[RWP] I need all of your input, please. Abandoning Reaper vs. ProTools, should I stay or go?

Sat Jul 12 22:10:53 EDT 2014

Hey Chris,

Yup, learned a few of the ropes on hardware, then most of the ones I
swing from every day on Pro Tools, and am still attempting the rest of
them lol.

Suppose I should've been clearer... I meant that native out of the box
accessibility or support for whichever bolt-on package applies from
the DAW manufactures themselves has stalled at some point for every
DAW that I can think of. On the Sonar front, I was thinking of X1, but
I'm not familiar with developments since, no doubt you'd know more
about that. To be fair, Reaper isn't exempt from that statement
either, and we're talking long before ReaAccess existed. My buddy
Jinseng was a Reaper user since before version 1.0 dropped, and was
happily getting stuff done without the need for bolt-on accessibility
to start with. There you have it, accidental accessibility is a
fragile thing.

This is why I generally only upgrade stuff when there's some useful
advantage to be had, and why I try not to burn time tinkering outside
of the two DAWs that I know nowadays. Honestly, I'd love to bring two
DAWs down to one, not fussed over which, but neither is quite there
yet.

Scott

On 7/13/14, Chris Belle <cb1963 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> hey Scott,
> I didn't know you were an avid protools user, no wonder sonar's audio
> editing drove you nuts.
>
> I agree with everything you said, except that to my memory,
> the least amount of regressions and dead stops have been shown by sonar
> development.
>
> Most every version of sonar has been accessible and cakewalk has or
> other third party programs have put the basics in to operation in
> patches with every version.
>
> Going back to version 2,
> I think every version had a caketalking version, and jsonar kept up
> pretty well over the past few years.
>
> I ran blind like you did many times without scripts, when the scripts
> slowed me down.
>
> Yeh, vo is kind of like orca on linux, just get's to be a real pig, and
> almost quits.
>
> I've heard that from so many, and I noticed that even on Stephie's ipad.
>
> that being said, windows readers can do that too, but I do things like
> run dedicated hardware synths which greatly speeds up things, and keeps
> my audio system clean of tts stuff just waiting to mess with my clock
> and stuff.
>
> And it's not windows which is the culprit so much with
> working with a daw as much as it is the hardware you pick.
>
> Getting the right motherboard, and doing the processor throttling just
> right, turning off hpet, and virtualization and this and that, and you
> can get your dpc latencies down to the single digits on certain
> motherboards, and run your asio device down to the 32 asio buffers,
> which is smokin fast.
>
> I think dedicated high end asio devices in one forum I read beat out
> what the mac did, but the mac has the advantage of getting low enough
> latency but making it easy to aggregate devices,
> I like to run atleast at 128 or lower, it depends on the hidden safety
> buffers in your interface, but 256 feels sliggish on my onyx board, but
> not bad on the delta cards.
>
> they actually expose the true latency to the daw, atleast in sonar.
>
> Don't confuse asio latency with the dpc latency i was talking about
> earlier, that's another thing entirely, that has to do with how fast
> drivers get priority in the kernel,
> and can surely hang up your ass when you got lots of real time plugs
> goin on.
>
> But, generally,\
> the mac handles memory and resources better than windows does, there's
> something equivalent to dpc in the mac world under the hood I'm sure,
> they just don't call it that, but all these operating systems are the
> same in essence, a kernel with a gui on top.
>
> And now that windows and mac use the same processors, apple has
> inherited some of the hassles along with the benefits.
>
> We have extremely powerful systems on both sides now, though you'll pay
> a pretty penny to get it on mac side, some things were better in the mac
> world though when we were running motorolla processors.
>
> I read some white papers on that,
> a while back,
> it doesn't mater much in 2014, but just sayin.
>
>
>
> On 7/12/2014 8:01 PM, Scott Chesworth wrote:
>> Late to the party as usual, but here's a few thoughts below each of
>> the 6. I'll be briefer than some, but this is coming from the
>> experience of using both DAWs daily, so hope these are still useful to
>> you Jes.
>>
>> 1. ProTools is accessible right out of the box, Reaper is not.
>> If the most recent version of Pro Tools was 100% accessible (or at the
>> very least a step forward in every plausible way) and avid had a
>> strong track record of maintaining that accessibility, then that'd be
>> a killer reason. As things stand, it's not, and they don't, so...
>>
>> 2. ProTools is the industry standard, Reaper has a long way to catch
>> up, if it ever does.
>> If you're constantly working out of different places, then consider
>> what's industry standard. Otherwise, consider what'll let you get
>> stuff done efficiently, because you're going to need efficiency on
>> your side at all times if you want to keep pace with a sighted guy
>> who's been bothered to learn his DAW beyond pointing and clicking.
>>
>> 3.  Reaaccess, like it or not, will one day be rendered useless.
>> As was Pro Tools for 3 major versions and several years. When that
>> happened, it was the only DAW I knew how to use and I was making the
>> majority of my living using it, so hopefully there won't ever be a
>> repeat of that situation, but to be fair, it's happened at some point
>> in the history of every DAW I can think of. The slight advantage
>> Reaper has here is its open-ness to third party developers, and
>> although ReaAccess is abandonware, there are already rumblings of a
