Reaper

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

Crossfade editor

• add new graphical crossfade editor (thanks chmaha)
• hold alt/opt key while editing crossfade intersection handle to keep left-right movement minimal
• lower edge of fade start/end is mouse edit zone for crossfade width
• mouse edit in combination lane is handled like an item move edit in arrange view (only one side of the crossfade moves)
• support many context-specific actions and shortcut mappings (nudge, preview, align phase, etc)
• add option (enabled by default) to color the entire item in the arrange view when using the crossfade editor
• add theme images for navigation buttons
• display signal correlation within crossfade area
• support loading/saving snapshots
• support locking left-hand item start time (edits are instead applied to the right-hand item in reverse)

ReaNINJAM

• add option to auto-assign remote channels/users to output channels
• add option to hide beat counter display
• allow configuration of remote output channels
• allow customizing bitrate for each local channel
• fix potential crash after first scan on macOS
• improve accessibility labels, remove various dividers from screenreader lists
• make plug-in i/o size configurable, allow configuration of output channels for metronome, local channels

ReaScript

• add CrossfadeEditor_Show(), CrossfadeEditor_OnCommand()
• document more RENDER_SETTINGS values
• FX_GetNamedConfigParm() supports is_instrument
• auto-cleanup reaper-extstate.ini if it contains many incorrectly-written lines •
• prevent writing invalid newline characters to reaper-extstate.ini via SetExtState() •
• update documentation for SetExtState() to reflect lack of support for newlines in persistent state •

Localization

• allow localizing MIDI note names
• enhance per-control scaling to support x-position adjustment, width-shrinking, and y-growing of controls, via @id=scale,ysc=yscale,dx=moveamt
• improve localization tweakability of media item properties window
• support localizing ReaPlugs
• fix development helper tooltip ID display for disabled controls on Windows

MIDI

• adjust item fixed-tempo setting when moving items across tracks to new timebases, auto-convert if possible
• improve behavior when importing, inserting, recording, gluing, or rendering MIDI on a track that has timebase set to time
• be a little more permissive when importing .mid files with oddly-formed MIDI track data, unterminated sysex messages • •
• change menu/action text to 'Time format: Measures.Beats.PPQ' from 'Time format: Measures.Beats.MIDI_ticks'

MIDI editor

• omit view/editor state from undo points, reducing extra undo points in certain cases
• enabling 'snap relative to grid' disables absolute snapping for note-starts
• support relative snap for CC events
• improve behavior of actions to move cursor left/right by grid with 'snap to visible grid' enabled

Phase aligner

• add new phase alignment action/dialog
• maximize phase correlation between media items and selected reference media items
• support batch processing, to phase-align multiple media items with multiple reference media items
• adjust grouped items when applying phase alignment

Big clock

• support copying text to clipboard •
• support double-clicking on region/marker color square to edit the region/marker

Click source

• add setting to preserve click pitch when changing project playback rate •
• do not apply project or media item pitch shifting if click source setting to preserve pitch is enabled •

Crossfades

• allow changing either fade-in/out or crossfade shape via fade shape popup menu
• respect preference to display crossfade handle when "offset overlapping items vertically" is enabled

Envelopes

• fix envelope points possibly getting scrambled when editing point position via "set point value" dialog •
• support relative snap when moving envelope points, automation items

Joysticks

• fix issues when re-enabling a joystick that was previously not found
• update MIDI list when changing devices

macOS

• fix inconsistencies with keyboard bindings after loading plug-ins that change locale (e.g. Kontakt7) •
• fix stale darkmode color of text controls in certain instances •

Mouse modifiers

• fix automation item double-click action binding •
• exporting ReaScript to set modifiers supports updating correct toolbar in MIDI editor •

Peaks

• fix dual-type peaks display when using item section/reverse (7.39 regression) •
• fix peak edge drawing when using alpha < 1.0

Razor edits

• add experimental option (reaper.ini areasel=2) to not merge adjacent selection regions
• improve behavior with video items and automation lane razor edit edges •
• update toolbar when moving razor edit with ripple mouse modifier •

Wildcards

• localize $localtime using REAPER localization rather than system locale
• support $wildcard[

Actions

• do not display extra message box when using new 'Save copy of project as (prompt with current name)' action •

Audio Units

• ensure MIDI events sent to plug-in are sorted

Linux

• add Joystick MIDI support

LV2

• ensure MIDI events sent to plug-ins are sorted •

Media explorer

• when loading FXB/FXP, do not focus existing FX if already visible

Menu/toolbar customization window

• fix flicker on Windows •

Meters

• fix mixer master gain reduction metering when master has a high channel count

Paste

• fix MIDI PPQ snapping when pasting items in projects that have tempo changes

Peaks building

• allow peaks of corrupted partial media to finish building (7.39 behavior change reverted) •

Project settings

• fix save of default relative snap setting

ReaControlMIDI

• improve macOS window sizing

ReaEQ

• clean up UI layout, improve for localization

ReaPlugs

• allow mousewheel over most text fields to adjust value

ReaSurroundPan

• fix truncating utf-8 channel names

ReaVerb

• fix issues with unicode filenames on Windows

Render window

• add vertical scrollbar when used on very low resolution screens

RS5k

• increase UI width

Ruler

• fix potential hang in certain instances (7.19 regression)

Samplerate conversion

• fix r8brain-free quality issues with playspeed changes and sub-128-sample blocksizes •

Snapping

• improve behavior of mouse-dependent start/end snapping (snaps to start unless in last 15% of item)

Theme

• support maximum width for gain reduction meter in WALTER, as 4th coordinate of meter.vu.div

Windows

• remove ancient hardcoded ctrl+space playback binding (users should use global shortcuts instead) •