Why get Pro Tools when you can get use something like REAPER?

antispatula

Active member
I honestly just don't understand. Protools's cheapest version, without an interface, is 250 bucks. There are free or very inexpensive programs out there that can produce marvelous results, such as REAPER. As far as I know, recording software doesn't in and of itself alter the sound of the recording, for example, if I recorded vox into protools, it wouldn't sound better than if I did the same thing into a much cheaper program.

I used a free version of REAPER to make my whole album and thought it was honestly an amazing program.

Anyone feel the same way about expensive recording software?
 
REAPER has certainly shaken things up a bit. it's an amazing program, and as long as it's still around, i'm never paying more for another audio program. it does it all.
 
has reaper finally come out with a full version that actually costs money?! I recorded my album with it before they had it out yet, I downloaded the version of their website for free! I am definitely supporting them and buying the new version!
 
If you work for a studio or with people that all use pro tools it would benefit you to be able to burn your project files and be able to load them straight up. Otherwise you'd be exporting wavs and you also wouldn't get any plug in settings etc.

Its funny actually, i've been using pro tools for about 5 years now, and am making the switch to cubase because everyone i work with is using cubase. Prior all the studios i was taking my mixes to were working on pro tools hd systems.

Being able to transfer my project files to my colleages is a reason i would use a particular program for a project.
 
antispatula said:
has reaper finally come out with a full version that actually costs money?! I recorded my album with it before they had it out yet, I downloaded the version of their website for free! I am definitely supporting them and buying the new version!


i've had the real version for like 6 months now. plus the real version has been updated about a thousand times. no joke.
 
Question remains unanswered, does the voice sound different in Reaper than it does in Pro-Tools? I would like to know so myself. Whats the advantage of getting pro-tools (there must be one cuase its so expensive)?


Mike
 
Nightfire said:
Question remains unanswered, does the voice sound different in Reaper than it does in Pro-Tools? I would like to know so myself. Whats the advantage of getting pro-tools (there must be one cuase its so expensive)?


Mike

a lot of it is people new to recording don't really know about Reaper. Since it's not advertised in the magazines or sold in the stores...a lot of beginners don't know it exists. Where people know what Pro Tools is because of how long it's been around and how many artists use it. The mindset is "so-and-so uses Pro Tools and they have sold a million records....I have to use Pro Tools too."

Then there's the other crowd who just likes it because it may have been the first program they ever learned on. So why switch? It's harder to get a veteran of one program to leave the software he's used for years and start from scratch on another one. Especially when clients are booking sessions left and right and they don't want to waste their time learning while working.

IMO, you should choose a program because of personal preference. Yes, you could whine about the minute details of each program to death and argue which one "sounds" better...but there are many more important things to worry about. Pick the program you like and go with it. The end product is what matters. I hate when this stuff gets debated to death.
 
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bennychico11 said:
a lot of it is people new to recording don't really know about Reaper. Since it's not advertised in the magazines or sold in the stores...a lot of beginners don't know it exists. Where people know what Pro Tools is because of how long it's been around and how many artists use it. The mindset is "so-and-so uses Pro Tools and they have sold a million records....I have to use Pro Tools too."

Then there's the other crowd who just likes it because it may have been the first program they ever learned on. So why switch? It's harder to get a veteran of one program to leave the software he's used for years and start from scratch on another one. Especially when clients are booking sessions left and right and they don't want to waste their time learning while working.

IMO, software you should choose a program because of personal preference. Yes, you could whine about the minute details of each program to death and argue which one "sounds" better...but there are many more important things to worry about. Pick the program you like and go with it. The end product is what matters. I hate when this stuff gets debated to death.
Kudos, Benny, on a perfect, unbiased, truthful, accurate and helpful post.

As the ProTools guru around these parts, you could have easily gone full-pitch defending PT, but you didn't, you gave an honest and objective answer. We could all learn from this example that respect for the game is sometimes more important than the support of the home team.

Thanks, Benny! :)

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Kudos, Benny, on a perfect, unbiased, truthful, accurate and helpful post.

As the ProTools guru around these parts, you could have easily gone full-pitch defending PT, but you didn't, you gave an honest and objective answer. We could all learn from this example that respect for the game is sometimes more important than the support of the home team.

Thanks, Benny! :)

G.


Pro Tools sucks! :p :D
 
antispatula said:
As far as I know, recording software doesn't in and of itself alter the sound of the recording, for example, if I recorded vox into protools, it wouldn't sound better than if I did the same thing into a much cheaper program.


