July 2, 2010

Best Home Music-making Software

-from MusicRadar Magazine, 06-20-10

Apps, loop libraries and beat generators to use

One realisation for those building a home recording studio: there are so many choices. It may seem easier to pay Noel Gallagher from Oasis to do the work.

The second most startling realisation is that you'll pay through the nose for some of the gear. One AKG microphone can cost a few thousand pounds, and audio mixing boards are horrendously expensive.

You don't need to spend a fortune to get recording music. All you need is a PC and some free software

Fortunately, if you already have a high-powered PC (or know how to build one) with a dual-core processor and plenty of RAM, you already own a potential recording studio.


The inputs are there, plenty of software apps provide the necessary recording and mixing tools, and you can burn a CD or upload it to your favourite indie music store with ease.

Interestingly, music production is already PC-centric. Even the most high-end setups rely on apps such as Digi Design Pro Tools and Cubase. Creating audio loops, programming complex drum patterns, tweaking EQ settings in a final mixdown – these functions are all 'performed' behind an LCD.

The good news: you can easily patch together a fairly powerful music studio rig for hardly any cost, if you know which applications to use and have some technical know-how.

One example: Ardour for Linux and Mac OSX systems is free to download and use (although they ask for a small donation), but has high-end digital audio workstation features, such as VST plug-in support for adding instrument libraries and a non-linear audio editor for creating multi-track recordings.

Free audio tools are not crippled in any way; in fact, some of the best audio apps, such as Audacity and Fluid Synth are better than the commercial alternatives. So what are you waiting for? Noel Gallagher is a busy guy and that top-ten metalcore (or bagpipe-punk fusion) hit is just a mouse click away.

You can become an audio god in just a few simple steps: download these apps, setup your PC recording studio, break out that Fender Strat, belt out a few notes, and start dreaming of opening for Snow Patrol – or at least the pure enjoyment of working with powerful music applications, pumping out some mad tunes, and getting more bang out of your PC.

To become the next John Lennon clone, you'll need a powerful and fairly recent computer. Now, you might be surprised to learn the system doesn't need to be the absolute latest rig with an Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB of RAM.
You can use (or build) any dual-core system that boasts about 4GB of RAM. You won't want to use an older computer with a single-core operating system, because the latest apps do take advantage of dual-core processing and the hyperthreading techniques, and benefit greatly from the faster clock rates in the most recent processors.

Most PCs also have plenty of mass storage for multi-track recording. In fact, you may want to downgrade to an earlier operating system (say, Microsoft Vista or even XP) because many audio apps have not released Windows 7 drivers yet.
Now, most of the audio latency that occurs in recordings – eg., the slight delay between the sounds you are generating with an instrument and how the clip is recorded – has more to do with the external hardware you use.

Any recent PC sound card is more than adequate for working with loops and drum patterns, but to record, for instance, vocals and acoustic guitar, you'll need an audio interface such as the Cakewalk UA-1G which has -inch connections for guitar and microphone, as well as handy input and output volume controls.

The way of the DAW

Okay, you've built or borrowed a recent system with a sound card. You also have a way to record instruments with an audio interface. Now to record your next opus, you'll need digital audio workstation (DAW) software, which are essentially the heart and soul of the music studio. Any loops, drums, samples or tracks you create will be assembled in the workstation.

Reaper

The best DAW we have found is called Reaper, because it's powerful enough to record and mix a real song, one that you'll be proud to share with the world. Reaper is free to download and test, but the company suggests donating just £30 if you use it regularly.

The interface is highly intuitive: to add a track, you just right-click on the main screen and select 'Insert New Track'. There are VCR controls for recording analogue instruments, such as guitar and vocals.
Because the program supports VST, if you do purchase a commercial product such as Native Instruments Guitar Rig 4 that tool will appear from within Reaper so you can use the wide array of effects.

Ardour, which is only available on Linux and Mac, is another powerful DAW we highly recommend. One of the greatest strengths of this recording tool is its stability. The app hasn't gone down once in testing under Ubuntu Studio and has some pro-level features, such as unlimited undo for track effects. This means, if you record a new guitar lick and start tweaking the sound, adding a delay or distortion, you can undo all the changes back to the original track.

Ardour also lets you create unlimited audio tracks, although you'll find the program will slow down considerably if you add more than about 16 tracks.

Note by note
 
Rosegarden is a stark departure from both Reaper and Ardour. Instead of recording analogue tracks to create a full band sound (think: The Killers), this free application for Linux lets you create songs note by note.

Rosegarden

In the editing window, you can click away to create notes where you want them. Then, you can build up the entire song, change keys and tempo, and view the notations. You can then print sheet music or even publish your song through a service such as BMI.

