Reaper as a Music Studio

[striderblack]

Hey all,

Been a while since I've been here in the RBN forum. Had sort of an open-ended question I wanted to pose.

I've (finally) got my music studio and PC all set up and ready to go for recording. Now, if I wanted to transfer anything I recorded onto RBN, I need to do that via Reaper.

Now, the question:

Am I better off buying a different piece of software to take care of the recording of each individual track (Something like ProTools, etc...I don't know what is the standard now), and THEN using Reaper with those stems to start the RBN process?

Or, for my novice purposes, would just using Reaper to do the music studio track-stem recording be sufficient? I'm able to record tracks and make mp3s and such through Reaper, right?

Any info would be really helpful! Thanks!

[CaptainToasteh]

Well, I can tell you my experience.

Reaper is great for MIDI editing, so it's necessary for the charting. However, I haven't found it as a good audio editor. Freeware programs like Audacity work perfectly fine. I have Pro Tools Lite or something that I got with an M-Audio Fast Track and it's incredibly complicated to use, however it might be the right direction because it's very good at a lot of different aspects of recording/mastering.

Audacity - Free
Reaper - $40/$150
Pro Tools - $200+?

[LiveHomeVideo]

I use REAPER to make my music. If you know what you're doing you can make an infinite amount of sounds. Plus, there are additional user-generated instruments and such you can download. I use what comes in the box, though.

Here are two songs I made that are actually in Playtesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huHZVCLObrE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQIx_ut1mPs

[bwestplaysdrums]

I've been using Logic Studio for my recording and mixing projects for years, the fact that I'm strongly considering switching over to Reaper as my main DAW should tell you something.

Reaper's great for audio recording, editing, and mixing, the user interface is intuitive and easily customizable, it's light on CPU and RAM usage, and a non-professional license is only $60. You're looking at $600 for Pro Tools 9 (Lite or LE versions don't exist anymore), and anything before PT9 you'll also have to shell out for an interface, since Digidesign/Avid locked you into their hardware before PT9.

Short version: Reaper rules and it's everything you need.

[DavyinaToga]

Most of my experience comes from using Logic, Garage Band, Audacity, and Reaper, so between those...

REAPER > Logic > Garage Band for basic MIDI composition (unless using Logic soundbanks and VTSis)
LOGIC > Reaper > Garage Band for MIDI tweaking
AUDACITY > Logic/Garage Band > Reaper for recording
LOGIC/REAPER > Garage Band >>> Audacity for stem editing (copy/paste/etc)
REAPER/LOGIC >>> Garage Band >>>>>>>> Audacity for mixing and mastering
AUDACITY > Reaper > Garage Band > Logic for pricing (unless you're on a Mac, or make a LOT of money from what's made in the DAW)