>> couple of potential successors, and those are just the ones that've
>> reached my ears, there might be more.
>>
>> 4. I have no easy, accessible way to backup my internal hard drive on
>> my Windows machine.
>> I seem to remember there being a few Cavicasts on cloning and
>> restoring images, so maybe start with those. It's perhaps not quite
>> the same experience as maintenance on the Mac side, but I know it can
>> be done without sighted assistance.
>>
>> 5. I already have a Mac and am familiar with VoiceOver.
>> Here's the biggest reason that you should give it a go IMHO. For the
>> price of an iLok (£25-ish in the UK, or whatever that equates to in
>> dollars) you can authorise the demo of Pro Tools for a month and try
>> it on for size. I know, it sucks that you have to authorise the demo,
>> and you'll need to get someone sighted to help you through the iLok
>> authorisation too, but from knowing how different the schools of
>> thought are between using Reaper and using Pro Tools, you should
>> definitely try before you buy.
>>
>> 6. Windows is not made for audio work.
>> Agreed, but with solid hardware that'd serve you well to own no matter
>> which DAW you end up using, some patience and a good restoration
>> solution to get back to that time when it did run well, Windows can be
>> bullied into doing well enough with audio. On the flipside, VoiceOver
>> is an absolute dog nowadays, and with a lot of research and all the
>> patience in the world, there's nothing I've been able to do about
>> that. On an I7 Mac, 16 GB of RAM and a fast Samsung SSD, VO still
>> slows me down in Pro Tools to the point that a lot of the time I end
>> up flying blind as it were.
>>
>> As with anything, it's swings and roundabouts whichever way you turn.
>> It'll probably always be this way. They say too much choice is a bad
>> thing, but we're dealing with too many half-baked choices which is
>> even worse. My advice would be to try out as much stuff as you can
>> justify with the time you have, find what works for you then learn it
>> inside out and ignore everything else until you come across something
>> that simply isn't possible.
>>
>> Scott
>>
>> On 7/13/14, Chris Belle <cb1963 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>> Good points.
>>>
>>> but it's very safe to say, how much hotdog hardware you can get even
>>> going with a premium daw vendor will be much greater than you can expect
>>> from apple.
>>> for the same price.
>>>
>>> Jim Roseberry's daws for a nice i5 tricked out with 16 megs and
>>> 2 drives start at just a thousand.
>>>
>>> You won't get anything like that kind of performance from anything in
>>> mac land at that price,
>>>
>>> On 7/12/2014 5:03 PM, Crystal Dennis wrote:
>>>> I've never used protools but have done a lot of research on it - I
>>>> also, have never been able to wrap my head around reaper other than
>>>> just using it for recording - everytime I try to use a plug it is very
>>>> um...not as streamlined?  I'd say.  Reaper has  a big learning curve
>>>> for me and I want to try to learn it now but when I look at Protools
>>>> manuals and guides it just seems like a lot simpler of an interface.
>>>>
>>>> But since you know what you're doing in regards to using both
>>>> interfaces I take it I'll just throw in my 2 cents:
>>>>
>>>> Will there be challenges in protools on a Mac?  Yeah, probably.  Will
>>>> there be challenges on windows with Reaper?  Yeah, most definitely.
>>>> Windows isn't a system built for audio engineering, and though as
>>>> Chris said you can build a custom Windows rig, it would probably cost
>>>> more or about the same as the Mac and Protools that will be ready to
>>>> use out the box.  Yes, Protools could break, but imo Reaper has more
>>>> of a possibility of breaking because ray access works on an older
>>>> version of Reaper.
>>>>
>>>> Protools is the industry standard:  If you want to be level on the
>>>> same playing field as our sighted peers, then idk I'd go with
>>>> protools.
>>>>
>>>> To be honest, I've sort of not wanted to learn Reaper because I
>>>> eventually want to get a Mac with protools.
>>>>
>>>> I've gone on the Mac for Protools lists and seen 2 things:  The
>>>> interface is easy to pick up (the protools manual has about 80 pages
>>>> worth of keystrokes in it) and the accessibility stays well,
>>>> accessible throughout updates, and if they break something in an
>>>> update Avid fixes it pretty quickly in the next update.
>>>>
>>>> If you want something to use out of the box and already know Voice
>>>> over:  Yeah, personally I'd go with Mac/Protools.  Will you have to
>>>> use multiple programs to work around some things?  Probably,  but
>>>> let's face it:  Being blind with technology, that's just par for the
>>>> course no matter what you use.  Honestly I'd probably have both a PC
>>>> and a Mac (not Mac with bootcamp, but a legit PC) just so you have
>>>> both options  available to you so you don't feel like you made a
>>>> mistake in switching.
>>>>
>>>> Hope this helped!  Like I said I don't super use either DAW, but this
>>>> is just from research I've done/opinions I've formed from trying to
>>>> use Reaper and reading up on protools with voice over.
>>>>
>>>> Crystal
>>>>
>>>> On 7/12/14, Kevin Brown <cursebuster at samobile.net> wrote:
>>>>> Lots of great points!,...I am one of those guys who likes to spend the
>>>>> time tweeking, and bolting things together...
>>>>> So,...Reaper works fine for me,...then again, I am not as advanced as
>>>>> many of you on this forum...
>>>>>
>>>>> Another point for me is, I am totally hooked on system access, and I
>>>>> find that reaper works very well with system access...
>>>>>
>>>>> I like some of the points you made Cris,...I may look into getting a
>>>>> windows machine custom built,...but, I am still going to use
>>>>> reaper,...I just love this DAW...
>>>>>
>>>>>
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