# Reaper vs Cubase !!!



## SBK (Sep 12, 2016)

Hi guys.
I am a Reaper user and I have found my health like we say in Greece.
I just want to say that Reaper can handle x100 times more plugins than any other DAW.
A friend of mine who is a Cubase user thought that,Cubase 8.5 would solve this. But he can load minus 10 times the plugins I use in Reaper without any lag.

I don't know if the Cockos guys are aliens and have the best coding, or their 32bit bridge rocks, but I though Cubase 8.5 would be good in handling lots of plugins !

Failure though... My friend thinks to buy more powerful cpu etc.

Why Reaper can handle so many plugins without problem? 
Are these guys aliens after all? Or just smarter programers? :D
Your thoughts?


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## Gabriel Oliveira (Sep 12, 2016)

SBK said:


> But he can load minus 10 times the plugins I use in Reaper without any lag.



this was tested on the same machine?


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## 5Lives (Sep 12, 2016)

How many plugins do you really need though? Eventually you can run enough plugins and the rest of Cubase's benefits become much more important.


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## Zookes (Sep 14, 2016)

On this system Cubase and Reaper both are installed, yes.
Reaper outperforms Cubase always using even identical projects and ASIO settings in tests. Similar features, but Reaper has not so good documentation and the desirable workflow infrastructure must be user-built, but this does not bother me.

Migrating slowly to Reaper for the past year. Still much to learn and much time is required for this, but happier everyday to move very far away from increasing technical incompetence of Steinberg.


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## ghostnote (Sep 15, 2016)

I'm using Cubase, but I have to say that I really like Reaper. There are a few things tough that annoy me, like the piano roll. This and the fact that I couldn't find any good reaper skin did hold me off to switch.


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## SBK (Sep 16, 2016)

Michael Chrostek said:


> I'm using Cubase, but I have to say that I really like Reaper. There are a few things tough that annoy me, like the piano roll. This and the fact that I couldn't find any good reaper skin did hold me off to switch.



check out this skin
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=172339
rocks for me!

Also they are keep updating stuff, I also don't like the piano and the ease of use of it but hopefully it wil lget updated.


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## EvilDragon (Sep 16, 2016)

Piano roll is much better after you tweak mouse modifiers for its contexts...


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## Zookes (Sep 16, 2016)

@EvilDragon 
How is this done?

I enjoy Cubase only for expression maps and right-click tool menu.
Have not discovered such features using Reaper, but maybe soon I will have inspiration to script something like this.


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## EvilDragon (Sep 17, 2016)

Preferences->Editing Behavior->Mouse Modifiers.


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## emid (Sep 17, 2016)

Reaper (_Rapid Environment for Audio Production, Engineering, and Recording) _is a very underrated daw. I migrated from Cubase to S1 to Reaper. It was initially annoying because of the workflow and I used to keep coming back to S1. Mind you most people loose interest just in the beginning because of the default workflow but Reaper's strength lies in tweaking it to fit into your workflow which I did, now I am happy for my decision. It is installed on my i5, 8GB only laptop but rock solid, loads tons of vsts(i's) without me thinking twice of cpu hiccups as there are none. On the other hand, freeze + render in place (two different features) + kontakt purging feature literally free my poor 8GB RAM. And then the giant feature, "offline fx", comes in which helps running big templates. For a few weeks now I am not using my desktop computer. I have modified Reaper which is behaving almost like my previous daw so I feel home now. For expression maps you can use BRSO articulate which is an intelligent plugin and seamlessly fits in workflow. SWS extensions and Reapack make things super fast. Theme-wise, I tried many themes but the best I found for my laptop 1366 x 768 display is Albert-C (Pro x-tools v1.0.1)*.*


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## tack (Sep 17, 2016)

I think I've made this comparison before, but Reaper is to DAWs what Linux was to OSes circa 2000. At first blush, it looks completely viable. But once you get into it, you will quickly find things that piss you off about it. The key difference from other DAWs is that almost always there are several options to unfuck Reaper's default behaviour. If customizing workflows is important to you, and you're a bit technically savvy, Reaper -- as with Linux -- is quite special in what it allows you to do. (I make this comparison as a full time Linux user since 1994.)

