SONAR > REAPER switch.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Atom Bomb
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Atom Bomb

Atom Bomb

Wtf is a PRS
Pondering the idea of switching to Reaper. Maybe?

Has anyone swtiched from Sonar to Reaper?

If so how was the switch? easier? aside from the to be expected learning curve?

Also? Did i read that somewhere the reaper was free? or Free-ish?

I read on the website that the demo or trial was fully functional and if i liked it i paid them a few bucks?

Hows that all work?
 
I switched from Sonar to reaper. It was Sonar 2 though.
Actually I just downloaded reaper to give it a shot and I never used Sonar again.
Learning curve isn't that bad at all. I had a little trouble figuring out how to use softsynths and midi stuff but once I got it it was easy.
Moving projects from sonar to reaper was simple. I just opened Sonar and reaper at the same time and dragged my tracks from sonar into reaper.


Reaper is not free but the demo version is fully functional and never expires it only costs $50 though so if you like it paying for it is the right thing to do.
 
Yea i'll be switching from Sonar 4.

and i don't use softsynths or midi. Well midi yet. Im thinking i may need to if i have ot start programming my own drum tracks. but a discussion for another day.

Anyways. good. I'll keep that in mind.
 
I'm a Sonar convert too. I switched from a, ahem, "borrowed" copy of Producer Edition 6.0 to Reaper 3, dabbled around for the trial period, and bought a liscense a couple days after the 30 days were up.

First, it felt good to "go legit," but the bigger issue for me was that the workflow felt so much more natural to me. Even my dad, who I've recorded stuff with in the past, was surprised at just how much more natural Reaper seemed to work in. I've never looked back - I prefer everything about Reaper.
 
Count me in. I was using Sonar for years and always heard Reaper mentioned. Finally tried it out last Jan. and I never looked back. I had no problems with the switch. :)
 
I have Reaper & love recording with it. I really hadn't ever recorded on my PC, I have a BOSS BR-8, BR-600 and BR-1600 recorders, and my PC wasn't really set up for recording.

But I wanted to learn more about PC recording. My brother sent me a Edirol UA4FX external audio device that came bundled with SONAR LE. My PC was hanging with SONAR, and I read that Reaper used less CPU resources.

I downloaded the fully working demo, and after a few days of learning the recording steps, brought a home use license ($60). There is a learning curve, but the most all the features are very intuitive IMO.

Reaper has RealDrums, which I could never figure out, and the fact of not having drums, or having to drum software kept me from using Reaper on a regular basis. Than I brought a copy of Drumcore ver 2 on closeout from Sam Ash for $79.99. Wow, this made a huge different.

With Drumcore, you simply drag & drop a drum groove right into Reaper.

drumcorecopy.jpg


Than I learnt about DX & VST(i) plugins! I must have over 200 different plugins. Once you download a plugin, and un-zip it, you simply copy the .dll into Reaper's plugin folder. The next time you start Reaper, the plugin will show in the plugin list.

ampfxcopy.jpg


Just a couple of weeks ago I got a M-Audio Axiom 25 MIDI/Controller. The A-25 has transport controls, which mapped to Reaper's transport. The A-25 also works great with all the soft-synth patches I have now.

But the most important feature of Reaper are the free updates, and user support :).
 
thats awesome...

thats what i have been notcing with sonar. My pc hangs and i have alot of drop puts which show up i nmy recordings. usually anything after a min 30 will do weird things.

Basically looking for osmething with a little less CPU usage is great. i may have to give reaper a try i think. its sounding pretty positive.
 
Reaper has a very small footprint on the CPU resources. :)
 
Reaper is so slick and slim, it will run from a USB thumb drive.;) Makes it handy for slow days at work. I can do some post production stuff in my slow times at work.
 
I've used Reaper since the first version came out a couple of years ago. I learned to record and mix on a computer with Reaper so I have no advice on the switch from Sonar.

It's a monster of a program and well worth the fifty bucks. I think my copy cost $40 2 years ago and I've been able to upgrade to the newest version about 20 times without having to pay. The support is phenomenal compared to other software programs.

Try it for 30 days. You'll know whether you want to buy it well before the 30 days is up. The download is only 4 megabytes.

p.s. it uses hardly any CPU power. I have an 8 track demo idea opened up right now with multiple plug ins on each channel and it's using around 6% CPU power and hardly any RAM.
 
Ahh yes. plug ins. I should have asked about that.

Sonar has some 'plug ins' that comes with it like some eq reverebs and compressions and stuff like that. I guess kind of industry standard kinda crap.

