Topic: Has Anyone Tried Reaper and How Does It Compare?

i own reaper but hardly use it, not because it is not a good program it is just that Frits layout is the way i would design it. but, justin is obviously a programming genius. his almost daily significant updates and the flexibility of the program will probably change the industry. i really believe that.

they are very different in their approach but both are fine products that do most of what i need. most important might be that they are both rock solid in performance. two significant areas where podium is ahead is automation and midi, fwiw.

i have owned and used Sonar 4, Cubase sx2, Tracktion, Samplitude (came with my FF800) and SAW Full. i guess i still own all of them but SAW, podium fits my style and Frits is damn nice to respond to things we think are important!

I played around with a very early version of Reaper, 1.00 or something ages ago just to see if it could bring something different to my current set up. I was very impressed but it had no stand out feature that would make me buy it at the time.

Just glancing at the Reaper site now to see…

Ok…Podium does not have these Reaper features…not yet anyway. Only frits can confirm if they will or if at leastsome of them will make it into Podium. Depends on user feedback I guess, or if enough potential buyers want them as well…

1. Support for DX FX and DXi
2. Time Stretching
3. Can run from a USB key (Have not tried this with Podium)
4. Full Vista Support (does work but not officially supported)
5. Host and slave Rewire support AFAICT (Bizarre attitude of Propellerheads being highly reluctant to respond AFAICT) Even Justin (Reaper) Frankel offered some advice for Frits on this forum! Look for posts from a certain “deadbeef”
http://www.zynewave.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1195&highlight=rewire

6. Flexible FX chains allow unlimited FX per track (Zgrid – ish functionality by the looks of it)

7. Network FX processing

8. ReaRoute (sending/receiving of audio to/from most other ASIO enabled applications ).

9. WDM support

10. CD burning

11. Support for plug-ins that output/process MIDI: Frits can correct me here if I am wrong, but I think this is why Chordspace might not work in Podium…yet.

12. Options for automatically backing up project files to alternate paths, timestamped versions.

13. Vegas and Samplitude EDL text import/export

14. A larger set of bundled FX.

15. Wider support of media formats.

16. Some sort of Video support.

Now as much as I would like to, it is difficult for me to make a similar comparison for Podium sorry Frits 🙂

I just do not use Reaper. So I cannot out right say that Reaper does not have feature x,y or z found in Podium. No doubt there are features but as I do not use Reaper, a Podium *and* Reaper user will have to chime in.

Why does Podium not have those features yet? I hear some of you ask 🙂

My theory…

1.Justin IIRC does not work alone, perhaps this has changed or I read this the wrong way on KVR.

2. Frits has a slower development process. Less new features = Less new bugs (not in every case of course, but I would say in some if not most cases)…Justin delivers more features, (see the list above) compared to Frits but from what I can see also has to fix more bugs.

FWIW I would guess that Reaper is probably as stable as Podium, I cannot recall issues with stability in Reaper posts on KVR.

3. Different Product visions: Justin might have a different vision for Reaper compared to Frits. I get the feeling that Justin is quite prepared to add as many features (not to bloat it IMO) as needed to compete with the more established Sequencers out there. Frankly he has already gone past some of them with certain features already and it looks like only the beginning.

Frits on the other hand appears to be catering for a slightly different target market…

“People looking for a Cubase clone will probably not choose Podium over other of the established sequencers. People wanting to try something new may however be pleasantly surprised by Podium.”

From this thread…
http://www.zynewave.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1138

I doubt somehow Justin would say that. (Not saying that Frits should).

Reaper is easily on the same level in most areas compared to Cubase or Sonar. Podium as well in many areas. Only two areas are possibly weaker in Reaper compared to Cubase for example…MIDI, bundled Synths and Notation AFAICT. Although even the midi side of things has been constantly updated so maybe it is not a weakness any more.

Maybe Frits sees Podium differently now…don’t know, but I get the feeling they are not targeting the exact same type of users. Mostly yes, but based on Frits comment some time ago, likely not exactly the same.

4. Finances: If the “Justin is worth £50M /$50M” claim is true then clearly Frits cannot compete with that. No issues with dev costs with Justin AFAICT.

Frits and Justin have IMO done much to provide superb alternatives to the more expensive options. I would add Jules (eh Koolkeys 🙂 ) and Jorgen despite recent difficulties with EXT2 into that roll call.

Podium is different…a slighty slower (not much in it) paced development process but for some, more features delivered quicker are better, for others that is not necessary or desirable.

Frits and Justin both appear to have a very good approach to handling any bugs IMO.

@SEAS: If you have not already done so, giving Podium and Reaper a good deeal of demo time would really help you make your mind up IMO. Whatever you choose it must work and feel right for you. Even the more established Sequencers with a myraid of features do not fit everyone’s workflow. 😉

@SEAS wrote:

Not to get OT here… but energyXT2? How does it compare with Podium?

Thanks

Jamie

Just posted before seeing your post. 😉

I have not used EXT2 (not finished yet IMO and many others on their forum)…you might want to have a look at this page if you have not already done so…

http://www.energy-xt.com/xt2.php

Again be aware that for many it is not finished. Some aspects of v.1 are not in V2 e.t.c… your call.

so far I like the tutorials (although no sound).

