10 Things I Love About Reaper

hey what's up everyone i'm evan with pod peak and in this video i'm going to show you the 10 things i love about reaper let's dive in welcome to pod peak where i talk about recording editing and sound design for music production podcasts and films if you haven't already please like this video please subscribe to the channel and make sure and ding that button so you get updates in all the video content that i'm going to be putting out so as i've stated in previous videos reaper is my daw of choice i've been using reaper since about 2012 and i have to say reaper literally changed my life let me give you a little bit of a backstory so i spent about 10 years in a band touring around the country touring around europe and during that time i probably recorded about eight albums either solo or with bands now these were different times so we were recording and mixing our albums in proper studios and although those were valuable experiences i wouldn't change them for the world it was also really expensive fast forward to around 2012 i started recording my own songs and even started recording and producing other artists at the time i was using pro tools at the studio i was working out of but i wanted to start recording in my own studio and pro tools was really expensive i also noticed it seemed to be pretty glitchy and it crashed a lot so on the recommendation of a friend i checked out reaper and i'm really glad i did so not only has reaper been integral to recording my own albums and recording and producing other people's records it's also been the bedrock of my podcast production company pod peak now i'm not one of those people that's going to tell you that one daw is better than another the reality is that whatever you use if it works for you you should use it but if you're just getting into recording or music or sound design and you just want to find a daw that can pretty much do it all or if you've been using another daw but you feel like it's holding you back a little bit well this video is for you alright let's get into it number one affordability reaper cost sixty dollars for an individual license and 225 dollars for a business license if you're a content creator or a music producer that makes over twenty thousand dollars a year either one of those price points is a really good deal a reaper license is good through two major versions and to put that into context i purchased reaper 4 back in 2012 and i used that all the way up to this year 2020 when they finally released version 6. so my reaper license cost me about 8.60 a year which is crazy for comparison a pro tools yearly subscription or buying pro tools outright can cost anywhere between three hundred dollars and two grand or more so you do the math but here's the deal reaper doesn't do just massive updates every couple years as a matter of fact it's totally the opposite reaper releases constant incremental updates pretty much every couple weeks these updates address bug fixes user related requests and more and the best part about all of that it's free i personally don't know any other daw that operates this way or at the level that reaper does it and i have to say the way reapers seem to be growing over the years i think they might have been a little bit ahead of their time and they definitely made the right call all right number two stability are you one of those daw users who's constantly dealing with glitches or having your software crash in front of your clients well i know i'm not because reaper is one of the most tightly coded and lightweight programs on the market in my business time is literally money i don't have time to deal with a program that loads slowly or that constantly crashes and quite honestly in this day and age it's pretty much unacceptable if your software isn't stable reaper's download size is so small that you can in fact run it off a thumb drive and what's more you can literally download install and start running a reaper session faster than it takes to load a pre-existing pro tools session a little side note i hate to knock pro tools but really i'm just stating facts based off my own personal experience if pro tools works for you by all means you should keep using it but getting back to reaper reaper rarely crashes or gets clogged up running big sessions you can stack plugins you can stack software instruments and it really just keeps on chugging in this way reaper stays out of your way and it lets you be creative in the moment if you work freelance or run a small business that depends on having a stable daw reaper should definitely be at the top of your list number three diversity so i'm not going to get all kumbaya on you here that's not what i'm talking about when i mention diversity in reaper but let me give you an example of what i am talking about let's look at the tracks a lot of daws are track specific meaning if you want to import a session that has audio tracks that are mono stereo maybe you have midi files maybe you have aux tracks well in most other daws you would have to specifically set up those tracks to specifically accommodate each of those different track types with reaper attracts a track meaning if i want a track to play a mono file it will if i wanted to play a stereo file it will if i want it to play a midi file it will and any track can be a folder a bus a send or receive it's just that simple so in this way reaper's tracks are all inclusive they don't discriminate or turn away anyone