# Seeking Reaper Orchestral composers



## Starry_Music (Jun 30, 2021)

Are you a film or game composer who uses Reaper for orchestral composing? I am having a hard time finding anyone. If you use Reaper for this purpose I would love to hear your work…especially dramatic underscore, trailers, orchestral themes, etc . I am currently using Reaper for orchestral/acoustic-type projects and I am simply not sure how to make this type of music sound great with Reaper. Seeking help along these lines. Also, it would be great to connect with fellow Reaper scoring people.
Best,
Manny


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## Markrs (Jun 30, 2021)

Starry_Music said:


> Are you a film or game composer who uses Reaper for orchestral composing? I am having a hard time finding anyone. If you use Reaper for this purpose I would love to hear your work…especially dramatic underscore, trailers, orchestral themes, etc . I am currently using Reaper for orchestral/acoustic-type projects and I am simply not sure how to make this type of music sound great with Reaper. Seeking help along these lines. Also, it would be great to connect with fellow Reaper scoring people.
> Best,
> Manny


I believe there are many that use Reaper, especially game composers


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## darcvision (Jun 30, 2021)

i'm using reaper as a main DAW. Reaper are costumizeable and eficient, that's why i'm making orchestra template for reaper. also i'm using Logic pro theme because it's very cool theme.


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## b_elliott (Jul 1, 2021)

I use Reaper however not for film or orchestral work. That said, you might find 
Eric W's channel enough to whet your appetite. 

I found out about him when he was featured on Reaperblog and released a 
BBC SO Discover Reaper template for free. A good find if you've not run across him before. Cheers, Bill


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## Chris Harper (Jul 1, 2021)

Is there some specific aspect of Reaper you are struggling with? There are a number of us lurking around who use Reaper for orchestral style music. I write mostly orchestral music, but also music with live recorded instruments and vocals (pop, rock, country, etc.) I use mostly Reaper but occasionally I use Studio One Pro to compose. It depends on what specific task I’m doing, and my mood at the time. No matter which DAW I compose in, everything gets mixed down and mastered in Reaper. If I use the same instruments and the same plug-ins, I get the exact same sound as a result. If it’s the MIDI editing that’s the issue, there are some extensions that are really helpful. Reaticulate is one I use heavily for articulation management. For processing and mixing, I use mostly 3rd party plug-ins these days, but I could make the stock Reaper plugs work if I needed to.

Reaper has its own share of quirks for sure, but there are certain parts of my workflow that I can only do in Reaper because of its extreme flexibility, such as my mastering workflow to produce fully summing stems all in a single step with no bounces. I can’t replicate my exact workflow anywhere else without Reaper’s multi-channel tracks and it’s extreme flexibility to use any track for any purpose, especially creating summing buss tracks that loop back into each signal chain as separate side-chains.

The “unique” default controls in the Reaper piano roll took a bit of getting used to (right click + drag to select notes…wtf?!?) but it only took a few days and it was second nature. That’s really the only difference I notice at all at this point, is the scrolling controls and the different mouse buttons. I suppose I could change that, but I just adapted instead.


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## blender505 (Jul 1, 2021)

Just a hobbyist composer over here, but I do all my work in Reaper. I can't say it's perfect by any means, but it does do everything I want it to do. I did have to set up my entire template from scratch though and even now, it's not quite as unified as I would like it to be, though that's probably more due to the libraries I'm using. I haven't tried out Reaticulate yet, but I might jump over there if I have more issues. For the most part, making things sound "good" is going to be more dependent on the plugins you use and how you use them and the DAW you use is more about workflow. I do find that screen real estate tends to be an issue with Reaper sometimes, at least with the default view, but also, there are plenty of user created views that might work better. I just haven't dove into all of that. I tend to use few of the stock plugins (the EQ is pretty good and I find myself using some of the midi plugins everywhere), but most of what I use is also third party.

My youtube channel if you'd like to see what I've done.



https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvqMiqSfny6KRVcw-Cbwcnw


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## Ross Sampson (Jul 1, 2021)

Starry_Music said:


> Are you a film or game composer who uses Reaper for orchestral composing? I am having a hard time finding anyone. If you use Reaper for this purpose I would love to hear your work…especially dramatic underscore, trailers, orchestral themes, etc . I am currently using Reaper for orchestral/acoustic-type projects and I am simply not sure how to make this type of music sound great with Reaper. Seeking help along these lines. Also, it would be great to connect with fellow Reaper scoring people.
> Best,
> Manny


Hey Manny,

I use Reaper! In terms of things I've done in Reaper, pretty much all these tracks were done in Reaper. But they would have been just the same in another DAW, just the process is different. Kind of like a car, they're different but do the same thing and you choose the one you prefer to get you from a to b. So in terms of 'sounding great', do you mean you're more comfortable in other DAWs and unsure how to translate your approach, or just looking for tips on getting started in general with Reaper?


