i just wanted to hear opinions about people who have used both programs.
i have just started using reaper for a collaboration and it seems to me to have a lot of the same funtionality plus it's stable and the zooming problems i really don't like in SAM do not exist here.
i don't want to junk SAM without getting some opinions from other users : )

 

I can't speak for Samplitude, but you should check out the Reaper community and forum from their web site for more Information.

https://www.reaper.fm/ Web site packed with interesting things like resources, forum and videos.

 

Last edited: Jan 17, 2018

You want to compare two different DAW's, it's impossible because Samplitude is a mastering program. But I have a hint for you, learn only one on master level, and you will not have to ask any more questions

 

Not a helpful reply. YOu would've thunk the OP wouldn'tve checked that website?

It's actually a DAW.

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If you're happy with R, run with it. But no harm in tryin SAM. SAM had spectral display earlier than R.

If you want a complete ITB experience, use SAM. R has a lot of expandability & user scripts.

R is x-platform. SAM is not.

Price is another factor. R is dirt cheap, SAM costs more, but has a bunch of extras. SAM also has multiple editions. If you need more power, try magix sequioa.

You didn't state your use-case , workflows, or usual tasks here so that would be helpful.


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I wasn't actually gonna reply with my crappy slither of a helpful, but it seems that mine is actually better than the 2 above.

 

Test both and you 'll end up with cubase. Just kidding. Both are great daws with professional features. Use both and go with the one you like better. You can allways go back to Sam...

 

I use both Reaper and Samplitude and really like them both. I prefer Samplitude a bit over Reaper probably because I've been using it for a very long time (since it was SEK'd Samplitide 2496).

I don't think that Samplitude is a mastering program but, rather, a certified DAW. I believe Sequioa is considered more of a mastering program but I could be wrong.

I would suggest NOT dumping Samplitude, it's an amazing DAW. I've found that Reaper and SAM work very well together.

What zooming problems are you experiencing in SAM? I've never run into that.

 

Last edited: Jan 18, 2018

I've been using Samplitude since its name was SEK'D Samplitude 2496 up to Pro X2.
While I was growing as a producer and a mixer, I've grown dissatisfied with SAM as projects got bigger, with more intricate routings, with more demanding plugins... then SAM wasn't my n°1 choice anymore, mainly because of stability issues.
In the last few years I tried Reaper many times until I fell in love with it and its philosophy. You can see by using it that developers really listen to the users community! Recently i switched entirely to Reaper, and I don't miss SAM at all.
The switch wasn't hard at all, what took me the most time was customizing Reaper to my needs (yes, this DAW adapts to YOU!)

Just to add to what junh1024 wrote, here's a quick comparison between the two.

First thing you notice about Reaper is how small can a DAW installation be and still deliver a fully functional DAW.
One minute and you are ready to go on any computer. Forget about any virtual instrument, you can bring your own
Sure, SAM has dozens of great stock plugins... but Reaper has hundreds of them and utilities of any kind! (not so good looking though)

Editing in SAM is absolutely killer, but Reaper holds up well and you can configure it so it behaves like YOU want.
For example my customization of Reaper reflects how I was used to work in SAM.

I thought (and still think) routing in SAM is more straightforward than in, say, Pro-tools or Logic but routing in Reaper is a BREEZE: if you can think it you can do it... in a matter of seconds! It's very flexible, every track can send/receive and be anything you like anytime, while SAM is way more rigid.

Another thing I don't miss from SAM is the plugin drop down menu, it was a complete mess: you could fill the screen with a list of plugins from a folder and not find what you were looking for... because it was off screen! (however in the last few versions Magix decided to give it a twist with multiple sub-pages.)
In fact Reaper has a great FX browser where you can easily organize and search your plugins.

Reaper is customizable as hell, from graphic appearance to the last tiny option and useless preference.
You can also create your own custom actions and have a keyboard shortcut for just about anything!

What I miss from SAM is VariVerb Pro, that's a great sounding reverb!
But, hey, Reaper has Reaverb where you can load any IR you want to make an even better sounding reverb!

