Old 08-31-2006, 12:35 PM   #1
Glynne
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Default Reaper first impressions

I thought I'd give my observations after using Reaper for a short time. A little background on my experience. I am not a musician and have some passing interest in multi-track recording and mixing. I have done some multimedia work on a volunteer bases using some industrial grade equipment. I'm not sure how far I can take my talents, or lack thereof. So I suspect it is nlikely I'll be purchasing Reaper after the 30 day trial is over. I'll just remove it and go back to Audacity. As it does what I need. I recently downloaded the Shock The Monkey multi-track samples and have been trying to reassemble the original recording. As a practice in interest and frustration. Not quite my tastes in music but it will do. I'm running the risk of having this dang song running through my head for days! Do wish more artists would make their tracks available. It's neat to see how the sausage is made. I now have a new appreciation for how recordings are produced. At first I used Audacity, as it is free. But I found it to be limiting and, with 32 tracks, it can be sluggish. Then I remembered the multitude of version postings for Reaper on MajorGeeks and decided to give it a try. When I first ran it it had a very familiar interface to a certain commercial application <caugh> I've seen before. So I knew what to do, for the most part. It was fairly intuitive, for me
anyway. I was impressed with the speed at which it ran, the small size of the application and how well it imported MP3s. I took a shot at an m4a file and it would not import it. So Winamp then did the dirty work for me to make it a wav file.

I do know a few home musicians and I'll pass Reaper on to them and let them see if it will fit their needs. I do have a few suggestions for improvements. It took me a while
to find how to make Markers. As I thought I could just right click at the time line and place one at the cursor. so the ability to right click to insert a marker would be helpful.

Ability to move the transport controls to the top would be nice too. Reduce mouse movement for me.

While playing I did crash Reaper twice. Sorry, I don't remember what I did to cause it so I can't provide any useful data here. Naturally it happened after making many changes that got lost. So it would be nice to have an autosave option. Not strictly time based but would also delay when system load is high so it would not interfere while doing serious work.

For the more serious editor, the ability to make a double row mixer would be helpful. That way when you have 32 channels you have direct access to all faders without scrolling. Though I have been pleased with how well the scroll wheel integrates within Reaper. With the double raws and a second monitor I suspect it would help work flow. As it seems you can detach the mixer controls and move it elsewhere. I've not tried it yet and don't have a two monitor setup.

Here is a quirk I noticed. When importing MP3s Reaper allows you to cue the track before the 0:00.00 mark. When importing WAVs it appears you can not.

Thanks for the trail use. It's been educational.
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Old 08-31-2006, 01:08 PM   #2
malcolmj
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Hi Glynne,

Just to cover a few of the suggested improvements:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glynne
It took me a while
to find how to make Markers. As I thought I could just right click at the time line and place one at the cursor. so the ability to right click to insert a marker would be helpful.
You can insert Markers without a name by using the hotkey M, or REAPER will prompt you for a Marker name if you use Shift+M, and you can also add them by right-clicking above the Timeline and selecting "Insert marker".

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glynne
Ability to move the transport controls to the top would be nice too. Reduce mouse movement for me.
The Transport can be moved by right-clicking on the Transport and selecting "Dock transport in main window". This will un-dock it, allowing you to place it anywhere on the screen you like.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glynne
So it would be nice to have an autosave option.
There are several auto-save options available under Project Preferences:

http://documentwrite.com/reaper/index.html?project.htm

They're not enabled by default.

Cheers,

Malcolm.
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Old 08-31-2006, 02:34 PM   #3
Glynne
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Default I am red faced!

Thanks for the replay. Yeah, I just finished noticing before getting on the forums again that if you move the mouse to the top most part of the time line where it becomes a hand, it will allow right click to insert a marker. I'm red faced!

Thank your for the tip on the transport. I did not think to to see if it was undocable. Maybe a small icon by each undocable item would give us a little hint. <grin>

Ah auto save! Thanks again!
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