Is Reaper Good for Electronic Music Production?

[@hazelbenton9634]

Some other Reaper tips/features I think are super helpful: In the upper right corner of the plugin window, there's a tiny knob--that's a universal dry/wet knob. Reaper can do basic buss processing on any plugin really quick If you like the series of plugins on a track/set of tracks, you can select the track(s) and right click->save as template. This can even include automation, which would include lfos assigned to automation lanes. In automation lanes, you can altclick+drag to create clips of automation that you can move around or copy/paste like media items. If they're the same length as a media item above, by default (I think) they'll move with that item and come along for the ride when you cut or copy that item. Ctrl+click lets you free hand draw in either automation lanes or the midi cc lanes inside the piano roll. In the piano roll, select notes, then press Q will bring up the quantize menu. Pressing H on selected notes will bring up the humanize menu, a reverse quantize that's super useful for sample instruments like Spitfire audio Labs. Pressing T on selected notes brings up the transpose menu for quickly shifting down and octave or up a fifth or whatever. Pressing S on the main timeline will split items at the playhead. In piano roll, it will split midi notes at the playhead. If you go to the actions menu at the top, then show actions (in the main window or piano roll) you can see every single action you can keybind. It's a lot. I have a keybind to "split midi items to grid" in the piano roll, which makes it super easy to make stutterery elektron-esque retriggers. One feature other DAWs have I wishe reaper has was probability for midi notes. The way around that I've found is by using Stochas, a free midi sequencer plugin by the same folks who made Surge. Reaper's the DAW I moved to after having confirmed with garagesband I wanted to make music with a DAW and it's been working out great the past couple years

[@eliteextremophile8895]

It's a bit misleading to call Reaper "budget DAW". It sure is cheap, but that's only because the devs are good people and their original goal was just to make producing accessible to wider audiences. Reaper is easily the most advanced DAW in the world.

[@m-stat9]

Ok, fanboy.

[@rorz999]

Most advanced? Lol no way

[@justjoshp8581]

@@rorz999 its definitely up there if not the most advanced its not like daws like fl where everything is layed out super simple for new producers

[@amusik7]

Not the most advanced for sure - not even close when you actually look at what DAWs like Cubase or Studio One can do. These systems come packed with super advanced midi tools, audio manipulation and pitch correction, etc. But what is true is that Reaper is the best DAW for a lot of users simply because it excels at the basic functions that are required from a daw: stability, easy and intuitive routing, editing, mixing and extending of functionality when you need it. After 15 years of testing every DAW under the sun I find that Reaper is the one that helps you get more work done because it doesn’t crash all the time and it keeps the workflow simple without complications. It has happened to me dozens of times with Cubase and Studio One that I finish a song but I actually can’t export it because of glitches and bugs - never had a single issue with Reaper. And that’s the reason why I stick with it - it doesn’t fail me at the critical moment. It’s like ProTools but with decent midi editing and VST3 support :)

[@AUDIODOMAIN]

@@amusik7 give some example that reaper dont but others💪 its not challenge, just i want to research..

[@CrescentRollCarl]

Reaper is amazing. I do voice-over, audiobooks, edit podcasts, and have produced dozens of music tracks with it. It's A+ software and the best value in the industry.

[@styzr]

I have used Reaper for electronic music for a long time. I have been a long time user of FL studio , Sonar and recently Ableton Live (because my clients send me projets in Live). What I don't like: 1. Folders don't behave as VCA automatically like in Ableton Live. 2. Does not have a drum rack like the one in Live and handling grooves is not as straight forward. 3. Looks pretty utilitarian. What I like: CPU efficiency, absurd flexibility, routing, lightweight, price, customization, automation clips, MIDI ghosting, SCRIPTS!, Rendering, supports video... Actually after using them all extensively, I find it is way easier to make electronic music on reaper than in FL or Live.

[@kinetic-cybernetic]

Great intro to Reaper! Last weekend I had an emergency needing to record a track and Ableton UX installation failing miserably. Reaper came to the rescue.

[@MS-1]

Reaper is the best DAW period. (It's the most customizable, recognizes all plugins, and uses the least system resources. I have tried them all). All those late to the party keep sleeping lol. (Find the connection to the creator of the legendary Winamp for you younger heads unlike myself and, you will realize just how dope Reaper truly is).