With Reaper you get hundreds of themes (skins), scripts, how-to guides... Online forum community is huge and you can find a solution for every problem.
To sum up my view, if SAM is a world... Reaper is an expanding universe!
If you have any specific question, feel free to ask, I'll be glad to continue the comparison between the two DAWs

 

Thanks for pointing this out. When I tried to point this out junh1024 kinda dismissed it. I would suspect that some people just download the program and go for it. However it is possible to spend hours checking out the web site's useful content.

Also, There are users that have downloaded both programs from other sources and may have never been to ether web site. I was just trying to help. Sorry.

 

Last edited: Jan 18, 2018

While most modern DAWs have similar features that are accessed differently, Reaper and Samplitude are two different animals so to speak.

Samplitude tends to have a slightly warmer tone leaning towards an analog type of sound (like Mixbus). Reaper has a well balanced over all tone that can go warm or hard depending on FX and EQ choices. Reaper is also very stable even when pushed to the limit. You will know when to back off after using it for a while.

Reaper is my main DAW but I do have Pro Tools, Mixbus 32C and Digital Performer. The latter three are running very smoothly (running most current versions).

If you don't have to do outside work/submissions, find two DAws that fit your needs and don't look back.

 

Last edited: Jan 18, 2018

I'm goin to say sorry for whatever I did wrong & I am going to ASSUME they has been 2 respective DAW sites, since they're asking here.

Samplitude also has its own forum community btw.,

ALL DAWs should sound the same. If they don't you must be talking about plugins that change the tone.

I believe Sequioa has more power & features for production & broadcast.

 

Right I've used both extensively. Reaper I use for the creative side of ITB electronic music. If you learn how to use the behind-the-channel routing in Reaper, you can build any kind of madness you like, and take a project and dump it out as stems, or whatever.

Samplitude is very exacting, technical and near perfect audio tool with outstanding metering and built-in plugs. This I use to take the creative work and finalise it to a mixdown and amateur mastered final track. It's much less flexible in its handling of VSTis and midi than Reaper, but a much better chassis for doing really demanding mix work. It does what it says on the meters.

Both is a good combination. More than the sum of its parts.

 

No, no, no... If you have not buned out your ears or, if you like some of us can hear minute differences (e.g. mix or mastering engineers),
you will notice these differences.

 

All cheap speakers sound different.

 

2 very important differences:
1. You cant resize the mixing window in Samplitude, so if you have several screens and big ones, you got a too small mixing table.
2. In both you can see and edit scores, but only in samplitude you can select several tracks and see and edit their scores in one window, which is very useful to edit different drum parts, and all instruments that are complementary to each other, like winds, or string sections tracks.

I noticed they seem to have a trick in Samplitude to soften the digital clipping somehow, it's not bad but a bit risky if you dont take care of your levels.

 

using both (along with sonar and protools previously) and these things are to consider:
1) samplitude features more additional content and more likely to officially support hardware controllers
2) reaper is capable of literally anything (additional scripting options), development is way more responsive (frequent updates, community driven bugtesting etc..), customization is limitless (hotkeys, actions, extensions)
3) reaper is probably most reliable multiplatform daw right now (plenty windows and macos versions supported)
4) reaper is significantly more resource efficient, much more reliable (only hiccups I experience are caused by third-party plugins and unstable cpu overclock, while in samplitude I experienced audio dropouts and digital distortion during recording several times)

you should ask yourself what workflow and functionality you need - audio recording, mixing, mastering, virtual instruments, scoring, audio fx?
for me, reaper is clear winner among daws nowadays as I work mostly with audio (I would probably go for bitwig if I wanted ableton-like workflow), the low price of reaper does not mean it would be lacking in any way, the code and filesize efficiency obviously means there isn't much headroom for fancy graphical user interface or fancy plugins, but every serious audio pro should already have their own goto core plugin set (fabfilter and overloud for me nowadays)

 

