# No, Reaper is Not Ugly...



## robgb (Feb 6, 2019)




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## Chr!s (Feb 6, 2019)

I think she's pretty ugly tbh

But looks aren't everything


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## Dewdman42 (Feb 6, 2019)

which theme is that?


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## calebfaith (Feb 6, 2019)

I think this one looks better: http://www.houseofwhitetie.com/reaper/imperial/wt_imperial.html

(Pics taken from their website)


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## pderbidge (Feb 6, 2019)

robgb said:


>


Unfortunately some of the prettiest themes are not very functional but this one seems to strike a nice balance between form and function. I like it. I've always thought the new default theme, with a couple of tweaks of my own, was actually pretty easy on the eyes and works well for me but I may try this one out.


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## gregh (Feb 7, 2019)

of course Reaper has crap aesthetics - it is impossible to design coherent graphics for it without an enormous effort. That's part of the development philosophy (using windows libraries) and the devs have said they have no interest in usability or design. As far as I know there is only one group who have gone to the effort of making a coherent interface for Reaper
https://ultraschall.fm/


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## robgb (Feb 7, 2019)

gregh said:


> of course Reaper has crap aesthetics - it is impossible to design coherent graphics for it without an enormous effort. That's part of the development philosophy (using windows libraries) and the devs have said they have no interest in usability or design. As far as I know there is only one group who have gone to the effort of making a coherent interface for Reaper
> https://ultraschall.fm/


I see nothing special about this theme.
And you can't install it on anything other than version 5.7


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## robgb (Feb 7, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> which theme is that?


Pro X-Tools Gold v3


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## aaronventure (Feb 7, 2019)

My edit of Funktion with some QoL track color (track now colored completely in the arrange view left-side) and shading changes (different shades of gray for odd/even tracks, piano roll shades swapped, less obtrusive colors for MIDI notes). 





Here's a shot of the original from the page:






I've tried out everything that caught my eye, but I've been using this for two years now.


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## Rasmus Hartvig (Feb 7, 2019)

Most Reaper themes are indeed ugly - some to a seizure inducing degree. But that will always be the case when you open up a program for skinning. Most people simply doesn't have the aesthetic sensibilities required to design a pleasant looking interface that is also functional.

Pretty nice one you have there @robgb - though I'm a little allergic to the angular "trying to look sci-fi" fonts 

I ended up forking a theme I liked and am now tweaking it myself. Very satisfying - and also a surefire way to make sure that you don't make any music for a few days.


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## TomislavEP (Feb 7, 2019)

Since I've switched from Pro Tools 11 to REAPER 5 as my primary DAW back in 2016., I've learned to like its utilitarian look. Personally, I think that the default v5 theme is a pretty good balance between the form an functionality. My main gripe is the light background in the MIDI editor, so I'm using a variant of v5 Default called "Nitpicky Edition", which has a dark one. This theme also feature nicer looking fonts and it blends very well with the software I'm using within REAPER on a daily basis such as Kontakt, Reaktor, Guitar Rig, Neutron, Ozone etc. It also fits aesthetically with the dark theme of Windows 10.


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## MOMA (Feb 7, 2019)

I use the protools theme and its clear, functional and pleasant to the eye. Look in the reaper forums and you´ll find some really tasty alternatives.


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## MartinH. (Feb 7, 2019)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> I ended up forking a theme I liked and am now tweaking it myself. Very satisfying - and also a surefire way to make sure that you don't make any music for a few days.



That sounds tempting. Can I just dive in and poke around in it, or should I check out some kind of reference material first? I'm fine with the default look, I just want to hide or rearrange some things, and I have prior coding experience.


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## Rasmus Hartvig (Feb 7, 2019)

Sure thing. It's pretty easy to get to grips with. The WALTER reference page is probably everything you need to be able to move stuff around. There are some intricacies if you want to start scaling graphic elements or use button image stacks, but for minor tweaks it's pretty simple. Just copy and rename the default theme and start poking around.

One thing I did, was to rewrite the rtconfig.txt file to ERB (embedded Ruby). This way I can have variables and do math operations in the theme configuration file, which makes the whole thing way more compact and easy to maintain. So it basically becomes somewhat like SASS in the web world, where you have some nice conveniences in a format that then gets compiled to its final form. See... Guaranteed no productivity for days!


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## robgb (Feb 7, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> That sounds tempting. Can I just dive in and poke around in it, or should I check out some kind of reference material first? I'm fine with the default look, I just want to hide or rearrange some things, and I have prior coding experience.


