Reaper vs Cakewalk by Bandlab

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

It has an integrated Channel Strip on every track/bus with excellent and easy to use Audio FX: EQ, Comp, Reverbs, Saturation, Console Emulators etc.In addition to saving presets of the entire ProChannel chain (all modules), you can also save and load presets of individual modules. The per module preset controls are located on the left side of each module header bar.

It is basically SONAR for free after they shut down.

There are a variety of tools available, including the fantastic reverb plugin from Overloud, Breverb2.

The program itself is only 64 bits but it runs 32 and 64 bits plugin. If you still have a great plugin that never got to 64 bits this comes in handy.

No track and busses limitation.

This feature makes working with Celemony Melodyne and other ARA compatible plug-ins a breeze.

Cakewalk comes with a basic set of VST instruments: A general MIDI synth, drums, e-piano, bass and a string section.

Cakewalk comes with friendly defaults and it has a similar workflow to analog studio gear.

Easily create a final comp of all your recorded takes with simple drag and select gestures using the smart tool.

Good for people with a small-screened laptop.

The Arranger track is an arrangement tool that provides several workflow benefits .For example, instantly swap the positions of the first and second chorus for all tracks, or copy the first verse in order to double its duration.Experiment with different song structures in a non-destructive and non-linear manner. You can Create arbitrary song sections anywhere on the project timeline and then stitch them together for seamless playback, sections provide an additional way to make time-based project selections and edits. You can also create an unlimited number of arrangements per project, which can all be exported simultaneously.

The Cakewalk By Bandlab DAW comes with a new and improved user interface with an additional focus on being customizable.

You can now download and install future updates directly from Cakewalk instead of using BandLab Assistant.

Cakewalk by Bandlab recently added Articulation Maps If you work with sample libraries and virtual instruments, articulation maps are sure to improve your MIDI and articulation / keyswitch workflow Articulation maps provide a much easier way to change articulation, without having to manually edit events MIDI on the track.

The Step Sequencer makes it easy to compose patterns using a grid, where each cell (step) represents a note. You create patterns by clicking the cells in the grid to turn notes on or off, or by using step recording.

You can now activate Cakewalk directly from within the app, without requiring BandLab Assistant. Cakewalk must be activate once every 6 months.

Cakewalk Theme Editor allows you to easily customize the look of Cakewalk by editing existing UI themes or creating your own UI themes.
You can change colors directly and you can even customize images when used in combination with an external image editor such as Adobe Photoshop.

Mix Recall allows you to save and recall multiple mixes for the same project, without having to save multiple copies of the project file.
A mix can be saved as a Mix Scene within the project, and each project can store multiple Mix Scenes. A Mix Scene contains all track, bus, hardware output, ProChannel and plug-in static and automation mix settings.

Without stuttering even without ASIO hardware because of recent overhaul of the audio engine