[@eliteextremophile8895]

Reaper truly is the most advanced DAW in the world and by a long shot. With little tweaking you can make it work and look exactly like any other DAW and you don't have to restrain it with the restrictions that are prominent to those other DAWs. Crazy part is, cause it's also portable and so small, you can have as many customized instances of Reaper as you want. What you want the functionality and UI of ProTools but you do mastering in Reaper? No worries, you can have both at the same time and even route the two instances to work together. There's no limits to how you can use Reaper.

[@m-stat9]

Just because you say "period" it doesn't make it "the best DAW". Idiotic fanboy.

[@MS-1]

​@@jasoncruizer it's not the Daw, it's the analog chain tracks are run through lol. Protocols and every other daw are nothing without it and, plug-ins sound like digital do doo. Protools crashes more than an old person on a hover round in a supermarket stuck in aisle 4 looking for cat food. It`s a trash ass daw lol.

[@toddd.8496]

I found an all-in-one computer in a thrift store that was only $20. I think they thought it was just a monitor. I added some ram and a SSD. For about $100 I had a windows 10 machine that I could dedicate to learning how to make digital music. I tried Pro Tools trial... after downloading the (what I now consider bloatware) it took nearly 3 minutes to Open! Maybe this thrift store machined won't cut it after all I thought?! Let me try something else... Installed REAPER (which is all caps by the way) and it opened in less than 10 seconds. Licensed it over 2 years ago for $60 and it's still kicking some serious butt installed on an old Intel Core i3. REAPER IS THE BEST for electronic music production because the code is mean, clean and super light on resources! It's included plug-ins are as good as most paid plug-ins and there are literally hundreds of hours of free education by top notch talent. You can't beat it for value, functionality or flexibility!

[@tacarson]

Not sure if this was mentioned already but the automation is even easier than that. Just touch a parameter then click the param button in the FX window. From there click "show track envelope" and the last touched parameter will show up on your transport. No need to open the scary looking envelopes window.

[@lyraG]

You have no idea how many hours you just saved me!! Thanks for the tip

[@aurisbunni]

i am so glad many people are giving reaper a lot of chances nowadays, i personally find it suitable for me, coming from someone who haven't tried using daws that much as standard as ableton or fl. also this is a excellent video, gabe. i might even use this for future reference whenever i do something in reaper. and also thank you for suggesting sitala.

[@SkyWolfZero]

Licensed Reaper user here 😂 It is just sooo flexible! I’ve been using it for years, and have no intention of changing to something else anytime soon. Nice to see Reaper getting some love

[@paradoxic1888]

Before I could afford Bitwig, I actually did a lot of messing around in Reaper. It really is a great DAW,. Loved it and actually preferred it over Studio One. It even supports ARA which I do miss alot having switched to Bitwig. Unfortunately it lacked scene launchers and automating was a bit of a hassle. Other than that it allowed me to perfect and streamline my workflow so I could quickly get results. My favorite theme was Hydra. It is possible to make any EDM track in Reaper, but you will need some good plugins. Some of the best are free such as Surge XT and Vital. Don't let anyone tell you not to do EDM in Reaper.

[@adrianpaul3749]

if you want, soon enough there will be a new version of the Playtime plugin, a clip launcher especially made for reaper. It's called Playtime 2

[@analogique8069]

Long story short, I used to have a trial license to Ableton when I was doing my first year diploma in Music Production which only lasted for the first year of my course, after that trial ended I was looking for a free to use DAW for Electronic music production. Reaper has been my go to DAW since then and really like how versatile this DAW can be. So thanks Gabe for showing Reapers capabilities into Electronic music; great video! 😃

[@philippeedwards5813]

I use Reaper and Ableton. What I love about Reaper that's lacking in Ableton is the dynamic splits and items/clips export options that make it so easy when you are making one shot sample packs. I've been working in video game sound design and these options can save you litteraly hours of work with 2 or 3 clicks. I've also found a nicer and smoother workflow for mixing so essentially I make the beats on Ableton but I mix them on Reaper.