There are a lot of things you can do simply by going to the actions menu, search for "tweak" and use the tweak menu to change colors in various sections. For example if you don't like the midi editor background, you can easily change that. I have yet to figure out how to do deep tweaks on a theme yet, because every time I unzip and rezip the theme file, I get a white mess. I'm not sure why.


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## robgb (Feb 7, 2019)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> "trying to look sci-fi" fonts


Easily changed in the "tweak" action.


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## robgb (Feb 7, 2019)

This theme lends itself well to some custom actions and toolbars I'm creating using the Console, etc.


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## MartinH. (Feb 7, 2019)

robgb said:


> There are a lot of things you can do simply by going to the actions menu, search for "tweak" and use the tweak menu to change colors in various sections. For example if you don't like the midi editor background, you can easily change that. I have yet to figure out how to do deep tweaks on a theme yet, because every time I unzip and rezip the theme file, I get a white mess. I'm not sure why.



What do you use for re-zipping? I tried with win7 default zip function in the explorer and that works. 
I've tried editing rtconfig.txt and was able to hide some elements, but wasn't able to figure out yet how to change the position of the elements. Oh wait, there is a section called " USER : mess with these:", that must be where this stuff is. Cool, gonna play with that when I have more time.


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## ghandizilla (Feb 7, 2019)

I like it as it is by default, since it's not distracting. I wonder: why is aesthetics relevant?


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## Rasmus Hartvig (Feb 7, 2019)

ghandizilla said:


> I like it as it is by default, since it's not distracting. I wonder: why is aesthetics relevant?


If the lack of aesthetics is distracting it's relevant


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## robgb (Feb 7, 2019)

ghandizilla said:


> I like it as it is by default, since it's not distracting. I wonder: why is aesthetics relevant?


Aesthetics are always relevant. Design is part of our lives every day. Most of us are drawn to beautiful design, although we may disagree what is and isn't beautiful. For me, personally, aesthetics go a long way toward inspiring creativity. When I have to look at a screen all day long, it helps to look at one that's pleasing to my eye.


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## ghandizilla (Feb 7, 2019)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> If the lack of aesthetics is distracting it's relevant



Amen to that


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## Rasmus Hartvig (Feb 7, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> What do you use for re-zipping?


You don't need to re-zip the theme to use it. That quickly becomes a pain when making a lot of small tweaks. Zipping is only needed for redistribution.


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## robgb (Feb 7, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> What do you use for re-zipping? I tried with win7 default zip function in the explorer and that works.
> I've tried editing rtconfig.txt and was able to hide some elements, but wasn't able to figure out yet how to change the position of the elements. Oh wait, there is a section called " USER : mess with these:", that must be where this stuff is. Cool, gonna play with that when I have more time.


I'm on a Mac and have tried several zip apps, including the default. Unfortunately, everything turns white on the themes I zip. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, but clearly it's something.


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## robgb (Feb 7, 2019)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> You don't need to re-zip the theme to use it. That quickly becomes a pain when making a lot of small tweaks. Zipping is only needed for redistribution.


So after you unzip it, how to you get it back to "theme" state?


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## MartinH. (Feb 7, 2019)

ghandizilla said:


> I like it as it is by default, since it's not distracting. I wonder: why is aesthetics relevant?



Individual tastes differ, I'm sure for some the default theme looks ugly and distracting and they'd be much more comfortable with a theme that is more tailored to their personal preferences. Also the impact of working with something you hate to look at differs from person to person. Some really don't care and some get so obsessed over this that they spend hours organizing their smartphone homescreen to look the best it can be.

I mainly want to be able to fit more of the most relevant info on one screen and have the colors overall dark enough to be easy on the eyes, I prefer Dark UIs.



Rasmus Hartvig said:


> You don't need to re-zip the theme to use it. That quickly becomes a pain when making a lot of small tweaks. Zipping is only needed for redistribution.


Thanks a lot for that info! Saved me tons of tedious time there!


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## MartinH. (Feb 7, 2019)

robgb said:


> So after you unzip it, how to you get it back to "theme" state?



Trial and error leads me to believe this is right: 
In the ColorThemes folder you'll put your .ReaperTheme file and make a subfolder for the images etc. and you edit that file and look for something that looks like this: 

```
[REAPER]
ui_img=custom_unpacked
```

and write the name of your image subfolder where it says "custom_unpacked" in my example.


