Reaper learning curve?

joey2000

joey2000

New member
I"m reading very mixed opinions on how hard this thing is to get up to speed on. I'm a beginner and frankly not interested in something that will take a long time in that regard, and what I want to do won't be anything fancy anyway (just me and a keyboard and not into a lot of effects/etc...just a little enhancement to improve as required).

Those who have used, esp if you've used others, how hard do you feel it is/isn't for a beginner to pick up?
 
I don't think its any harder than any other full-featured DAW. If you're not up to the technical challenge of a full-feature DAW, try Audacity or use a stand-alone recorder like a Zoom or Tascam.

I read most of the reaper manual before diving into the DAW itself and was up and running in no time at all. There's plenty of stuff that can be skipped in the manual when starting out, like MIDI implemetation and advanced routing.
 
It works perfectly fine and easy as a "tape recorder" and "mixing board" without having to worry about any of the other stuff. There's all kinds of depth and power waiting there for when your attention span and ambitions combine to make you try some more advanced stuff, but it's really pretty simple to just get up and going.

It comes with some great - if not particularly pretty - effects, but not a lot (like almost nothing) in the way of actual instruments. Those are everywhere and some really good ones are completely free, and Reaper will host most of them just fine.
 
joey2000 said:
I'm a beginner and frankly not interested in something that will take a long time in that regard,
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Driving car, baking a cake, playing golf . . . every human activity has a learning curve, and proficiency requires practice, skill and experience. You cannot avoid it, so you need to accept that you will have to put effort into it.

If you are "not interested in something that will take a long time", just get a Zoom, hit record and you are done.

However, Reaper, n my view, is probably easier than other DAWs. It is forth investing time and effort into it.
 
If you can navigate your way around other software programmes, Reaper really isn't much different and not at all difficult to use. The interface is pretty user friendly and intuitive. Anything you don't understand or can't figure out is so easy to look up as it has an excellent help manual.

I still don't even know what half of the stuff is for, but it doesn't make what I want to do any more complicated than it needs to be. The upside of using software that is more intelligent and powerful than me, is that I have never once had a time where it can't do what I want it to. :)

I think any time you invest in learning to use Reaper will be worth your while.
 
It's too complicated for you. Get a 4 track cassette recorder and save yourself the bother of learning.
 
the winamp daw crashed like a bastard for me (lol but so does winamp)... worked ok for basic stuff but anything more advanced it died ...


will try it again one day
 
actually thinking about it maybe you better off using studio one ... its pretty rock solid and is hellishly easy to use :)
 
Reaper is easy to use.
It is as easy to use as my 4 track cassette porta studio.
Easier to use than my Zoom R16
Easier to use than my Roland Disc-Lab CD1
Easier to use than Cakewalk Pro-Audio 9.3 (that I used for 10 years before Reaper).
I downloaded it.
Recorded a complete song.
Paid for it
Bought the manual ($30)
Use the manual rarely as it's quite "intuitive" once I had the basics sorted.
It took you a while to get off your pposterior and crawl, took even longer before you could wallk but I'm sure you'd agree that it was time well spent learning the basics of perambulation.
 
cakewalkKaKed said:
the winamp daw crashed like a bastard for me (lol but so does winamp)... worked ok for basic stuff but anything more advanced it died ...


will try it again one day
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If winamp crashes, then you maybe need to look at your computer. Winamp is normally rock solid.
 
joey2000 said:
(just me and a keyboard and not into a lot of effects/etc...just a little enhancement to improve as required).
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What kind of keyboard do you mean? There aren't any virtual instruments in Reaper. (and probably not in any other DAW either)

I've been fooling with Reaper for about 6 weeks now. Have taken a few passes at doing drums but have yet to get more than one thump in a row other than playing an example from a book. It's like learning two instruments plus doing a computer-101 course at the same time. (I'd have similar issues with any DAW)
 
Many DAWs do include instruments and effects. Ableton has a whole library full of instruments, effects, sound generators, samplers, but you pay for that "extra" (a lot). Reaper gives the basics and pretty much lets you "custom" build your effects and instrument racks. Which is the nice thing about Reaper.
 