I'm not entirely convinced this is true. If various eq, compression, and other plugins can sound vastly different from one another I'd think it'd be the same for software that simply captures audio data.
 
jonnyc said:
I'm not entirely convinced this is true. If various eq, compression, and other plugins can sound vastly different from one another I'd think it'd be the same for software that simply captures audio data.
Capturing of the data would not differ from one system to another. That work is done at the A/D level. After that, it's just bits.

Playback *maybe* but doubtful. AGain, it's just shuffling of bits to the convertors that then do the work of conversion.

Where the possibility of difference lies is in summing and in the plugins etc that are bundled with the software.
 
Excuse the long-winded post!!! I am tired!

I just did my first mix in a professional studio I'm starting work with, using a Pro Tools HD system and a CONSOLE rather than being in-box...The owner moved to Pro Tools not too long ago from a giant Trident console, sold a lot of his outboard gear...So he's tasted pure analogue and is convinced that it's the way to go, but he wanted ease of use. His Control 24 and 192s + a few Manley and Vintech preamps and stuff I haven't even looked at in the chain...Are a lot easier to use. They're more dependable.

On that note, I never have latency issues with Sonar, or anything like that, and he was having problems with Pro Tools he past few days. Anyway, my mix...I recorded the guitars, vocals and drums wit my Firepod, into Sonar, using cheap stuff and mixed there...The difference in clarity and separation and weight to the mix is very apparent. Did Pro Tools have an effect though?

I don't think Pro Tools alone did. The plugins, the fact that mxing on a console with physical faders is so much more intuitive, and the controlled environment with good bass response did, however.

So I guess my 2 cents is that you should look at other things first. The PERSON mixing comes first for a tie with a good performance recorded well, the room comes second, the plugin/outboard quality come third, and the software comes...Well, last if you can add more factors, which I'm sure you can.

Get good at mixing, get good preamps, record great musicians, get some nice outboard stuff, THEN worry about having Pro Tools, 'cause in the end, it's just another DAW software...It's got a hugely expandable hardware counterpart, but that is another story.
 
Nightfire said:
Question remains unanswered, does the voice sound different in Reaper than it does in Pro-Tools?

REAPER summs correctly, as do most apps

HOWEVER:

I believe, (and Scott Stillwell's MajorTom plugin included in REAPER helps prove this) that the "sound" of an app has a LOT to do with how easy it is to get it to do what you want, and nothing to do with its summing math

Nightfire said:
I would like to know so myself. Whats the advantage of getting pro-tools (there must be one cuase its so expensive)?

Mike

For one thing, if you live in an area full of suckers like I do, you can rent out PT systems to conservatory grad kids for more than your studio rate per day, as we do.

If I thought there were ANY advantage to using our PTHD system over reaper or vegas, I'd use it myself instead of renting it to conservatory kiddies

Benny brought up a WAY more important point though...if your app is already working for you, and working well, why switch? If I had been using PT happily all these years, I wouldnt be pushing REAPER
 
i like protools, and MACS..;)

i am coming the opposite way. i was running a pc with vegas for years, made the switch to PT and a mac. i am a happy camper.... although, i am watching the development of reaper for mac. i must say, it is moving pretty slow compared to the pc development, oh well. i will probably buy it when it gets to the point of being useful. that way when all the hobbyist get frustrated when they dont get that "pro sound" from their mixes, i can mix their projects and make another buck or two....

pro tools and reaper are great programs, but they are only a tool. doesnt matter what brand of hammer you use, right?
 
I use Cubase on a daily basis, and have also used Nuendo on a PC at my buddies studio.

Yesterday I decided to download and try Reaper, strictly because of all the talk on here. I just wanted to see what it was all about. It IS a cool little program.

I am actually looking for something for a portable recording setup, for doing live multi-track recordings at shows. I am willing to consider options other than another copy of Cubase SL3, if it saves me money and I can still do what I need to do reliably.

My first impression with reaper, is that the interface feels "clumsy" and not very refined. I have done a lot of programming in the past, and I know there has to have been been a ton of work put into giving Reaper quite a bit of functionality. They actually did a great job, giving you most of the features of the big DAW programs. But, and this is a big BUT, they haven't gotten as far as refining sub menus or slicking up the interface to the point where it has a "pro" feel. By "pro" feel, I mean a user interface that is designed for economy of motion, and speed. Adding a VST effect brings up a weird dialog box, with drill downs and stuff you have to do to get it working. that's just one example that jumped out at me. The difference is like comparing Paint Shop Pro, to Adobe Photoshop. Both have similar functionality, and can accomplish similar things. But there is a world of difference in getting things done with them. Things that add up during the course of a days work.