[@saxmidiman]

Intense tagging system also, I am sure you make use of!😁😎

[@davidpereira4455]

Oh yeah i feel you! Same workflow here 👍🫡

[@bed7610]

Do you know the producer Tristam? He went from FL to Ableton to cubase and now Reaper. He created scripts, for example one that replicates the duplicate function from Ableton, as well as many more to make his Reaper extra efficient for EDM. If you listen to his album WLUWD you'll hear that making EDM/pop in Reaper can be very high quality.

[@GabeMillerMusic]

Yeah I've listened to a good bit of Tristam! That's awesome.

[@d3maccus]

YO GABE, I just want to say your REAPER stuff is absolutely fantastic. I like your groove box stuff, but your REAPER demos are by far the best I have ever seen, and I know you did an "ultimate guide" but please do more if you have anything you think is useful to share,

[@eyeball226]

I've loved Reaper for probably nearly a decade now. Coming from Cubase and Protools at the time, Reaper was a revelation.

[@MystickPhoenix]

Thank you for this great/quick overview of Reaper. I've bounced around a few DAW's trying to figure out which one to get started with and I think what I'm looking for is "simple". Given what you've shown, I think Reaper fits the bill for me just starting out. Thanks again!

[@BeastlyAnteater]

Ableton

[@ToyKeeper]

It's not particularly simple as far as DAWs go. The main word I'd use for it is "deep". Many of the basics are reasonably straightforward, and it has a nice help reference built in for learning hotkeys and such... but it generally requires a lot of customization to suit each user, especially at first, because the default config is not what people usually want. However, it's awesome for power users, because the depth of customization allowed is virtually bottomless. You can use it to basically build your own personal DAW if you want. And it's quick and lightweight and solid and cheap and works on almost any platform. So... it's pretty nice. But I eventually ended up switching to something else, for two reasons: 1. I didn't really want a computer at the core of my music-making process. Too many complications, and mouse+keyboard aren't really designed to be used as musical instruments. 2. I wanted an Ableton-style workflow where most of the process involves recording a grid of clips into a live-friendly session, and arranging it on a timeline comes only near the end of the process. Reaper doesn't have a session view though; only a timeline. What I typically see people do is the method Gabe uses: Build the core of each song using hardware, then export each part into a DAW and arrange the parts onto a timeline to finish the song. This fixes both of the above issues, but makes music a 2-stage process -- a hardware session to generate and record ideas, and then a software session to turn those ideas into a finished piece.

[@auroranamex5886]

@@ToyKeeper , hey, check Playtime out. A commercial session view reaper script.

[@ToyKeeper]

@@auroranamex5886 Thanks, but Playtime doesn't run on my OS, and I found a different solution. I switched to an Akai Force, and am really happy with it. It's basically a streamlined version of Ableton in standalone hardware form, plus the best parts of MPC, and it runs Linux so it's easy to integrate with my other devices and run custom stuff on it. So I finally have the workflow I want, and I don't need to use a computer to finish songs. Reaper is definitely a great option though, for anyone looking for a DAW. It's just not the one I personally settled on.

[@couchcamperTM]

the only bad thing about reaper is: there's so many tutorials for ableton.

[@BendApparatus]

Badoom TISH!

[@apoplexiamusic]

Ahem… Reaper Blog

[@GabeMillerMusic]

Haha it works out though, since a lot of the general production stuff done in Ableton can be done in any DAW

[@kassemir]

Well, yes and no. I feel like a lot of tutorials for Reaper are a little more general, in terms of topic. And there are in some ways too many tutorials, not organized that well. So, it might be a little more work searching for the right one. But, there are lots of good resources for Reaper if you put in a little effort.

[@mudi2000a]

For Reaper you have Kenny Gioia! (ReaperMania Channel)

[@aklosabbaothofficial]

Of course it is, I mostly compose orchestral, Black and Thrash Metal music, but also Electronic and I found Reaper outstanding and highly customizable for compose Electronic music and most genres. Also there's a paid script that emulate the scenes Mode of Ableton Live, so cool!

[@ToyKeeper]

I wonder how people get the idea that Reaper isn't good for electronic music. It's one of the most powerful DAWs ever made. Of _course_ it's good for electronic music. It wouldn't be a very good DAW otherwise.

[@Liitaro]

after a 5 year relationship with Ableton and constant cheating on her with audacity, I finally decided to break it off after I discovered Reaper and it's amazing customizability and common sense.

