He's Baack!

OldNick · 08-03-2020, 06:15 AM

OK. Back in 2019, I tried Reaper. I guess a few of you followed my journey. I was sick of Cakewalk (free or not) and its complexity. I would literally sit there trying to pluck up the courage.

I tried Reaper and was gobsmacked by its utter simplicity: I was up and running in minutes, in a completely new DAW.

However I became disappointed by its video capabilities, where it would jump and pause, which made it tough to do videos that were synced with audio or midi (sent to softsynths....effectively audio).

I sat and havered, because CW was still such a bureaucratic mess and other stuff (shareware)just seemed incompetent. This was very counterproductive, even if only at an artistic/hobby level.

So I am trying reaper again. It lets me use _heaps_ of VST and other synths and FX. It is till SO EASY.

Tonight I plugged in a 1920*1080 video and mixed it with some MIDI tracks. It behaved perfectly. My PC has not changed.

Has something changed, or was I just lucky? This is no longer a deal-breaker, as I feel I have run out of options, but I am interested.

Help much appreciated.

EvilDragon · 08-03-2020, 06:18 AM

Yeah video has been worked on since your last stint with it.

OldNick · 08-03-2020, 11:14 PM

AFAICS to vast effect! Thanks for your reply and thanks to the developers!

This seals the deal for me AFA Video is concerned.

vitalker · 08-04-2020, 05:43 AM

You can also enable some experimental features to improve your performance. You'll find them in Video window menu.

nicholas · 08-04-2020, 05:54 AM

Welcome home!

OldNick · 08-04-2020, 06:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nicholas

Welcome home!

Hi Nick

Yep, it feels like it. I have spent the evening running through the grass, sometimes stumbling, not fighting through the rat maze!

...it really is like that. It's sort of wild west. There are no constraints and it can be ....messy is not the word. But for me, each "hurdle" leads to progress.

OldNick · 08-04-2020, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vitalker

You can also enable some experimental features to improve your performance. You'll find them in Video window menu.

Hi. Back last year I tried all of those and all the other tweaks such as video resolution and using a "dummy" Lo-Res video to work with, and the results were patchy. This time without even trying anything I am getting butter-smooth 1920*1080 video, same machine and OS.

What really disappointed me then was the video, yeah, but also having to walk away from a programme that was so free, and such a wonderful community, who were so helpful and inclusive. (actually that is unfair: the CW community were always wonderful)

What really amazes me is the effort to to actually fix problems and not to just keep adding features! The big guys (IMC Cakewalk) have never been good at that. They let things slide for years over multiple updates and "upgrades".

This got worse and worse every time there was a corporate takeover. The aim became more and more commercial and feature-driven, and not about the reason the product existed.

I feel that CW and others who have the massive consoles and multiple meters and racks are still bound back in the hardware era and even tape recorders! This DAW is about a simple, open "throw it in and use it" way that is how a computer should be used.

I love experimenting with and composing music, and CW was increasingly getting in my way. I am not very good on guitar, but was tempted to just go an buy one!

rant over

Icchan · 08-04-2020, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldNick

What really amazes me is the effort to to actually fix problems and not to just keep adding features! The big guys (IMC Cakewalk) have never been good at that. They let things slide for years over multiple updates and "upgrades".

Frankly, REAPER has a lot of small and really annoying issues or lacks in functionality that have been there for a decade or more.

If Cockos was bit bigger, they might have resources to deal with that huge backlog. But anyway, even then REAPER is the most stable DAW i've ever used. And most feature rich for the price... so one can't really fault them.

It's just that those small cracks feel so much bigger when the software is so good in everything else it's doing.

Jae.Thomas · 08-04-2020, 08:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icchan

Frankly, REAPER has a lot of small and really annoying issues or lacks in functionality that have been there for a decade or more.

If Cockos was bit bigger, they might have resources to deal with that huge backlog. But anyway, even then REAPER is the most stable DAW i've ever used. And most feature rich for the price... so one can't really fault them.

It's just that those small cracks feel so much bigger when the software is so good in everything else it's doing.

how do you measure "backlog?"

EvilDragon · 08-04-2020, 08:07 AM

There's plenty of threads on this forum that lead to unresolved issues.

Jae.Thomas · 08-04-2020, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

There's plenty of threads on this forum that lead to unresolved issues.

sure but how do you measure it to compare?

Sibben · 08-04-2020, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

sure but how do you measure it to compare?

Compare the change list that Logic or Cubase publish for their once in a while point releases with the frequent change lists in the REAPER pre-release forum for instance. Judging from that metric one might assume that the small Cockos team has a pretty impressive velocity.

I don’t understand what backlog means in this context so I am assuming a rather arbitrary list of bugs that someone thinks should be fixed. In the real world this makes scant sense for live software.

Jae.Thomas · 08-04-2020, 10:23 AM

it seems fairly arbitrary but im open to data

Sibben · 08-04-2020, 10:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

it seems fairly arbitrary but im open to data

It is super arbitrary. There is no "zero bugs" so it becomes quite pointless as a metric. You can look at how fast a team fixes bugs and you can set a goal at a certain time for how many known bugs should be fixed by then. That's about it I think.

To me backlog means one of two things, both quite different from this. I'm trying to interpret what was meant and I think people refer to the big list of bugs you could make in your head if you consider all bug reports or issues that are known to the users as some kind of collective entity.

As Icchan puts it, there are quite a few known issues but REAPER is still very much a usable product. So the valid metric becomes "is REAPER usable to me, yes or no".

OldNick · 08-06-2020, 06:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icchan

Frankly, REAPER has a lot of small and really annoying issues or lacks in functionality that have been there for a decade or more.

If Cockos was bit bigger, they might have resources to deal with that huge backlog. But anyway, even then REAPER is the most stable DAW i've ever used. And most feature rich for the price... so one can't really fault them.

It's just that those small cracks feel so much bigger when the software is so good in everything else it's doing.

Well maybe 12 months ago or less, I discovered Reaper, which is a single ap....Programme dammit! that could do quite reasonable Video editing and really simple, open DAW work. Then I found that the Video was technically really lame. I left, because there was no advantage to me.

Then, out of desperation about the spaghetti of Cakewalk and Vegas (neither of which could do both of what Reaper offered and neither of them offer a 1-app two-solution programme)

Vegas, for instance, still lives in the basically TAPE days in its work path AFAICS.

Cakewalk grew like Topsy, becoming immensely powerful, but with a lot of underlying complication and clumsiness. A mouse designed by an elephant?

I gave Reaper another try.

I have recently used a 1920*1080 50FPS video straight out of my camera, (so 10MB/sec: That is a highish data rate in the "normal" world), and then done a cross-fade, while also running, an FX,a clip cross fade, and a Horizontal Swipe Fade....all at the same time....butter smooth, on my aged PC.

In months, that is staggering work! I am pretty sure that neither Vegas nor Cakewalk could handle that data rate plus the FX, without stuttering. And neither of them could dual task.

So I am sure that as I continue to use Reaper, I will get annoyed with this and that. But this was an ENORMOUS response to a lack that greatly disappointed me.

It also lifts Reaper into a double-threat that needs to be observed.

I am no Pro (I have been paid for some stuff), but this has awakened my hobby and passion