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## KallumS (Feb 7, 2019)

ghandizilla said:


> I like it as it is by default, since it's not distracting. I wonder: why is aesthetics relevant?



I dunno about you, but if I'm going to be looking at something for hours a day for the foreseeable future it better not look like ass.


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## robgb (Feb 7, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> Trial and error leads me to believe this is right:
> In the ColorThemes folder you'll put your .ReaperTheme file and make a subfolder for the images etc. and you edit that file and look for something that looks like this:
> 
> ```
> ...


Maybe it's different for a Mac, but that didn't work. To get the images, I had to use the tweak action and add a specific path. And in order to get a ReaperThemeZip file, I still had to rezip. And I still get white backgrounds and have to use the tweak action to change them back to the proper color, a tedious task. So clearly I'm missing something.


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## Tim_Wells (Feb 7, 2019)

Never really understood why folks care so much about the appearance of software. Maybe I lack culture, refinement, and style. I've always been more concerned with features, functionality, and ease of use. 

The look of Reaper verses other DAWs seems relatively subtle to me. As I said, maybe I'm missing the artistic eye. I don't currently use Reaper, but it's appearance is definitely not the reason. The main reason is I'm just so locked into Cubase.


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## Eckoes (Feb 7, 2019)

I love the way Reaper looks. I’m using a dark theme...forget the name at the moment. 

Buts it’s rather handsome and super functional. 

Then again, I don’t compose orchestral/trailer/film music so I never have a ton of tracks. I think my biggest ever was 32 tracks or so.


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## robgb (Feb 7, 2019)

Eckoes said:


> Then again, I don’t compose orchestral/trailer/film music so I never have a ton of tracks. I think my biggest ever was 32 tracks or so.


It's handles a ton a tracks quite well, but truthfully, you don't really NEED tons and tons of tracks. Less is often more.


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## Dewdman42 (Feb 7, 2019)

one of my pet peeves with reaper is simply put the UI and while there are some neat looking themes like the one from this OP, most are not HiDPI compatible, for example...and the best ones aren't free and they are all kind of all over the map with people making this hack or that hack and geez who has time. What i love about Logic and Cubase is that we don't get sidetracked by all that crap, the UI just works as is...

I think the best reaper themes are the ones emulating Logic and ProTools for a reason, because the UI designers of Logic and ProTools knew what they were doing...and the Reaper team does not at all know what they are doing with regards to UI's..they just leaned on the user community to create user theme chaos and its been that way for years with no change in sight.

Reaper may have other advantages that make it worth it to ignore the crappy UI, IMHO.

I also have no interest at all in most of the flukey user created themes that are meant to emulate hardware. Usually they take up more screen space and while they are fun to look at it, functionally they just don't hold a flame to tried and true UI design from teams like LogicPro and ProTools.

I do not expect this to ever change with reaper unless someone buys them as a company someday.


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## tack (Feb 7, 2019)

Reaper's UI is a bit of a mess, in my opinion. Lots of hideous warts all over the place, and ultimately it's hard to shake the feeling that even the sexiest themes are lipstick on a pig.

Nevertheless, after some tweaking, I can just about tolerate the state of things. As long as I don't open the Add FX window.  (My toolbar icons need some major love, though.)

But as others have suggested, although looks are important in those early days, a lasting relationship is built on so much more.


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## sostenuto (Feb 7, 2019)

*It's cool to have Reaper as first DAW *….. 
One covered with warts seems beautiful ….. until potential exposure to desirable alternative. btw _ on Win10 Pro.
Only possible change is Cockos implosion. _ ( or WhiteTie bailing completely on Imperial enhancements. )


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## NYC Composer (Feb 7, 2019)

robgb said:


> Aesthetics are always relevant. Design is part of our lives every day. Most of us are drawn to beautiful design, although we may disagree what is and isn't beautiful. For me, personally, aesthetics go a long way toward inspiring creativity. When I have to look at a screen all day long, it helps to look at one that's pleasing to my eye.


I agree that aesthetics are always relevant, though I think the amount it matters varies wildly from individual to individual.

I don’t think the theme you put up is ugly, but I don’t find it particularly pleasing either. For me though, functionality trumps form by about 98-2. Aesthetics don’t inspire me, fear of failure does. My tools are good enough-I never quite am. I find it very inspiring to write a load of crap, hate it and myself and to keep trying to do better.


