Audition vs Reaper

sorry, first of all I generally don't like these types of topics but I need to figure out my setup for once and the lack of VSTi support from AA has forced me to look into other DAWs that support VSTi. My thoughts were that I would still use AA primarily for recording of non-VSTi related tracks and of course for mixing , mastering , editing etc.

However, it has been suggested to me that I can do my "one stop shopping" all in Reaper which an expected comment from folks in that forum but provided with reasonable arguments. So can I be reminded of what are the advantages of AA 2.0 over other DAWs and if anybody has any specific comments vis a vis Reaper that would be great.

BTW, just as a bit of context, the reason why I went with AA was because for one I don't do any sequencing per se so AA was great , strong tools and features, reasonable price point and supported by a reputable company. What has driven me to a DAW with VSTi support is mainly the lack of a handy drummer around il.e. audio loops were not cutting it in the mix, I then noticed that on my new PC a Core 2 Duo, that I was getting good performance out of soft synths so that became viable. However, in the case of BFD and soft synths I'm interested in the audio output and not the midi output.

Anyhow , I appreciate the feedback.

You posted in the Adobe Audition 2.0 section, so I assume you use AA2. Audition 2 does support VSTi. See http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=332575, or the threads in this forum in the Third-Party Plugins section for detailed advise.

I don't have experience with Reaper.

[not]

Audition 2 does support VSTi. See http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=332575, or the threads in this forum in the Third-Party Plugins section for detailed advise.

Audition 2.0 does not support VSTi. It supports VST, as it says in the knowledgebase article, and that little i makes a lot of difference.

The article is about the plugin manager. The reason that it needs one so much is simply because of what it doesn't support, not what it does. The most relevant passage is this one:

"Plug-ins that are not supported may be displayed in the plug-in manager list but will not initialize regardless of changes you make to the plug-in's status (for example, VST midi plug-ins, and VSTi plug-ins). You can find a list of plug-ins that Adobe Audition could not initialize (but did not cause a problem during launch) by choosing Effects > Unsupported > [ type of plug-in ], for example, you might choose Effects > Unsupported > VST."

Charles, I suppose that if you wanted to know what I think the advantages/disadvantages of Audition are in this scenario, it simply comes down to the intentions of the individual programs. Audition isn't a music generation program as such - it never has been. If you want a one-stop program for that sort of thing, then Reaper, or Sonar, or any of the other integrated packages may well be for you. Audition's strengths are primarily in its original purpose, which was as an editor, and personally I'm quite happy using it as a multitrack mixdown system as well. It looks a lot better than the extremely clunky Reaper interface which, like it or not, has an extremely high 'nerd' value.

I think that Reaper would be a much better program if they could sort its human interface out. At present it's not as intuitive to use as Audition is, although with perseverance you can achieve perfectly workable results, and with probably less processing power for any given level of performance. Audition is far from perfect from this POV, and needs rather more work done on it to achieve better stability, as well as efficiency.

It has been argued that AA2.0 shouldn't really have been released in the state it's in at present, and I have to say that I agree with that in principle. But inevitably its development cycle is longer, partly because of all the other progs it has to interface with, and partly because the team working on it is larger - more time-consuming communication required. Reaper, on the other hand, appears to have a team of about two people, and they have managed to implement a lot of the suggestions made to them during development very rapidly. But if the people concerned are intimately familiar with a much smaller body of code, then I suppose that this is not unreasonable. It also benefits from being much later on the scene, of course - no legacy of things that really shouldn't be altered to fight around.

I certainly can't, and wouldn't, defend Audition to the ends of the earth - it's excellent at what it does, but it is not a universal panacea  - just as all the other progs around aren't either. It all comes down to the compromises you can accept in any given use scenario. Most people have more than one thing that they want to achieve, so they end up using different software for different purposes - that's just the way it goes.

questions about 'This Vs That' depend far more on individuals goals & just as importantly work process as they do on any specific GUI or feature set. 

