Anyone using Reaper for sound post?

This might be of some interest for those looking for an affordable sound post solution for FCP X (while waiting for Logic Pro X):

vordio.net

the DAW itself:

www.reaper.fm

I haven't had time to properly examine Reaper but it looks quite interesting.

Have you got it?

There is a note saying it might not work with the FCPX 10.0.6 update.

Cant argue with their pricing structure ($60 for personal, education, or small business use, and $225 for large profitable businesses) - very fair.

Yes I have it. They have a 60 days demo. I tried one simple 0.7 project and it seemed to transfer fine to Reaper via Vordio. Just haven't had time to play with Reaper that much so I really can't say how it is. I do my sound on ProTools, but I'm always keen to try alternatives.

Very interesting to know. I'll have to spread the word there is an alternative.

I DL'd the demo as well. The Vordio app (separate from reaper) seems to have a little issue with multiclip / CC audio due to the .06/07 updates, it transferred my project just fine, but some audio was missing depending on the angle in the cut. Despite the fact that only one audio angle ran throughout. In any case, that's Vordio.

Edit: by "That's Vordio" I mean to say, that's my experience with Vordio. It's a great little app!

Reaper seems very nice, if a bit odd. FCP X users will be interested to know that you can have multiple freely moveable clips in "lanes" contained in single tracks. Like stacked clips in fairlight and some other DAW's, but also similar to X timeline without magnetism in a way. You can also set a master track as a "folder" containing other tracks. There's other interesting things as well. Worth $60 I think....

Thanks to the original poster for telling me about his post. I wouldn't have known.

I just set up an account here to explain a few things and answer questions.

I then spent 30 mins writing a really long post to explain lots in detail and answer questions above, then site preview destroyed everything I wrote in the box! Arrrrrrgh..

I can't face writing all that again today but will maybe put them on the site blog instead. So something basic to give you an idea.

I allow a free uncrippled version so people can give me feedback directly even if they don't pay but it seems sometimes they don't but talk about things elsewhere.

It is not a trial, it is an honor system, like reaper. You can fund more features or not. It is not crippled. It will get as good as people contribute either feedback or money. Both are useful to me. I just haven't got round to putting a nag box on it like reaper does.

Please tell me when something happens directly. There is usually a fix or workaround available.

For example a new 'feature' added in gatekeeper recently on Mountain Lion may tell you the Vordio disk image is corrupted. This is not strictly true but the only way to stop it seems to be for me to pay apple money. I don't want to do that or I can't give away a free version anymore. It should say 'this image has not been certified by apple for which we want a recurring payment'. Of course many people will assume the worst and think it is actually broken.

Luckily someone told me about this (I don't use Mountain Lion) and immediately we found a workaround, you can simply turn gatekeeper off, install it, then turn gatekeeper on again.

There are also fixes for some of the questions mentioned above but I will explain on my blog another day and come back to put a link here.

Vordio will be as good as people help make it.

Thanks for trying it.

I would say if most of us are honest we will be paying more than $60 for Reaper. Even at $225 I think Reaper is a bargain for its depth. From their website:

There is only one version of REAPER. We offer two licenses, depending on how you use it.

$225: full commercial license.
$60: discounted license.

You may use the discounted license if any of the following is true:

You are an individual, using REAPER only for personal use.
You are an individual or business, using REAPER for commercial use, and the yearly gross revenue does not exceed USD $20,000.
You are an educational or non-profit organization.

I would say if most of us are honest we will be paying more than $60 for Reaper. Even at $225 I think Reaper is a bargain for its depth. From their website:

I liked the fact that reaper didn't cripple the software without paying first.

In fact, that let me use it for a while, discover I really liked using it when I got to know it better. Later when a paid client job came up where it fitted, I charged it as an expense to the job and gave the money to reaper. I think that is a very honorable way to do things. I probably wouldn't have switched from my previous favorite DAW if not for their approach.

It is also why I decided to take that approach with Vordio. It worked for me, so why not others?

Someone helped Vordio by informing me of a problem on Mountain Lion. They researched a solution and so have just put it up on the blog. Many thanks to Eemeli Ylinen for this info. I don't use Mountain Lion so I didn't realise this problem existed and there was an easy solution.

Workaround instructions for "Disk image is corrupted" message.

vordio.net/disk-image-is-not-really-damaged/

I downloaded this last night and am excited to give this a try. I actually do my post audio work in Reaper and I had no idea this existed (and I also work with ProTools, Logic, Live and many other audio editing programs).