The piano roll is one of the most glaring aspects of Reaper that requires serious customization. ED mentioned mouse modifiers, but also you'll almost certainly want a series of third party scripts to provide various MIDI tweaking functionality, plus the obvious shortcut tweaking and macro creation. It can be made tolerable, I think, and a bit of training and muscle memory to cover most of the remaining gaps. There are still a few stupid UI behaviours that induce a psychotic rage in me like few other applications are able (e.g. activating some actions suddenly causes the MIDI editor to lose keyboard focus).

If you just want something that's pretty and mostly functional out of the box and you don't mind adapting yourself to the software rather than the other way around, I don't think Reaper would be the best choice. But if you're a workflow nut like I am and/or you're willing to invest the time tweaking and scripting Reaper, a world of possibilities opens up.


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## emid (Sep 17, 2016)

One more thing, with the help of a very helpful Reaper's forum member, I have finally managed to run Reaper and Harrison Mixbus side by side with Reaper being the recording/composing daw while Mixbus as mixing console. And it was all possible via Reaper's indigenous Rearoute. But if sometimes I need different colouration, I use Nebula third party console and saturation emulations inside Reaper with freeze function which is again possible due to Reaper otherwise in my previous daws I could only stare at my purchases. S1 has now introduced freeze feature which according to many is still laggy.


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## samphony (Sep 17, 2016)

Maybe it's time for a thread or a website or micropage where someone offers to tweak reaper for people who are not into tweaking, researching and/or have no time to tweak it to their hearts content. I have a reaper install for Mac in my Dropbox. And as far as I know it's easy to share a whole reaper install or at least it's settings including scripts, key bindings (actions) and what not.


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## Phillip (Nov 11, 2016)

samphony said:


> Maybe it's time for a thread or a website or micropage where someone offers to tweak reaper for people who are not into tweaking, researching and/or have no time to tweak it to their hearts content. I have a reaper install for Mac in my Dropbox. And as far as I know it's easy to share a whole reaper install or at least it's settings including scripts, key bindings (actions) and what not.


Samphony - there is a guy ( pls check Reaper official site, who offers Skype Reaper help for $50 / per hour.
Reaper is super smart and powerful. After many years with Cubase I switched and really enjoy this DAW. As others said, initial setup will take some time ( could be just few hours depending on your needs) but then it i very smooth. OP - I also tested Reaper vs. Cubase on the same machine. Reaper's load on the system was about 60% to 70% of Cubase. Justin ( the creator of Reaper ) is super smart programmer. Very impressive thought process.


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## d.healey (Nov 11, 2016)

Reaper is only a 10mb download, including the plugins, it is fantastically efficiently coded and has probably the best development cycles of any software


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## higgs (Nov 11, 2016)

Brilliant thread!


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## colony nofi (Nov 11, 2016)

Reaper is amazing in what it can do. It can handle things all other daws cannot - such as 3rd order ambisonics / large width channel busses.

But it seriously lacks when it comes to working in a post-production workflow. Last time I checked (it might have changed - and there's a massive PLUS for them!) there was no support for blackmagic cards for video.

It can be difficult for users working on films that are re-conformed and the like... a lot of friends who use it have taken to buying other middle wear like AATranslator or the excellent vordio. (link is to a review. This is a link to the software )

Its configurability is incredible. But most users just want the most - used / useful features to be ready "out of the box".

Its CPU usage is excellent. It is no where near 100's of times that of cubase. Not even close to a single order of magnitude. But it is efficient. Some projects I've seen double. Others, 40 or 50% more.

I unfortunately cannot use it on a day to day basis. I kind of wish I could. There's a lot to the ethos of the company which I like - as well as the lightness of the code. (There is code going back more than 10 years inside cubase... its a HUGE program)

I still keep it around for occasional use and specific tasks - and to generally just keep one eye firmly fixed on its development....


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## calebfaith (Nov 11, 2016)

I use it (Reaper) as my primary DAW and I love it! I've used Cubase in the past but the customisability of Reaper is too good...



Michael Chrostek said:


> I'm using Cubase, but I have to say that I really like Reaper. There are a few things tough that annoy me, like the piano roll. This and the fact that I couldn't find any good reaper skin did hold me off to switch.



Reaper did recently get a score view. It works but it is far behind Cubase


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## InLight-Tone (Nov 11, 2016)

calebfaith said:


> I use it (Reaper) as my primary DAW and I love it! I've used Cubase in the past but the customisability of Reaper is too good...
> 
> 
> 
> Reaper did recently get a score view. It works but it is far behind Cubase



Everything in Reaper is far behind Cubase just like Linux and Windows comparisons. Linux is a Life-Sink waste of time. If you want to tinker all day on the nuts and bolts and build your own software go for it, but keep in mind that this is time wasted that could be spent composing and leads to massive hairloss from all the stress and complication...


