I just can’t imagine how Reaper is difficult to use. Is it because the stock plugins aren’t cute to look at?
It needs a fuck ton of customization to make it usable out of the box in my opinion. The out of the box experience is nonsensical, anti-user, and just not intuitive.
Most DAW's utilise numpad asterisk to trigger recording for example. The ones that don't, use single key triggers. Cubase is asterisk. Logic is 'R'. Ableton is F9. Pro Tools is numpad 3. FL Studio is R. Reason and Studio One are also asterisk.
Reaper?? alt+R. Why the fuck is such an essential keyboard shortcut hidden behind a combination like that by default? So dumb, and ignore of how people want to work - which is quickly, efficiently, and very often with an instrument in their hands.
Okay, doing alt+R might not be such a challenge. But there are others that are just total bullshit.
I do use it. I use it every day in fact. But more and more, begrudgingly. Cubase is my favourite DAW out of the box, and the mixer is unparalleled in terms of how you can setup the views and the monitoring and the split console experience.
The reason I say Axe FX III is Reaper is two folder - very developer orientated in its workflow, and fuck you if you disagree. Work with it, or work around it. We're not changing it. But also the depths of complexity is unparalleled.
I can write a custom transient detector in Reaper if I want. I can't do that in Cubase or Studio One. But there again .... why would I need to??
There's loads of content production tasks that I've done for 15+ years that I was able to batch script in Reaper, and the other DAW's cannot really touch it for that level of customization.
But the simple act of recording some music?? Reaper - out of the box - completely blows. I've made it as close to a Cubase/Studio One hybrid as I can be arsed with, and I just live with it.