at the door now that's the kind of daw environment i want to live in oh and did i mention video that's right you can play back or edit video files on a reaper track the same track that simultaneously plays back audio and video files nice i'll admit it reaper has a bit of a learning curve out of the box when it comes to setting up your file structure and keeping your sessions clean and organized at a macro level if you're just getting into reaper and you need some help getting organized and getting your file structure set up i would recommend checking out this video by john tidy over at the reaper blog but i want to talk to you about organization in a reaper session reaper has multiple options for track colors icons and layouts the folder system which seems to be gaining traction in the daw world is a fantastic way to organize your session reaper makes good use of markers or regions a great way to quickly navigate around a session and reaper comes with a simple and well laid out track manager where you can hide tracks from the arrange and mix windows mute tracks lock tracks and even bypass effects you can even rearrange rename recolor or delete tracks within the track manager i work on huge sessions that involve dozens and sometimes hundreds of tracks and reaper's track manager is a functional and highly usable way to organize these large sessions so now we're getting into the fun stuff the next four features that i'm going to talk about really get into the meat and bones of what separates reaper from the rest of the bunch and that's customization number five custom keyboard shortcuts sometimes the stock keyboard shortcuts that come with the program don't feel intuitive for whatever reason or maybe you work on multiple different daws and you're overwhelmed by having to learn a whole new series of key commands well reaper has you covered reaper makes it simple to customize keyboard shortcuts the way you want to work in fact i've already made a video that walks you through the steps you need to take to make your own custom keyboard shortcuts really it's as simple as pulling up the actions list searching for the action you want to trigger with a shortcut assign the key command and boom you're good to go but maybe you want to go a little bit deeper this brings us to number six keyboard macros or custom actions so everything that's done in reaper all the key commands toolbar buttons menu items they all perform an action you can access these actions in the actions list there's literally thousands of them to choose from what custom actions do is give you the ability to combine multiple actions into one macro or custom action thereby achieving the desired result quicker and saving you time let me give you an example of a custom action that i've created and that i use in my workflow pretty much every day so i do a lot of editing of scripts for audio stories and podcasts the client will send me an audio file with a script that's time coded so i know exactly where i need to pull the audio from to insert it into the audio story that i'm editing so here's the example file i'm pulling the audio from it's a narration track for an audio story i'm currently working on i've created a contract below where i'm pulling my selected clips from so the first clip i need to pull is from about 4 minutes and 30 seconds to 5 minutes you can achieve this by making a split here and a split here you can either drag the audio down to the comp track or copy and paste it i also want to mute the clip above so i'd also have to select this item and mute it but with the custom action that i've made i simply select the section of the item i want to pull hit the keyboard shortcut i've assigned which is shift x and boom it automatically pulls the selected item down to my comp track and mutes the original item so i'll just go through and demonstrate a few more so over the course of an editing session you could see how this saves me a lot of time the opportunities for creating custom actions are really only limited by your imagination you might have to do a lot of trial and error to kind of get your custom actions set up the way you want to get them working but at the end of the day it feels pretty empowering to get reaper dialed in and get it working the way you want it to work it makes things more efficient and it saves you a lot of time one other note kenny joya from reaper mania and john tidy from the reaper blog both have great videos on how to create custom actions and i would highly recommend subscribing to their channels which i've left links to in the notes below okay number seven custom toolbars so this is the default layout of reaper six you can see it's pretty simple and streamlined and if we look in the upper left corner you'll see there's the default toolbar again each of these toolbar icons performs in action for example this button brings up the project settings this button turns on the metronome and so on one of the great things about reaper is that you can create your own custom toolbars and you can even take it a step further and design your own toolbar icons now i've actually done a video where i go over showing you how i create my own custom toolbar icons but i want to at least show you my current reaper layout which is full of custom toolbars and icons that i designed myself so the cool thing about my custom toolbars is that i'm constantly tweaking them and dialing them in but i have to say that the time i've spent learning how to do this