How easy is Reaper to learn for an ITB newbie?

Hello all, I'm an old analog recording guy. Reaper will be my VERY FIRST EVER ITB experience! I hope that this topic will not bore you....there are so many true experts here! Honestly, up until now the only uses for my computer have been email, posting on forums, and uploading photos. That's it! I'll be using a PC. Im SORT OF bright and a decent learner. How does reaper compare to other recording platforms for such a beginner? Will I be able to use EZ Drummer hosted by Reaper? Many thanks in advance!

Welcome to the forums! :) That's a bit hard to predict... Since Reaper does not depart too far from the usual analogies of a conventional studio (maybe farther than older products but still...), I think the initial learning curve won't be much different from all the other DAW softwares for you. Its depth and complexity is not particularly "newbie-friendly" (like all the other "big" DAWs out there) but that's also the reason why it doesn't limit you once you got your head around it. There is some amount of learning new and "unlearning" old habits involved if you come from a classic analog environment. Reaper is VST compatible and hence you can use EZDrummer in it. :)

"Im even considering using a standalone HD recorder (Fostex D2424LV) along with my DA-7 digital console at first...flying the tracks into Reaper for editing...all the while learning Reaper for real." You could start out by using reaper as a hard disk recorder and mix with the DA-7.

Thanks fellows! Fritz...do you think that the D2424LV may be more rock-solid and crash proof though? Just wondering.

Man.....you are gonna be soooooooooo happy. Have fun!

It's as easy or as hard as you want to make it.If you read the manual and checkout the tutorial videos and bookmark, it will make it easy. You'll be surprised how little gear you need to use to get good recordings.Reaper can be really simple to incredibly complex depending on your needs.Along with this forum there's not a lot that can't be learnt/fixed/helped :) Just remember that in digital you never need to ride the faders into the orange let alone the red :)

Wow...Im starting to get excited!!! I have to say that the quality of this forum is a HUGE plus....Huge!!!

TCMZODIAC - Welcome and, happy new year to you! Here's my experience. Much like you, I was once an analog guy. I downloaded Reaper, and wthin 10 minutes had recorded several tracks. I think Reaper is very intuitive in comparison to some of the other hosts - not that they aren't just as capable, but for me, Reaper was extremely easy to learn and use immediately. That's not to say that I don't learn another trick every day, but if you give it an honest workout - I think you will find that it's very easy to use and very capable. BUT - for any newbie, I would say try them all (you can download demo versions of other host programs - give them a shot), and find the one you're most comfortable with.

a lot of people using other daws critizie reaper exactly for that reason - that reaper is too "taperecorder-like" and not as "sophisticated" and feature-rich as other daws. there is no other daw out there that comes closer to the old analog feeling than reaper, so you probably made the right choice!:-) one word of warning, though: having all the editing power that a daw provides can be overwhelming and distracting from the actual task - recording music. i know a lot of people, me included, that were much more productive when using simple hard disk recorders. give a talanted guitarist (now that does not include me ;-) a guitar and either a daw or a simple tape deck and go and visit him after one month. chances are very high that in the latter case he fleshed out and recorded a couple of cool song ideas, maybe not perfectly produced and quite basic, but still the reduction to the important things led to some output. but in the case of a daw he might still be exploring and fiddling around with all the fantastic cool tools under the hood. the solution is however simple: just use the daw like a tape-recorder and don't feel obliged to use all the poweruser stuff that would be possible. (this insight is so obvious i'm almost ashamed to write it down, but it really happens to a lot of people. also, people that are hanging around in forums like this - no offense intended to anyone - are normally not the ones with the highest productivity / output) have fun and enjoy cheers oxy

This is fantastic!