Make Reaper DAW again

[Eliseat]

Originally Posted by Lunar Ladder

This sounds promising, as in, you can constructively apply this to your own comments as well .

That's just not true. If you read my posts carefully you have to realize that I don't act like my opinion is the status quo. Your arguments are: It fits my way to work perfectly so every other demand is just senseless. But its not. And you are a good example of what the meaning of Deutungshoheit is: People who don't fit in the template just should go to find an other DAW. That's a nice way to say: Shut up and get the f*** off!

My comments and many others are just here to start a discussion. And discussions like that could be an important indicator for developers and scriptwriters about what peoples thoughts are. It really doesn't help to instruct from a higher point of view that thoughts like ours are plain bullshit. No one wants to make a blinking shiny toy out of Reaper. This absolutely wouldn't make no sense. And also no one wants to steal anything from your beloved nerdy-Reaper. Its all about a bit more focus on simple tasks. And of course this is not super exciting for the developers.

Anyway. My effort ends right here. Good night!

[Lunar Ladder]

Originally Posted by Eliseat

Your arguments are: It fits my way to work perfectly so every other demand is just senseless.

Nnnope , completely misunderstood my point(s) there, rather surprisingly even. And also failed to apply the previously mentioned constructive principle in your own input, heh. Good night as well!

[Lunar Ladder]

Originally Posted by Eliseat

And you are a good example of what the meaning of Deutungshoheit is: People who don't fit in the template just should go to find an other DAW. That's a nice way to say: Shut up and get the f*** off!

Nope, it's about being realistic and making good use of one's own time, knowing which expectations are likely to be realized in a comfortable timeframe and which aren't. And if they fall in the "aren't likely" category, how to make the situation better for oneself.

[Lunar Ladder]

Originally Posted by Eliseat

My comments and many others are just here to start a discussion. And discussions like that could be an important indicator for developers and scriptwriters about what peoples thoughts are.

Like n discussions just like that which have been started before . It's okay, of course.

Originally Posted by Eliseat

It really doesn't help to instruct from a higher point of view that thoughts like ours are plain bullshit.

I agree!

Originally Posted by Eliseat

No one wants to make a blinking shiny toy out of Reaper. This absolutely wouldn't make no sense. And also no one wants to steal anything from your beloved nerdy-Reaper.

Nobody said either of these would happen

Originally Posted by Eliseat

Its all about a bit more focus on simple tasks. And of course this is not super exciting for the developers.

That would be swell.

Sorry for three separate posts.

[Lunar Ladder]

Originally Posted by brainwreck

If you are feeling overwhelmed (reasonably so), try keeping your music making time separate from your 'figuring out Reaper' time.

This is a very good tip.

[deeb]

Originally Posted by Lunar Ladder

Nope, it's about being realistic and making good use of one's own time, knowing which expectations are likely to be realized in a comfortable timeframe and which aren't. And if they fall in the "aren't likely" category, how to make the situation better for oneself.

but we are just debating what can be better in reaper! and not "is it worth waiting for feature X"
Anyway! ; )

[brainwreck]

Originally Posted by doppelganger

I think 1 of the main bad characteristics or REAPER, that it has a lot of complex possibilities, that other DAWs do not have and even more, but.. doesn't have essential tools for average musician. Of course, most of this tools can be done with scripts, but again...=)

What kinds of tools for average musicians do you think are missing?

[Lunar Ladder]

Originally Posted by deeb

but we are just debating what can be better in reaper! and not "is it worth waiting for feature X"

Ah. Well. Read the original post again, the sort of thematic elements it contains and also what types of alternative future paths it implies, and then think whether reducing all that to "just debating what can be better in Reaper!" is constructive or not.

This also includes ^ you saying above that the subject of choosing one's own tools -- in order to reflect one's workflows, feature expectations and priorities -- wouldn't be in the scope of the discussion set forth by said OP.

But yes, in my opinion, one good answer to "what can be better in reaper?" is what Eliseat said, "its all about a bit more focus on simple tasks." This would make it easier to adopt right out of the box. Your rallying for intuitive "copy/paste anything anywhere, just select the area and go" type of area selection/editing is a great example of such functionality, surely.

[pipelineaudio]

Depends how you would do it better I guess. If its some crazy advanced function you can't do in another DAW, but you could do it with a script in reaper, I don't know that putting it directly in reaper by default would make it any easier for noobs. What do you see noobs having problem with and what would you do to fix it?

