Andrew Levine's DAW-history
In 1995, while in the process of obtaining my M.A. (in Computational Linguistics & Cognitive Psychology) I started developing multimedia applications. Being a dedicated Macromedia user I did all sound editing in SoundEdit 16 that came as part of the Director bundle. At some point DECK II joined the fray, originally developed by OSC for Digidesign, later sold to Macromedia and finally dropped by BIAS.
DECK was originally used for four track hard disk recording with synchronous MIDI recording and playback. Original DECK also offered moving fader automation, digital mix-to-disk, and unlimited, non-degrading track bounce. Among other awards, DECK (and DECK II) won the 1990 and 1993 MacUser Eddy awards for best music and sound software. [Link]
When in 2002 I got serious about "sound" I first delved into Protools LE that came with the 2ch MBox. While I liked the ergonomics of that GUI I quickly realized that
As with most complex programs it took me a while to get fluent in DP. I stayed with it for several years / iterations (DP 3.x, 4.x, 5.x, 6.0--that one I returned) until I ran into some serious issues, the worst being that with complex projects the engine would not play back the pieces of audio I saw on screen. You can imagine that it made editing quite painful, and I was in the middle of an editing-intense project (Debussy Préludes).
I managed to trudge along for a while, but when a friend suggested I try out the newly revamped Logic 8 I went for it. Luckily for me I used the DAW mostly for editing and as a "tape machine". I used to mix, process & master all projects mainly within the MIO's (Metric Halo's MobileIO interfaces) DSP-matrix. With the advent of the 2d-architecture that became even easier, even when I started moving into the surround realm. But still, the paradigm and handling of Logic was so much different from the one of DP that I enjoyed going back to old (working!) DP-projects from time to time.
And then came Reaper by Cockos.
Floris van Manen, a longtime net-acquaintance and friend of mine had been suggesting I give Reaper a try for ages, and it had been growing to be more and more feature-complete on OSX as time passed. So I finally decided to give it a spin with several new, not especially time-critical projects--and I got hooked!
Reaper features...
So, if you have not already done so, give Reaper a spin. I see myself happily sticking to this platform for a long time to come :-)
DECK was originally used for four track hard disk recording with synchronous MIDI recording and playback. Original DECK also offered moving fader automation, digital mix-to-disk, and unlimited, non-degrading track bounce. Among other awards, DECK (and DECK II) won the 1990 and 1993 MacUser Eddy awards for best music and sound software. [Link]
When in 2002 I got serious about "sound" I first delved into Protools LE that came with the 2ch MBox. While I liked the ergonomics of that GUI I quickly realized that
- I wanted to move to OSX now that a UNIX-kernel had (finally) become the basis of the Mac OS
(I used to be a fan of the BeOS; the Wikipedia article states that "iZ Technology sells the RADAR 24, a hard disc-based, 24-track professional audio recorder based on BeOS 5."--amazing!) - I'd want to record more than two channels
- Using a Protools system kept you locked to one hard-&software combination
As with most complex programs it took me a while to get fluent in DP. I stayed with it for several years / iterations (DP 3.x, 4.x, 5.x, 6.0--that one I returned) until I ran into some serious issues, the worst being that with complex projects the engine would not play back the pieces of audio I saw on screen. You can imagine that it made editing quite painful, and I was in the middle of an editing-intense project (Debussy Préludes).
I managed to trudge along for a while, but when a friend suggested I try out the newly revamped Logic 8 I went for it. Luckily for me I used the DAW mostly for editing and as a "tape machine". I used to mix, process & master all projects mainly within the MIO's (Metric Halo's MobileIO interfaces) DSP-matrix. With the advent of the 2d-architecture that became even easier, even when I started moving into the surround realm. But still, the paradigm and handling of Logic was so much different from the one of DP that I enjoyed going back to old (working!) DP-projects from time to time.
And then came Reaper by Cockos.
Floris van Manen, a longtime net-acquaintance and friend of mine had been suggesting I give Reaper a try for ages, and it had been growing to be more and more feature-complete on OSX as time passed. So I finally decided to give it a spin with several new, not especially time-critical projects--and I got hooked!
Reaper features...
- a newly designed audio engine, that sounds so good I moved from realtime-bouncing to DAW-rendering for most projects
- a very comfortable GUI, that is even skinnable
- an editing paradigm that is very smooth and that I got used to in next to no time
- amazing support, both from the user community and the developers
- all at an unbeatable price
So, if you have not already done so, give Reaper a spin. I see myself happily sticking to this platform for a long time to come :-)
posted by Andrew Levine at Friday, October 30, 2009
1 Comments:
I'm also getting more and more interested in Reaper. If they implement four-point source/destination editing and a good crossfade editor as in sequoia, we're home...
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