Audacity is another good recording tool for a home studio. Essentially, this venerable workhorse lets you edit the actual sound waveform (for example, for trimming out background noise), convert from one format to another (helpful if you find a loop in a different format from the one supported by your recording software), and even change the speed or pitch of the recording.


Audacity

Fortunately, even though it sounds technical, Audacity provides a visual and easy-to-understand interface for editing audio clips.

One reason to use Audacity: if you have recorded the perfect drum section or guitar solo and then realised the clip has some extra hiss or audio artefacts, you can export the track as a WAV file from your recording software and then use Audacity to see those mistakes up close and remove them as needed.

A music studio isn't necessarily just for musicians who want to record instruments and put them together into a finished song. For those who have never learned an instrument, you can still create your own music, using loop libraries and beat samples you can download from the Internet, then assemble them into a complete song.

A PC audio workstation that uses free software is a good fit for the amateur composer or enthusiast, who may not want to spend huge amounts of money (or any at all) on their hobby but still wants to produce quality music.

A good place to start is at the Freesound Project offers hundreds of free loops and sound samples. You can download a huge selection under the Creative Commons licence, which means you can use any of its audio samples you want as long as you do not sell the finished song.

Freesound project

Freesound has a wide assortment of loops and samples, some of them strange (aliens chirping off in the distance) and even bewildering (one loop is nothing but an alarm repeating over and over), but the key here is that you can download a sample and then tweak it using Audacity or digital audio workstation software, such as Reaper.

For example, you may want to mess around with that odd alarm sound, but by lowering the pitch or changing it to a slow tempo, it can suddenly sound more like a bass part.

Beatmatch is another free collection of music, but one that's intended more for rappers and DJs, who are looking to add repeating drum loops and synth parts that work well for certain types of music, such as dance, house and techno music.

Beatmatch offers complete libraries, all of them that are free to use, so you can mix and match loops together, find several clips that are similar (eg., a loop that uses the same synth sound, but repeats at a different rate), and to inspire you to write new material.
Beatmatch also offers only high-quality AIFF and WAV samples, which is extremely helpful, since when you add these tones to your new song you won't have to put up with any distortion or hiss.

Philharmonia is another free loop compendium, but one that consists mainly of orchestral sound samples instead of the typical beat samples and drum loops. In Philharmonia, you can find, for example, a viola or woodwind sound that you can load into Rosegarden or Reaper and create a MIDI track.

Free-Loops.com and Sound Transit also offer a wide assortment of loops and samples for free, many of them without any licensing restrictions at all.

The desired effect

It's easy to download loops and samples, and import them into your digital audio workstation software, and create a final song you can upload to MySpace or some other online repository. For those who do not play an instrument, but want to do more than just mix 'n' match existing loops, you can use free audio software to actually create original audio tracks even if you do not play a single instrument.

FluidSynth, which is primarily a Linux tool and provides a powerful virtual synthesizer you can use to create original loops. For those proficient with source code and Linux, you can download the FluidSynth code and create your own application.

Z-Maestro

A shortcut, though, is to use one of the applications that already incorporates the FluidSynth code, such as Qsynth or Z-Maestro. These apps incorporate the virtual synth into the program so you can create fantastic sounds, such as a cascading bleep or a simple piano roll.

For those who want to skip all the hip-hop loops and beat-box emulators, Sonoma Wire Works T4 is a straight-up guitar-recording program that provides a wealth of guitar amp and virtual guitar pedals for creating distortions, delays and other axe-related effects.

The free software goes the extra step of showing you a virtual representation of the amp and pedal to help you get a visual clue as to how the effect will change your tone: for example, grungy and heavy or more like a light chorus.

This application also provides a simple DAW interface for adding guitar tracks and matching them with drum loops, and you can share your final songs with other Sonoma Wire Works users.

A drum machine can help you form the basis for a song as you layer other instruments and audio clips into a complete composition. One application for creating drums is called Hydrogen and it supports both Linux and Windows.

Hydrogen

The main strength of this program is that it's easy to get to grips with so you can get a beat down quickly. Creating drum patterns can be a laborious process that doesn't seem that creative. With Hydrogen, you just click on a graph for each drum sound, click the 'Play' button, and you'll hear the drum pattern.

When you have programmed the drums the way you want, you can export the drum loop as a WAV or MIDI file. Want to go completely space-age and mimic the strangest indie bands around? (We're not sure if The Knife or Animal Collective use this tool, but they should).

Gnaural

Gnaural is a tone generator that works under Windows and Linux. It's quite unlike any other sound generator, in that you start with a basic droning audio clip and tweak the audio properties, repeat patterns, pitch and tempo.
It's a way to create a highly unique sound all your own, without relying on an original loop and trying to tweak the audio.

