New DAW?

[vvv]

So I've been using Cool Edit Pro2.1 for like 20 years, and I am incredibly fast onnit, have all of my most-used shortcuts memorized, know all of the native plugs - love it, even if it's onna XP Pro computer that's like 10 years old.

So I wound up with a spare Win 11 laptop (it was an ill-advised for-the-purpose office purchase) and realized that I can't install CEP onnit because they actually aged-out the serial numbers.

So I sorta know Reaper (not well) and I re-upped that but, damn!, there's a lot to learn.

Before I dive-in, does anybuddy have a diffferent reco, mebbe simpler than Reaper??

Also, not ProTools for reasons it would piss you guys off if I gave 'em.

I mostly record me, friends, my bands, friend's bands, and if I get paid it's usually in green and I don't mean cash.

I do a lot of editing, track-splitting, FX, overdubs, etc., but none of that new-fangled MIDI or VSTi - I play guitar, dammit, and so do my friends (or drums or bass).

44.1/24 bit is fine, altho' I like the 32bit float thing - at least I fool me that I can hear it, especially after processing tracks, but also for up-sampling.

And to quote Margo and Michael, it's always true that, "cheap is how I feel".

[T-rex]

Dude, I started on Cool Edit Pro like a 25 years ago? That’s amazing you are still using it. I dug it back in the day, but once I tried Cubase I didn’t look back.

I tried Reaper a few years ago and felt the same way. But everyone raves about it.

Since you are PC that kills garage band, logic and Luna. You could look into Studio One. They have a free version and I set all my non-Mac band friends up with that over Covid. We did a whole album remote, so these guys had zero DAW experience and for basic tracking and editing they all figured it out. It’s free so definitely worth trying it out.

I loved Cubase back in the day. I thought it was very easy to learn and just made logical sense to me. But it’s continued to grow and expand so I don’t know how easy it is to learn nowadays.

[vvv]

It's not about "easy", really - it's more about speed and convenience.

Yeah, I tried Cubase a few times, like 10 years ago; it was aiight.

I tried PT free, Steinberg LE, Traktion also in that time period, some other stuff.

I love CEP because it works well, and I know it in-depth.

I just dread learning something new, but mebbe I gotta suck it up.

But I mean, I love mixing when partying, and that ain't work when learning ...

[T-rex]

Yeah man, if you are open to learn then maybe give reaper another shot and just follow along with some tutorials. I used Logic for a long time before I finally buckled down and started to make my life easier by actually learning it. Now I am basically just taking all the shortcuts I loved in Logic and translating them, making customs key shortcuts or figuring out how to do them in PT. Maybe just take the five things you do the most and see how to do them in Reaper or studio one or any of the free ones and see if they resonate with you.

At the core all the new DAWs are 90% the same. But all the shortcuts are slightly different and that's the PITA. But I imagine they are all pretty different than CEP.

[vvv]

Maybe just take the five things you do the most and see how to do them in Reaper or studio one or any of the free ones and see if they resonate with you.

Love that idear!

I am not a "repeat-work" kinda person, but I find I can do tapeop stuff OK because love.

My real issue is, I don't wanna lose CEP, but it appears I must.

Yeah, gotta start a list of most-done stuffs, learn 'em in Reaper.

Then start re-creating my pre-sets ...

In the meantime, I have the need to get stuff done kinda fast - we are recording 4 new original songs every two weeks or so, often with multiple usable takes, and then mebbe 6-10 covers in the same time period.

We're onna roll, and I don't wanna lose the immediacy to learn a new DAW ...

Took me about 4 hours to do 6 ruff mixes - no edits - in Reaper with FX assigned; took me 10 hours to do 3 complete mixes including splitting 2.5 hours of 8 tracks (12 songs) and rendering all mixed tracks (pass filter, some EQ, compression and limiting, tops/tails, and clean-up).

I'm currently working at like 25% speed in Reaper vs. CEP.

[T-rex]

I feel your pain. I'm doing a mix in Pro Tools right now and its goes great for a while, then I hit something stupid, google, find the answer and move on. So yeah, a little painful to go slow but I see an upside if I can get through it.

[digitaldrummer]

You might also check out Cakewalk - https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk?lang=en - it's free (in exchange for your email login to authorize it) and it's maybe somewhat intuitive? I opened it a couple times just to export some tracks for someone that did not have a PC. I was able to do that pretty quickly (ok, maybe one google search...) but I'm also a fairly long time Pro Tools user so I'm not changing to Cakewalk myself in the near future.... I used to use Sonar 4.0 way back, but mostly as just a tape recorder for recording some live shows on a laptop. It worked great for that (then I'd transfer the raw WAVs to Pro Tools for mixing).

[drumsound]

Didn't Adobe buy CEP and rebrand it as Audition? Maybe a lot of your workflow things are still there, just in a different name.

[vvv]

yeah, I forgot about Cakewalk - tried that, also -I recall it being pretty good

but is it simpler than Reaper? Doesn't look to be ...

Audition is subscribe-only, US$23/month

not happening

[Scodiddly]

I've actually got a virtual Windows XP machine that lives on my main desktop, I use it to program a couple odd devices (couldn't find my old copy of Halo: Combat Evolved, sadly) and it runs great in a virtual box. The software to do so is free - https://www.virtualbox.org/ and it runs on Windows (I have it on Linux).

I dunno about hardware support for your interface, but it might be worth a try. You can also make a copy of your working setup in case it gets borked somehow.

[vvv]

The problem is the program requires a serial number, and it apparently contains an expiration code.

I get it installed fine to "trial", but can't fully authorize it.

QED, I'll keep running it on my old XP Pro macheen until I learn Reaper, I reckon.