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

Sends

  • add new pre-receive send mode, sending media and monitoring without creating feedback loops (e.g. for sending midi to a sampler and then receiving audio back to the same track)
  • tint send level indicator added in 7.75 is now configurable, defined by colortheme/theme tweaker 'Send custom color tint - draw mode'

ARA

  • apply the final item gain (zero, if item is faded out) to ARA plugin output after the end of the media item being processed
  • improve behavior when loading take FX on a multichannel track
  • improve stability when saving project to new directory, or copying/moving/renaming media
  • remove various dependencies on track/take channel count
  • support head/tail time reported by plugin
  • when fx output is shifted early, apply media item starting gain (zero if fade-in exists) to all plugin output samples before the actual media item start

MIDI editor

  • improve performance when opening/closing MIDI editor with many editable contexts
  • performance improvements with many contexts open
  • fix incorrect behaviors of fast mouse moves with marquee select with time selection
  • fix incorrect hit testing of CC handles

FX

  • building multichannel routing will prompt to optionally configure MIDI routing from up to the first 16 added tracks, using pre-receive sends
  • improve performance of linked parameters

Mixer

  • add mute send/FX bypass slot for all/selected tracks to send context menus
  • fix toggle mute of all/selected track send slot modifier when in non-trim automation mode

ReaScript

  • document gfx_setcursor base64 support (added in 7.77)
  • MarkTrackItemsDirty() correctly handles pooled MIDI items across tracks
  • various MIDI_ setting APIs automatically mark relevant tracks dirty for undo

Ruler

  • improve performance when displaying many named markers
  • increase maximum number of ruler lanes to 48

Theme

  • add default option in Preferences/Appearance/Media Items to use faster/less precise item rendering
  • optimize drawing themes that use item background images with transparency, faster default theme with selected items
  • optimize item_bg theme images if possible for faster drawing speeds

VST3

  • avoid reentrance if plug-in requests restartComponent in response to initializing the plug-in •
  • ignore restartComponent requests if they occur from a thread other than the main thread
  • release processor prior to component, fixes warnings from some plug-ins

Windows

  • fix copy/paste of high unicode codepoints on Windows in ReaScript/Video/JSFX IDEs
  • improve sizing of localized controls within save/open dialogs

Crossfade editor

  • properly set media offline/online when crossfade editor is open, updates after external editors were used, etc

DDP

  • fix incorrect encoding of excess genre packets (thanks chmaha)

Freeze

  • do not preserve MIDI-only sends to frozen tracks

FX reordering

  • improve default behavior when dragging down and empty slots enabled, provide alternate (7.75-7.77) behavior by holding shift while reordering

Import

  • do not delete track after multichannel MIDI import if the track has any FX or routing

Linux

  • improve support for plug-ins that forward keystrokes back to REAPER (thanks David @ u-he)

MIDI inline editor

  • improve grid display when in continuous scrolling

Paths

  • support relative paths for various fields in Preferences/Paths and Preferences/Backups, primarily useful for portable installs

Project

  • store master track GUID in project files, fixing track view screenset restoration for master track

Render

  • fix rendering raw PCM files with more than 1 channel

Snap

  • fix issues with snap at fixed offset from other media

Timecode

  • allow project start to be set to fractional frame offset (configure via Project Settings/start offset menu) •

Tooltips

  • fix missing commas in locking tooltip

Track hardware outputs

  • improve labels in various places to include destination channel names

Video

  • respect fractional frame offsets, if enabled, to match timecode

API

  • ignore midi_reinit() (and related others) when incorrectly called by certain extensions in other threads
  • improve performance of PlayTrackPreview/StopTrackPreview, defer global lock/routing reanalysis if called multiple times within a short window