[@neloradio]

You speak fast for my poor English BUT, I like the way you explain and how humble you are, even being so good at this job. Congratulations. I wonna learn music production. Keep it up.

[@GabeMillerMusic]

Yeah sorry I know I tend to go pretty quick. Hopefully the videos are still easy enough to follow, especially if you slow them down a bit. Glad they've been helpful so far!

[@thedolv]

My favourite thing about Reaper (in addition to its amazing capabilities in a studio production setting) is that I can essentially use it instead of a mixer in smaller live settings. Laptop, soundcard and Reaper. Plug soundcard into speakers, do live listening in Reaper and you've got a powerful digital mixer. So far I've had no latency issues doing this through Reaper. Although I haven't gone overboard with the FX either. But can easily run a few channels with all the essential plugins without my almost 9 year old Mac Book Pro running into problems. Can't say the same for other DAWs I've tested this technique in. And if you wanna look cool while doing it, you could just add some MIDI fader controls 😂

About automation, reaper also has automation clips that you can copy, move, link... like a midi clip

[@MeerkatMuzic]

Neat that Scaler 2 works through the chain. Only Logic I know does that without routing.

[@bash-man2360]

Thanks for the video. I'm researching different DAWs and this is quite helpful.

[@dunndunna274]

What did u decide on and how user friendly is it for the beginner??

[@morizanova]

I`m still learning and keep back and forth between Ableton and Reaper before commit to make jump entirely in Reaper which I`ve found pretty powerful in term of my specific workflow and I kinda like it !! . Those effort mostly about creating custom layout to suit my need , assign as much as possible shortcut key to be identical with what I've used in Ableton and drop several important tools and actions in my custom toolbar . Hope the customization will be finished soon

[@TazzSmk]

aand coolest thing about Reaper is, if you wanna make music videos or animations, you can throw in videos into Reaper, and automate video FX just like audio and synths, or even clone plugin automations to serve as video automations, wild shit to do :D

[@CFox.7]

any chance you can explain how to do some of these examples from this clip ? Especially the first clip "7 advanced ABLETON TIPS in 400 seconds"

[@locutz]

its good for everything actually i was quite surprised

[@aaronnaylermusic]

Great video Gabe!

[@trippypages7309]

btw.... less bugs is enough to say is great for whatever the music is.... but i got your points... thanks

[@joegrant413]

60 bucks for a rock solid fast loading, highly reliable, fully featured DAW is in my opinion a no-brainer to have around.

[@_P_M_]

I left Reason for Reaper when I switched to a Linux OS. I miss the Reason rack but as a DAW Reaper has been awesome. Plus Justin Frankel was the guy behind Winamp and Gnutella, so I like the homegrown DIY approach to his work. I'd like to see comparisons to Bitwig or Live. I know Reaper can have similar functionality.

[@DNGMaestro]

What do you prefer in Reaper over Reason?

[@_P_M_]

@@DNGMaestro As a DAW, Reaper is far better than Reason. Reason was always a clunky DAW. Reaper is much easier to work with imho. The Reason Rack, however is very cool. It works like real hardware and you can turn the rack around and patch cables between everything just like it's modular. It's VERY flexible that way. But Reaper is $60.00 and with so many cheap or free VST instruments (Odin, for example is basically a Thor, and it's free) + the insane amounts of JS effects that Reaper comes with I don't really feel like I'm making many compromises. Also, I think Propellerheads took a major stumble when they adopted VST's into Reason. They were fine with what they had. They should've made the Reason Rack available as a VST for other DAW's and left it at that. I don't know if the company will survive this.

[@DNGMaestro]

@@_P_M_ Do you feel the sequencer in Reaper is better? Why specifically do you say it's easier to use?

[@dottokuya]

@@_P_M_ FWIW Reason Rack as VST is available now, and you can use it in Linux with yabridge

[@digitalsketchguy7844]

Don't forget, it's so lightweight & cpu friendly. It's stable, works well with all plugins, and it's automation & customization heaven. Sadly newbies are attracted to marketing hype & shiny colorful things. Reaper is a bit of a Cinderella.

[@DopamineOverload]

REAPER!!! Sweet vid, Gabe.