Putting it all together

Once you have the core components in place – the PC itself, the audio interface, DAW, loop libraries and sound generators – it's time to think a bit more globally.
For a home studio, you should think about where to do the recordings. Pick a quiet place in your home where you can lock the door and tune out the world. Also, you'll need enough space for all of the cables, microphones, instruments, keyboards, and extra gear for recording.

Another consideration is that you will need access to extra disk space – such as a network attached storage drive or a portable hard disk drive – because each track in the recording process can consume disk space quickly, and you will likely want to create versions of your songs, make backups, and re-use audio clips from other songs.

You'll need space for all your loop libraries and drum loops as well. And, for the most part, you will want to keep your main system clean of any extra data that could possibly slow down your hard drive You can also expand your current hardware once you have a basic DAW in place.

For example, Roland makes the V-Drums TD-4SX set that connects straight up to your PC and allows you to record real drums. This can dramatically improve the quality of a recording, because the drum sounds take on a more analogue, live-performance feel as opposed to the more programmed drum approach most people will recognise.

Upgrading to a condenser microphone, such as those made by Audio Technica or Neumann, can also significantly improve the overall quality of your computer recordings. In the end, recording is an excellent waste of time – even if you can't tell a tuning knob from a guitar pick.

With a wide array of free recording software, loop libraries that are just a few clicks away and extra tools for creating your own loops, anyone can become an audio deity.

Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/audio/best-music-making-and-music-editing-software-697214?artc_pg=2#ixzz0sagIWdeK

Source: http://www.techradar.com/news/audio/best-music-making-and-music-editing-software-697214?artc_pg=1
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July 1, 2010

Reaper DAW voted MusicRadar users' favourite

Affordable music production app takes the crown
Ben Rogerson, Thu 4 Mar 2010, 11:35 am GMT

Reaper 3: your new favourite DAW?



In a shock result, MusicRadar users have voted Cockos's Reaper their favourite DAW (Digital Audio Workstation).

The software, which is currently at version 3, is famed for its low system footprint (the installer is just a few megabytes in size) and intuitive workflow, and has quickly built up a loyal army of users.

Many of these are musicians who've turned to Reaper out of frustration with other DAWs, a fact acknowledged by Cockos on its website.

"If you currently use another DAW, you might be reading this because you're contemplating shelling out $150 for the next overhyped version that doesn't address any of the bugs you've been complaining about for five years while adding a bunch of features you couldn't care less about," says the developer.

When explaining why their software is different, Cockos says: "For starters, Reaper is coded by a small group of dedicated engineers, not multiple software units under the central command of product marketing. That means Reaper is lean, efficient, and stable.

"Reaper starts up and is ready to record in seconds, balances processing loads intelligently across multicore systems, and doesn't fall over when you start to tax it. That means you spend more time recording and editing, instead of staring at the startup splash screen."

If you're keen to find out more, you can demo a fully functional version of Reaper 3 for 30 days. Should you wish to continue using the software after this time, a discounted license (check the Cockos website to find out if you qualify) will cost you $60.

Click here to read about the 11 best DAW software apps, as voted for by MusicRadar users. http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/the-11-best-daw-software-apps-238905

Article source: http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/the-11-best-daw-software-apps-238905 

June 27, 2010

Cockos Reaper Skins

I'm enjoying learning about the Reaper DAW software. There are dozens of skins available. Below are some results I've gotten recently.

The FrankenMod Theme-



The Pro 3 Theme


The Pro v1 Theme





The ProTools 8 Theme






Clean and Dark 3.0 Theme







Clean and Brown Default 3.0





Reaper themes are available from the Reaper website at"
http://stash.reaper.fm/tag/Themes
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June 25, 2010

Cockos Reaper 3 DAW Review 08-2009

From Sound On Sound Magazine - 08-2009 - The latest major update to Reaper brings with it a complete overhaul of MIDI functionality, improved automation, and much, much more.by Mike Senior

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Reaper’s updated default GUI gives the application a slightly slicker feel, but still provides lots of scope for colouring tracks and Items; if you don’t like the way it looks, you can completely remodel object graphics and colour schemes.


Reaper’s updated default GUI gives the application a slightly slicker feel, but still provides lots of scope for colouring tracks and Items; if you don’t like the way it looks, you can completely remodel object graphics and colour schemes.



By dint of a continuous blizzard of incremental revisions and additions since its birth in 2005, Cockos’s Reaper DAW application has built up both an enormous feature set and an enviable reputation for direct interaction between the developers and the user base. I was first alerted to the application by Martin Walker’s review of v1.828 in SOS June 2007, which he followed up by covering v2.44 in January 2009. Since then, another load of new features has come on board to bring us to v3, so I’m going
to take a look at how this recent evolution now positions Reaper amongst the more established DAW choices.


