Reaper or Audacity?

viz

Going to buy it today, which is best?

Heartfeltdawn

Audacity is free, Reaper is cheap. One is an audio editor, the other a fully fledged DAW. Very different things. 

What do you want to do with the software? 

Ianb62

I have both,

Reaper is far more complex, and far more adaptable (but as Audacity is free there is no harm in having both)
I also have Ntrack - which is paid for - and in some ways I prefer that to Reaper, I find its easier to manage plugins with Ntrack .

viz

Audacity is the free one is it? I need to record a piano concert; I just bought an interface but the free software it came with keeps crashing my computer. But I'd also like to record guitar through it later. What is a daw again? I have an amp modeller already.

viz

Which one is least likely to crash in a live situation? If it crashes, I will be slaughtered.

digitalscream

If you're just recording (rather than editing) and you have an Android/iPhone with sufficient capacity, I may have a solution for you (I've got a condenser as mentioned in the other thread, and an iRig Pre to plug into the phone). It would involve you coming over to me to pick up some gear, though.

viz

Hi - I was directed to this thread from the other one lol - interesting though I don't think I can trust my iphone to record 2 hours on the trot - it often drops out after 45 mins or so, so I'm deff going the mic and PC route.

digitalscream

viz said:

Hi - I was directed to this thread from the other one lol - interesting though I don't think I can trust my iphone to record 2 hours on the trot - it often drops out after 45 mins or so, so I'm deff going the mic and PC route.

Fair enough...get yourself a real phone (or a tablet), and you won't have that problem

The mic offer still stands, if you can't get yourself sorted in time.

viz

Cheers

Fazer

if you are just recording basic mono/stereo track then audacity is (probably) fine.
as for recording 2 uninterrupted hours and crashes i havent tried it myself so i dont know.
do look at the free disk space and that the file system is happy with a single gigantic file.

reaper is also free to try, nagware, so give it a test as well

digitalscream

Personally, I'd use Reaper. I've found Audacity to be a bit unstable on occasions.

viz

Cheers chaps

JAYJO

Just bought Reaper, works out about £36. bargain  though you could live with the nag screen for minimum 60 days then decide.

digitalscream

JAYJO said:

Just bought Reaper, works out about £36. bargain  though you could live with the nag screen for minimum 60 days then decide.

Yeah, I bought it too - we've recorded our album with it. Frankly, it's an astonishing bit of software at almost any price comparable to other DAWs; at £36, it's ludicrous value for money.

The remote VST functionality is something else, by the way. If you use enough VSTs that your machine is struggling and you have a spare computer or two (and a decent wired network), you can spread the load across all the machines. I don't know of any other DAWs that can do that without expensive plugins and complicated setup..

ThePrettyDamned

I love Reaper, it's pretty easy to use and I've found Rea EQ to be pretty powerful! It's actually quite useful.  

Very easy to add plugins and the like, and it's cheap! It's nagware - technically, you need to pay for it after the trial but there is no software lock so you can just keep using it.  Don't bother - it's £36 quid, which is cheaper than a Boss pedal. 

ThePrettyDamned

That said, definitely make sure the lappy is well ventilated! Mine gets mega hot. 

It's a bit rubbish, though.

viz

Ok. On Audacity how do I get my laptop's internal mic from picking up sound and adding it to my condenser mic's signal (which is coming via an interface through a usb port)?

Fazer

ctrl-p / devices / recording?

Fazer

or simply the recording dropdown at the top?

Danny1969

Reaper doesn't actually need you to buy it at all, I've been evaluating it for about 6 years now

 

viz

Done it thanks. I was getting my knickers in a twist about the name of my internal mic, which bears striking resemblence to the name of my interface. cheers!