The EM Poll

Review: Cockos Reaper 2.0 (Win)

May 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Allan Metts

           

A SURPRISINGLY POWERFUL AND AFFORDABLE SEQUENCER

FIG. 3: Though Reaper isn’t necessarily a comprehensive MIDI-sequencing product, it has enough of the basic editing tools for most jobs.

What About MIDI?

Some programs designed for recording audio suffer from minimal MIDI capabilities. Although Reaper certainly isn't a MIDI powerhouse, it does contain enough MIDI-editing capabilities to get the job done. The basic views are there, including a MIDI event list, two piano-roll views (one offering named notes), and graphical controller editing (see Fig. 3). However, Reaper can't display MIDI events as standard musical notation.

You can apply basic MIDI quantization during recording, but you can't do groove quantization or quantize to triplets (although the Swing slider provides a similar effect). During playback, several MIDI effects help you with Velocity adjustments, keymapping, and even arpeggiation, but you won't find much to help you out with offline MIDI adjustments of entire tracks at once (other than the individual event editing you can perform in the piano roll and event list).

Reaper has support for certain control surfaces from Mackie, Behringer, and Frontier Design, though I wasn't able to test those capabilities. Even if you don't have one of these controllers, you can associate MIDI events with any action that responds to a keyboard shortcut (and there are many, many such actions). You can also map MIDI Control Changes to effects parameters. Though I'm happy to see support for MIDI hardware, Reaper could go a little further. I found myself trying to right-click on a Track Volume control and immediately associate it with a MIDI controller of my choosing.

However you move Reaper's controls (whether using the mouse or a supported control surface), you'll be glad to know you can automate those movements. The program supports envelopes for volume, pan, effects parameters, and sends for each track, and it provides you with the tools you need to manipulate those envelopes. You can record changes to the envelopes using their respective onscreen controls. In addition, you can choose how and when recording occurs using one of five automation modes, including Touch (which records changes only while you're making them) and Latch (which starts recording as soon as you make the first change).

The remaining Reaper features are almost too numerous to mention. Check out the online bonus material for details on performance monitoring, productivity aids, and extra bells and whistles.

Reap What You Sow

Make no mistake: Reaper is a deep program. It's easy to get up and running with basic recording and mixdown, but using the program to its fullest potential requires a bit of a learning curve. So with all this depth, how is the documentation? For starters, the PDF User Guide has several hundred pages to cover most aspects of the program, and the Cockos Web site maintains a wiki and an active community forum for the rest. Cockos usually releases a new version of Reaper every few days, so it's understandable that the documentation might lag a bit behind the application.

Reaper is a powerful program at a great price. I love the no-nonsense style, the power-user capabilities, and the gracious pricing that lets hobbyists use the application without breaking the bank. If you have a Windows PC, a desire to work with audio, and an Internet connection, you have no reason not to check this program out.

Allan Metts (sonicbids.com/allanmetts) is an Atlanta-based musician.

PRODUCT SUMMARY

PROS: Extremely flexible audio routing. Comprehensive features at a low price. Deep discount for noncommercial use. No trialware or code bloat. Extensive customization and productivity aids.

CONS: May be difficult for novices to use. Lacks advanced MIDI features such as a notation view and offline bulk edits.

Cockos Incorporated
cockos.com

Don't Fear the Reaper

A quick Google search for Cockos's founder, Justin Frankel, reveals that he was one of the key players in the launch of the Gnutella file-sharing network. He also founded Nullsoft, which makes the popular Winamp media player. AOL purchased Nullsoft for an impressive sum in 1999, and Frankel founded Cockos after leaving AOL. In 2004, Rolling Stone called him “the world's most dangerous geek.”