Reaper 6.0 Is Live

[gentleclockdivider]

Really wondering how White tie ( reaper gui designer ) could set the bar so low for this release
It's a frankenstein mixture of skeumorphic and flat design .

[machinesworking]

Really wondering how White tie ( reaper gui designer ) could set the bar so low for this release
It's a frankenstein mixture of skeumorphic and flat design .

I just don't think he's that good. I would suck at UX as well, it's a skill that takes a lot of time, and IMO some people have a knack for it. Plus DAWs are not easy, there's nothing easy about deciding what to hide and show, what to give up real estate to etc. How many old customers (with Stockholm Syndrome ) who you tick off changing things etc.

Some things in Reaper are jus plain clunky though, the plug in window chooser, looks like a side bar, doesn't close like one, plug ins can be separated from it, but it can't be hidden, at least as far as I can tell. DP10 does this right, same level of control from an open plug in, less clutter.

Themes are great, it would be cool to see the ability to slightly adjust user created Themes like you can the main one.

[fairlyclose]

Really wondering how White tie ( reaper gui designer ) could set the bar so low for this release
It's a frankenstein mixture of skeumorphic and flat design .

I just don't think he's that good. I would suck at UX as well, it's a skill that takes a lot of time, and IMO some people have a knack for it. Plus DAWs are not easy, there's nothing easy about deciding what to hide and show, what to give up real estate to etc. How many old customers (with Stockholm Syndrome ) who you tick off changing things etc.

I agree re WT not making the world's greatest design for Reaper, but also he has a lot of constraints that are just built in to Reaper and I have no idea how well he is paid. It is possible to do a lot more tho as this project shows https://ultraschall.fm/

And the user base definitely has some old-timey curmudgeons who hate any change - the recent addition of CC editing curves took about 10 years to get through and was laughed at as stupid when first suggested. In fact the whole idea of UX or Design has taken many many years to sink in on the forum, normally greeeted with the inane stupidity of "its all subjective"

and there are pointless inconsistencies - the devs could really have learnt from Melda as far as modularising design and code for great efficiency. With Cockos it seems everytime they add something they do it from scratch. Reaper does come across as something that grows by accretion - a software Katamari Damancy (this is a strength and weakness - lots of the power of Reaper comes from the SWS extensions, and other scriptwriters ie is not core and could get broken. In practice this has not been a problem and is not something I worry about)

But I still use it and haven't found anything else that suits me better yet

[magicmusic]

I've had a look, and Live is still Live, so Reaper cant be.

you need also keep in mind that reaper have a very powerful API for third party plugins. reaper only i think not good. but with SWS and playtime(this make reaper simular to live) it is amazing

https://www.helgoboss.org/projects/playtime/
http://www.standingwaterstudios.com/

[toonertik]

I've had a look, and Live is still Live, so Reaper cant be.

you need also keep in mind that reaper have a very powerful API for third party plugins. reaper only i think not good. but with SWS and playtime(this make reaper simular to live) it is amazing

https://www.helgoboss.org/projects/playtime/
http://www.standingwaterstudios.com/

I rather think the wab_byte was being humorous...

think grim Reaper among the living or some other dry scoootish humor..

[machinesworking]

I agree re WT not being the world's greatest designer, but also he has a lot of constraints that are just built in to Reaper and I have no idea how well he is paid. It is possible to do a lot more tho as this project shows https://ultraschall.fm/

And the user base definitely has some old-timey curmudgeons who hate any change - the recent addition of CC editing curves took about 10 years to get through and was laughed at as stupid when first suggested. In fact the whole idea of UX or Design has taken many many years to sink in on the forum, normally greeeted with the inane stupidity of "its all subjective"

and there are pointless inconsistencies - the devs could really have learnt from Melda as far as modularising design and code for great efficiency. With Cockos it seems everytime they add something they do it from scratch. Reaper does come across as something that grows by accretion - a software Katamari Damancy (this is a strength and weakness - lots of the power of Reaper comes from the SWS extensions, and other scriptwriters ie is not core and could get broken. In practice this has not been a problem and is not something I worry about)

But I still use it and haven't found anything else that suits me better yet

Great summary, that's about it! I also use Digital Performer, and the curmudgeon factor IMO has slowed down progress forever on that DAW. It looks like MOTU are ignoring that for DP10, (Clips etc.) and that's fantastic. I hope Justin at some point does the same.

I'm thankful for Themes for sure, Reaper is a great DAW, and I'm really happy that they finally got editing curves etc. On my system at least about half the time I tried to use the click drag method on lines to smooth out CC, a few lines would just randomly not edit... made the whole process a PITA, but "lines aren't real".. bleh!

