Reaper fans - working on two Macs?

goldtop · December 2022

Fed up with Apple requiring me to keep upgrading OSs (and hardware, TBH)! Instead of Logic, I'm thinking of switching to Reaper for working on two quite different Macs.

Would this work:

2020 Macbook Air M1 running last version of Big Sur
2012 iMac with Mojave
both running Reaper 6.7
saving projects and audio files to local Dropbox on SSD

I've got to think through - and compromise, I suppose - on instruments and plugins. (FWIW, these are all low-complexity projects, acoustic/electric/bass and hardware keyboards tracked in as audio, and with nothing mixed/mastered for anything more demanding than YT/etc.)

But should this work, or are there hidden gremlins that'll spoil my plan?

Danny1969 · December 2022

You would need the iMac to be late 2012 to run Mojave, basically the last model before the Retina series ... otherwise High Sierra is the last OS that can run.

It's not hard to find older versions of Logic that will run on the older iMac ... 10.3 will run on it.

Reaper is great but needs a lot of extra plugs to be useful IMHO whether Logic has pretty much everything you need from the install.

The reaper idea will work though if you need to go that way.

Stratavarious · December 2022

Got reaper on multiple machines, inc. a 2012 Mac. I was just using Reaper across Mac and PC to mix a 3 1/2 hour concert 24 track multitrack yesterday for editing in Final Cut. I have several 256gb USBs and a network, cloud drive option. Sound files are not the huge scale of video.

i don't need the amp sims and drummer as I have the real deal and the stock Reaverb plugin will load IR files for cabs, mics, as well as reverbs, etc. Got plenty of IRs.

The only thing better on Logic is midi handling.

goldtop · December 2022

Thanks chaps - I will try it out and see how far I get. The Late-2012 iMac is already running Mojave pretty well (SSD upgraded) and is still sprightly enough. I'll likely mute some tracks to record audio on that one if necessary, but I'm hoping that Reaper's famed light-weight means that it'll handle my modest projects.

Various bits of hardware kit have yielded instruments (Analog Lab V, Halion SE, etc) and their licence terms seem to allow installation on more than one computer. But I won't have the sheer breadth of Logic's instruments. But maybe that's a good thing!

Apple gets ever-more opaque in showing upgrade and inter-operability paths. I'm done with them for anything other than hardware. Meanwhile, I've just about gotten past Reaper's WTFness. More of it makes sense - it's not the first time I tried.

Danny1969 · December 2022

It's surprising how capable these older Macs are. My main recording machine from 2018 to 22 was a 2007 iMac running Protools. Did a whole album with that in 2020 - 21 with 10 tracks of real drums, 10 to 12 tracks of guitar and bass, 4 to 10 tracks of keyboards and typically 8 tracks of vocals. All the mixing was done by an engineer remotely on a 2012 Macbook Pro.

Recording audio puts no stress on a CPU at all and requires almost no ram.

Big reverb plugins and VI's are a different matter though

goldtop · December 2022

^ That's what I'm hoping. Haven't got deep enough into Reaper to see if there's a render/freeze option for VI tracks.

TBH, I will just be happy to track some more audio while at work (where the 2012 iMac sits). Don't need reverb or demanding VIs there, and I don't need an amp sim, either.

andy_k · December 2022

It isn't that hard to get far enough into Reaper where you install SWS extensions and Reapack package manager, then you will have access to literally thousands of JS format plugins, I reccommend the Tukan pack, and also Reeq, which is a Fabfilter clone.
The forum is the place where all the Qs get answered.

PolarityMan · December 2022

Running the same project off a cloud storage mount works fine on reaper. I actually setup a template once where each person could use their own plugs so there were a bunch of course channels then these got routed to matching channels in a folder track for each person.

The lazy bastards in the band only ever used it once though.

goldtop · December 2022

Thanks guys. The depth of Reaper and the power of extensions is still something that's too boggling for me to get to. I saw that there's a YT tutorial guy who had programmed some script+output (CV/MIDI?) to move a mic's position L/R and back/forth on his guitar cabinet.

Maybe once I've got a workflow sorted, I'll dive deeper. TBH, I'm still at the stage of this guy:

Each time I open it, it's 0.0005% less scary than the last, so I'm getting there.

For now, I've done a proof-of-concept project via Dropbox, choosing the make-folder and copy-wave-files options. All good and making sense. A template and some configuring next...

andy_k · December 2022

Everything starts with a template, I have a folder full of templates, and usually start with a blank project anyway, and then import track and FX templates when needed.
My drum bus takes a while to load though, at least 6 diffeernt VSTs, all offline, but all ready to go.

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Reaper fans - working on two Macs?

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