SOrry, i should say I make predominately electronic music...
i am not looking to dump SAM. i just wanted to get some info as i saw some posts on another forum saying that the object editor in SAM is misleading terminology and that reaper has the same functionality only it's called something else. like clips or some such.. i love SAM bit if i am totally honest i get much more done faster in Reaper.
Reaper is awfully cluttered though. i still haven't managed to completely customize it fit, there are so many options, menus etc.so i guess when i do i will use it even more.
the 'Zooming' problems. Well it's a problem for me, i hate the way i cannot resize things like track height. i know there are shortcuts and ways to do it, but i find that aspect of the program really unintuitive. On a bad day when the timeline, cursor etc. are jumping all over the shop it's very frustrating.
Reaper has excellent options in this regard. i need a daw where i can manage to navigate the project completely and with speed, unthinking if you will.
talking to the question of SAM being a 'mastering app, that means nothing to me. i am still trying to learn to mix etc. and i have a long way to go... good to read all the advice though : )

 

Last edited: Jan 18, 2018

Hi, I recently discovered the potential of Samplitude, when I created a sample pack from the GoldenEye movie, it was so easy in combination with the Spectral Layers, and everything was done without leaving the DAW, and the new update 298 has fixed many bugs. Cheers

 

Samplitude has the best metering suite. Maybe rewire Reaper and Samplitude for its metering imho. I'd personally mixing and mastering in Samplitude while editing in Reaper. It's possible to do it all in Reaper but rather slow at start to find extension, customize, and etc. Maybe keep and use the best from both DAW.

 

Last edited: Jan 27, 2018

ok.
i was expecting a little more response.
so, here is my own take thus far.
i love the quality of SAM. the mixing plugs are excellent. everything sounds pretty good.
object editing is still very good and very deep even though i find that Reaper has similar functionality these days.
i like the customizable aspect.
i am still irritated with the GUI however where i frequently 'lose control'. Inability to resize track heights etc. is unintuitive and i still have a problem getting used to it. i hate trying to zoom into a small detail and suddenly find myself whizzing all over the shop.
it is very relaible for the most part. I have had a few 'not enough ram' type errors and only a few crashes ( i suspect from plugin scanning.
it has some nice bespoke vsti also, the DNe synth sounds great although it is not possible to edit any parameters which is very strange. as an out of the box synth though it's pretty nice.
My main gripe still: It is next to impossible to find tutorials of depth on SAM. there are a few guys on Youtube but there is a slew of functionality on SAM that is simply not covered. This has been my main problem since day 1. it's much harder to find detailed info than any other DAW i have used.

Reaper. at first i didn't get on with it well. i abandoned it after a while. then i started looking it over again at v5.
and have changed my attitude towards it completely. Let me say firstly, i agree with opinions saying the gui is crap or there are so many menu items to look through it gets a little laborious. i agree. however i now have the SWS plugins which are awseome and a custom menu set i d/l from Reaper forums ( which are excellent).
So without much effort i have already got a lot cusomised in general. the customization is almost limitless. Every time i use it i am finding functions that are excellent. it is a very deep program. The FX and Media explorers are top notch. very easy to use. Reaper seems to have every function that i look for in a DAW.
And , of course, It is ridiculously cheap. ( that does not mean it's bad quality). It is updated frequently and as i say forums etc. are brilliant. there is very little fighting over 'which DAW is best'-type arguments and there is a lot of useful info at hand.

so, much as i love SAM, i am going to invest my time into reaper now.
i missed the ridiculous bargain SAM had at christmas, but if that ever happens again i would definitely buy it.
For now though it's way to expensive to consider.

 

@filtersweep Reaper v5 really is a step forward (if you left previous versions, I totally understand that),
speaking of fx and plugins, you can get something like Fabfilter FX Bundle https://www.fabfilter.com/shop/fx-bundle which is a top notch mixing/mastering plugin set, all you'll ever need perhaps,
power of Reaper lies in resource efficiency and functionality possibilities, customization options are limitless so it really comes down to if you're willing to spend some time to adjust it to match your needs