[harvon]

What's the problem with the UI? It's perfectly logical to me. You have the Arrange window, with several (detachable) editing windows, including the mixer, in the bottom. What's the problem with this?

For a good answer I would have to be an interface designer... but well I'm not. So just some scatter of thoughts:
< Studio one and tracktion use one window guis, which is much better than many tiny windows on the screen.
< The workflow of studio one is a good idea to copy.
< Two levels of menus, one for beginners which hides the full complexity of the program, one for experts that exposes all choices to user. The normal or most common parameters could be preselected or highlighted whenever the user have a choice to do, maybe even at expert level.
< Dynamic gui which shows just the tools and menus that are relevant to whatever to user is doing.
< Some tools might benefit from a view where they look and work like an individual program instead of a window inside a daw, score editor for example.
< The gui and menus should be designed to make possible to use the program even without reading any manuals whenever possible. I don't mean pop up help here. Take a look at studio one.
< There are two ways to handle situations where an action needs many parameters to be set before proceeding. Either force the user to set every parameter before the action, or do the action with default parameters and let the user change them after the action if necessary. The use of default parameters helps no_read_manuals use of the program.
< Good visual appearance is important.

[neverbeeninariot]

Really wondering how White tie ( reaper gui designer ) could set the bar so low for this release
It's a frankenstein mixture of skeumorphic and flat design .

I just don't think he's that good. I would suck at UX as well, it's a skill that takes a lot of time, and IMO some people have a knack for it. Plus DAWs are not easy, there's nothing easy about deciding what to hide and show, what to give up real estate to etc. How many old customers (with Stockholm Syndrome ) who you tick off changing things etc.

IMO, WhiteTie is a very good designer - http://www.houseofwhitetie.com/ and his Imperial theme for reaper is ridiculously good, but... Some parts of Reaper are not easily themable, if at all. He probably gets a steer from JF that restricts his creative freedom. Has to please all the users, all the time. Etc.

That said, I think he was on drugs for the V6 theme The theme config script is a great idea, but the theme itself is not for me. Horses for courses, I guess. I'll stick with v5 for now which I initially thought was a step backwards from v4, but I've changed my mind on that one.

WT did post a progress report on an Imperial v5 theme on the reaper forums a while back. https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=183627 It was unfinished (mostly MCP stuff) but it was impressive, but even that was like Marmite on the forum with users split on how awesome/shit it was. It should have been the V6 theme, plenty of flair, style, bells, whistles, and even an optional leopard skin mixer panel I hope he finds time to finish it.

[toonertik]

That said, I think he was on drugs for the V6 theme The theme config script is a great idea, but the theme itself is not for me. Horses for courses, I guess. I'll stick with v5 for now which I initially thought was a step backwards from v4, but I've changed my mind on that one.

Yeah...after a little time with v6 I have gone back to my slightly modified v4 (never really took to v5 either)
not pretty..
but pretty functional for me.

[digitalboytn]

IMO, WhiteTie is a very good designer - http://www.houseofwhitetie.com/ and his Imperial theme for reaper is ridiculously good, but... Some parts of Reaper are not easily themable, if at all. He probably gets a steer from JF that restricts his creative freedom. Has to please all the users, all the time. Etc.

WT did post a progress report on an Imperial v5 theme on the reaper forums a while back. https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=183627 It was unfinished (mostly MCP stuff) but it was impressive, but even that was like Marmite on the forum with users split on how awesome/shit it was. It should have been the V6 theme, plenty of flair, style, bells, whistles, and even an optional leopard skin mixer panel I hope he finds time to finish it.

Ahhh...Marmite....

Now that's a case study in polarization

[neverbeeninariot]

That said, I think he was on drugs for the V6 theme The theme config script is a great idea, but the theme itself is not for me. Horses for courses, I guess. I'll stick with v5 for now which I initially thought was a step backwards from v4, but I've changed my mind on that one.

Yeah...after a little time with v6 I have gone back to my slightly modified v4 (never really took to v5 either)
not pretty..
but pretty functional for me.

I liked the 'see all the controls all the time' thing of v4, but hated the colour cast on the track and mixer panels. I eventually made a desaturated version which improved it for me. I find v5 to be very simple, clean (no weird colour cast), and easy to see what's going on (mostly...).

But then, I used to love v3 so there's no accounting for taste, right?

[Blaster]

Haven't checked yet, but is there some recommended "default"?

[machinesworking]

Really wondering how White tie ( reaper gui designer ) could set the bar so low for this release
It's a frankenstein mixture of skeumorphic and flat design .

I just don't think he's that good. I would suck at UX as well, it's a skill that takes a lot of time, and IMO some people have a knack for it. Plus DAWs are not easy, there's nothing easy about deciding what to hide and show, what to give up real estate to etc. How many old customers (with Stockholm Syndrome ) who you tick off changing things etc.

