Pros & Cons
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- Multi-channel audio recording, mixing, and mastering at a bargain price
- Useful track comping tools
- Runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows
- Heavily customizable
- Fast, with an extremely light memory footprint
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- No built-in instruments or loops
- Nonintuitive interface
Reaper Specs
| Audio Tracks | Unlimited |
| Bundled Content | None |
| Effects | 34 |
| Instruments | 0 |
| Mixer View | |
| Notation |
Reaper packs an impressive set of features for the price, including live audio and virtual instrument recording, a full mixing console, accurate notation editing, and support for scoring video. Unlike competing digital audio workstations (DAWs), Reaper lets you build your menus, toolbars, and macros, and then customize its look and color scheme. It's a complex program that requires effort to learn (in contrast with something like Apple's GarageBand), but if you put in the time and load it up with some free (or paid) third-party plug-ins, Reaper pays real dividends in power and flexibility. It covers nearly all the bases of a Cubase-, Pro Tools-, or Logic Pro-equipped workstation at a fraction of the price, although those remain our Editors' Choice winners for their comprehensive instrument bundles and smoother user interfaces.
Pricing: One of the Best Values Going in DAWs
Personal, school, and small business licenses for Reaper all cost $60. If you plan to use it for commercial music purposes and gross more than $20,000 per year from your audio work, it's $225. Reaper is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows, with appropriate installers for Arm- and Intel-based processors. The program is a paltry 12MB for Linux, 26MB for macOS, and 15MB for Windows. You can even run it from a portable or network drive. Reaper is free of copy protection, and you can download the 462-page manual in PDF format from the company website.
I tested Reaper on a Mac Studio (M4 Max, 2025) running macOS Tahoe 26.4.1 with 64GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 (2nd Gen) audio interface, a pair of PreSonus Eris E8 XT studio monitors, a Novation Launchkey mk4 MIDI controller, and a 32-inch LG display. All versions of Reaper have feature parity, and the Mac version was rock-solid in testing. When you first launch the app, you must go to Options > Preferences to set up your audio interface and MIDI controller. As usual, I had no problem getting my gear up and running for this review.
Reaper offers a 60-day unlimited trial version, and if you buy the software, you get free updates through the next full-point version. If you buy version 7.71 today (the latest version), for example, you get free updates through 8.99, which could be several years from now. Reaper also has a seriously dedicated online community. Although the program hasn't added any new flagship features since version 7.0, the developers always seem hard at work providing updates, bug fixes, and notes. All of this makes for an especially consumer-friendly environment.
Interface: Obtuse, But Only Until You Acclimate
The first time you open Reaper, it greets you with ... not much. The opening screen is arguably the biggest roadblock to getting started with the program; it's essentially a blank slate. The left side shows your track list, and the main arranging window is to the right. Along the bottom is the mixer, with the transport sitting above it and to the left; so far, so good. But a large part of the window is empty. The dated feel of Reaper will likely emerge as you start digging into the menus and customization options; you face dialog box after dialog box, all containing system-font-like text, plenty of sliders, and extraneous white space. Creating tracks is simple; you can just double-click the left side or press CTRL-T (Command-T on Macs), though you need to hit the Track menu to make virtual instrument tracks.
The stock plug-ins, like the compressor and EQ, look like Settings dialogs instead of tools you use to shape sound. Naturally, the tiny installation size means no room for fancy graphics. But if looks matter to you or help boost your creativity, you can enhance the interface with skins and layouts. Reaper includes plenty of layout examples in the program, and you can download free themes from the company's site. To install a new theme, you just download a file and drag it into an active Reaper project. It doesn't affect the dreary built-in plug-ins, but it thoroughly changes the rest of the workspace. Some themes make Reaper look like analog mixing consoles, while others come as close as possible to duplicating the designs of popular DAWs, such as Cubase, Logic Pro, and Pro Tools. The Theme Adjuster lets you modify the default theme to include in-channel metering, adjust the size of track names, and choose different icon layouts, but not for third-party themes.
