Audacity or Reaper?

Maxx355

Hi, I'm going to do some home recording using guitar/bass guitar. I've never used Audacity or Reaper before. Which would be the more user friendly? I'll be using an audio interface to a laptop running windows.

feylya

I like Reaper. Bought a license years ago. Neither are overly user friendly - they bought have a learning curve, but a good weekend spent watching YouTube videos and reading articles, and you'll be set

L1011

If you don't have Audacity already installed, be very careful installing it now. Newer installers have been known to have spyware in them.

feylya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119295869#Comment_119295869

Is it not telemetry collection that's in it now, rather than spyware?

Dslatt

Reaper. There is an awful lot to it but once you get it down its as good as the likes of qbase and logic imo. Audacity also has just the most painful interface.

Gaspode

+1 for Reaper, I find it's excellent and absolutely streets ahead of Audacity. Audacity got me started but was very frustrating.

Check out the videos by Kenny Goia, really excellent simple explanations https://m.youtube.com/@REAPERMania

Grolschevik

Is Reaper hard on the computer memory? Not talking about saving tracks, but would it make sense to install it to a separate drive if all you have is a decent but bog-standard laptop.

Gaspode

Its not heavy at all on memory or cpu in my experience. Mine is a 10 Yr old pc nothing special.

I've installed the odd 3rd party plugin that was hard on cpu, so I tend to avoid those now. The stock plugins are actually really good so theres less need to get 3rd party ones than you'd think.

audiobabble

Reaper, hands-down. It's far more easy on the CPU than Cubase or Pro-Tools. Audacity really doesn't compare to Reaper, nothing wrong with Audacity per se.. it will get you into recording - but if you're new to DAWs anyway.. go with Reaper and, unlike Audacity, you won't ever find yourself 'reaching the limit' of what it can do. My advice for Reaper -- read the manual for a quick intro, but also get yourself on the forum at forum.cockos.com -- head to the newbie section and check out the guides, or feel free to ask any dumb question you like - the folks there are super-friendly and super-helpful, you'll usually get a reply within minutes. Also, check out Kenny Gioia's vids on youtube, they're brilliant.

Oh yes, and if you're worried about Reaper not being free -- it essentially is free, all it costs is 5 seconds of your time waiting for the 'nag screen' to go away, other than than that the trial version is exactly the same as the licensed version and never expires. Even then, a license is only $60 and absolutely worth it!

Best of luck :)

Maxx355

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121027107#Comment_121027107

Definitely, I have being using it for over a year now and find it excellent, once I found my way around it 👍️