Reaper: The Big Picture


If you want a detailed picture of how Reaper works, it’s worth checking out Martin’s two previous reviews, but let me just give a quick overview for now, in case you don’t have those to hand. As a MIDI + Audio sequencer, the purpose of Reaper is roughly the same as that of Cubase, Digital Performer, Logic, Pro Tools, Sonar or whatever: to record and edit MIDI and audio data, host virtual instruments, and mix down projects with access to plug-in effects and dynamic automation. A wide variety of audio and video formats is supported (including, as of version 3, multi-channel surround files), and all audio editing is non-destructive within the program’s main window. Both VST and Direct X plug-ins and instruments are supported, and there is a range of facilities for communicating with other applications: ReWire support, bespoke ReaRoute drivers for ferrying audio between ASIO-compatible software, and a wide range of transport synchronisation options.



What sets Reaper apart from the other programs I mentioned, though, is that many of its functions are very open-ended, allowing the user lots of control over how they work. The headline feature here has got to be the fact that there is only really one kind of track or channel, which can carry multiple streams of audio and MIDI simultaneously and route them to any other audio/MIDI stream in any other channel. This means that you determine whether a track is an audio track, a MIDI track, an instrument track, an effects return track, a group track, or whatever, simply by virtue of how you cable it up. Plug-ins can then be applied to separate MIDI and/or audio streams within a given track to create complex matrixed effects that in other applications would take multiple tracks to implement.



A huge library of audio and MIDI plug-ins is bundled with the software, including a convolution engine, an automatic pitch-corrector, and an insert utility to incorporate hardware into the software chain. All have sophisticated automatic delay compensation, and you can reduce native CPU load by farming out specified effects chains to other computers on a network. If the standard plug-ins don’t do what you want, you can actually script your own via a built-in development environment, debugging and
recompiling your code while Reaper is running. 



Further mixing power is provided by the innovative Parameter Modulation function, a kind of adjunct to the dynamic automation system that can control any effects parameter on one track according to signal levels on another. The look and feel of the program can be changed extensively by virtue of GUI
colouring and skinning, while keyboard/MIDI-triggered shortcuts (respectively Themes and Actions in Reaper-speak) and screensets are available to speed up your work rate, too.



Nesting Folders, Track Controls & VCA-style Grouping



Now let’s get down to the main business of this review: the most interesting new features introduced since v2.44. For a start, there has been a bunch of updates to the way tracks work, the first of which was,
in my opinion, rather overdue: nesting track folders. Folders in Reaper work like audio groups, so this now means that you can much more quickly group, say, the top and bottom mics on your snare for common processing and then pass them on to a further ‘all the drums’ folder track. Also something of a catch-up with other sequencers is the option to add track icons and select which tracks are visible in the mixer window on a per-track basis.


The most important new track feature, though, is that you can now transfer controls from any of a track’s plug-ins directly onto the track panel itself, both in the main tracks and mixer windows.














































Controls from any plug-ins on a channel can be made accessible directly from the track list and mixer window. Clicking in an empty control slot brings up a menu like the one shown here, from which you can quickly add new controls.


Controls from any plug-ins on a channel can be made accessible directly from the track list and mixer window. Clicking in an empty control slot brings up a menu like the one shown here, from which you can quickly add new controls.


You can add individual controls one at a time, or a whole plug-in’s complement in one go, and they all appear as rotary controls with parameter name and value read-outs. Double-clicking the track control
label opens the respective plug-in window for further editing, which is great, and you can also rename parameters to make them more comprehensible, or differentiate between, say, the Gain controls for
three different plug-ins. In the track list, you need to be vertically zoomed in a fair way to see these controls (there wasn’t room for them once I had more than about eight tracks showing), and if there’s not
enough room on the track panel to show all the controls you’ve created, buttons automatically appear allowing you to scroll through looking for the one you want.



I liked this feature a lot, and it worked well for me with a variety of plug-ins, but there are a few refinements to the system that I’d have liked. For example, it would have been nice to control channel sends from track controls in a similar way, and to re-order the controls by dragging and dropping. Plus, for certain plug-ins it would be nice to have specific controls parked on the track panel by default as soon as you loaded the instance. Reaper can already save other per-plug-in defaults, so I’d hope that the last, at least, wouldn’t be too difficult to implement in an update.



I suspect that many computer musicians never even take the lid off the can of worms labelled ‘VCA-style grouping’, but if you’re the kind of user who relies on this kind of control, Reaper’s implementation, introduced for v2.5, is something special. A dedicated Grouping display, somewhat
resembling the existing routing matrix, gives you access to 32 groups, and any channel can be master and/or slave with regards to volume, pan, mute, solo, record arm, polarity and automation mode; you can even reverse the volume and pan control laws. There’s no restriction as to how many groups any specific channel can belong to, either as master or slave, and you can specify whether any given master channel in one group passes on movements to its slaves when it’s operating as a slave in a different group. This means that you’re free to tie your grouping into the most Gordian of knots if you care to, so it’s handy that you can usually hold down the Shift key while operating any control, to temporarily defeat the grouping.