If your work process demands that you use only a single application AND you have to have VSTi support then Audition is excluded.  Reaper, Tracktion, Sonar, Cuebase, Nuendo all support VSTi all are capable of multi-track recording, have some facility with multitrack mix down.  Reaper comes from the WinAmp guy is cost effective and has a small resource footprint.  Primarily at this point because it has not required 10+ (in sonar's case perhaps 20) years of serpentine development supporting fashionable feature sets while maintaining legacy support for core users.

If you are comfortable with Audition's interface and feature set except for VSTi, that function can be added inexpensively via: http://www.synthedit.com/. It would require some work flow adjustment (but any synthetic 'drummer' will do that anyway)  And even now Audition's strong suit is not 'live' multi-tracking (with the attendant requirement of flexible monitor implementation (e.g. multi mixes))

and in truth 'one size fits all' is never an elegant solution: though: http://www.cycling74.com/downloads comes close, but generally speaking MAX/MSP/Jitter are not consumer level out of the box solutions, but for someone with some object oriented programming experience might be an effective 'one stop' tool

because my fader board hardware supports, is supported by, Cuebase fairly well and because I have well over a decade's experience with it & have a number of templates that allow me to set up multitrack projects with ease I still tend to use Cuebase for multitrack recording.  It is very rare that I need to integrate VSTi's into a live, multiple performer, multitrack session but when necessary Cuebase performs adequately.  I am auditioning Reaper, even deployed it as a primary app on a client laptop system during the last month . . . I find it to be awkward and non intuitive to use, but what I primarily want in a live multitracker is stability, invisibly and a reasonably easy export route to what ever mix environment a project requires (and for me that is frequently determined by what a client uses) so far Reaper appears to be in running to gradually replace Cuebase (for me)

The only thing that has come close to supplanting Audition for me has been Nuendo, and that is only for the stationary 26 track (though only 16 are controlled directly via hardware faders)  At vid edit stations, mobile stations Audition & something (usually + something else) is the norm, with only audition being constant (well actually Audition and Synthedit)

SAW (studio) is back: http://www.sawstudio.com/ and since I used it, liked it (back in the day) will probably keep my eye on it.  Samplitude is also worth checking out.

I arguably yet do not have enough experience with either. Reaper does not seem to have as powerful tools in the editing dept. bussing is not as intutive but I'm getting the hang of it and its probably overall more flexible though. AA can freeze tracks , Reaper can't but in either case I still have not had a chance to really stress my system and since its a monster it probably will be a while. Overall, I like the workspaces in AA better. I'm going to maintain dual project session files for the forseable future and as it stands AA is setup as the "editor" for Reaper. Finally, not that its a big deal but as far as configurable "eye candy" Reaper is more skinnable. In my case since I have bad eyes I was able to setup something easier on my eyes.

Anyhow, we shall see how it goes and what AA 3.0 brings to the table.

thanks

... the extremely clunky Reaper interface which, like it or not, has an extremely high 'nerd' value.

Reaper has an "Audition" skin, y'know... and a PT one.  Though skins do not the whole interface make.

If you haven't already, check out Mackie Tracktion.  I don't do much in the way of music, so it isn't for me.  But I know of several Audition users who LOVE Tracktion.  One of the things I hear over and over, is how intuitive Tracktion is.

Well, it's intuitive the second time around!  I tried it, hated it, then some weeks later tried again (the old free version) and "got it" - still didn't stay with it, but I can see the attraction if its feature set matches your particular requirements.

I've tried to gravitate towards Reaper for a few reasons.  First, I have some good internet "friends" that develop that software, and I think it's just really cool to ask for a feature and "BAM," there it is.

Also, it's dirt cheap.

Also, you can sidechain compression for ducking out the bass whenever a kick transient hits, and I've never been able to figure out how to do that in AA.

Finally, it's dirt cheap.

I don't do any sequencing, so midi compatibility has never mattered much to me.  The biggest gripe I have is that it's NOT nearl as intuitive in my opinion...it's clunky if you're coming from a CEP/AA background, but maybe not so much if you're used to Cubase/Sonar, etc.

