I think that's the point Foxy is making.
I don't use Reaper but I listen to lots of peoples' music that is recorded using it and I can't, on that basis, say that it's anything other than excellent. I am curious though, if people would still have it as their DAW of choice if it was priced like all the other DAWs. Or to put it another way, other than price being a factor, does it rate higher or as high as other DAWs ?
That's not designed to be controversial or argumentative, I'm genuinely curious and I thought Jake's article was good.
I started into this recording caper using Logic. I found my way around Logic and was mightily impressed by what it could do, specially its MIDI capability. I was shown Reaper three or four years ago, and it looked pretty interesting, but I wasn't motivated to move from Logic.
But then I started a recording project with a friend which involved sharing files and projects. We decided that we would do this in Reaper (because we both had it, whereas he didn't have Logic). This forced me up the learning curve fairly rapidly (though with much grumbling and complaining on my part).
Having become familiar with Reaper (which, in reality, was not too daunting because it shares many characteristics in its operation with Vegas which I use for video stuff), I would not look back. It is an immensely powerful and flexible program. Its capacity for manipulating audio is way beyond what I can do with my version of Logic (5.1 on XP).
I've got some projects that I started on Logic, and I shudder whenever I have to unearth them. Sometimes I use Rearoute to port them into Reaper, which I would now much prefer to use.
However, I still think Logic's midi capability is superior to Reaper's, and I will use Logic for complex midi pieces, specially when I need to score something.
If it was priced similarly to other software would I buy it? Probably yes. I was prepared to pay the full licence for Reaper, till I discovered the hobbyist price (which is really what I am).