[@TheOrphicCreative]

Just for the record, since you mentioned it - you can do the whole adding tracks to folders and manipulating effects on individual drum sounds in Logic too these days 🙂

[@bistrobmusic]

I don't mind that reaper has basic plugins... that's why I have Komplete Ultimate

[@BIG1TOWER]

Reaper is a solid DAW

[@digitalnintendo]

Wow your awesome. Thank you

[@philippruizlozano]

I remember my grandma saying "Nothing is free in this life hun. Everything has a price". Reaper customization is THE nightmare, but, it's really really powerful and costs only $60 to this date, you could even have it for free forever. Ableton, which I learnt 6 years ago, results more easy to use for me, but its license price is Spain without the S. So...

[@allroads8978]

I say this with the utmost respect reaper is the " Super Freak " of daws ( it will do anything with anybody and never says no ) I test out things on it to see if I can do it in Ableton or Mpc software it always finds my vsts you can even edit video on it

[@beatprocess]

sitala is dope

[@ewock1878]

Thank you !!!! ❤️❤️❤️

[@laweffect]

Great video. Time to take Reaper to the next level 👍

[@ephraimwarrior6766]

sick i did not know y can Layer like that can y with samples also

[@simonkormendy849]

I just got the latest Reaper update, v6.56

[@NoxBoxdy]

You showed me a new plug in. And its free!. :-D 🙌

[@SaintKines]

It's free until you decide to pay. REAPER was the first company I actually wanted to pay because they are so good and cool about what and how they charge. If you use REAPER to make songs you should pay them when you easily can.

[@NoxBoxdy]

Was talking about the vital plugin. They allow donations. Yes, Reaper is good, I bought Reaper 5 years ago. Is only 50 and worth every penny.

[@SaintKines]

@@NoxBoxdy ah, my bad.

[@NoxBoxdy]

Reaper is DAW. I only use DAWs to record but mostly dawless here. Rely mostly on hardware sequencers and mpc live 2 to hold midi data and audio. Which mpc is basically a daw in a box. I highly recommend Reaper for anyone however for sure. :-)

[@NoxBoxdy]

@@SaintKines all good. I pay for what I use. Stay off computer as much as possible. Btw Our software is free for a while. ;-) lol

[@Lefoxtrott]

Lfo on all the things!

[@aspirativemusicproduction2135]

People are really existed over Reaper. I have been FL Studio user sinse version 7. I did try Reaper but didn't get into it. I am curious what benefits may someone who uses FL Studio, Ableton or Cubase for example find in Reaper to prompt them to switch DAW? Would they really save time, money, effort using Reaper?

[@DJPhantomRage]

I like reaper I just wish there was more available stuff for Linux.

[@daviHuggMonster]

Reaper is amazing :)

[@cescu2]

Is there any option to improve the UI for the forms? on windows 10 they look really distracting, thank you Microsoft!

[@Amialythis]

I use lmms for basic beat making and mixcraft for effects and putting clips together. It's a system that works well for me but it would probably be weird for the average person.

[@GabeMillerMusic]

If it works, it works! Mixcraft is the first DAW I ever used, I should revisit it at some point.

[@kedskies]

Lmms was my first DAW too...has so many memories with it...switched to reaper since I needed more flexibility to my works and reaper is a champ in it

[@Amialythis]

@@kedskies I didn't know reaper was a thing until I was working with 2 seperate daws and switching now would be weird but reaper does look really cool.

[@Dieterbe]

How does this compare to waveform daw?

[@mdue72]

The flexibility throws people off, it's a tough daw for a beginner

[@fredbarnes196]

Session view and easier MIDI looping / editing makes ableton preferable for edm

[@TeddyBullard]

Nope. Have both. Reaper better

[@rano12321]

the whole time I've used ableton before moving to reaper, i've never touched the session view lol

[@fredbarnes196]

@@rano12321 Well if you’ve never used it, it must have no value lol

[@rano12321]

@@fredbarnes196 you can get session view in reaper as well with playtime. not something I use but there's a option for reaper.

[@deliveraz9184]

I am making EDM in Reaper for years. Only thing it lacks is some instrument and FX plugins. The stock ones are not that great. Especially reasynth.

