even though I don't really need to. I just figured spending the 200$ was worth the years of updates you get.

Like what for instance?

Not trying to fight or anything, I just don't understand how folks get confused by reaper.  It seems about the same difficulty as any other DAW to me.

I just have a "Drum bus" folder with sub folders for each drum, like "Snare bus" which in turn have their own sub folders for original mic track, edited mic track, sample, etc.  I slaved the record buttons so that all I have to do is hit one of them and they all arm or disarm at the same time.  I can then do overarching plugs like EQ to the bus track but I can still edit each sub track as needed.

I've used Reaper since the original beta release in 2005.  I find that the after version 6 actually hates one of my plugs more than prior to version 6.  Back then I only updated once per major update such as going from 4 to 5 or 5 to 6. 

Either way, I've never really noticed stability being a problem.  I've seen tons of spinning wheels of death in studios using Logic and PT though..

Cubase 12 runs VST2 and VST3.  I just got it yesterday.

Haven't read the whole thread yet but Cubase seems a bit more "powerful" with some features, and Reaper seems a bit more stable, has never really crashed on me unlike Cubase.  I like them both but mostly use Cubase.

I think a lot of the Live Recording people use Reaper because it's stable and simple / customizable.

That will likely be the gist of my division, Cubase for "producing" and Reaper for live tracking maybe.  I doubt it will be so black and white, I'm glad to have both of them.  I pretty much only use Reaper on my laptop, and Cubase at home.  Cubase is now "dongle free" so I just installed it on my laptop yesterday... we'll see where the chips fall now that there's two competing DAWs there.

I'm just about at my yearly "time to try Reaper" session. I don't remember last week, much less last year when I tried it out again. I'm not sure if it was a midi issue or automation. There was something that got me stumped. I will give it another shot and report back.

I left Logic for Reaper. Never looked back. Now food tastes better. Birds are singing. Flowers are blooming. I love it.

Full disclosure: I'm only using it for tracking, but never a single issue with it.

-09

Been using Reaper for over 10 years at this point, and it's definitely a love/hate thing. In addition to christopher 's excellent suggestions, here are a bunch of things I find EXTREMELY useful:

- By default, scrolling vertically with your mouse will zoom in/out of the timeline. I absolutely HATED this. Luckily, you can change mousewheel behavior to scroll around the timeline as you would in any other DAW.

- On a related note, scrolling horizontally is set backwards by default, which I also hated, and can also be changed.

- Install ReaMenus. God, this one is a lifesaver. Reaper desperately needs a complete overhaul of their menus, but at this point, I think they're in too deep to do anything about it. You can also add your own custom menu items.

- SWS Marker Utilities. Another lifesaver. This allows you to copy & paste marker sets between various Reaper projects.

- Christopher already pointed this out, but it's worth repeating — go into the mix window and disable "show maximum rows when size permits." This is easily one of the most infuriating default "features" in Reaper. You will thank us later.

- Create custom buttons for grid divisions. If you want to change your grid from 1/4 to 1/16 or whatever, the default is you have to right click on the grid button and select your grid division from a menu. How annoying. I added buttons (whole note, half note, quarter note, etc.) that change the grid with one click.

- Similarly, create custom buttons for any action you find yourself using frequently. I have a single custom toolbar with buttons for grid divisions, adding tempo markers, changing track colors, quantizing items, freezing/unfreezing tracks, normalizing items, adding blank MIDI items, reversing items, swapping between L/R channels in stereo items (and also doing a mono downmix), and much more.

- DISABLE THE TAKES SYSTEM. Good god I hate takes. To do this, go into actions and search for "new recording trims existing items behind new recording (tape mode)." This gives you destructive recording as you would have in PT.

- In preferences, disable "loop item source," especially for MIDI items. Highly irritating when working with MIDI.

- SWS track list. This lets you hide/unhide tracks in a very similar fashion to PT. There's no way that I know of to truly "hide and make inactive," but you can mimic it by muting the track, alt/option-clicking on the track routing (disables routing to the master), and then using SWS to hide the track. 

There are probably a million other things I could think of, but that's it for now. I love Reaper now that I've sorted out most of the issues mentioned above, although I still think it kind of sucks for editing (I much prefer Pro Tools for that). But it's still a great DAW once you wrap your head around it.