Automation Updates


The automation system has had something of an overhaul since v2.44, and in particular it’s great to see Reaper now offering the option of separate automation lanes, bringing it into line with most other DAWs. However, if you preferred the previous method of ‘over the waveform’ automation
display (which has the advantage of using less screen real-estate), you’ll be glad to know that you can freely swap any of the automation envelopes for any track between the two display styles. Where the new lanes score well is in providing dedicated controls for each automated parameter, but as with the track controls, I couldn’t find a way to re-order these lanes by dragging and dropping.

















































Here you can see the new lane-based automation display facility, which can make life easier when working with multiple automated parameters on one track. However, you can choose to display any automation data over a track’s Items, as before, if you prefer.



Looking past this primary upgrade, though, there are various other nips and tucks to the automation which will probably have just as much impact on usability. For example, you can now filter and highlight available parameters within the envelopes window, which is a godsend if you’ve got several parameter-heavy plug-ins all in the same channel. An elegant new automation data-thinning function has also been introduced: just select a set of envelope points and bring up the thinning slider (which displays the total number of points after processing) to reduce their total as much as you need. Reaper shows a preview of the thinned result while you’re doing this, and it’s clear that there’s a good deal of intelligence in the way the algorithm works. It performed really well for me in practice, but what was really great was that on the odd occasion where I disagreed with its interpretation of the best points to remove, it was simply a case of removing the disputed points from the selection to settle the argument!



A final nice automation feature is the availability of volume, pan and mute automation envelopes for individual Items (Reaper’s name for the audio or MIDI regions in its main arranger window), although I did wonder to myself why Cockos hadn’t gone the whole hog here and allowed automation of
Item-based effects settings as well. And while we’re on the subject of feature wish-lists, I’m still waiting for a proper ‘relative trim’ automation mode, whereby you can have any fader moves you make applied
as offsets to existing automation data on a given track. There’s no decent way to build up detailed automation for a lead vocal in multiple passes unless you have relative trim, and any automation system without this mode (or some viable workaround) is still in the teething stage, as far as I’m concerned.



Extended MIDI Features



One of the areas most frequently criticised by newcomers to Reaper is the extent of its MIDI  functionality, which has been slower to develop than the audio side of the application, so I’m glad to report that Cockos have recently made significant strides forward in this area. You can now, for example, edit multiple MIDI Items within the same editor window, even combining drum-grid and piano-roll display styles. However, while this is certainly useful, I was personally much more excited by the new in-line editing mode, where you can edit MIDI data directly from its track in the main arranger window, alongside any relevant audio waveforms.













































One of the best new MIDI features is that MIDI Items can now be edited directly from Reaper’s main arranger window, as shown here.














































You can now edit multiple MIDI Items within the same MIDI editing window, pulling any specific Item into the foreground for editing as required.



Whichever MIDI editing mode you’re in, you’ll find that MIDI notes and velocity representations are now colour-coded, while controller data is coloured during multi-Item editing to distinguish foreground data from background data. Within the dedicated MIDI editing window, you now get decent MIDI view filtering options, allowing you to focus not only on any specific type of MIDI message, but also on a specific value range for that message type. I’d still like to see some kind of overarching MIDI selection/processing module within Reaper (something like Logic’s Transform Window or Cubase’s Logical Editor), but in the meantime the upgraded filtering and existing Note/Event Properties dialogues cope confidently with all the more routine data adjustments you’re likely to need.


Transform Window or Cubase’s Logical Editor), but in the meantime the upgraded filtering and existing Note/Event Properties dialogues cope confidently with all the more routine data adjustments you’re likely to need.



Full SysEx support is now included, which will please users of hardware synths in particular, and  various specialised General MIDI format messages also come on board, along with the means to export a project’s MIDI data as a Type 0 or Type 1 Standard MIDI File. This latter feature is particularly handy in the case of Reaper, because it has no built-in score notation, and dedicated notation packages are now getting pretty good at generating the bare bones of a score directly from a MIDI file.



Beyond the in-line editing, there are a couple of other important MIDI facilities now available within the main arranger window. The first is that you can apply MIDI effects to individual MIDI Items, exactly as
you would audio effects to audio Items; and the second is that you can now create ‘ghost copies’ of a given MIDI Item which automatically reflect edits to the original MIDI Item they’re ghosting. You can
freely convert any of these into real, independent copies as circumstances demand.