[@trippypages7309]

👍👍🏻👍🏼👍🏽👍🏾👍🏿

[@egxrkin]

its not cheap by any means: you invest a lot of time to accustom it to your needs, and if you are into sound design - you will get nvk scripts and some other ones and they cost quite a bit, but its all totally blows every single other daw light years behind, because you can’t do this many things there ever.

[@apoplexiamusic]

I’m getting into Reaper at the moment, after using Ableton exclusively for about 12 years. There’s a bit of a learning curve but at least there are plenty of tutorials here on KZbin. The only thing that bothers me is that the sidechain function doesn’t always work for me and I’m still trying to figure out why. Otherwise it’s kinda intuitive for a lot of things and gives you a lot more control over many things than Ableton does. It’s also much more CPU efficient

[@apoplexiamusic]

@@rano12321 yes indeed. But often it doesn’t work in my projects. Maybe because i am using a drum sampler with multi channel outputs with all the different drums going to their own channels?

[@shoosh6256]

how to play samples chromatically on midi keys

[@SketchUPDCFurniture]

Bitwig best for Electronic Music Production!

[@flickeringscreens]

Rip to free sitala

[@GabeMillerMusic]

Dang. That's unfortunate but very understandable

[@deepsoundpromo]

Speedrum by Apisonic Labs way more better than Sitala, try it

[@proximityclockworkx1572]

Yeah, my Reaper straight up crashes when I try to open Vital....

[@SaintKines]

You should check Vital in another DAW. I realize this is a month old but I wanted to post it for anyone else. 99.9% of the time when you have a problem with a VST it is the VST. Reaper is known for its frequent updates and handling VSTs that even the DAWS have problems with.

[@azvil9837]

Maybe you've low end PC or increase The block size in reaper

[@RMthedude]

Reaper is THE DAW, you can simply do whatever you want, even edit videos... Yes, videos... So dude, if you're looking for an investment, buy Reaper instead of expensive softwares that will limitate your creativity and charge you a little bit more to unlock simple features you can have for free in Reaper... Yes, reaper is ugly at first sight, but that's simply because you can modify all the layout so it looks the way fits better for you, you create the shortcuts, insert scripts... What i'm trying to say is, value your money and buy a software with a good philosophy instead of a software with a exploratory philosophy. I used to be an Ableton Guy but since i understood Reaper and did my very own DAW inside of it, i don't see myself going back to Ableton... I have Ableton 2 or Reaperton in Reaper now hahahahahah.

[@mugatu8732]

its cool when you come from pro tools or logic etc.. but everything you mentioned is just a few clicks less in Bitwig.

[@partlysimpson5154]

u can shortcut everything in reaper, I never focused with reaper so much, its like programming it rather then making music

[@mugatu8732]

@@ranajoyshil ? I mix and master in bitwig and cubase and I could completely stay with bitwig tbh. why should you not get a mix done in bitwig?

[@rano12321]

@@mugatu8732 Bitwig is pretty bad for any advanced mixing. it's pretty good for producing. Even tho it doesn't have basic features like scale lock or audio to midi etc.

[@rano12321]

@@mugatu8732 mixing in pretty horribly slow and bad in bitwig, reaper is leaps and bounds better for mixing than bitwig.

[@slavamogus3187]

i dont like how to choose a one shot.

[@rskityaev]

Whoa-whoa-whoa, slow down buddy. Can you elaborate on how you did EQ modulation thing? Is it a plugin?

[@GabeMillerMusic]

Yeah it's basically automated automation. It's like an LFO in a synthesizer, but it can be applied to any parameter of any plugin.

[@rskityaev]

@@GabeMillerMusic that's really neat! How'd you get this thing?

[@blubbermanbeats]

@@rskityaev move the parameter you wish to modulate, click param (normally in the top right of the 'fx' window), click parameter modulation/midi link, make sure enable parameter modulation is ticked and lfo is ticked, then experiment and have fun :)

[@rskityaev]

@@blubbermanbeats Oh, man, thank you!

[@olivergroves2007]

First!

[@omfgihopethisworks]

What corporate stuff?

[@cestladope]

Subscription models?

[@whawha9016]

Horrible 'DAW'

[@Snowmonkey111]

Horrible 'comment'

[@azvil9837]

​@vyhozshu odinyana 😂😂