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## tack (Nov 11, 2016)

Linux is such a waste of time that it powers over a billion devices.


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## colony nofi (Nov 11, 2016)

Linux is incredible! It is not far behind Windows at all. It just depends on your use case! Maybe for your @InLight-Tone - its not your thing. But it has plenty of uses. Even for composers. It just depends what you are doing / your aims are etc.
Its the same way reaper is incredible and light years in front of cubase for some things, but lacking in many other areas. Things are never as black and white as they seem on first glance.


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## Hafer (Nov 11, 2016)

Just discovered reaper, too. Quite happy now. Used to use Ableton live. Its session view is special, but I never got along with it.
For me, Push2 compatibility is an unsolved mystery, but no pressing point at the moment.


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## Danial (Nov 12, 2016)

This comparison between Reaper and Linux is such a bad metaphor. Please move on.


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## Hafer (Nov 12, 2016)

omiroad said:


> let's stick to the facts



oh, you're soooo pre-Trumpish 

SCNR


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## AlexRuger (Nov 14, 2016)

tack said:


> I think I've made this comparison before, but Reaper is to DAWs what Linux was to OSes circa 2000. At first blush, it looks completely viable. But once you get into it, you will quickly find things that piss you off about it.



This exactly.

I went on the Great DAW Search a few years ago, know all the major ones equally deeply, and to this day haven't found anything that touches Cubase in terms of fast workflow or deep functionality.

I could maybe understand a Cubase/DP discussion, or maybe Pro Tools or Logic/Cubase discussion, depending on which features you're comparing, but the Reaper thing just loses me. I've tried it so many times, dove into the manual, watched videos explaining workflow approaches, tips and tricks, etc, and I just. Don't. Get. The. Appeal. David Farmer's videos and articles in particular have outlined a few nifty features, but these are quickly overshadowed by its clunky workflow and ugly interface.

To be clear, though, I love both Linux and the _idea _of Reaper and the spirit that it's founded on. But the Linux comparison is just so apt. So much potential, so much frustration.


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## Hafer (Nov 14, 2016)

I know Cubase from its old Atari days, but lost track of that piece of software (because of no need for a DAW for decades). Tried Cubase again several months ago - holy sh*t the UI jumped straight into my face and the workflow the software imposed on me strangled creativity like grandma's underpants burgeoning romance.

Cubase minted generations of users with its DAW-thing, who became accustomed to it, thus forming a symbiotic socio-technical society of accepting this quirk and demanding that kink, resulting in a software which splits mankind into those, who love it and those, who hate it. Same goes to Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word and so on. 

Bottom line, "ugly" is part of perspective and "clunky" a sign of customization not done properly. Which doesn't mean, Reaper's best DAW ever.


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## ZeroZero (Nov 14, 2016)

Hafer said:


> I know Cubase from its old Atari days, but lost track of that piece of software (because of no need for a DAW for decades). Tried Cubase again several months ago - holy sh*t the UI jumped straight into my face and the workflow the software imposed on me strangled creativity like grandma's underpants burgeoning romance.
> 
> Cubase minted generations of users with its DAW-thing, who became accustomed to it, thus forming a symbiotic socio-technical society of accepting this quirk and demanding that kink, resulting in a software which splits mankind into those, who love it and those, who hate it. Same goes to Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word and so on.
> 
> Bottom line, "ugly" is part of perspective and "clunky" a sign of customization not done properly. Which doesn't mean, Reaper's best DAW ever.



Like the metaphores, but disagree. Cubase does take a LOT of learning, but it is a very powerful and sophisticated product. It's well worth the mileage.

Z


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## tack (Nov 14, 2016)

AlexRuger said:


> I've tried it so many times, dove into the manual, watched videos explaining workflow approaches, tips and tricks, etc, and I just. Don't. Get. The. Appeal.


Maybe it's _because _I'm a Linux guy, but I completely get the appeal and it's why I use Reaper.

As with Linux, it's about being empowered to unfuck something that with other products you would be forced to live with and expected to accept as part of the culture. Often that requires getting a bit low level, but at least you _can_.