ReaControlMIDI & Hardware Control Enhancements



While regular Reaper-based MIDI musicians will doubtless be pleased that the transport and scrolling in the dedicated MIDI editor window can now be linked to the main arranger window, newcomers are unlikely to notice anything about this other than that it now responds fairly intuitively. What is likely to rub some refugees from other platforms up the wrong way, though, is the apparent absence of any node-based option for editing MIDI controller data. In other words, MIDI controller data always appears ‘stepped’, so it looks like you can’t create a ramp just by inserting two controller values. However, this is because you can now work in this way by driving a newly minted MIDI plug-in, ReaControlMIDI, via Reaper’s automation system.







The new ReaControlMIDI plug-in is particularly useful, setting up external MIDI devices correctly on project load and allowing node-based control of MIDI parameters using Reaper’s main automation system.



ReaControlMIDI is clearly aimed at reproducing the typical facilities most other DAWs build into their tracks as standard, allowing you to select a destination MIDI channel and then send BankSelect, Program Change, Pitch-bend, Continuous Controller and SysEx messages from the plug-in’s controls. As you’d hope, the status of all these controls is sent when the project is loaded up, to make
sure your sounds are always set up appropriately as you swap between projects. Preset patch name lists can be loaded from INS files, as used by Sonar, for example, or you can enter your own fairly simply. Because ReaControlMIDI is like any other Reaper plug-in, you can save it as a default plug-in for all MIDI tracks if you like, make any of its parameters available as track controls and, as I’ve already mentioned, automate its sliders to effectively give you node-based editing of almost all types of MIDI controller data.



The control of DAW parameters over MIDI has seen some important updates too. The built-in MIDI Learn function already made fairly light work of assigning hardware controls to plug-in and instrument parameters, but you can now use game controllers as well if you like, and can configure parameters so that they only ‘latch on’ to their assigned hardware control when the controller is moved through the underlying parameter position. Easily the coolest improvement, though, is that you can save
default controller assignments for each plug-in, and then Reaper will automatically switch between them as you switch focus between plug-in windows. This means that once you’ve set up your plug-in defaults via MIDI Learn, your hardware controls will automatically remap to tweak the settings of the plug-in you’re currently working with — in effect providing one of the excellent features of Novation’s proprietary Automap system, but without your having to swap MIDI hardware.



That pretty much wraps up the main new features, but alongside those there have also been lots of smaller featurettes and tweaks which have further refined the usability of what’s there. There are too many to go through in full, but my favourites are the text search box for finding what you’re looking for amongst the program’s packed Preferences dialogue; the display in the menu bar of the last Action you triggered, so you’re aware of what you’re going to undo before you undo it; and the improved legibility of Item labels.






So Should I Defect? 



I’ve been using both Steinberg Cubase and Apple Logic for many years, but if you forced me to work exclusively with any single software package, I’d choose Reaper any day. However, I should qualify such a provocative endorsement by pointing out that it probably says as much about me as it does about the software, because I just happen to be the kind of user that Reaper is perfect for. I love the fact that there are several different ways of doing everything, and that I can dream up ridiculously involved audio/effects configurations (custom band-splitting effects, complex parallel processing, even chaotic in-channel feedback loops) or push plug-ins beyond their design limits through scripting tweaks and the wonders of Parameter Modulation. It’s the kind of freedom that I’d previously only ever associated with large analogue studios and overflowing buckets of patch cords. I’m also dead keen on moulding software to suit my own idiosyncratic ways of working, so naturally I’m a total sucker for the advanced implementation of Action macros, GUI Themes, and plug-in MIDI controller assignment.






Action macros, GUI Themes, and plug-in MIDI controller assignment.



I am aware, though, that the very aspects of this software that I personally find brilliant can also be viewed from a less favorable alternative viewpoint: the flip side of the functional open-endedness is that the user has to take much more responsibility for deciding how they want to work and for setting up their own defaults, which means that the performance you get out of Reaper is very closely linked to the time and effort you can put into learning how it works. 



Other, more rigidly structured DAW environments, by contrast, are easier to navigate on a surface level from first principles. For example, in Cubase you have a standard EQ on all your audio channels, so you don’t need to open a plug-in for it, whereas Reaper provides no standard channel EQ, instead offering facilities to set up your own default channel processing chain, comprising any combination of effects and your own preferred start-up settings.


Reaper is rather less inclined to hold your hand in use than other applications, and you can easily get yourself into an unholy tangle if you get too carried away with its routing capabilities early on. If you ask Reaper for rope, it’ll cheerfully give you enough to hang yourself with! There is a good introductory user guide to help you getting started with the program, as well as an on-line wiki-manual with further details about specific aspects of the software, but I’ve often found the latter rather sketchy on specific details. To be fair, most software doesn’t have the machine-gun update speed characteristic of Reaper; this makes maintaining the usual expectations of documentation trickier, and if you head over to the company’s active web forum you can usually get answers to specific queries pretty swiftly. But I still miss a comprehensive reference manual.



