Time to leave Pro Tools. What would be a good replacement?

    The cheaper option is reaper. It’s like 80 bucks it can hold its own against the $500 programs. granted some of them come with a bigger package of plug-ins, but the reaper plug-ins aren’t bad either. Super easy to use very intuitive and they have great organized tutorials for everything on their website

    Quote from Grooguit

    The cheaper option is reaper. It’s like 80 bucks it can hold its own against the $500 programs. granted some of them come with a bigger package of plug-ins, but the reaper plug-ins aren’t bad either. Super easy to use very intuitive and they have great organized tutorials for everything on their website

    I have installed Reaper on both my Mac and my Windows machine to get familiar with it again. It is $60 to register it. I will probably do that. It is worth that to me just to have it as a backup if needed. My SSD5 installed into it on both machines with no issues so I have my drums available that I am familiar with.

    Reaper is excellent, particularly for tracking and audio-heavy projects. If you're looking at using virtual instruments, though, and you want to stay native then Studio One or Logic are probably your better choices.

    I've been a Reaper user since its earliest days, and it is super solid. I would encourage anyone to get a license, because I still fall back to it when stability is an absolute must.

    S1 has a ton of features and has gained a lot of ground in recent years. That said, I had comping issues with it last time I ran it on my Mac that I never could get solved. I have an NFR license for the current version, which sounds amazing but TBH I haven't installed it yet.

    Now, I'm a big proponent of cross-platform software choices being the wisest ones. However, I've been a Mac guy for the past decade now so I finally bit the bullet and sprang for Logic Pro - and for me it's been a good choice. :) I do a lot of my work in Ableton, but if I'm not working with loops in Session View (Logic has some sort of similar workflow now anyway) I find Logic to be a great choice for composing stuff. Apple being a closed platform is a downside for changing OSs, but their software is excellent so I'll worry about crossing that bridge when it comes up.

    There's something to be said for choosing according to your workflow. As an engineer I always preferred Reaper (I was a pro audio engineer in my former life) but as a musician who wants to think as little as possible about technical crap I've been pretty happy with it. They all have a bit of a learning curve, but it didn't take long to get familiar enough to do what I need to do and it's easy to look up solutions if I get stuck. I'm a fan of the Logic drummer too, it's a good tool for getting a decent beat in place quickly and moving on (a battle I've fought for a looong time). It's great that they have a full complement of instruments built-in, whether you use them or not.

    I guess my best advice would be to figure out which product ticks the most (and most significant) boxes for you for your workflow and your ultimate aims.

    I did register Reaper. It is worth the registration fee just to have it around. It will get used for sure.


    I bought Logic X and have started playing with that a bit. My key for Cubase should be here today. I am going with a bit of a multi DAW approach. I installed Cakewalk on my Windows machine. I am sure that after spending time playing with these one will work it's way to the top for what I want to do. I have the feeling it will depend on what I want to do with a particular song on which one I do the work in. I think this will get me where I want to be. The only thing I may have to spend money on going forward are Cubase upgrades and I can choose when to do those. That stops the annual fees that I was paying.


    The price of Logic X was the same as what one year of PT was costing me. I may actually be able to get my latest PT subscription refunded. The person I was talking to about it asked me if I wanted it refunded. At that time I didn't want to be left with nothing at all. Having the active license with them got me a discount on Cubase so it didn't really cost me anything in the end. I would have had to pay the higher price for Cubase without it and would have ended up laying out about the same amount in the end.


    I have worked in technical jobs for a long time. Not only am I not afraid of learning a new DAW, I am actually looking forward to it. I need something new to do in my life right now. I have been extremely bored over the past year. I found some places where I can get some raw tracks to mix and master. I also found a training site that I am looking into. If I could turn this into a side hustle, that would be a perfect end goal. I love doing techie things and I love music.