I think there are some things for which Reaper is brilliantly suited. Composing with MIDI isn't one of them, surely, but mixing sessions for example work very well out of the box. To extend the metaphor, as someone who manages a server farm with server counts well into five figure territory, *nix really is the _only_ option. If those servers ran Windows I'd have strung myself up years ago.


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## pmcrockett (Nov 14, 2016)

tack said:


> As with Linux, it's about being empowered to unfuck something that with other products you would be forced to live with and expected to accept as part of the culture. Often that requires getting a bit low level, but at least you _can_.


This exactly is Reaper's appeal for me. I have specific and somewhat nontraditional ideas about how I want my editing interface to work, and Reaper's scripting capabilities are robust enough that I can force the program to support my workflow regardless of its default behavior. It's a big enough deal to me that when I started looking for alternatives to Sonar, my previous DAW, scripting support was my biggest consideration. And nothing else even comes close to Reaper in that area.


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## Thomas A Booker (Nov 14, 2016)

Reaper takes a bit of effort to learn but I find it's extremely rewarding if you choose to invest the time. It's deeply customisable and I feel like you can pretty much get it to do whatever you want, or if you can't, someone else will have probably written a script to get it to. I appreciate it more and more as time goes on.


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## Rasmus Hartvig (Nov 14, 2016)

tack said:


> I think there are some things for which Reaper is brilliantly suited. Composing with MIDI isn't one of them, surely, but mixing sessions for example work very well out of the box.



I absolutely LOVE Reaper for sound design, mixing and anything audio related. It has a far better and faster audio workflow than Cubase - and the fact that I can customize and script it to exactly my idiosyncratic workflow puts it far above anything else for audio work. My fellow game audio sound designers seem to have noticed, and are converting to Reaper in troves. 

Sadly, as you rightly note Tack, MIDI is not Reapers strong suit. It's not that it's that far behind - and you can customize it to behave almost like any other DAW's piano roll. But the CC editing is sub-par and the lack of expression maps - or another way to deal intelligently with keyswitches - has made me stay with Cubase for music. But it's just a question of time. Hopefully Reaper will soon get that small handful of MIDI refinements that makes it viable to jump from the Steinberg ship.


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## Kas (Nov 14, 2016)

Reaper user here and I use mostly midi. Its customization is amazing and it's really great to have a program work as you'd like it, rather than adapt your workflow to a program's. As for its so-called ugliness, a lot of times I have fallen to the trap of plugins with beautiful interfaces which were mediocre soundwise. Yes, we may work in front of a computer screen but the end result is sound and we shouldn't listen with our eyes.


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## tack (Nov 14, 2016)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> r another way to deal intelligently with keyswitches


I'm working on something to solve this problem. Coincidentally, another fellow is working on it too, in a very similar way, although with a few differences that I decided to keep going with my approach.


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## AlexRuger (Nov 14, 2016)

tack said:


> Maybe it's _because _I'm a Linux guy, but I completely get the appeal and it's why I use Reaper.
> 
> As with Linux, it's about being empowered to unfuck something that with other products you would be forced to live with and expected to accept as part of the culture. Often that requires getting a bit low level, but at least you _can_.
> 
> I think there are some things for which Reaper is brilliantly suited. Composing with MIDI isn't one of them, surely, but mixing sessions for example work very well out of the box. To extend the metaphor, as someone who manages a server farm with server counts well into five figure territory, *nix really is the _only_ option. If those servers ran Windows I'd have strung myself up years ago.



I totally feel you. I'm fascinated with the Linux world, and there's definitely a certain appeal to software that's a little...rough around the edges, I guess? Ultra-customizable, function over all, highly idealistic. I think it's very cool. And as you said, Linux is the only way to go for servers.

I definitely think that Reaper is very well-suited for sound design. It's got some features that make it very fun. It feels like you're discovering sounds rather than just making them.

But beyond that, it definitely lacks, especially in MIDI.


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## Rasmus Hartvig (Nov 14, 2016)

tack said:


> I'm working on something to solve this problem. Coincidentally, another fellow is working on it too, in a very similar way, although with a few differences that I decided to keep going with my approach.



Oh - nice! How does that work on a practical level? Ie. in the piano roll editor?


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## d.healey (Nov 14, 2016)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> Oh - nice! How does that work on a practical level? Ie. in the piano roll editor?


There's also this - might be the other project Tack was referring to - the problem I have with it is it's only really useful for someone who enters all their notes via the mouse (I'm just basing this on the demo video I haven't tried it myself).
http://www.syntheticorchestra.com/articulatereaper/


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## novaburst (Nov 14, 2016)

tack said:


> Linux is such a waste of time that it powers over a billion devices.