Recording and Editing: A Powerful and Flexible Set of Tools
Eventually, as you spend more time with Reaper, the fog begins to clear, and you can start to get real work done. For audio or a virtual instrument, you make a track, click the red button on the left to arm it for recording, and press the master Record button to begin. You can set up monitoring effects, such as enabling reverb in your headphones while recording a vocal. Unlike FL Studio, Reaper is suitable for recording multiple audio channels of live instruments simultaneously and from numerous interface inputs; recording a five-piece band is no problem with Reaper if you've got enough microphones and preamps on your audio interface.
Reaper's tiny download footprint is welcome, but it belies a key limitation: The program doesn't come with any usable virtual instruments or loops, which just adds to the complexity for novices. Reaper assumes you will find third-party plug-ins; it supports AU, DirectX, JS (Reaper's Jesusonic format), VST, and VST3. A ton of free plug-ins are available on the web to stock up Reaper with sounds, and you can also buy professional-level packages, such as Native Instruments Komplete or IK Multimedia SampleTank, if you've got the cash. Once you install them on a track, Reaper hides VSTs behind the FX button (even though they're instruments, too, and not just effects). Aside from that quirk, populating your project with many virtual synths is easy.
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Once you record some material, you can take advantage of Reaper's powerful and flexible tools for editing audio clips and MIDI data. The piano roll is relatively easy to use, and unlike the smart grid-style complexities you find in more mature DAWs, such as Logic Pro, Reaper's grid is simple and works just like you expect.
The latest version adds some welcome feature enhancements, including support for Track Lanes with Swipe Comping, which lets you record many takes, compare sections with a single click, and then quickly comp together a finished vocal or guitar track. Tracks now support up to 128 channels each, with 128 buses available for MIDI routing. You can also now configure multiple sets of customized keyboard shortcuts in version 7, which is terrific for setting up fast workflows, depending on the task (recording, editing MIDI, mixing, and so on).
That said, you still need to deal with a few other unusual interface conventions. You can't quantize MIDI data, for example, until you open the piano roll. When recording, you must tell the app to stop popping up a save dialog. You need to hear it first before you decide! Thankfully, you can now prevent it from asking.
Mixing and Mastering: It Does All You Need and More
The mixer view seems inflexible at first, but, as with everything else in Reaper, you can do a ton with it. First, hover the cursor just above the mixing board near the Mute/Record/Solo buttons, and then pull the border up to reveal the channel inserts (where you would put the compressor, EQ, reverb, and so on). All the standard controls are available for muting, soloing, and panning tracks. You can group tracks or track parameters anywhere in the signal chain and implement any complex routing scheme you can imagine. The included Rea VST effects are surprisingly comprehensive, given the lack of bundled instruments; you even get ReaTune (for correcting vocal pitch) and ReaVerb (for realistic convolution reverb).
Reaper includes full automation capabilities for tracks and instrument and effect parameters. The latest version supports FX Containers to build, store, and recall your favorite plug-in chains, and you can now route multiple plug-ins (or even plug-in chains) in parallel. While working, you can freeze or bounce tracks to free up memory and CPU cycles. A powerful scripting engine, ReaScript, lies beneath the surface and lets you code improvements to the program in Python, Lua, or EEL. I didn't test this last part because my programming chops are rusty, but the flexibility is welcome.
I composed and tested an electronic track using sounds from Native Instruments Komplete 14 Collector's Edition and Korg Collection—just two examples of the many fine virtual instrument packages available if you need something to quickly fill out Reaper with thousands of sounds. Mixing is a pleasure, as is even using the stock plug-ins. Reaper's compressor sounded excellent on individual tracks and across the mix bus in my testing, and I got some good levels going, thanks to the included ReaLimit. The parametric EQ also offers suitable precision and at least has a prominent visual aid.
It should go without saying these days, but just to be clear, Reaper sounds just like any other modern DAW. The microphones, mic preamps, instruments, and plug-ins matter more than any internal differences in the summing or mix bus between DAWs, especially at Reaper's 64-bit level. With this program, you can achieve entirely professional results, full stop, and it will feel fast even on older hardware.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Cockos)
Reaper
Reaper offers nearly all the features and flexibility of powerhouse digital audio workstations at a fraction of the cost.