[brainwreck]

Originally Posted by Lunar Ladder

But yes, in my opinion, one good answer to "what can be better in reaper?" is what Eliseat said, "its all about a bit more focus on simple tasks."

I read that as, It's about automating complex tasks.

/end response to the quote

This might rub some people the wrong way, which isn't my intention, but that is what scripting is about.

So for example, maybe it seems like a big chore to find the transients in an audio file, mark them, slice the file up at the markers, load the resulting slices up into a sampler, and map some MIDI notes to those slices. Well yea, Cockos could spend some time fully working this process out (with less opportunity for user interaction) along with thousands of other use cases, which would likely eat up years of development time. But instead, they tend to focus more on general toolmaking, leaving it up to users to work out many of these processes using those general tools and even providing a much easier means to users for creating new tools.

So then, how easy should things be? Maybe as easy as we make them to be? I mean, is it reasonable to expect users to get involved in working out our own processes and making our own tools? Is that too overwhelming, or is it empowering? On the one hand, you have to sacrifice some time and effort. And on the other, you can get exactly what you want.

[deeb]

Originally Posted by pipelineaudio

Depends how you would do it better I guess. If its some crazy advanced function you can't do in another DAW, but you could do it with a script in reaper, I don't know that putting it directly in reaper by default would make it any easier for noobs. What do you see noobs having problem with and what would you do to fix it?

Almost Everyone benefits with smart shortcuts, not just noobs. Because editing tends to be much quicker using shortcut's. And the less shortcuts the easier it is to memorize and start using them fluently.

Just like copy paste Cmd + C , Cmd + V works for Item, AI or Note and so everyone uses it, It would be clearly less usable if we had:
Cmd + C for copying Item
Cmd + V for pasting Item
Cmd + Shift + C for copying AI
Cmd + Shift + V for pasting AI
Cmd + Shift + Alt + C for copying Midi Note
Cmd + Shift + Alt + V for pasting Midi Note


So what i say is that the same shortcut should be applied on the other major editing functions: glue , copy paste pooled, split , nudge, etc so that everyone can be more fluent on editing

Area / Range Selection
benefit's everyone also, because it's very simple to use and everything is duplicatable in 1 Drag and drop(everything, every size, every number of tracks or lanes).

A side note: Many electronic music is done with wavs directly in project (hits, loops and no samplers) and the more easy is to copy paste anything to anywhere logical, the easier is to get results.

With this 2 things alone editing in project would much more easy to learn and apply fluently the "not so basic" editing tools and functions with much less configurations. And all this attracts!

[deeb]

Originally Posted by brainwreck

I read that as, It's about automating complex tasks.

I don't read that at all! it's mainly all about connecting the dots on what is already present in reaper

[emwhy]

Maybe someone could design an "Installation template" for Reaper that includes configuration files, menus, tweaks, etc, all bundled into one package. Kind of like how there's Ubuntu, and then there's Ubuntu Studio, etc.

Something like this would be great, or better yet predefined user workspaces that mimic various DAWS. There are a lot of people who come to Reaper from other programs so having a selection of workspaces based on some of those other DAWs would help the transition. I switched from SONAR last December. At that time I tried Ableton, Studio One and Samplitude along with Reaper. I gave up on Reaper after a few days compared to the other programs, but luckily came back to it and haven't regretted that decision. If they had a workspace that was more like what I came from I would probably not have abandoned the program right away. Now I get that there are a lot of newbies who have never worked with a DAW before and this approach would make little or no sense to them, but it couldn't hurt.

[deeb]

Originally Posted by Lunar Ladder

Ah. Well. Read the original post again, the sort of thematic elements it contains and also what types of alternative future paths it implies, and then think whether reducing all that to "just debating what can be better in Reaper!" is constructive or not.

This also includes ^ you saying above that the subject of choosing one's own tools -- in order to reflect one's workflows, feature expectations and priorities -- wouldn't be in the scope of the discussion set forth by said OP.

a sorry! it's been nice to exchange arguments with you! in my interpretation I agree with what both said. Would like to know more of his thoughts too, some points are vague! Also I have made maybe 70 feature requests and i am mentioning this 2 because they reflect the topic in my perspective. It's a little stone on the foot of giant reaper.

[zookthespook]

If you are a "hobbyist". I don't see the fuss in not having a 1 click features as you may be making music in your leisure time.

