Tobias,

I'm a huge fan of Reaper. It's very stable. I've run it on Vista and Windows 7.

Up until 5 or 6 years ago, I'd been a Cakewalk/Sonar user for a long time then I switched to Reaper and have never looked back. It's a fantastic DAW.

Reaper offers more fine control over all parameters than Realband. Realband, though, does lots of things related to working with Realtracks, Supermidi and midi generations that no DAW can do. Using RB is still an indispensable part of my journey when creating a song.

My sequence of writing and producing a song is...

  • Create the song in BIAB.
  • Find and create additional audio material in Realband.
  • Record vocals and mix the final product in Reaper.



In relation to Reaper, here's an example of one track...

The graphic below is my lead vocal (in Reaper) for my most recent song (link: "That's What I Believe").




And here's a close-up of a volume envelopes in one of the sections of the lead vocal.




When working for the lead vocal with this song, I used five separate envelopes to manage the final sound.

1. The first stage of vocal production was to split the vocal track into sections. From there I adjusted any overly loud or soft syllables. This is my first step in managing vocal volume. With these section envelopes, I mostly adjust syllables.

2. Then I added a separate volume envelope. This is my second step in managing vocal volume output by Reaper. With this envelope, I mostly adjust the volumes of sections.

3. Next I added an envelope to control the switching on and off of the delay in Nectar 2 (a VST).

4. The envelope beneath this controlled the amount of Nectar's delay added to the vocals.

5. The final envelope controlled the amount of reverb, again in Nectar, that was added to the vocals.

All of these envelopes are controlled by nodes so that I can simply set the shape I want the behaviour to follow and Reaper does the rest.

I find that the ability to use nodes to control every parameter of every plugin I add to a track to be incredibly useful.

Lastly, you don't have to buy Reaper to begin using it. Simply download it and run it. If you decide you like it, you can then purchase it at some future date. It's fully functional as trial software.

Hope this helps give some ideas.

Regards,
Noel



MY SONGS...
Audiophile BIAB 2025