I think Reaper is as easy to use, or easier, than any fully functional DAW (as others have said). I found others I've tried (not going to name names) to be more difficult to figure out personally.

It's free to try (and cheap to buy) so I suggest you download it and see how it works for you.
 
I've worked with Sonar predecessors and Reason. Reaper was as easy as either. I figured out how to use Steven Slate Drums in Reaper in one afternoon (including set-up, tracking, midi editing, midi import, rendering, etc.) and that included time to learn how to deal with SSD. Took less than an hour to import stereo audio and run mastering plugs across the master bus.

If you've got no education on any other DAW, you should work with it. If you have a little, it might even make it easier. Download the trial. Spend an afternoon figuring how to create, arm and record a track. Make a few and see how easy it is to mix and add effects to the tracks/bus the tracks and add effects to the bus. I think you'll be fine.

BTW, I still don't use Reaper as my primary DAW, and I think it's easy.
 
arcaxis said:
Basic recording and functionality with Reaper is fairly straight forward. The problem I have is that I may want to perform a particular function or edit and the means to do it may not obvious or intuitive. As one example I was recording some tracks the other night and managed to do multiple takes on the same track that resulted in bits and pieces of recorded audio in several "lanes" of the track. I thought I could simply select/highlight either the lane or snippets of audio to directly delete them, but found this not to be the case (or if it can be done I haven't figured out how easily). I spent a bit of time searching Google and the Cocko's forum trying to find how to "delete/remove" the lanes. I did finally figure out how to remove the lanes, but it was using a function called "crop to active take", not a remove or delete action as I thought it might be and searched for. It's this kind of stuff I get hung up on that takes time to figure out.
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I've had issues with the takes/lanes at times, too, usually when I have more than 3 takes on a track. I only use them when doing a 'punch-in' kind of track, where I f*ck something up and want to re-do it right away. Otherwise I just arm a new track and do the whole thing again.
 
Most DAW software is complex. But it has to be that way to support a complex undertaking.
 
Got some drums going tonight.

It was the Computer 101 crap in the way. User Manual written for XP (obsolete), Win 7 file structure defaults to hiding files - Reaper installs files that are mostly hidden, Win 7 hides file type extensions so it shows samples as "Tom.wav" when, in fact, the damn thing is actually "Tom.wav.repeaks" - a file type that Windows doesn't support.

Yes, I'm the last one to know.
 
Ronbert said:
Got some drums going tonight.

It was the Computer 101 crap in the way. User Manual written for XP (obsolete), Win 7 file structure defaults to hiding files - Reaper installs files that are mostly hidden, Win 7 hides file type extensions so it shows samples as "Tom.wav" when, in fact, the damn thing is actually "Tom.wav.repeaks" - a file type that Windows doesn't support.

Yes, I'm the last one to know.
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Reaper saves the audio as a .wav file. The repeak file is something that Reaper uses internally. You might want to check your project settings to see where it's actually storing the recorded audio, because if the only files you're seeing are .repeak files, then something is configured incorrectly.

But once the file is recorded, you have ample access to it in the main track view of Reaper. There isn't a whole lot of reason to locate it on the disk, other than to ensure that your project settings are correct and it's recording in the location that you specified.
 
Ronbert said:
Got some drums going tonight.

It was the Computer 101 crap in the way. User Manual written for XP (obsolete), Win 7 file structure defaults to hiding files - Reaper installs files that are mostly hidden, Win 7 hides file type extensions so it shows samples as "Tom.wav" when, in fact, the damn thing is actually "Tom.wav.repeaks" - a file type that Windows doesn't support.

Yes, I'm the last one to know.
Click to expand...

If file extensions are hidden, then it gets confusing, because what looks like a WAV file is really a repeaks file, as you've noted. However, you can go to the control panel and in folder options, change this so that file extensions become visible.

When Reaper saves files, it saves both peak files and WAV file3s to the same place. Now is a good time to sort out your workflow, i.e. create a new folder for each song you start, and make sure all the files for that project get saved there. Fortunately, Reaper makes this easy: when you do a 'save project as', there are tick boxes for creating a new folder and copying (or moving) files into that folder. There should be no need for you to have to go searching for files. When you open the project, the right files will be there.
 
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