DAWs - LABFREQ

January 17, 2022January 29, 2023

REAPER Review – a lightweight DAW that’s feature-packed

One of the more low-key studio secrets, REAPER is a bare-bones DAW with so many hidden abilities it’s considered a swiss-army-knife of audio production software. It’s unassuming, bland UI may appear off-putting – but don’t judge a DAW by its color.

For those not familiar, REAPER is an acronym for Rapid Environment for Audio Production, Engineering, and Recording. And it’s one of those no-frills programs where Cuckos the company behind it doesn’t try to spellbind you with sound libraries and plug-ins hidden behind souped-up marketing talk.

Nonetheless, Reaper is a complete digital audio workstation – offering audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing, and mastering. It’s used in commercial and home studios, broadcast, location recording, education, science and research, sound design, game development, etc.

While the company behind REAPER may not be prone to partnerships with other brands to bundle instruments, effects, or sound content – the DAW is compatible with all third-party plug-ins and formats.

Internally, REAPER only has three instruments available. The first and most extensive is SamplOmatic 5000, which handles samples. The second is ReaSynth – which can handle sound fonts. That’s it. If you want to use REAPER for music production/sound design – you’d want to invest in a third-party instrument and effects collection.

On the plus side, REAPER is budget-friendly – offering a simple licensing structure where you can purchase the program for $60 discounted license or $225 commercial license for companies. The only requirements there are to qualify for the discounted license is being an educational or non-profit organization, or an individual using REAPER only for your personal use. The $225 commercial license is for individuals and businesses using REAPER commercially and earning more than $20,000 annually.

Another plus is that REAPER is one of the few DAWs that are not only available for macOS and Windows – but Linux as well. We tested REAPER on a System76 laptop running PopOS, and it runs as smoothly as it does on Macs and Windows devices. The thing about companies like Cuckos building their DAW to be compatible with Linux, it truly opens the possibilities for recording studios to embrace open source – as DAW and music production programs is underdeveloped on Linux.

REAPER’s Extra Features

One thing that I consider an advantage of REAPER is the way it handles audio files. It has an Acid-engine like algorithm where audio files becomes elastic under the tempo of a project. You can set a project to the tempo of an imported audio file, if the BPM is embedded into the metadata of the file.

There is also an extensive Project Rendering Window where Metadata can be added to an export of a project and embedded into the file – including Album Art.

A few other features are the ability to use audio and MIDI within the same track. Also the ability to route audio and MIDI to any other track, allowing for some truly creative results. It also comes with a nice theme engine, and users can even customize REAPER to their own satisfaction.

Conclusion

To some things up, the closest thing that comes to mind when using REAPER – is Sony’s ACID Pro DAW. The ability to handle audio files and create loops. But the way REAPER does things is a lot more agile, flexible and powerful than the latter. It’s very stable as well, having not crashed once during our review process. While REAPER might not be the best out-of-the-box solution for an EDM or Hip-Hop producer who needs a plethora of tools in their arsenal. But for bands who want multitrack recording multiple real world instruments simultaneously, harmonizing choirs or vocal groups – you may find yourself at home.

September 13, 2019September 23, 2019

Propellerhead relaunches as Reason Studios,announces Reason 11 available Sept. 25th

Propellerhead – the software firm behind music production programs like Reason and Recycle, announced their rebranding on August 26th. Tim Self of marketing at Reason stated, “It didn’t take much research to figure out that the world knows us for Reason. When I get introduced by industry peers at conferences they often say, “Meet Tim from Reason”, never Propellerhead. Reason is what we do and who we are now, so why not be direct and own it outright?”

The 11th version of Reason was also announced along with some of its new features. The Reason Rack Plugin – turns Reasons instruments and effects to VSTs to be used in other DAWs.

Reason Rack Plugin running inside Bitwig Studio

Bitwig Studio running Reason’s Grain Synthesizer

Quartet Chorus Ensemble
Sweeper Modulation Effect

Other features for Reason 11 are new device additions like the Sweeper Modulation Effect and Quartet Chorus Ensemble, as well as a slew of new tools to speed up your workflow. In song arranger view – new features like curved automation and muting MIDI notes are on deck. There is also a new purchase tier, Reason Suite – which comes with 16 extra Rack Extensions for a total of more than 70 devices.

While it’s too early speak on Reason 11 in detail, we’ve been beta testing for a bit.We will give a hands-on preview as soon as it’s updated to the release channel, and an in-depth review shortly after the release!

Visit Reason Studios for more info on Reason 11.

July 30, 2019March 9, 2023

Studio One 4 Professional Review: the Complete Package

Presonus – a company that produces Audio Interfaces, Mixing Systems, Preamplifiers and Control Surfaces, is looking to centralize their product offering with audio recording software that challenges industry standards. And with the newest version – my opinion is they have achieved just that. Studio One, a post-millennial DAW that entered the market more recently- is fast approaching ‘established brand’ status. As we near it’s 10th year anniversary, we take a look at version 4.5 of the digital audio workstation. This is Studio One 4.

Studio One, comes in three flavors- Prime, Artist and Professional. Prime is the free, yet generous albeit limited version compared to Artist and Professional. The Prime edition gives you access to the core features of the DAW and unlimited audio and MIDI track count, but out of the 5 built-in virtual instruments it only offers Presence XT and no 3rd party VST support. S1 Prime also allows .wav, .flac. and .mp3 export of your music.

The Artist Edition gives you access to all 5 of S1’s virtual instruments with an additional 5GB of sounds, while Professional offers more than 20GB of sounds and a Project Page where you can create final masters ready for release.