If you are a professional and you need 1 click features to save time, then an open API and a powerful scripting arm in your DAW is the best thing you'd hope.in that case a true professional ideally is looking for an IDE.


The list of DAWs owned and duly paid and updated on my system
Abelton live 11
FL studio 20
Cubase 9
Pro tools 12
Bitwig 2.4
Renoise 3
Reason 10

I still don't think any of the above fall into the perfect DAW .however reaper is still the DAW of choice over all of the above.

I say let's not worry about where reaper is heading. The level of involvement of the development team is just good enough to know it is not going in the "logic audio" direction

[mschnell]

Originally Posted by deeb

If you don't prove with your statical research/study otherwise, ...

I don't want to prove anything at all.

I just state, that if anything is to be pushed in any direction the viability of exactly that direction should be proven. Otherwise that effort might push in the wrong direction.

Originally Posted by zookthespook

I still don't think any of the above fall into the perfect DAW .

Obviously the perfect DAW is the one that behaves best for a certain user for a certain purpose at a certain point in time.
So there cant be the best DAW. And trying to improve one, needs an in-depth analyzing what kind certain user / certain purpose / certain point in time is the most likely ... or relying on the intuition of the devs how they can get the most from their work.


-Michael

[rst]

Originally Posted by mschnell

... I expect that soon there will be sites that sell "personalized" DAWs built from Reaper (OEM) plus dedicated extension plus support offer for those who are willing to invest money in getting the workflow they desire in a speedy and secure way.

-Michael

That's where it goes. Put Reaper into some remote high performance internet box or server at safe distance from user and then provide web interface with login and monthly subscription Oh no, hope it will not happen

On more serious side, this was useful discussion, thank you for all participators. That makes me rethink my workflow and maybe develop higher resistance to tweaking side of Reaper. If something is possible to tweak it doesn't mean you need to do it

[pipelineaudio]

I dont know mac, but are you saying on mac, control c, control v type stuff doesnt work? I never heard that

[mschenkel]

This has been my story with reaper:

I had arrived to reaper by chance almost 10 years ago withe version 1.x.
It was my first foray into proper daws after a few months spent with reason and fl and a failed attempt to make any sound with cubase.
I’ve been exposed to computer since ‘94 when I was 9 where on the other hand, specially at that time, I didn’t have any idea of what recording was.
The hypertextual&very digital approach you can have to reaper just worked for me out of the box; tracks are tracks, no audio vs midi; I wanted to group several tracks? I just had to make a folder instead of buss’ a la logic(which still confuse me a tad; I felt that reaper could have been the place where, if I had a solution for that problem, I just had to look for it(sometimes very hard) and I would find all the elements to get where I wanted. On other platforms it was the other way around: those gave me very evident solutions for problems I didn’t have but I wasn’t able to find the answer to my questions, hidden behind a wall of legacy workflows and vocabulary I didn’t knew at all.
On reaper I found the action list. That is all I ever needed. I didn’t have to know nothing about menu hierarchy, context or whatsoever; I just had to push "?" and dig, and, from time to time, draw inspiration from actions I did’t know that existed.
And this workflow was good enough for my needs for 10 years now.

Now every time I jump onto another ship I find workflows clumsy, stock plugins unnecessary, bundled library not sufficient. In other words I feel most other platforms "dumb"(and by reflection I feel dumb as well), very good and super efficient at what they do(which in most cases is what people look for in a tool) but as soon as you ask something slightly different, with different words those platforms will answer me with confused "uh? waccha just say?”.

[ivansc]

Originally Posted by emwhy

Maybe someone could design an "Installation template" for Reaper that includes configuration files, menus, tweaks, etc, all bundled into one package. Kind of like how there's Ubuntu, and then there's Ubuntu Studio, etc.

Something like this would be great, or better yet predefined user workspaces that mimic various DAWS. There are a lot of people who come to Reaper from other programs so having a selection of workspaces based on some of those other DAWs would help the transition. I switched from SONAR last December. At that time I tried Ableton, Studio One and Samplitude along with Reaper. I gave up on Reaper after a few days compared to the other programs, but luckily came back to it and haven't regretted that decision. If they had a workspace that was more like what I came from I would probably not have abandoned the program right away. Now I get that there are a lot of newbies who have never worked with a DAW before and this approach would make little or no sense to them, but it couldn't hurt.

