Dan i think that is true if you are taking about a stone hammer and a pnuematic nail gun. But when it comes to DAw software it is not about the quality of the tools as much as it is work flow. If the flow you use works use it, but don't doubt for a minute RB can mix and master with the best of them. Some of the best carpentry i ever saw came from old school carpenters from the old days with far less sophisticated equipment.

I have recorded in Cakewalk, Acid, Vegas, N-Track, PTPA, RB, Reaper, MTS, and a couple others. And personally the end results are very much the same. RB does not have quite as good of plugins as some others do, especially in the simplicity of them, but if you learn them, they are every bit as capable. Plus all the cakewalk, and Reaper plugs work in it.

I used to drop all finished tracks in MTS, and now i finish in RB. If i start a project in MTS, i finish it htere, or if i need something it does I move it there. However the last two i did i used RB alone and it was very solid and capable.

What Reaper excels at is routing. Being able to send any track, effect, and or process to any other you want. IMHO much of that is unneccesary. Some is cool, but the routing in Rb is not bad. Not mega optional, but very workable. If you have clean clear solid tracks, and you need to send them to effects that is doable, and master limiting and EQing is there. Anything other than that can very quickly become over kill. Rb routes very similar to Cakewalk's Sonar thru tracks to aux and master busses. That is the basis for not only Cakewalk, but Cubase, and Logic. They all work very similar. And all will mix and master if you learn the ways and master that process.

It boils down to what one wants to do, and how, and it that comfortable to them. One thing I found with myself, is that for the longest time I chased after the greatest and most feature ridden, fancy environment, and realized that it did not really matter learn to use your tools and learn the craft well.

HP Win 11 12 gig ram, Mac mini with 16 gig of ram, BiaB 2025, Realband, Reaper 7, Harrison Mixbus 9 32c , Melodyne 5 editor, Presonus Audiobox 1818VSL, Presonus control app.