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## R.Cato (Jul 1, 2021)

Yes, full time game composer using Reaper as my main DAW writing orchestral music.

Same can be said (film instead of games) for @Stevie and @Vartio 

When I switched, I struggled hard to recreate the Cubase workflow. But once I started to adapt to the differences of Reaper I found it in many regards superior and it also allows new workflows, which I now prefer to my old one.


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## PuerAzaelis (Jul 1, 2021)

Eternal padawan here - composing orchestral pieces using REAPER DAW!!! The price is right!!!


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## b_elliott (Jul 1, 2021)

Markrs said:


> I believe there are many that use Reaper, especially game composers



Markrs, I am not a game composer yet this series is quality and applicable to what I work with; I will consume it over the weekend. Thanks for posting link.

EDIT: I completed watching A. Thaker's Game Audio series featuring Reaper. His video on how he uses sub-projects is well worth watching. It is something I can see fitting into my workflow despite being a hobbyist, non-gamer, non-cinematic composer. Subprojects: a powerful tool for composing/arranging.


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## Markrs (Jul 1, 2021)

b_elliott said:


> Markrs, I am not a game composer yet this series is quality and applicable to what I work with; I will consume it over the weekend. Thanks for posting link.


Was a recent discovery for me too, and I am also not a game composer or even game player.


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## Stevie (Jul 1, 2021)

R.Cato said:


> Yes, full time game composer using Reaper as my main DAW writing orchestral music.
> 
> Same can be said (film instead of games) for @Stevie and @Vartio
> 
> When I switched, I struggled hard to recreate the Cubase workflow. But once I started to adapt to the differences of Reaper I found it in many regards superior and it also allows new workflows, which I now prefer to my old one.


Yes, I’m doing all my film composing work with REAPER.



Starry_Music said:


> Are you a film or game composer who uses Reaper for orchestral composing? I am having a hard time finding anyone. If you use Reaper for this purpose I would love to hear your work…especially dramatic underscore, trailers, orchestral themes, etc . I am currently using Reaper for orchestral/acoustic-type projects and I am simply not sure how to make this type of music sound great with Reaper. Seeking help along these lines. Also, it would be great to connect with fellow Reaper scoring people.
> Best,
> Manny


The DAW doesn’t make your sound. It’s the instruments and your mock-up skills. If your mock-ups don’t sound right, then you might have the same issue with Cubase, S1, Logic…


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## Alfeus Aditya (Jul 1, 2021)

Reaper is my main DAW for composing to the post-prod. 
The flexibility offered by reaper allows me to customize according to my needs
I am orchestral composer too.. 









Alfeus_Aditya - Portfolio | AudioJungle


Browse our massive collection of sound effects, royalty free music and stock audio. Add music to web, broadcast, video, presentations, and other projects.




audiojungle.net


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## olvra (Jul 1, 2021)

Wilbert Roget, II









Composing the Call Of Duty WWII Score - Interview with Wilbert Roget II | The REAPER Blog


Composer Wilbert Roget II shares his experience using REAPER for the Call Of Duty WWII game soundtrack.




reaperblog.net


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## fakemaxwell (Jul 1, 2021)

I'm a big Reaper guy (composing and also post production) but there's nothing about the resulting sound that comes out of the DAW that makes it worthwhile to learn. It's all about the workflow. Any of the usual suspects will be able to make the same beeps and boops, they just may take different roads to get there.

Reaper is the most customizable of all the major DAWs, but you don't have to do anything wild with it either. There's no magic bullet/DAW/plugin/sample library/synth/etc etc etc. Just pick a DAW and use it to write music, don't write music to be able to use a DAW.


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## thevisi0nary (Jul 2, 2021)

Sub par hobbyist working only in Reaper - https://soundcloud.com/thevisi0nary
There's nothing major I can imagine another daw offering me that I don't have, most of them are the same. I like Reaper because it's customizable.


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## crossrootsdoc (Jul 2, 2021)

I use Reaper for my cinematic work. I've only done one orchestral commercial project so far though. The subproject feature in Reaper is brilliant


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## Dewdman42 (Jul 2, 2021)

working with the reaper GUI gave me warts


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## Vartio (Jul 8, 2021)

Fulltime composer/arranger/programmer here. I use Reaper 100%. Couldn't work in any other daw at these delivery schedules. Just completely irreplacable bit of software to me.


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## ExC3 (Sep 6, 2021)

Hi long time Reaper user here. I thought some of you might be interested in an expression controller I've made with long 100mm faders. I've had great feedback from some purchasers on the Spitfire audio Facebook page. See my blog for more info and to add yourself to the waiting list. Thanks Nick








ExC-3 usb expression controller.


Midi fader expression controller orchestra Spitfire




expressioncontroller.blogspot.com


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## robgb (Sep 6, 2021)

Media composer who uses Reaper.





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ABOUT | music-artist







www.toriletzler.com


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