I would like for Reaper to do well, because I like the developers a lot, but right now, it's not for me...yet.

so I have had more time to reflect on this. I have been using Reaper more, biggest driving reason is again the VSTi and although I'm not a midi/sequencer type , I got on the BFD bandwagon, the capability of being able to mix the different drum kit parts is I think pretty huge, some of my objections to Reaper have watered down a bit, setting up buses is not as intuitive or analogous to analog boards ( no pun intended ) but its fairly easy. As of late , Reaper added the notion of "lanes" i.e. where multiple recording takes are exploded onto these pseudo tracks and one can basically combine the best of all the takes by selecting different regions within the audio for the various takes. Have not used it yet but seems that it will be quite handy. The notion of folders is quite useful to for one eliminate clutter.

Overall, I'm impressed with the responsiveness of the dev team to community requests. IN AA's case I can only hope that what I wish will be there in the product will be there a year from now when they release again.

I use Audition as the editor to Reaper. I must admit that I have been "missing" AA less but that  may change when I get closer to a finish tune and concentrate more on mixing and mastering as opposed to using my DAW in the prototyping of my tune which although does include quick mixes.

If you haven't already, check out Mackie Tracktion.  I don't do much in the way of music, so it isn't for me.  But I know of several Audition users who LOVE Tracktion.  One of the things I hear over and over, is how intuitive Tracktion is.

At this point , I can't see adding another DAW into my learning curve. Reaper is pretty intuitive, AA does edge it out, but although Tracktion is well priced , I just don't see any compelling reason at the moment to contemplate it.

I'm going to have to go with SteveG on this one.  Audition needs autonomy from the rest of the Adobe family, as it is a dedicated pro audio program.  Adobe and the audio program still make for strange bedfellows, IMO, as Adobe, up until three years ago, has always been about the visual.  But, the situation is what it is.

   I've just started to use Reaper, and I was hesitant to try it due to the fact that it seemed like another cheap, generic piece of software, being a completely free program (although the programmers would like the user to purchase it for a meager $50.00 after 30 days), not to mention the "corny" sample session it comes with. 

   After multitracking with it for a few hours, though, I am completely hooked.  It runs radically more efficient than Audition 3 or Cubase SX 3 (running a multitude of effects @ an ASIO buffer of 128, which would completely choke the other programs at 8,192 samples).  It is amazingly intuitive, has a nice, customizable interface (I have mine looking like the classic Cool Edit Pro 2 interface), looping is a breeze, I can freeze multiple tracks at the same time, and automation has never been easier.
 
   My multitrack work gets done better and faster than any other program I have used (including ProTools and Nuendo).  I have only slightly worked with the MIDI features, but it seems that they have been competently implemented it as well.  It gets updated very often (sometimes daily). And I can set it up to launch Audition as its external single-track editor, to boot! 

It amazes me to see a "free" piece of software rival others that cost many hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.

YMMV, but I am wholly impressed.

Nice review - but even to begin to attach the word "free" to the program (even with the qualifications you took pains to add) is totally incorrect.  The licence terms which are stated when you download it are extremely clear that it is not free - after 30 days you are not licenced to use it without payment of the very modest licence fee. 

The developers decided that they would not hobble the program in any way with technical means to enforce the licence, but because you are not forced to pay for it doesn't make it free - any more than the goods on the supermarket shelves are free because you can put them in your bag and walk out with them unpaid for.  Indeed, they've recently even removed the word "shareware" from their site, I believe.

Not aiming this at you, Euphony, just wanting to counter a perception which is prone to undermine the developers' progressive attitude to program protection.  How much of the size and price of Audition can be accounted for by the licence enforcement aspects I don't know (at least there's no dongle to lose...) but I suspect it's not negligible.

I have tried Reaper and I liked it...but I guess I like my "all-in-one" type of stuff.  So I stayed with my new AA3.  And I figure why pay $50 for another program.  I got my AA3 through school, VERY wise purchase.  I am happy.  But...I also don't do the complicated routing that a pro-studio would do.  And I hear Reaper can do LOTS of routing.  So to each his own.....

Also, I think if you use Reaper as a commercial use, isn't it like $300 or something?  I may be wrong.