and creating these toolbars that i use every day is saving me hours of time over the course of a year and for me that means i make more money alright the final customization point i want to cover is number eight themes layouts and screen sets one of the neatest things you can do with reaper and this has a lot to do with the enthusiastic community is download and load up custom themes themes are designed by reaper users and involve scripting and coding something i've yet to get into you can head on over to the reaper stash on the website go to the themes and browse for a style that suits you i've got a few themes i've downloaded including a pro tools theme which is pretty interesting but honestly i prefer the default version 6 theme with my own custom toolbars another customization tool is layouts layouts can be accessed under the options menu where you can adjust the size and look of the tracks a range area and the mixer to name a few you can also take this a step further by utilizing the theme adjuster which is a new feature in reaper 6. you can pull up the theme adjuster and tweak what functions you can see on the track control panel the mixer and others this is another great tool to get reaper looking and functioning the way you want it to work and finally we have screen sets screen sets are basically the presets for the different windows in reaper and probably the best way to demonstrate this is to show you how i use screen sets so i have four different options for different screen sets that i use for different scenarios number one of course is the default screen you're looking at now let me pull up the mixer let's say i have a huge session that i'm working on and i want a full view of the mixer i'll hit my full mixer screen set and it changes another thing i do a lot of is i write automation with my pre-sewn as fader port and sometimes it's nice to see the fader move on the screen as i write that automation for that screen set i use the fader setting that i've created and finally the last screen set i created is called arrange which hides the track control panel and makes my arrange window the full size of the screen great for editing big projects when i want to go back to default i'll just hit my custom action and boom i'm back so hopefully this has given you a nice overview of some of the different ways you can customize reaper if you're willing to put a little bit of time in this can be a real game changer for your workflow and the way you create music and content moving forward so back to the list number nine is the reaper community hands down reaper has one of the most enthusiastic and innovative communities in the world of dawes in addition to be able to access themes scripts and other general knowledge in the reaper stash there's also a lot of great information on the reaper forums just search for a topic and you're sure to find it but i would say the best source for information can be found on the reaper website and on youtube kenny joya is the reaper master and you can literally find anything you need to know in his videos even though i'm pretty adept at reaper i find myself referencing kenny's videos anytime i need to find a solution to a problem also john tidy at the reaper blog he's an invaluable resource in addition to creating videos on how to customize reaper he also does videos every time reaper does an update which is really helpful for learning about new features adam over at hotpool studios does some excellent tutorials as well all these guys have their own style and niche and together provide an astounding amount of knowledge and expertise so this brings us to the end of the video and number 10 on my list of things i love about reaper are its endless possibilities i didn't really start getting under the hood of reaper until just a couple of years ago the good thing is that i've been able to go at my own pace and kind of learn in a way that makes sense to me but i've learned firsthand that if you're willing to put the time in if you're willing to experiment a little bit if you're willing to try different things the possibilities of what reaper can do are truly limitless i've also seen tangible results in my work projects that used to take me days can now be done in hours tasks that took me hours can now be done in minutes actions that took minutes can now be executed in seconds customizing reaper to work the way i want it to work is empowering and it's helped me get into a position to be able to make a living doing the work that i love i don't know about you but that's the way i want to live so anyways i hope you found value in this video and i hope it inspires you to start getting to work in reaper don't forget to like this video make sure and subscribe to the channel and don't forget to ding that bell to get updates for every time i put out a video alright take care of yourselves we'll see you next time peace out you

Channel: Pod Peak

Views: 14,548

Keywords: Podcast, Podcasting, How To Podcast, Audio, Audio Production, Recording, Producing, Studio, Tutorials, Editing, Audio Editing, Podcast Editing, Reaper, Reaper DAW, Reaper Blog, Reaper Tutorials, Reaper for Beginners, Pod Peak

Id: GApLUkn6VAE

Length: 15min 56sec (956 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/mellotronworker]

About a minute of video without any fucking content. Cannot be bothered now.

Are people now just incapable of saying what is on their fucking minds, or are we all suddenly would-be TV advertisers?