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

Sample edits

  • actions that affect the first selected item within the time selection also work with razor edits
  • add actions to delete all sample edits
  • do not enforce maximum time selection length when running actions to delete sample edits
  • fix peaks display glitch on last sample of looped item
  • fix typos in warning text
  • support mono downmix channel mode, mono peaks display when running context menu actions to delete all sample edits
  • warn if attempting to run a sample edit action that is more than 16k samples long, but allow edits up to 16 million samples (will use lots of memory and .RPP size)

ReaScript

  • support GetSetAutomationItemInfo("D_MUTE")
  • fix documentation for AddRegionOrMarker()
  • fix GetSetTrackSendInfo() for new UI orderings (7.75 regression)
  • fix incorrect return values for GetTrackSendName() (7.75 regression)

FX

  • fix reordering quirks with FX slots not enabled (7.75 regression)
  • fix reordering quirks with FX slots enabled
  • include slot information in floating window title bars, project bay, if differs from chain index

MIDI editor

  • improve tick-level rounding of various navigation actions
  • trim pre-quantized event positions when adjusting source length

Mixer

  • avoid reset of scroll position when switching project tabs
  • save scroll offset in project state

Project load

  • properly restore arrange Y-scroll offset
  • correct invalid zoom levels when loading project

Click source

  • automatically convert entered relative paths to absolute paths

Envelope manager

  • fix display of send envelopes following empty slots

macOS

  • periodically make sure that mouse event coalescing is enabled, in case a plug-in disabled it

Media items

  • don't disable OK button when dialog has no changes

MIDI inline editor

  • fix buttons being drawn offscreen (7.75 regression)

Peaks

  • fix potential incorrect display with spectrogram, high channel counts and certain zoom levels

Render presets

  • fix incorrect duplication of presets after shift+clicking preset button and saving preset

Spectral repair

  • use smaller analysis window when repair length is very small
  • Virtual MIDI keyboard
  • allow adjustment of velocity using shift+up/down keys

WMF

  • fix possible hang with certain media, improve support for various media types in general