PT vs Reaper for VIs, some observations

[daeron80]

I don't like Reaper much. But I'm on vacation, using my work laptop (MacBook Air 1.7 GHz i7 with 8 GB RAM, High Sierra) to mess around with compositions just for fun, and PT wasn't up to the task. I set up the identical small session in both programs. Here's what I found.

1. CPU usage: PT shows steady usage (the maximum possible power of all plugins combined?), while Reaper uses CPU for a plugin only when it's outputing audio.
2. Memory Usage: Negligible difference, but with almost 2 GB RAM free, PT keeps stopping playback to tell me that physical RAM is running low, while Reaper does not.
3. Performance: PT gets little hiches and glitches on top of stopping playback periodically. Reaper plays back without a hitch.

The session consisted of 6 Instrument tracks with a small amount of EQ and compression, and 1 aux return track with TAL reverb. The instruments were 5 instances of Spitfire LABs (lightweight samples) and one instance of ik multimedia Syntronic (analog synth model).

I then tried a somewhat larger session with drums. PT wouldn't even open without crashing. I had to import the tracks one by one, disabling them as I went. I could not activate all tracks at once in PT without it crashing. I exported the MIDI and replicated the session as closely as possible (substituting for a couple of Avid plugins). Not only did it play back fine, I was able to add another several instances of eastwest Play, Syntronic, and LABs, and there's still about a half core of headroom.

Where I work, doing mostly spoken word stuff, I'm very happy with PT. But I'm now looking forward to leaving it behind for composing music at home. It won't be Reaper, which is too rudimentary in its implementations of many features. I hate the short throw faders, particularly. Might go with Studio One. Might buy a used MacBook Pro and switch to Logic. It's a shame, because I've used PT nearly every work day of my life since September 1995. It's deep in my DNA, and I love it for music mixing and any kind of editing. But it just doesn't run VIs nearly as efficiently as it should, it seems.

[musicman691]

Have you thought about giving Digital Performer a try? It's my secondary daw. No dongle - just a serial number. 30 day fully functioning free demo. Uses au and vst format on a Mac. Bit of a different workflow than PT (no true instrument tracks like PT).

[deanrichard]

Regarding the short throw faders - did you know there are a myriad of skins that provide various views that can include faders that are extremely long throw? And specialty views, for example, a mixer view for tracking, one for mixing, one for editing, etc.

This is not a limitation, you just don't know the program well enough.

Originally Posted by daeron80

...
I hate the short throw faders, particularly.
...

[allstaar]

Indeed. You can even grab the divider line at the bottom of the sends and resize faders on a per track basis.

[daeron80]

Originally Posted by deanrichard

Regarding the short throw faders - did you know there are a myriad of skins that provide various views that can include faders that are extremely long throw? And specialty views, for example, a mixer view for tracking, one for mixing, one for editing, etc.

This is not a limitation, you just don't know the program well enough.

Oh, excellent! I'm not terribly familiar with the newer versions. The last time I used it regularly was version 3.something.