Interesting DAW Testing Results: And the winner is.....

[Bapu 1,600]

Reaper.

Awhile ago I bought a metal mixing tut to see if I could gain some insight form a Pro (Kane Churko). He also provided the full source material fully mixed in ProTools, Live, Logic X, Studio One, FL Studio, Cubase, Reaper, Cakewalk and Digital Performer.

The only DAWs I don't own in that list is Live and FL Studio.

After ensuring that I indeed had all the plugins he used I proceeded to play the project in ProTools (on Mac and PC), Studio One (on Mac and PC), Cakewalk and Reaper (on Mac and PC).

This is a very large project in both track (101) and VSTs (~150 separate instances of various plugs). And, it has 6 instances of the Ana2 synth.

The project in all cases of ProTools and Cakewalk would not play for more that 20-45 seconds before crapping out. Reaper played all the way through with no problems.

The project was recorded at 24/48 which lets my RME Fireface UFX get a maximum buffers of 2048 (but ProTools cannot even run at more than 1024, an imposed Avid limit).

Studio One came in second in that it could run nearly halfway through the song before stuttering a few times and finally stopping. I had hopes it would make  it to the end. I had Studio One's reduce dropouts parameter set to Maximum.

I had always heard that Reaper was the lightest on CPU of all the best known DAWs. This limited test for me proved that statement to be correct (in this instance).

 

My PC Specs are: Windows 10 64-bit, Intel I7 2600K 3GHz processor, Asus P8P67 Pro (Rev 3.1) mobo, Gigabyte HD 5450 Fanless Video, 32Gb PC1600 Memory

 My Mac Specs are: Catalina up to date OS, 2Gz Quad Code I7 CPU, 16GB memory, Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB

 

 

Edited August 31 by Bapu

[S.L.I.P. 897]

50 minutes ago, Bapu said:

Reaper played all the way through with no problems.

Over two years without a crash, stutter, dropout, or hiccup.  

[emeraldsoul 874]

I thought you were going to argue which one sounded the best . . .?

[Bapu 1,600]

11 minutes ago, emeraldsoul said:

I thought you were going to argue which one sounded the best . . .?

When they play anything by me, none of them sound best. I wonder what the common thread is?

[marled 183]

One very positive thing about Reaper that I have found out:

With a Windows 10 Update my laptop could not boot in a regular way anymore. Even after 2 weeks I could not fix it trying all kind of manual boot repair (how I regretted to have chosen UEFI!). Thus I decided to reinstall Windows 10 and lost my license 😁 because I had added a SSD as boot disk (luckily I had bought a cheap spare license lately, I tip from the Deals forum!). Now I have a long way to go through all my program and plugin installations! 🥵 Except with Reaper, I just could copy the mobile installation and it runs again!

This was great in the old times of the PCs where this was possible with almost any program. All application configurations were placed in the application directory, no mess with registry and files in a couple of system directories like nowadays progress, the future, the almighty Windows 10!

[57Gregy 159]

Is it free? 😉

[Bapu 1,600]

1 hour ago, S.L.I.P. said:

Over two years without a crash, stutter, dropout, or hiccup.  

Slight update: The Reaper complete success playback was on WIN 10. I forgot to say that on my 2015 MacbookPro there were some occasional stutters. I am only using the built in audio on the Macbook Pro. I tried some fiddling with buffers in the Options->Preferences->Audio but not much changed with that. Maybe on the Macbook Pro I need a better interface.

[Bapu 1,600]

14 minutes ago, 57Gregy said:

Is it free? 😉

If you license a copy ($60, small studio/private user, i.e. you earn < $20K from Reaper) you get the next major update for free.

Edited August 31 by Bapu

[antler 467]

38 minutes ago, marled said:

Thus I decided to reinstall Windows 10 and lost my license

If you log in with a Microsoft account (you don't have to use that account for everyday use), you can link your license (assuming it's not an OEM) with your account. Then if you change your hardware, you can use the license that's linked to your account.

[craigb 2,461]

Wait... My favorite didn't make the list??? 🤔

(Man, nobody gives Notepad any respect... 😞)

😜

[Bapu 1,600]

22 hours ago, craigb said:

Wait... My favorite didn't make the list??? 🤔

(Man, nobody gives Notepad any respect... 😞)

😜

Leanest DAW ever. Not one bug reported in over 20 years.

[kennywtelejazz 848]

On 8/31/2020 at 2:38 PM, Bapu said:

Slight update: The Reaper complete success playback was on WIN 10. I forgot to say that on my 2015 MacbookPro there were some occasional stutters. I am only using the built in audio on the Macbook Pro. I tried some fiddling with buffers in the Options->Preferences->Audio but not much changed with that. Maybe on the Macbook Pro I need a better interface.

It might be much different w your much newer Mackbook pro but have you tried your current interface yet ? Both my "older Macs " a MackBook and an i Mac  run my 2i4 seamlessly and I didn't even have to install a driver  .

 

Kenny

[marled 183]

On 9/1/2020 at 12:05 AM, antler said:

If you log in with a Microsoft account (you don't have to use that account for everyday use), you can link your license (assuming it's not an OEM) with your account. Then if you change your hardware, you can use the license that's linked to your account.

Thanks! But in my case it was an OEM version, more precisely they were 2 OEM versions that I lost (d@mn MS!), the original HP  W10 Home and a W10 Pro OEM that I bought later.

[Bapu 1,600]

On 8/31/2020 at 2:38 PM, Bapu said:

Slight update: The Reaper complete success playback was on WIN 10. I forgot to say that on my 2015 MacbookPro there were some occasional stutters. I am only using the built in audio on the Macbook Pro. I tried some fiddling with buffers in the Options->Preferences->Audio but not much changed with that. Maybe on the Macbook Pro I need a better interface.

Revised update. After a few small tweaks in Reaper on my MacBookPro I was able to get the project to play from top to bottom without a hitch using the onboard audio.

Now I am so torn between Reaper's stability and Studio One Pro 5's workflow.

 

Edited September 14 by Bapu

[S.L.I.P. 897]

 

[Bapu 1,600]

6 minutes ago, S.L.I.P. said:

 

Needs more cowbell.

[S.L.I.P. 897]

48 minutes ago, Bapu said:

Reaper

Here's a really nice 4K theme, also available in 1080p called Smooth 6: 

[S.L.I.P. 897]

Close up on the faders:

 

Link: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=228983

Edited September 15 by S.L.I.P.

[craigb 2,461]

44 minutes ago, S.L.I.P. said:

Link: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=228983

* Continues worrying about S.L.I.P....  First T-Girls, now a link to a forum called "Cockos?" 😮 *

I ain't clicking on that link!

😜

Edited September 15 by craigb

[Bapu 1,600]

14 hours ago, S.L.I.P. said:

Close up on the faders:

 

Link: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=228983

Me likey, me gonna get