Are there any other videos on Podium?

Not sure which ones you have seen there are too sets IIRC some from Frits (older)
Video presentations (right of page)
http://www.zynewave.com/about.html

…and some from Podianer (more recent)
User Video tutorials
http://www.zynewave.com/wiki/doku.php?id=tutorials:index

one thing i heard was it will change the internet. whatever that means…. and if it is a fair comment…as opposed to the typical gossip that flows so mightely.

Cheers Sam. Typical Justin. 😆

I was in a slightly different situation than you, SEAS. I own EnergyXT (and contributed a bit as a user to EnergyXT1, a lovely program, but with a slightly chaotic marketing and help for newbies) besides other hosts.

some info about XT2 you might already know:
As EnergyXT2 came out (the problem for Jorgen Aase was that a big hype was over there in our forum, I was just the same as everybody else and praised XT2 to no end even as it was delayed, then delayed, and again delayed due to quite normal problems for a developer working on a complete new host in a new coding language) It had simply toooooo many bugs to be able to work in it. It was released – just my opinion – months too early, and I even suggested (following guitarzan who had had the idea) that Jorgen would decide to stop releasing it, ironing out the far too many bugs, and re-release it whenever he wished. Don’t forget, EXT1 users got EXT2 completely for free! So we could have used 1.41, the current older version, and nobody had had any reason to complain.

So EnergyXT2 was released as “ready” on June 15, and the next month got him a mighty disappointment from even the most loyal users (I can see clearly here why Frits decided not to setup a forum for Podium over at KVR, but then Frits wouldn’t run into those problems, because all new released versions are simply stable, just like the best hosts are stable, that is, as far as this is possible with our thousands of different setups). I had real problems with the CPU-hit for audio tracks, it simply was even worse than EXT1.4, and that wasn’t the strongest point of EXT1. A not too small number of my VSTis didn’t work great in EXT2, and so on.
So I started to look around, as the slightly chaotic (and at the same time charming) EXT1-information made it necessary that without constantly reading the KVR-EnergyXT-forum you could be quite at a loss with XT. Most valuable users like DarkStar, Jens (who had posted here too in eraly times), or at the beginning Nicfit and now Soma do their best to help.

After 4 weeks of trying out I bought Podium and Reaper. It was my birthday, if I had had to decide for just one I would have bought Podium and away you go, but Reaper is a really good host too.

There are a few rather private reasons why I use Reaper too, so have 2 hosts now 🙂 . I have a collection of field-recordings (of dubious quality, but for me it’s quite okay). I saved them in audio monkey (ape) format, and now Reaper can load those ape-files without me having to convert them before (which wouldn’t be a tough thing at all, I know). And besides some other things (I still learn the 2 different programs, mind!) sometimes it is an inspiration having 2 hosts.

Podium is my main host now. After a nice conversation with Koolkeys I had decided for Podium. I like the automation a LOT, would wish some small features like supporting sending midi from one to another VSTi and more, but all of this will come, or importing more than just the 1st part of a midi file in case you want to import one.

EnergyXT was unbelievably cheap as I bought it (in fact I got even that for free as I had used Massiva before, the then stopped first host Jorgen Aase had released, and all Massiva-users even got EnergyXT1 AND 2 for free!!).

I just can recommend it to anyone to use it inside Podium. You can load a vst-instrument and a vst-effects-version of EXT (1 and 2, I use 1 still at the moment) into any host, and the “main window” of EnergyXT is quite a workbench, a thing to experiment, to chain different VSTis and audio parts and midi parts and effects and combine them and so on…

In EXT1-times I got the impression nearly *all* users out there had bought a EXT-license (39Euro at that time), so all who own it can easily use it as an addition in Podium now.

The Reaper- fanbase is huge, as you can see if you go to the Reaper-forum, and I agree, this is well deserved as is the praise Frits, who seems to prefer it more silently 🙂 , gets. I know quite a few users who love one of those (let’s call it: independent in a way) hosts, and bash others. It used to turn into real ugly fights over at KVR. There is no reason for that, and it turned rather silly often.

I think Jorgen will come to his feet again in the future, but it must be hard to see how the huge admiration (he himself is not really innocent here as he talked about EXT2 in early not-even-beta-versions as if it would be, well, better than it is now 🙁 ) turned as the delayed EXT2 came out finally.

Podium is MUCH better for your CPU when it comes to audio, and stability is quite important too. EnergyXT2 is more stable now, but the CPU-hit if you use many audio-tracks is still annoying. I really wish he’ll get that sorted, but neither EXT1 nor 2 were good concerning this feature up to now.

Personally I don’t see the 3 “independent” hosts not as in fight with each other, as I own all 3 😀 . It’s just that I like Podium the best now, and all new releases do – like with Reaper – make real sense, and it already is a great program. I never thought looks were important, and I’m not sure if it is right to name it “looks”, but in Reaper and Podium I make songs just in the speed I want, whereas in EnergyXT2 I did more read in the forums about bugs, and searched this and that feature of XT1 to find out after many readings that it wasn’t implemented right now. I wish all 3 and Tracktion too success!