Does the initial download of reaper come with its 'stock' parts?

Or is it something i accumulate for myself?


4mb? wtf?
 
havent you downloaded it yet?

give it a shot...you've got nothing to lose :)
 
Atom Bomb said:
Ahh yes. plug ins. I should have asked about that.

Sonar has some 'plug ins' that comes with it like some eq reverebs and compressions and stuff like that. I guess kind of industry standard kinda crap.

Does the initial download of reaper come with its 'stock' parts?

Or is it something i accumulate for myself?


4mb? wtf?
Click to expand...

Have a look at this :)
http://www.reaper.fm/technical.php

I would say they're just as good as (if not better than) the "other daw's" included plugins. The only thing REAPER doesn't include are virtual instruments, other than ReaSynth and ReaSynDR.

You can even write your own plugins right inside the program!


I think you should try it out. It doesn't install anything nasty on your system and as mentioned, it's only 4MB! :D


*edit*
I forgot to mention that I'm an ex-SONAR guy myself ;)
 
Last edited:
kcearl said:
havent you downloaded it yet?

give it a shot...you've got nothing to lose :)
Click to expand...

I havent had a chance at home yet. I have been putting in alot of time at my work lately and the last thing iwanna doat the end of those days is look at a computer screen. plus little brothers hardwood floors.

My me time is limited lately.

:mad:

but tonight is the night.
 
Ok downloaded and installed.

Tinkered with it for about an hour. Seems sleek. It looks nice. very small footprint which is exciting. I liked that it picked up all my plugins from Sonar. some of them are nice. Anyways

Downloaded the 400 page god dam manual. Will peruse at random. Not so exciting.

Wil post more later.
 
Cool. Enjoy it. :D

More so than reading the manual, though, just go play with it. The thing that impressed me the most was just how smooth the workflow feels.
 
Reaper is awesome. I had both sonar and Reaper demo'ed for me by my cousin who does some recording and found Reaper easier to understand. Overall, it just made more sense. Now after I am using it, I see it winning a shoot out with PT in some aspects. It is such a great program and constantly updating.
 
SO i spent a few good hours with this on the weekend.

So far I'm in love.

Far more responsive then sonar, like if the audio is playing and i move a fader i pan something mute a track etc, its all instanteous. I really like this. With sonar there was up to a 10 second delay if i was doing any of that.

The file organziation is much easier to follow, although i wish that when i change the name of a take it would change it in the project directory.

So far so good though. I'm impressed.
 
I started with 4 track cassette in 1985. In 88 I bought an Atari 1040 with a whopping 4MB of ram! Then added on 1/2 inch reel to reel and was "home mastering" to hi-fi vhs and to mini disk. Couldn't afford new heads so I bought a Tascam 2488 maybe 5-6 years ago, cant even remember it. Got persuaded to try computer recording, and bought into the extremely intuitive and idiot-friendly flow of Mackie Tracktion 2 and 3. Then support from Mackie dried up and disappeared almost overnight without one word from Mackie. Extremely rude of them if you ask me, so I sold that and sold all hardware things named Mackie I had in the house. Got rid of all things Alesis, too, while I was at it. In fact, I emptied out a 7 foot rack and sold a 24 channel mixer. The computer does all of that and more, and does it better.

That's when I built a new Core 2 Duo computer and bought Sonar Producer 7 not quite 2 years ago. Once I got the completely unintuitive hang of it, I thought it was pretty cool, even if I did get cpu spikes and drop outs every time I pounded out 10-finger avant garde chords and riffs on Pianoteq. It felt like an old 69 Continental.....heavy, comfortable, cushiony, but no spunk around tight corners. Then once I got the notice to buy my "annual upgrade" for almost $200 bucks, I quit thinking it was cool. When I found out that Roland had taken over Cakewalk, I was ready to find the back door and get out running. It's obvious now that Roland wants to use upgrades to milk me for every bloody dime, even though 80% of it includes features I will never use.

Then I remembered some mentions on the forums about Reaper. Downloaded the demo about 2 weeks ago. I have not recorded or mixed anything in Sonar since. I just bought the license last night, and tonight I start figuring out how to migrate my existing stuff from Sonar to Reaper. By the end of spring Sonar will be "The Ghost of DAWs Past" in my house. I'm on board and ready to support Reaper until I cant pick up my guitar any more! Does all the bread and butter stuff I will ever use to make my songs, and doesn't flinch or blink at all.
 
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