Hi Daisy. No question, Reaper is far less expensive than SONAR and they perform a similar purpose.

Just thought you should know that, as of December 8, there is a new version of SONAR called X1, and the company has dropped the price to $399 US for the top-of-the line Producer edition. There are also less expensive Studio and Home editions, too. So, if you are considering SONAR, keep that in mind.

Others who know Reaper can answer your questions about that; I've used SONAR or its predecessor for so long, I'm sticking with that.

Another question you might want answered is, what advantages are there in RealBand over either SONAR or Reaper? RealBand takes BIAB files directly and you can continue to work with them; no other software can do that. All the other DAW programs can do is take MIDI or audio tracks generated by BIAB.


BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.