Several excellent efforts already in existence like this. Go look at the Newbs section stickies for one excellent example. MY take on this is that the Newbies section really sahould be moved to somewhere close to the top of the list of sub-forums.
I persuaded the powerd that be to sticky that particular thread and have been asking them to move the newbie section for years.
Think I may write a feature request in the hope that they take notice of that.

[ivansc]

In a separate issue, I cant help noticing a bunch of people, predominantly new users, jumping straight in and complaining about things that are "missing in Reaper" or "really hard to understand" which reaper already has.
Seems to me that their time would possibly be better spent actually reading the manual, searching threads on here and - above all - watching the excellent free tutorials on here.

Sorry, but this is just one thread too many with all the usual moans from BOTH sides for me.

Make some music, guys. I am on my third new song in just over a week.

[viscofisy]

Originally Posted by brainwreck

What kinds of tools for average musicians do you think are missing?

• something that automatically creates a mastered song from me humming into a mic

• built in mic


_

[serr]

Originally Posted by viscofisy

• something that automatically creates a mastered song from me humming into a mic

• built in mic


_

Kanye West fan?


Here's what I want:

Start working on some repetitive task. I'll use isolating tom hits for an example even though we already have strip silence. After you slice out the first 4 to 8 hits Reaper throws up an alert "I see a pattern to what you're doing. Would you like me to finish that for you?" Does it. Then "Is that correct? Did I miss anything?" and gives you the option to OK it or show it a correction (like missing some of the quietest tom hits).

Editing tom hits is pretty much that easy already with strip silence. Just an easy example to write out. But imagine that with more complex repetitive tasks.

Kind of a happy step in between where we are now and Star Trek "Computer... Please do <something insanely complex>".


Or conversely for the noob user:
"I see you are trying to play a project with non native sample rate audio and you are also running with very low latency settings even though you are not working with any live inputs. Would you like me to optimize the settings for you?"

[EvilDragon]

Totally sounds like it's coming from a Mac user.

[brainwreck]

Originally Posted by serr

Or conversely for the noob user:
"I see you are trying to play a project with non native sample rate audio and you are also running with very low latency settings even though you are not working with any live inputs. Would you like me to optimize the settings for you?"

[serr]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Totally sounds like it's coming from a Mac user.

True. I can't think of anything in OSX that inspired that though! Source is Star Trek.

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by brainwreck

Ahhahaha. Totally!

[brainwreck]

"I see that your drum timing is straying off grid, your guitar chord choice has fallen outside of A Major, and your singing pitch is flat on the high notes. I have corrected these issues for you."

Edit > Undo Clippy corrections

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

...Edit > Undo Clippy corrections

"To continue using Reaper, please click on all pictures with cars so that we know you are human."

[deeb]

Originally Posted by pipelineaudio

I dont know mac, but are you saying on mac, control c, control v type stuff doesnt work? I never heard that

read again what i said please.

[deeb]

Originally Posted by zookthespook

If you are a "hobbyist". I don't see the fuss in not having a 1 click features as you may be making music in your leisure time.

If you are a professional and you need 1 click features to save time, then an open API and a powerful scripting arm in your DAW is the best thing you'd hope.in that case a true professional ideally is looking for an IDE.

So you saying that professional users of reapers are programmers? not musicians : )
Since this is a Digital Audio Workstation. There isn't much i can say about your comment! : )

[deeb]

Originally Posted by mschnell

I don't want to prove anything at all.

I just state, that if anything is to be pushed in any direction the viability of exactly that direction should be proven. Otherwise that effort might push in the wrong direction.

i don't want to prove anything either. But where can i read about those rules and protocol of evidencie demonstrations?

[deeb]

I would like to ask at other people that are not interested in the thread, please contribute by not giving noise to this thread. Go do some music or walk , or comment other threads.
We want to discuss constructively on topic.

[serr]

Originally Posted by brainwreck

"I see that your drum timing is straying off grid, your guitar chord choice has fallen outside of A Major, and your singing pitch is flat on the high notes. I have corrected these issues for you."

Edit > Undo Clippy corrections

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

...Edit > Undo Clippy corrections

"To continue using Reaper, please click on all pictures with cars so that we know you are human."

Heh, and the Windows version...

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by deeb

I would like to ask at other people that are not interested in the thread, please contribute by not giving noise to this thread.