The Instruments

Impact XT- Multichannel Drum Sampler

Mai Tai- Polyphonic Virtual Analog Synthesizer

Mojito- Monophonic Subtractive Synthesizer

Presence XT – Sample Playback Instrument with Support for third-party sampler format (EXS, Giga, Kontakt)

Sample One XT– Drag and Drop Integrated Live Sampler

Presonus has given Studio One a broad and versatile collection of virtual instruments that helps it stand toe-to-toe with any music production software packages. Impact XT gives you MPC-style drum programming, Presence XT has support for third-party sample formats like Kontakt and EXS, while Sample One XT handles live sampling of any audio content you import into it. Mojito and Mai Tai handles any and all synthesis between the two.

Version 4 – New Features

Some of the standout features new to Studio One 4 include advanced export options including video scoring, the Chord Track, and the Drum Roll.

Chord Track – a new feature that uses Harmonic Editing to change, preserve, and extract chord data from your compositions with flexible transposition, key modulation, and chord substitution for note data and audio.

Drum Roll View – Takes the beloved Piano Roll view and repurposes it for drum programming, making realistic drum sequences easier than ever. Drop Hi-Hats in double time and program your snares with ease.

Project View – (Professional Only)

Exclusive to Studio One Professional is the Project Page- an integrated mastering suite which contains tools for mastering, managing the metadata of, and exporting one or more songs simultaneously, including options for creating Red Book Standard CDs or disk images. The project page puts Studio One in a different space than every other DAW on the market, offering features unavailable in traditional DAWs like Pro Tools, Cubase, and Logic – while surpassing the capabilities of mastering suites like Sound Forge and WaveLab. Melodyne essential also comes bundled with the Pro version.

Conclusion

Studio One is known for being one of the more modern, future-proof DAWs – carrying over all of the useful features of programs with traditional, linear User Interfaces (think Cubase and Pro Tools) introducing innovative features like a multi-touch interface/UI with drag-and-drop functionality to the desktop-class programs. It’s look and feature set, puts it in square competition with DAWs like Pro Tools, Cubase, Digital Performer and Logic Pro- while it’s MIDI programming abilities and instruments make it capable of replacing programs like Reason or Bitwig for music production. I find it’s workflow and look reminiscent of Apple’s Logic Pro more than any other DAW, though the Project page gives Studio One the edge over Apple’s Logic.

It’s Sound Library and Loops offer more acoustic content from real world instruments than electronic, which compliments music production software like FL Studio and Ableton Live – whose sounds lean more on the experimental “EDM” side. While there is no shortage of good DAWs on the market that many great musicians swear by, there is no doubt that there is space on the market for one with as broad of a feature set as this. If I had to pick one DAW, that I had to stick with to create an album from start to finish- it would be Studio One Professional .

April 12, 2019March 9, 2023

Logic Pro X Review: Apple’s Flagship DAW upclose and musical

The once multi-platform /now MacOS-only DAW reaches version 10.4.2, which brings a ton of useful features to what has been known as ‘One of the most complete DAWs available’ for music and post-audio production.

What Is It?

Logic Pro X is a step up from the ever-popular GarageBand for Mac/iOS, offering more tools and features for professional musicians, producers and engineers who work with pro audio. It is developed by Apple, and may very well represent the best value for money in the entire world of digital audio workstations.

Instruments & Effects

ES2 (pictured above), and Alchemy (below) are just two of the virtual instruments available in Logic Pro X. While the former is a “versatile synthesizer” with a synthesis engine that has wavetable and analog-modeled oscillators, the latter (Alchemy) is presented as Logic’s flagship sample-manipulation synthesizer.

This is the same Alchemy that was originally developed by Camel Audio (Apple also acquired CamelSpace and CamelPhat, more on that later) and is also available within GarageBand for mac/iOS and its a beast of an instrument. Other noteworthy instruments are Sculpture – a “unique physical modeling instrument that produces tones no other synthesizer can”, the EXS24 Sampler,Studio Strings and Studio Brass, and the Vintage Keyboards collection. Drum Machine/Drum Kit Designer handles your custom percussion ambitions.

Drum Kits Designer let’s you – er’
….design drum kits

Effects are just as ingenious and innovative, such as the new ChromaVerb – which is a high-end reverb plug-in that use “unique modeling to reproduce both natural and otherworldly acoustic spaces”. Other interesting fx include Pedalboard, an amp modeling plug-in, Bass Amp Designer, StepFX, and PhatFX.

Additional Features

Logic Pro X also allows for you to import GarageBand sessions from iCloud, AirPlay, or however you can transfer your sessions from your iOS device. There are other useful features that you can’t really find in other DAWs, like Smart Tempo – which manages tempo across all the content in your project. Without a metronome/click track, you can sync, combine and edit audio regardless of it’s original tempo or variations in speed. Then there’s Drummer, which adds a virtual session drummer , or a beat programmer to your production session;Or the useful Logic Remote ,which turns your iPhone/iPad into a midi controller, control pad, or mixing board.

Logic imports sessions from Garageband for iOS as well,so you can bring you ideas from your iPhone or iPad to the studio for adding the finishing touch.

Logic Remote for iPhone and iPad frees you from the confines of the studio mixing desk.

Conclusion

Logic Pro X is one of the most advanced, complete Digital Audio Workstations available. It’s not available for Windows, but if you have a Mac that you intend to make music with – you’d be pressed to find a program to compete with its $199 price tag. It has the best virtual instrument collection included with the program, and the complete set of editing, production, and mixing tools as you would expect. For developers with ambitions of making the most complete music production software, Logic Pro X is the program to beat.