Understanding Reaper

Awie Day

New member
I want to use reaper as my main DAW as it's the cheapest (i think) for a full pledged no bs software you can own today for music production.

The question is - in order for me to understand and master it, do you think it's going to be worth getting the lessons from promixacademy (Adam Steel)?

Anyone here uses reaper? How was your experience? Do you think i'm better off getting another DAW?

Thanks for the answers ?
 
IMO, you should start with the best source for learning as a beginner - Kenny Gioia's videos. You can find them on Reaper's homepage (where you download Reaper), or here :

Reaper Videos – KennyMania When this link opens, scroll to the top where it says Watch These First Reaper 5 Explained and click it. You can follow the course 1-30.

Kenny uses a Mac for his videos so some things won't match up to those at home on a PC. Still easy to follow, though.

If this is your first DAW, go for Reaper. None are as easy as 1, 2, 3.. - there's lots to learn but you only need to learn a little to get your music down. I'm using Reaper but am still in the learning stages. Others here are more qualified to offer responses to more complicated stuff.
 
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I certainly wouldn't spend $100 for an online course about Reaper. There is tons of videos, tutorials, and online resources available for free. Besides Kenny Gioia's videos, you have a full forum on Reaper.FM, plus the folks here on HR.

Even a complete newby can learn the basics with just a bit of practice. I don't think anyone really uses ALL of the capabilities of Reaper. You learn the aspects you need as you go along. If you get stuck and can't figure out a task, a quick Google scan or a message on one of the forums will generally net you an answer in very short order.

I think its more important to first learn the concepts of recording (gain, EQ, compression, effects, etc). Some series like Produce Like A Pro will teach you these concepts which can be translated to most DAWs. Once you understand the ideas, then you just need to find the way it works in your particular software.
 
IMO, you should start with the best source for learning as a beginner - Kenny Gioia's videos. You can find them on Reaper's homepage (where you download Reaper), or here :

Reaper Videos – KennyMania When this link opens, scroll to the top where it says Watch These First Reaper 5 Explained and click it. You can follow the course 1-30.

Kenny uses a Mac for his videos so some things won't match up to those at home on a PC. Still easy to follow, though.

If this is your first DAW, go for Reaper. None are as easy as 1, 2, 3.. - there's lots to learn but you only need to learn a little to get your music down. I'm using Reaper but am still in the learning stages. Others here are more qualified to for responses to more complicated stuff.

i guess i didn't search enough. i hope that mac to pc comparison is not that hard. thank you. i will look into this.
 
I certainly wouldn't spend $100 for an online course about Reaper. There is tons of videos, tutorials, and online resources available for free. Besides Kenny Gioia's videos, you have a full forum on Reaper.FM, plus the folks here on HR.

Even a complete newby can learn the basics with just a bit of practice. I don't think anyone really uses ALL of the capabilities of Reaper. You learn the aspects you need as you go along. If you get stuck and can't figure out a task, a quick Google scan or a message on one of the forums will generally net you an answer in very short order.

i somehow thought about something like this before posting but now i can say that i'm just a tldr/tltr guy lol. but i'll see to it that i check these.

I think its more important to first learn the concepts of recording (gain, EQ, compression, effects, etc).

one of the reasons why i got interested in looking into that $100 lesson but i guess it doesn't really justify that much money when there's a lot of free stuff all over the internet that i can learn from. thanks man - appreaciate the response.
 
i guess i didn't search enough. i hope that mac to pc comparison is not that hard. thank you. i will look into this.

Not hard at all. Most of the differences are in the drop down menu items when he opens a window to change a setting here and there. He uses a lot of computer keyboard strokes so you wont see much of a mouse pointer darting about. He stays right on topic and moves at a reasonable speed.
 
Before I started using Reaper, I read the user manual, skipping over the MIDI and advanced routing sections, as I knew I would not be using them right away. The manual is extensive! For my first year, I often had to refer back to it to find certain features. The forums at Reaper.FM were very useful to answer non-intuitive questions, get some templates and referrals to places for VSTis and IRs for ReaVerb.
 
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