If you are moving to Reaper from any other sequencing platform, the program’s unusual implementations of many common software features can take quite a bit of adjusting to, and this often leads people to an erroneous impression that Reaper is missing some key feature they’re used to. For example, Cubase or Logic users might complain that chopping audio around is so much easier with a dedicated Scissors tool, and that Reaper has no separate tools like this.


Strictly speaking they’re right, but what Reaper does have is an Action that will split any Item underneath the mouse cursor’s current position, which is an almost identical way of working. The lack of a dedicated audio editor window counts as an omission for other users, but in practice most of the
functionality of a separate editor (sample-level waveform display, adjustable crossfades, and independent Item-based plug-in processing) is accessible within Reaper’s main arrangement window, so I’ve never
really felt that there was anything missing, personally.



That said, there are things that Reaper does genuinely lack at present compared to the big DAW names. There’s no scoring, for a start, and it should be pretty obvious that the miniscule 4.4MB installer doesn’t include sound sets, loop libraries, or convolution impulses. The built-in synthesis and sampling, useful though they can be, are also very basic. Reaper’s price does need to be taken into account here, though, because for the price of Cubase 5, for example, you could supplement Reaper 3 with Make Music’s Finale 2010 notation package or Native Instruments’ Kontakt 3 software sampler and sound library.


Finally, while Reaper’s MIDI functionality has improved no end in recent versions, you still don’t get groove templates or a proper Logical Editor, and a relative trim automation mode remains relegated to the wish-list too.





On The Money



The latest version of Cockos Reaper has significantly expanded the company’s refreshing reinterpretation of how a studio DAW should operate, and the rate at which it is developing continues to impress me — indeed, if my previous experience of making feature suggestions to the manufacturers is anything to go by, you may discover that several of the issues brought up in my review have already been resolved by the time you read this. It should probably be clear that Reaper has thoroughly won over this particular reviewer, and while I don’t expect everyone to take to it quite as readily as I have, I think most recording musicians, especially those on a tight budget, would be a bit dotty not to give the free 30-day trial a razz.





REX2 Support & Dynamic Splitting






































The recently added Dynamic Split window simultaneously provides automatic beat-slicing, MIDI triggered drum-replacement, and silence removal. This screenshot shows it previewing how the audio will be split as a result of its control values, so that you can refine the settings accordingly.



I find myself using REX2 files quite a lot, so I was delighted when REX2 support finally arrived in v2.5. Import a REX2 loop into Reaper and it simply creates a new audio Item for each slice, puts them in the correct layout, and then sets them all to lock to their bar/beat positions in the event of a tempo change. The Items are also set so that the whole of each audio Item plays, irrespective of whether they overlap, which can produce more natural results, and gets around the potential danger that editing crossfades at the starts of Items will dull drum transients.



What’s even better than the REX2 support, though, is Reaper’s native beat-slicing algorithm, called Dynamic Split. All you do is select the audio you want to dice and then adjust settings in a little dialogue box, watching a real-time preview in the main arranger window of how the Items will split. The algorithm works with a user-definable combination of Reaper’s existing transient detection (already seen in the Tab To Transient editing Action) and standard threshold-based gating. It worked really well for me, and where it inevitably missed a few hits here and there on longer sections of audio, it was only a case of reselecting any insufficiently fragmented Item and reprocessing to sort things out.



This isn’t the end of the story with Dynamic Split, though, because if you examine its setup options carefully you’ll discover hidden talents. For example, you can ask it to produce a chromatic scale of MIDI notes timed to match the detected slices, which is brilliant for sound layering and drum-replacement tasks at mixdown — especially now that the in-line editing lets you easily tidy up the odd mis-trigger right alongside the audio track.


Dynamic Split is also handy for automatically detecting and removing unwanted areas of audio Items, along the lines of Logic’s Strip Silence.



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June 24, 2010

Cockos Reaper 3 Review 09-2009

From MusicRadar Magazine 09-28-2009, Released in 2006, the first version of Reaper was the ugly duckling of DAWs. MIDI functions were best described as basic, there was no audio editor, and it had a rather poor interface aesthetic.
































Subsequent versions have seen improvements on all fronts, and while there's still no built-in audio editor, pretty much every other aspect has improved enormously. So, before we look at the new features and enhancements, let's run over the basics for those who new to the software.


Overview


Essentially, Reaper works along much the same lines as Cubase, Logic, etc, in that it uses a horizontal track-based approach to audio and MIDI sequencing. The software has a single main screen that includes the track view at the top, with an area at the bottom where the mixer and various other windows, such as the routing matrix and performance meter, can be docked.


