does all that (no AU though) very well.

demo is free.

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Yeah you can download the demo and use it for however long you want for free.

Anything you would wish 2, only exception is when a third party plugin haven't made a parameter available, but that goes for all DAWs ofc.

How many times you want.

Specify "bus groups". But I bet the answer is unlimited or more then you need.

VST, VSTi
DX, DXi
AU (OSX only)
ReWire
JS (user-scriptable plugins)
According to the Reaper website.

The most stable and bug free daw I've used. If it crashes its usually a third party plugin causing trouble.



Excellent!

I haven't used cubase much myself so I cant answer that. I've heard people having trouble when using automap tho, but that is all.

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Reaper can automate more than cubase, you can automate any paramaters on a vst/vsti/au etc but there is also a VERY awesome feature called paramter modulation that will let you run an internal (to reaper) LFO or envelope on any knob on any plugin, also the envelopes can be controlled via audio signal, so you can have an incoming audio signal controling the modulation of a certain knob. HUGE.

virtually unlimted busses, all tracks are the same, audio midi bus send, all the same type of track no midi only tracks or audio only tracks etc.

yes compatible

very stable

yes it was for along time much stronger with recording than midi etc. probably about the same now.

paramter modulation is one thing that cubase doesnt have, im sure there are others....probably a few visa versa as well.

if your thinking about it imo repear is a better deal than cubase. if your starting fresh i say go reaper but if you have cubase experience theres really no reason to change it is a fully capable and good program itsefl aswell.

as said down load the demo of reaper its free and the only thing different from the fulll is a nag screen.

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I would say the only advantage Cubase really has over Reaper if you're writing dance music is a MUCH better workflow. Reaper is pretty much menu hell until you customize it to your workflow, which will take a while. If you don't mind doing that, it's probably a better deal in my opinion. If the prices were closer to each other, it would be tougher, but Reaper is so cheap that it's probably worth buying, and if after a while you find it lacking or you're not getting on with it, you're not really out much.

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disagree, i've not customised anything, have used cubase for years, reaper for over a year and i hardly have to use the menus at all.

(but then i never know quite what people mean by "workflow" anyhow)

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thanks for all the replies guys. its kind of weird how steinberg charge so much for cubase though.

let's not forget the possibility to make feedbackloops between tracks - there may be other daws that do this but i have yet to find them

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The workflow in Cubase is really clunky compared with Reaper. Selecting a VST if you've downloaded every free plugin from KVR is like playing whack-a-mole , and organising your plugins requires actually physically putting the files into folders, whereas in Reaper you create your own custom folders in the plugin browser and drag them in. If you want to find a specific plugin you just type into the search filter, and then drag the FX you want into the track- very quick.

Routing in Reaper is second to none. You aren't restricted to an arbitrary number of sends or groups, and you can create extremely complex routing including feedback(if you like the taste of danger), and you can also save your routing as a track template. It's easy to frequency-split bass, although the splitter plugin that comes with Reaper is a bit shit as the filter slope is only 6dB/octave, but there are better 3rd party splitter plugs available. Folder tracks are great as they not only group your tracks together they also route the audio through it too, so it acts as a bus.

Creating sends is a doddle- there are 3 ways of achieving this- drag from the parent track to the send track, select the send track from a list of tracks in the sends/receives section or select the parent track in the list of receive tracks in the send track. Any track can be a send track. You can also sidechain everything to everything using the parameter modulation feature which uses either an audio signal or an LFO to modulate whatever parameter you want in whatever FX you want including instruments- it's not just restricted to compressors.

The FX chains are great. You can have as many as you want unlike Cubase which is 6 prefader and 2 post. However, there aren't any post-fader FX in Reaper which is something that myself and some other users have requested on the forum. There is a workaround, but it's much less convenient than having dedicated post-fader FX.

If you want to timestretch anything, you just alt-drag the sample. The only feature that I miss from Cubase apart from the post-fader FX is the dedicated audio editor and the audio warping. Again, this is a much-requested feature on the forums.

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