IMO, WhiteTie is a very good designer - http://www.houseofwhitetie.com/ and his Imperial theme for reaper is ridiculously good, but... Some parts of Reaper are not easily themable, if at all. He probably gets a steer from JF that restricts his creative freedom. Has to please all the users, all the time. Etc.

That said, I think he was on drugs for the V6 theme The theme config script is a great idea, but the theme itself is not for me. Horses for courses, I guess. I'll stick with v5 for now which I initially thought was a step backwards from v4, but I've changed my mind on that one.

WT did post a progress report on an Imperial v5 theme on the reaper forums a while back. https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=183627 It was unfinished (mostly MCP stuff) but it was impressive, but even that was like Marmite on the forum with users split on how awesome/shit it was. It should have been the V6 theme, plenty of flair, style, bells, whistles, and even an optional leopard skin mixer panel I hope he finds time to finish it.

Everything is a matter of opinion in the end, but even your opinion is divided on this. You say he's a great designer, that Imperial is ridiculously good, but you don't use v6 or the Imperial theme. I think you're doing the same thing I did with Ohm Force years ago where I liked the look of their plug ins so much I would defend them even though the actual user experience in practice, well the GUI's suck in practical terms, too busy, badly laid out etc. Skeuomorphism isn't a good indication of a good user experience, it just looks nice. This isn't about looks but more about t practicality, Imperial only works on high def monitors and some of the GUI elements are tiny even then, it's not good design, it's just pretty to look at.

^^ And that, is the gist of it. Reaper is a mess GUI wise, most of it isn't thought out at all, and it shows. There aren't very many areas of Reaper that are weak, but UX is definitely one of them, even Logic is more thoughtfully laid out, Live and DP are UX wet dreams compared.

The end user can get around these things, and in some cases complexity requires a learning curve and UX compromise, but not at the level that Reaper is at, not even close.

[fairlyclose]

Really wondering how White tie ( reaper gui designer ) could set the bar so low for this release
It's a frankenstein mixture of skeumorphic and flat design .

I just don't think he's that good. I would suck at UX as well, it's a skill that takes a lot of time, and IMO some people have a knack for it. Plus DAWs are not easy, there's nothing easy about deciding what to hide and show, what to give up real estate to etc. How many old customers (with Stockholm Syndrome ) who you tick off changing things etc.

IMO, WhiteTie is a very good designer - http://www.houseofwhitetie.com/ and his Imperial theme for reaper is ridiculously good, but... Some parts of Reaper are not easily themable, if at all. He probably gets a steer from JF that restricts his creative freedom. Has to please all the users, all the time. Etc.

That said, I think he was on drugs for the V6 theme The theme config script is a great idea, but the theme itself is not for me. Horses for courses, I guess. I'll stick with v5 for now which I initially thought was a step backwards from v4, but I've changed my mind on that one.

WT did post a progress report on an Imperial v5 theme on the reaper forums a while back. https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=183627 It was unfinished (mostly MCP stuff) but it was impressive, but even that was like Marmite on the forum with users split on how awesome/shit it was. It should have been the V6 theme, plenty of flair, style, bells, whistles, and even an optional leopard skin mixer panel I hope he finds time to finish it.

Everything is a matter of opinion in the end, but even your opinion is divided on this. You say he's a great designer, that Imperial is ridiculously good, but you don't use v6 or the Imperial theme. I think you're doing the same thing I did with Ohm Force years ago where I liked the look of their plug ins so much I would defend them even though the actual user experience in practice, well the GUI's suck in practical terms, too busy, badly laid out etc. Skeuomorphism isn't a good indication of a good user experience, it just looks nice. This isn't about looks but more about t practicality, Imperial only works on high def monitors and some of the GUI elements are tiny even then, it's not good design, it's just pretty to look at.

^^ And that, is the gist of it. Reaper is a mess GUI wise, most of it isn't thought out at all, and it shows. There aren't very many areas of Reaper that are weak, but UX is definitely one of them, even Logic is more thoughtfully laid out, Live and DP are UX wet dreams compared.

The end user can get around these things, and in some cases complexity requires a learning curve and UX compromise, but not at the level that Reaper is at, not even close.

the confusion between appearance and UX has ruined Reaper UX development. I spent a lot of time over the years on the Reaper forum arguing for all sorts of improvements but gave up quite a while ago - just too many people who have no idea they have no idea but are firm in their contempt for the skills designers have developed over many generations.

[digitalboytn]

Here's a suggestion to all of the arm chair experts who are complaining about White Tie's UI and the general look of Reaper...

Log in the hours and make a UI that's better

Words are so cheap

I am grateful for all of the hard work that the coders have put into ALL of the tools that I use in my musical world