The track window also has its own slightly simplified version of the mixer and, here, buses can be set up using a track nesting system. All other graphical elements – such as track routing windows, plug-in interfaces, and so on – are displayed in separate floating windows.
"Unlike most similar programs, Reaper loads incredibly quickly, so in just a few seconds you can go from the desktop to recording."


















































So far, so ordinary, but Reaper has plenty of attributes that make it worth considering over more established offerings. For starters, it's got a very light system footprint – the installers for each format are only a few megabytes, and the software can even run from a USB stick. And unlike most similar programs, Reaper loads incredibly quickly, so in just a few seconds you can go from the desktop to recording.


Another advantage of the software is its flexibility. Reaper has sophisticated audio and MIDI routing capabilities, plus its tracks can don't have to be assigned as either audio or MIDI – a single track type handles both, making it easy to set up audio effects that output or receive MIDI data, sidechain routing and so on.
As the small installer size indicates, you don't exactly get a huge library of sounds to work with – the included instruments, aside from the useful but basic ReaSamplomatic 5000, are simplistic at best.


The program does come with some decent effects in the form of the ReaPlugs FX suite, though, including delights like a sidechainable compressor and gate; multiband compression and EQ, each with as many bands as you like; an unlimited tap delay; and an FFT-based dynamics processor. These effects might not be packed with character, but for bread-and-butter processing, they certainly do a good job.


Also included are literally dozens and dozens of effects created with Cockos' Jesusonic effects development environment (which comes with Reaper), enabling you to create and compile your own effects, or edit the included ones.


What's new?


Cockos has added tons of new features to Reaper since we reviewed v2 in 123 – far too many to even list – so we'll cover the most important here. The biggest change is that Reaper is cross-platform these days, and will run on PPC and Intel-based Macs, which increases the software's already impressive portability. Reaper really is an app that you can take anywhere and use on practically any system.
































































Other important additions include élastique 2.0 algorithms for improved timestretching; transient-based beat-slicing; REX 2 file support; per-take volume, pan and mute envelopes; a parameter modulation system that employs audio levels or a built-in LFO; automation lanes; nested track folders; improved MIDI editing; and a more attractive interface.
These new features go quite some way to ensuring that Reaper competes with its rivals, and in many respects it's a cutting-edge piece of music software. The routing and modulation features in particular could make owners of many other DAWs jealous, and the clever way in which the tracks work is both elegant and flexible.


Guitar Hero


It's also worth noting that Reaper is about to get a whole lot more famous now that Harmonix, creators of the Rock Band videogame franchise, has announced a plan that will enable anyone to create Rock Band-playable content from their own tracks using a special Reaper-only add-on. Using this, you'll be able to produce a track in Reaper (or just import stems from any other DAW) and turn it into fully interactive Rock Band content.


Reaper 3


Finished tracks can be uploaded to the Rock Band Network (currently in testing phase, but scheduled to go live later this year). Once they've been vetted for copyright infringement and approved by the Rock Band community, they can be bought by other users for 80, 160 or 240 Microsoft points.






























































"You'll soon be able to produce a track in Reaper (or just import stems from any other DAW) and turn it into fully interactive Rock Band content."
As yet, there's no PS3 support for this system, and users will need an Xbox 360 and Rock Band 2 to test their tracks. Also, the uploading software, Magma, is currently Windows-only, though Intel Mac users can, of course, run it via Boot Camp.


Rock Band Network is a very big deal that could potentially open the floodgates for a slew of user-generated game content, and its reliance on Reaper will certainly throw some welcome limelight on the software.


Summary


On the downside, the editing of audio tracks and MIDI data isn't as sophisticated or slick-feeling as in, say, Cubase or Logic, and we could say the same of the included plug-ins. The lack of comprehensive quantise and groove options is another drawback, as is the continued absence of a built-in audio editor. However, the audio tracks themselves offer a useful degree of editing functionality, and it is of course possible to assign an external audio editor that will open automatically when an audio region is double-clicked.


Despite its drawbacks, we're sure that many will find Reaper 3 to be their favourite DAW. It's a deep piece of software, and true mastery will depend on getting your teeth into the hefty 410-page manual and long list of keyboard shortcuts.
The concentration on the latter, rather than convoluted menus, alongside its resource-efficiency and nonexistent copy-protection (you can install and run it on any machine – no dongles or codes necessary) make it the ideal DAW for music-making on the move. And even if you don't learn it inside out, it makes for an excellent musical sketchpad.


Above all, Reaper is a thoughtfully-designed piece of software at a sensible price, and is definitely worth checking out, even if you're happy with your current DAW. And since the evaluation version is complete, fully functional and non-expiring, there's really no reason not to give it a go.


Verdict


Major DAW manufacturers have good reason to fear the Reaper: it's a viable alternative with some distinct advantages.
MusicRadar rating: 4.5 of 5 stars - 09-28-2009


Source: http://www.musicradar.com/gear/all/computers-software/digital-audio-workstations-daws/reaper-3-221606/review
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