Reaper is a digital audio workstation: a complete multitrack audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing, and mastering environment.

Is Reaper good for recording live instruments?

Yes, Reaper is a fully featured digital audio workstation (DAW) that lets you record live instruments, but also features multitrack audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing and mastering toolset. In other words, Reaper is a complete recording studio.

Is Reaper a free DAW?

No, Reaper offers a free trial which lasts for 60 days. This trial is an unlimited and unrestricted version of Reaper. After the trial period is over you can buy Reaper for $60 for home use.

Is Reaper good for beginners?

Reaper is a good option for beginners because of its simple yet customizable layout. There are also a lot of video tutorials online to follow as well.

Another plus is that Reaper is very stable and has low computing requirements on all operating systems, Windows, macOS, or Linux, so you don't have to invest much hardware wise to start your digital studio.

Does Reaper come with plugins?

Reaper comes with a variety of plugins and DAW effects such as compression, EQ, reverb, delay, pitch correction, and more. Reaper also supports thousands of third-party plug-in effects and virtual instruments, including VST, VST3, LV2, AU, DX, and JS.

Features

Fast, Powerful Editing

  • Drag and drop to import, arrange, and render
  • Freely mix audio, MIDI, video, still image media on any track
  • Easily move, split, glue, resize, trim, loop, time stretch, pitch shift, fade, crossfade, slip, snap to grid, without switching tools
  • Intuitive zoom, scroll, scrub, jog, tab to audio transient, MIDI navigation
  • Simple and powerful nested folder system allows group editing, routing, bussing, all in one step
  • Full automation recording, playback, and editing support for track controls and plug-ins
  • Easily manage tempo, time signature, and varispeed changes
  • Separate audio or MIDI into freely arrangeable takes and lanes for easy comping
  • Easily copy or move regions, to quickly try out alternate arrangements

Plug-in Support

  • Insert almost any third-party audio or MIDI plug-in: VST, VSTi, DX, DXi, AU (OSX only), JS
  • ReWire (audio and MIDI) any capable application for even more flexibility
  • Fully automatic plug-in delay compensation (PDC)
  • Sidechain any plug-in, even if the plug-in does not natively support sidechaining
  • Apply FX in real time, or non-destructively render FX output
  • Real-time network FX processing: use other local machines as an FX farm

What's New

Import

  • fix behavior when creating track folders for imported directories and also importing multi-track MIDI
  • only sort imported files by filename when creating track folders for imported directories
  • when importing directories, ignore non-media file types (track templates, etc)
  • when importing multiple files, only prompt for how to arrange files when importing arrangeable files (not track templates, etc)

Actions

  • improve actions that depend on grid spacing (navigate grid, split on grid, etc) when grid spacing does not align with measure length •
  • improve behavior of 'Item: Set snap offset to nearest grid line'

Media explorer

  • fix possible crash when switching preview audio while still playing back •
  • fix retaining custom channel mapping when seeking with channel map dialog open and crossfade enabled •
  • support shorter time selection length relative to media length •

Grid

  • when splitting on grid and grid is set to frames, split at every frame regardless of zoom level

macOS

  • make list view and tree view row spacing/margins more consistent across Intel and Universal builds

mp3

  • support all encoding q-values from 0-9

Project backups

  • when opening .rpp-bak files from Backups/ or AutoSaves/, resolve relative filenames from the parent folder as needed •

Timecode

  • fix timecode settings dialog appearance when no audio system is selected •

Windows

  • correctly handle right-side Windows key as a keyboard modifier