For those that haven't been exposed to Reaper, a word of caution... it can feel like a convoluted program at first, but it's easy to customize by creating macros for processes you do frequently and you can also streamline the menu options.

There's also the skinning options in Reaper. I usually don't mention things like this, which would seem purely cosmetic, but I've been working with the Imperial theme from White Tie, and I find it extremely easy to use quickly (for my needs of course).

There's also a great set of tutorials for Reaper on www.groove3.com - they are not free, but on occasion, you can find monthly free passes, discount codes or just a sale price. I think right now, if you have a cakewalk account, you can get a free monthly pass, but otherwise they have a sale now.

Working on an update to support some of the newer audio mappings in FCP X that Vordio doesn't yet process (currently ignores new mappings and does it old way still).

I have come across a strange situation that I am not sure if is a bug in FCP X or there is a valid reason. I can't think of a good reason but maybe someone can.

I broke apart a video clip so the audio is separate. I did this to move the audio relative to the video as there was no dialogue.

However, in the properties when I select the audio it shows the image attached "No audio for selected clip." which is weird because it is an audio clip.

Any clues/theories anyone?

Can you show a screen shot of the clip in the timeline, too?

If you detach audio, then "Expand Audio Components" in the timeline, unless you have the audio's header selected in the timeline, you'll see this.

This happens because you are targeting one single "channel" configuration, there is nothing to "configure", when the channels are Expanded in the timeline. Thus you have to target the header to configure the channels.

Timeline clips attached. The audio clip is selected and yellow. But no audio in audio properties.

Even if it is a mono audio clip, we should still see a channel configuration allowing you to set it to mono, or one of the surround sound channels (even if the timeline is stereo). I can't replicate that, never seen that before. What are the properties of that audio clip?

It seems the audio is stereo. See attached pic for FCP X.

My concern is that if I make Vordio use the new mappings instead of old way (just includes all), it might then leave out pieces of the project audio.

More detail from ffmpeg analysis of streams in file:

Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'george_orwell_1984_bbc_1954_512kb.mp4':
Metadata:
major_brand : isom
minor_version : 512
compatible_brands: mp41
creation_time : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
title : George Orwell\'s 1984 - www.archive.org/details/Meatpies_1984
date : 1954
encoder : Lavf51.10.0
comment : license: creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/
Duration: 01:47:30.24, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 580 kb/s
Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (Constrained Baseline) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 320x240 [SAR 135:136 DAR 45:34], 512 kb/s, SAR 317:320 DAR 317:240, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 50 tbc
Metadata:
creation_time : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
handler_name : VideoHandler
Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 64 kb/s
Metadata:
creation_time : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
handler_name : SoundHandler

I have one theory. As this test project began before FCP X 10.0.6 things may have gone missing.

I noticed on each upgrade that old project formats do not necessarily get updated when FCP X say it will and has (FCP X asks if you open an old project if you want to update it after an upgrade).

That means backward compatibility for old projects will be a nightmare if true.

That is a fact of developing software, or software evolution. Eventually you will change, advance, enhance, add enough that at some point older project files and/or documents are no longer compatible. Or/and you get to that point, your current development platform will not support any more evolution, and you have to start from scratch with a new platform that will go far beyond the old one. Entropy.

But I'm going off on a tangent.

Yes, at some point, FCP will not be able to update past version databases. But at the present, I do a great deal of audio work in FCP X, and I've yet to experience any audio issues yet, aside from some export glitch a few folks seem to be having. To test, I brought out an old archived project from 10.0.0, it updated, and the audio behaves just fine. The only issue is that Compound Clips will not open into their own timeline by double-clicking.

But, some other systems may find bugs I'm not having. You may have found one. I'd submit that to the Feedback page for sure!

"A new FCP X feature called “Ref Clips” that is not yet implemented in Vordio has been causing some audio to go missing in some projects. In the GUI these look exactly like old compound clips that FCP X used to use but internally work very differently from before. This means it is not obvious if this will affect your project in advance...."

Read more below. This might affect some people (I know of one it did so far).

vordio.net/ref-clips-ignored/

I've been hearing good things about an audio program called Triumph . It sounds like the layering process we use in FCPX or Photoshop.

Hello

Version 2 if Vordio is up:

vordio.net/vordio-2-0-update/

Regards

Krzysztof