This may be true, lets just say for arguments sake Linux powers the whole wide world and what of it, its still impractical for orchestral work and about a billion plugins, and VSTs and library's,

We love what Linux stands for but as i have argued over on the mixbus 3 forum they are not doing anything for users who need all the latest VSTs and plugins to work with,


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## tack (Nov 14, 2016)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> Oh - nice! How does that work on a practical level? Ie. in the piano roll editor?


It will work in the piano roll to step-input articulation changes, or can also be used just to trigger an articulation change on the instrument without recording.



d.healey said:


> There's also this - might be the other project Tack was referring to - the problem I have with it is it's only really useful for someone who enters all their notes via the mouse (I'm just basing this on the demo video I haven't tried it myself).


Yes and also only supports 16 articulations per track, as it assumes a model with one articulation per MIDI channel. The approach I'm taking is quite different to BRSO Articulate. And it will gracefully handle articulation changes coming in from other triggers like MIDI events (assuming the actions are bound appropriately).

I was actually referring to another project announced recently on the Reaper forum, who ended up solving the problem in similar ways. But like mine, his thing is vaporware for the moment.


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## Rasmus Hartvig (Nov 14, 2016)

tack said:


> It will work in the piano roll to step-input articulation changes, or can also be used just to trigger an articulation change on the instrument without recording.



Sounds great. Would love to give that a spin if you release it some day.


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## d.healey (Nov 14, 2016)

tack said:


> It will work in the piano roll to step-input articulation changes, or can also be used just to trigger an articulation change on the instrument without recording.
> 
> 
> Yes and also only supports 16 articulations per track, as it assumes a model with one articulation per MIDI channel. The approach I'm taking is quite different to BRSO Articulate. And it will gracefully handle articulation changes coming in from other triggers like MIDI events (assuming the actions are bound appropriately).
> ...


Will yours be able to trigger from notation marks?


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## tack (Nov 14, 2016)

d.healey said:


> Will yours be able to trigger from notation marks?


No, but it's an interesting idea. Difficult to do well, though. Ultimately it works via program change messages. I can imagine it would be necessary to bidirectionally sync the program changes with the notation data.

Doable, assuming the notation data format stabilizes, and a pretty exciting prospect actually.

Maybe version 2.0.


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## tack (Nov 15, 2016)

omiroad said:


> *Reaper was the first to start crackling and break down while Cubase and FL withstood the same polyphony played across the 3 Divas*.


Same ASIO buffer size in all the DAWs?

Were you playing the patches live, or playing back a recorded MIDI track? If it wasn't live, was the track record-armed anyway? Did you have any FX on the master track?


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## MrVoice (Nov 16, 2016)

tack said:


> I'm working on something to solve this problem. Coincidentally, another fellow is working on it too, in a very similar way, although with a few differences that I decided to keep going with my approach.


Tack, I use Imperial to. But my subtracks in folder does not "get shorter" (dont know the right word in english for this).
All the tracks are the same length so its much harder to see witch are folders etc. 
Is it a hack or are there somewhere to download a tweaked file for this?
Its looks great


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## Hafer (Nov 16, 2016)

omiroad said:


> I loaded up 3 instances of U-he's Diva



Not surprised 3 Divas cause you have hitches - one Diva alone gives me a shudder


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## tack (Nov 16, 2016)

MrVoice said:


> Is it a hack or are there somewhere to download a tweaked file for this?


It's a hacked variant of another hacked variant of Imperial. I've been meaning to upload it to Reaper Stash but I lifted some icons from another theme or two and forgot where, and thought it'd just be proper to find the source for attribution before putting it up on Stash.

But I guess informally I can share it here.

https://helix.urandom.ca/t/WT_Imperial_Darker.ReaperThemeZip

If you happen to know which theme I stole the icons from, please let me know


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## MrVoice (Nov 17, 2016)

tack said:


> It's a hacked variant of another hacked variant of Imperial. I've been meaning to upload it to Reaper Stash but I lifted some icons from another theme or two and forgot where, and thought it'd just be proper to find the source for attribution before putting it up on Stash.
> 
> But I guess informally I can share it here.
> 
> ...


Thanks man, awsome 
Sorry IDK witch theme the icon's from. But they are realy smoooth looking


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