Reason vs Reaper

Synths, effects, and utilities can be modularly wired via audio and CV.

Reason may look intimidating at first, but it is just as easy to learn as any DAW, if not more so, yet has incredible depth once you delve deeper, with some options that are just not possible in other DAWs.

As of version 9.5, Reason now supports VSTs.

Very stable and fluid. Rarely crashes.

Reason's Audio Pitch Editor easily can hold its own to Melodyne Essentials. Makes editing vocals and other monophonic sound very easy.

You can go really deep into creating sound and routing. Find possibilities you cant do with any other DAW.

MIDI out is a new addition in Reason, allowing feedback to MIDI devices.

The multi fx are very nice. Great for transitions and complete sound management.

Reason's rack and mixer visually emulate real studio hardware through a skeuomorphic GUI/UX, allowing you to route audio cables and CV very intuitively. Hit "tab" on your computer keyboard, and you can see the rear of the rack, making routing very easy to understand.

Professionally produced tutorial videos often released by Propellerhead that show you how to use the software. Reason also has a thriving user base that offers video tutorials showing you how to do almost anything you need.

One of the best if not the best mixer on any daw.

Reason makes it easy to stretch audio or slice it up for glitchy sound effects. When audio is loaded, it is analyzed so slice markers can be placed at the beginning and end of each note. Slice markers appear when the audio sample is double clicked.

Is great for more ideas and creativity.

Can work with reason Rack in any Daw

Using clips makes it very easy to automate precisely.

Has one of the best and creative samplers among the DAWs and in the market. Like Mimic.

Great set of instruments and players and samplers included out of the box.

You can open and work multiple projects at the same time

Can display reason windows onn multiple screens

Mulitple high quality built in synthesisers, drum loops, samplers and effects with plenty of pre-built patches to explore plus the ability to create your own unique sounds.

REX files record effects and slices on top of the original file, and will play audio at the tempo of a project. REX files provide many uses and are a great addition to Reason.

You can easily customize a GUI.

Reaper receives high praise for its stability. It's one of the many talking points of the software.

There are no limits to the amount of tracks or effects that Reaper can run. Reaper is stable enough to handle comically dense projects with style.

Reaper's developers add features based on user request at lightspeed. This is what makes Reaper reliable and trustworthy. Fans of Reaper are so adamant about the software because of this.

Contrary to Music Radar's review of FL Studio, Reaper is the true "People's DAW".

Reaper's will tailor itself to fit your computer's processing power by automatically using the "anticipative FX processing" feature.

No complex activation shenanigans. No dongle and such.

Records in WAV, AIFF, FLAC, WAVPACK, OGG and MP3.

In addition to its powerful inbuilt plugins, Reaper comes bundled with about 300 little plugins written in its own EEL2 (aka Jesusonic) scripting language. This is also open-source so the end user can create or edit preexisting ones to get exactly what they want.

When using a 64-bit installation of Reaper, all 32-bit plugins will still work alongside 64-bit plugins. On computers with an x86-64 CPU and an OS that supports multi-architecture, you can also run bridged 64-bit plugins on 32-bit Reaper.

Reaper is lightweight enough to be run off of a flash drive; the installer weights less than 20 MB and the portable installation option is included in it.

Although it may seem otherwise, Reaper is shareware. After your 60-day free trial runs out, the program remains full-featured. Like WinRAR, the only person forcing you to get a license is you.

Reaper has no limitations. Once you understand it, Reaper becomes a mixing, mastering and editing mainstay. Reaper punches way above its price range in terms of sheer brevity.

Without prior experience with DAW, you can install Reaper, set up ASIO drivers, connect to your amp and mikes, get the hang of recording/re-recording tracks, and render an mp3 in just a few hours. You can accomplish the basics very fast.

Thought has been given to many time-saving features and shortcuts which speed up workflow considerably.

Reaper can be purchased in two different ways: A commercial license (225 USD) and a discounted license (60 USD).

You can use Reaper unhindered with either license. You can only get the discount if your salary does not exceed 20,000 USD.

In Reaper, you can record MIDI and Audio onto the same track. As well, there are no distinctions between any form of audio. Surround Sound, Mono, Stereo files, and anything else you can think of; all of this can be recorded onto the same track.

You can have multiple projects open via tabs at the top left. You can then drag and drop clips, instruments or ideas between projects with ease.

If you want to use it as a glorified tape machine and nothing else, you'll still be able to get work done. If you want to learn all the shortcuts, scripts, custom actions and macros and really unlock what Reaper can do, you can do that as well. Either way, you'll still be able to make music.

No need to install Wine, Reaper supports Linux natively!

You can customize Reaper with hundreds of themes, or make them yourself.

A freeze can be applied to a group, and then picked apart track by track.

Miraculously, composition-focused musicians can now find a home in Reaper.

Allows usage of the basic bundled like EQ's and comp plugins in any DAW.

While some may disagree, the GUI has been widely celebrated for its informative nature. Everything you need to see is there or reachable. For more analytical types, Reaper can be of use.

You don't have to go to a separate editor to edit audio files. You can work directly on the track, and drop/drag pieces to other tracks, sew them together. It's a fun sandbox and easy peasy.

You can control almost everything via OSC (and MIDI, too).

Set the cursor, press a key, done. Reaper's cursor is extremely intuitive. A monkey could understand it.

Unlike Cakewalk, Bitwig, etc., there is no need to switch cursor editing modes or work around "smart" cursors.

Running smoothly with 50 tracks on i5 gen3 RAM 4GB laptop (mixing and mastering work done separately).

These two things are the biggest advantage of Reaper. No other DAW can beat it based on CPU efficiency. Some people say Reaper isn't a professional DAW by look, but it's not true. Reaper is a full-featured professional DAW. You can do anything whatever you want for music production.
The price is also reasonable. They are even generous with the evaluation policy. If they offer the simple and intuitive version, I'll be back to Reaper.

While other DAWs drag their feet on Windows, Reaper hits a solid stride even on Linux.

You can have one version and the future version when its out .

Reaper allows editing while you're recording for a performative and fluid workflow. This feature can also help save time when mixing.

Can run edited Script tools programmed by users.

Not like Ableton which forces all master/track plugins chain to 1-core