I really think Reaper could be a really cool, slick, "pro" quality app someday. I just don't think it is right now. For home recorders and hobbyists, I think it is worth a look, and would probably work great. I wouldn't want to deal with that interface on a daily basis, for studio recoridng, though. I am still considering it for remote recording. I don't use VST's or do much other than record tracks in that situation. I just need to find out how involved it would be to get the tracks into cubase. If it is too much trouble, I will probably just get cubase SE or something.

Anyway, I am sure you could record and do almost anything you need to with it. To me it is just worth paying more to have a faster, cleaner interface that is refined and well designed on my daily use DAW. It just makes life easier.
 
Its funny, but the core reaper users see things oppositely. REAPER needs only one mouse tool, while cubendo requires many. To us, the cubendo interface is ridiculously slow and unrefined. It feels like a MIDI sequencer which added audio at a late point in life.
 
pipelineaudio said:
Its funny, but the core reaper users see things oppositely. REAPER needs only one mouse tool, while cubendo requires many. To us, the cubendo interface is ridiculously slow and unrefined. It feels like a MIDI sequencer which added audio at a late point in life.


i agree...i got so used to the one mouse tool in REAPER that i really can't use Cubase anymore without getting really frustrated having to click on all the stupid tools to do different tasks. and calling up plugins isn't really that big of a deal, there's one extra menu, but once you open that up you can select multiple plugins at once and arrange them however you want pretty easily. or you can open the FX menu and call up preset FX chains to start with.
 
pipelineaudio said:
Its funny, but the core reaper users see things oppositely. REAPER needs only one mouse tool, while cubendo requires many. To us, the cubendo interface is ridiculously slow and unrefined. It feels like a MIDI sequencer which added audio at a late point in life.
While I agree entirely that the Steinberg interface is quite clunky, and that while I have not yet tried Reaper, I do regularly use the no-nonsense and fast and easy Vegas interface for my video production and like it, I think this argument kind of misses a point whichever side you're on:

Anyone who uses a mouse to drive there software for anything other than when there is no choice, is wasting a lot of time. Learn the keyboard shortcuts and hot keys and you can mix and edit so much faster, regardless of the interface. Don't take your hands off the keyboard unless/until you have to. This, of course assumes that one's software of choice has a fairly extensive keyboard command list that is not to God-awful convoluted (having to press Shift-Ctrl-Alt-F4 just to hit the record buttin is kinda silly ;) ).

Which brings me to this question:

How are the keyboard commands in Reaper? Extensive? Logical? Standards-compatable at all?

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
While I agree entirely that the Steinberg interface is quite clunky, and that while I have not yet tried Reaper, I do regularly use the no-nonsense and fast and easy Vegas interface for my video production and like it, I think this argument kind of misses a point whichever side you're on:

Anyone who uses a mouse to drive there software for anything other than when there is no choice, is wasting a lot of time. Learn the keyboard shortcuts and hot keys and you can mix and edit so much faster, regardless of the interface. Don't take your hands off the keyboard unless/until you have to. This, of course assumes that one's software of choice has a fairly extensive keyboard command list that is not to God-awful convoluted (having to press Shift-Ctrl-Alt-F4 just to hit the record buttin is kinda silly ;) ).

Which brings me to this question:

How are the keyboard commands in Reaper? Extensive? Logical? Standards-compatable at all?

G.


the keyboard commands in REAPER are pretty damn extensive. there's a huge list of em, although i haven't really gone too deep into using them. i just use some basic shortcuts on the keyboard. from what i understand, you can customize all the keyboard shortcuts too.
 
There are a few main reasons to buy protools:
Clients - For the masses protools is synonymous with high quality recordings, when unknowledgable clients book studios they look for protools, and would probably choose a studio with a delta 44 and mpowered over a studio with cubase and apoggee converters.

Compatibility - Im going to uni this september to do a sound engineering degree, i currently record in cubase sx2 but i will be buying an mbox2 and running protools le... why? because all the digital studiosin the uni will be running protools or logic, so i will be able to use my own pc to do little edits and cleaning up of tracks rather than using my limited time in the main studios.

Work - If you are looking for a job/internship at a recording studio that runs protools they will be much more willing to hire you if you can use it.
 
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