Who do you think you are


I know, somebody who doesn't know how to multiquote

[deeb]

Originally Posted by rst

There is long discussion going about probably upcoming version 6 and I find some expectations too high. Especially ones about UI improvement. Reaper is developed longer than decade and there is possible to see some worrying trend.
Reaper is very powerful functionally, probably can do more than any other daw. But it is so powerful that nobody can overpower it and create sane user interface defaults. And, I am afraid, never will.

Reaper slowly becomes IDE, not DAW.

There is high quality core with open API, actions list etc. packed into cluttered menus and the rest you can tweak yourself using scripts, walter, toolbars, custom actions etc. or search forums. What next? Hire a programmer to program scripts for you, while you try to make music? That reminds me world of Linux with well developed kernel and assorted cluttered desktop space on top, which never got usable over 20 years of "development" by super cool "community". Reaper may repeat the same path.
Sorry, maybe just bad day, but somehow I got doubts if Reaper is still so cool and is it still a DAW.

Can you state some examples of things you think should be consider and changed?
Any feature or dot that is missing in you opinion?

[deeb]

Originally Posted by Eliseat

So many answers but no one gets to the point. He doesn't mean Reaper is not cool or super. Its the opposite. He criticizes, it more and more turns into a nerd workstation instead of getting more easy and more user friendly. Reaper is great, but it needs way more usability. I also criticized that in many posts.

I talked with a lot of people about how they got into Reaper and EVERYONE told me, they first tried it several times (over years) and just gave up several times before realizing what power in Reaper sleeps. This is a hint which the developer and the community should consider for further developments.

When I see how all the geeks are jumping around in happiness when another weird tiny "FEATURE" gets into a new version while the workflow gets more and more complicated with a thousand scripts and workarounds i ask myself: where will this end? Will Reaper turn into worlds most complicated DAW but with the worlds most available possibilities? Its just annoying to see how every other daw tries to simplify every step while Reaper just stays the same and adds more and more features.

Reapack and SWS are indeed great features but for beginners its time consuming, irritating and "NOT making music". Yes of course, most of you programmers and scriptwriters don't see a thing, because its your world. But new users and beginners don't have a clue. They read: "install this and that, put this and that into a folder, make these five steps to create a shortcut and put script a, b, c, d, e, f and g together to have a custom script to get the standard feature of an other DAW." And then they try Live or FL Studio and wont come back.

Just my thoughts. And in the forums are lots of questions or simple requests about how the sampler, the media browser etc. should be more user friendly. It sounds of course boring. But ...

Greetings from Cologne

Eli

Can you state examples of things that could be done and could contribute to a better workflow and experience?

[Eliseat]

Most of you nerds behave exactly like i have foreseen it in my posts above. Is it arrogance or the fact that people who feel superior just always behave like a horde of chimps? I don't know.

You make fun of serious thoughts and feelings of other users. This isn't longer a discussion but rather an example of how self proclaimed elitists are unable to change view points even for a little bit. The fact that a lot of people are not native speakers also takes place. Its more fun to make jokes about little phrases instead of asking about how it was meant.

Go on and drum on your chest when you find a nice workaround for a specific task again. And please don't think there could be other people outside of your ivory tower who just don't like it this way. Don't even consider someone else could be a part of the Reaper creation process by posting ideas and experience.

We all knee venerated in the dust and won't ask ever again. Sorry for our thoughts. They wont disturb you once again.

Amen!

[deeb]

Originally Posted by Eliseat

Most of you nerds behave exactly like i have foreseen it in my posts above. Is it arrogance or the fact that people who feel superior just always behave like a horde of chimps? I don't know.

You make fun of serious thoughts and feelings of other users. This isn't longer a discussion but rather an example of how self proclaimed elitists are unable to change view points even for a little bit. The fact that a lot of people are not native speakers also takes place. Its more fun to make jokes about little phrases instead of asking about how it was meant.

Go on and drum on your chest when you find a nice workaround for a specific task again. And please don't think there could be other people outside of your ivory tower who just don't like it this way. Don't even consider someone else could be a part of the Reaper creation process by posting ideas and experience.

We all knee venerated in the dust and won't ask ever again. Sorry for our thoughts. They wont disturb you once again.

Amen!

learn to skip those post! otherwise they work as intended. I need it too !

[mschnell]

Originally Posted by mschenkel

those gave me very evident solutions for problems I didn’t have but I wasn’t able to find the answer to my questions,

This is phrased very wisely.

Same here !

Thanks a lot !

-Michael

[deeb]