The Reaper Thread

[desertdweller]

Since we're starting off a new forum, let's talk about Reaper in this thread.

Personally this DAW shell has been my workstation for audio for about 12-13 years now, and it fits my workflow perfectly.

Link to Reaper: https://www.reaper.fm/

One of the great things about Reaper is if you don't like it, it can be built to look & operate like any other DAW through user-created themes. There's ones that mimic Logic, Pro Tools, and many others out there, for free. Link: https://stash.reaper.fm/tag/Themes

[Markus]

Reaper rules - and that personal/small business license is really insane value for money.

[zepp]

Reaper is great but I find the list of settings and tweaks pretty intimidating sometimes. If this is a thread to talk about issues and fixes....

How would I decrease the monitoring latency? Say I am playing my guitar through the DAW with an impulse loader and need no perceptible latency. GarageBand, as limited as it is, has zero latency out of the box.

[desertdweller]

Reaper is great but I find the list of settings and tweaks pretty intimidating sometimes. If this is a thread to talk about issues and fixes....

How would I decrease the monitoring latency? Say I am playing my guitar through the DAW with an impulse loader and need no perceptible latency. GarageBand, as limited as it is, has zero latency out of the box.

I think that's more of a Windows ASIO driver thing than anything. I have a Presonus I/O, and I adjust latency with their Universal Control program, which is the setup and control program for the device. I usually use a block size of 128 or 256, which provides for very low latency, but it's still not as good as you'd get on a Mac, from what I understand. Any lower than that, and I get clicks and pops in my sound.

Also the amount of plugins and the nature of the plugins you use may be a factor too. I have an older version of Izotope, and if I have any of that set of VSTs engaged, it increases latency, even on a beefy, modern computer.

If your interface has a monitor button, that will give you a zero latency, unmixed version of your signal. But that's not terribly helpful if your IRs are in the DAW. If you're loading them from an external IR loader, then it works great to do this.

[zepp]

I think that's more of a Windows ASIO driver thing than anything. I have a Presonus I/O, and I adjust latency with their Universal Control program, which is the setup and control program for the device. I usually use a block size of 128 or 256, which provides for very low latency, but it's still not as good as you'd get on a Mac, from what I understand. Any lower than that, and I get clicks and pops in my sound.

Also the amount of plugins and the nature of the plugins you use may be a factor too. I have an older version of Izotope, and if I have any of that set of VSTs engaged, it increases latency, even on a beefy, modern computer.

I'm actually on a Mac. It's weird that Reaper would have latency but not GB.

I'd like to resolve this because the sheer power of Reaper for its price is absolutely batshit insane. It really whips the llama's ass.

[Drew]

Reaper is great but I find the list of settings and tweaks pretty intimidating sometimes. If this is a thread to talk about issues and fixes....

How would I decrease the monitoring latency? Say I am playing my guitar through the DAW with an impulse loader and need no perceptible latency. GarageBand, as limited as it is, has zero latency out of the box.

I haven't really spent much time trying to do this, but what are your buffer settings like? Lowering your buffer should, in theory, reduce latency while playing, though this increases the possibility of dropouts if you have a ton of tracks playing back in a project, so it's a gamble. If you're not experiencing dropouts in GB, though, you can probably reduce it safely.

[zepp]

I haven't really spent much time trying to do this, but what are your buffer settings like? Lowering your buffer should, in theory, reduce latency while playing, though this increases the possibility of dropouts if you have a ton of tracks playing back in a project, so it's a gamble. If you're not experiencing dropouts in GB, though, you can probably reduce it safely.

I'll check after work.

[tim]

So GB can't have "zero latency", because that's not how digital audio works. I imagine that since it's an Apple product, it might work closer to the OS or Core Audio to be as low latency as possible out of the box.

You typically set this sort of thing up in your interface, but you can configure a "block size" in Reaper in the audio settings, which might override the interface setting on Mac. I think.

In reaper, you should see something like this at the top of the page:



So mine is currently set for a block size of 256, and I have about 8.5ms of latency.

[thrashinbatman]

yep, it's in buffer size settings. it's really hard to get your latency below 8 or so ms, but quite frankly there's no reason not to, because that's imperceptible to almost anyone.

[zepp]

Thanks guys, it's resolved. Here are my settings for my iD4. I can play normally with no perceptible latency. I haven't loaded it up with plugins yet, but I guess it will probably be just fine.

[jacksonplayer]

I still haven't upgraded to v.6 yet, since I'd have to pay to do so and v.5.9 is working fine for me. Is there anything about v.6 that is a must-have?

[Drew]

Thanks guys, it's resolved. Here are my settings for my iD4. I can play normally with no perceptible latency. I haven't loaded it up with plugins yet, but I guess it will probably be just fine.

If you don't mind some micromanaging, bumping the buffer back up while mixing and throwing a lot of plugins at a project might not hurt - it's a cool thing to be able to control.

[Tony]

I still haven't upgraded to v.6 yet, since I'd have to pay to do so and v.5.9 is working fine for me. Is there anything about v.6 that is a must-have?

The routing is quicker and easier plus it has easier theme /track setup.

Buttons appear /dissappear based on whether you have the mixer up or not.

[Connor]

I still haven't upgraded to v.6 yet, since I'd have to pay to do so and v.5.9 is working fine for me. Is there anything about v.6 that is a must-have?

IIRC automation items weren't introduced until version 6 and they're very handy. I was in the same boat, using version 5 for a while but finally decided these guys have earned another $60 out of me, I've spent countless hours in Reaper.