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## Rasmus Hartvig (Feb 7, 2019)

robgb said:


> Maybe it's different for a Mac, but that didn't work. To get the images, I had to use the tweak action and add a specific path. And in order to get a ReaperThemeZip file, I still had to rezip. And I still get white backgrounds and have to use the tweak action to change them back to the proper color, a tedious task. So clearly I'm missing something.



Huh... That's weird. On my Mac it works without a hitch. I have a [themename].ReaperTheme file in /ColorThemes and a folder with the same name. I can switch to that theme without bothering with zipping. If the names of the ReaperTheme file, the image folder and the ui_img entry in the theme file match it should be correct. The documentation says this.


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## robgb (Feb 8, 2019)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> Huh... That's weird. On my Mac it works without a hitch. I have a [themename].ReaperTheme file in /ColorThemes and a folder with the same name. I can switch to that theme without bothering with zipping. If the names of the ReaperTheme file, the image folder and the ui_img entry in the theme file match it should be correct. The documentation says this.


Hmm. I'll have to try again...


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## EvilDragon (Feb 8, 2019)

Reaper is not (always) ugly. It's merely _inconsistent_. No matter how much you love Reaper (and you know me, you know _I luuuuuurve it!_), you've got to admit at least that.


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## MartinH. (Feb 8, 2019)

How do I turn this: 





into this:






?


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## StephenForsyth (Feb 8, 2019)

I've done the whole theme song and dance and ended out just leaving it standard. The default theme puts all the information you need in such a minimal and clear way and you just always seem to give something up with a prettier theme. 

Imo leave it standard, then just put a kaleidescope on your desk and have a play around with it every few minutes.


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## Rasmus Hartvig (Feb 8, 2019)

@MartinH.


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## brenneisen (Feb 8, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> How do I turn this:


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## MartinH. (Feb 8, 2019)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> @MartinH.





brenneisen said:


>


 Thanks a lot!


The left-aligment seems to only be possible with adding blanks to the track label. At least I didn't find an option for it in the settings. But at least it IS possible .


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## Rasmus Hartvig (Feb 8, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> The left-aligment seems to only be possible with adding blanks to the track label. At least I didn't find an option for it in the settings.



That can be done if you tweak in the rtconfig.txt of the theme. Find the line:

```
set mcp.label.margin                     [0 4 0 4 0.5]
```
 in the section Layout "ea - Strip" "strip" (it's line 2390 in mine) and change the 0.5 to 1


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## MartinH. (Feb 8, 2019)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> That can be done if you tweak in the rtconfig.txt of the theme. Find the line:
> 
> ```
> set mcp.label.margin                     [0 4 0 4 0.5]
> ...



Awesome! that text is just like I wanted now, thanks!


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## robgb (Feb 8, 2019)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> Huh... That's weird. On my Mac it works without a hitch. I have a [themename].ReaperTheme file in /ColorThemes and a folder with the same name. I can switch to that theme without bothering with zipping. If the names of the ReaperTheme file, the image folder and the ui_img entry in the theme file match it should be correct. The documentation says this.


THANK YOU. I finally got it sorted out. It was a matter of simply moving the theme file into the root Color Theme folder instead of leaving it in the folder it unzipped to. Duh. I really appreciate your help, even if it did make me an idiot...


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## robgb (Feb 8, 2019)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> That can be done if you tweak in the rtconfig.txt of the theme. Find the line:
> 
> ```
> set mcp.label.margin                     [0 4 0 4 0.5]
> ...


Maybe you can answer this for me. In the theme I'm using, I've added a toolbar button to show/hide FX. But the problem is that the visual on the button is reversed. When the toolbar is visible, the button is dark. When the toolbar is hidden, the button is lit. This is the reverse of what I want and only happens with this theme. Is there a way in the rtconfig.txt file to fix that?


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## robgb (Feb 8, 2019)

EvilDragon said:


> It's merely _inconsistent_.


The proper word for this is "charm."


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## EvilDragon (Feb 8, 2019)

No, it's not.


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## robgb (Feb 8, 2019)

Maybe I should have said "for me."


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## MOMA (Feb 8, 2019)

Reaper can look just anyway you like. I do like the protools look and have a bright background for the tracks (just happen to like it like that). But you can use the Cubase, Logic or the famous White Tie theme for the analog feel. You can also tweek the functionality till you drop dead. 

Just go for it!

MOMA


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## Rasmus Hartvig (Feb 8, 2019)

robgb said:


> Maybe you can answer this for me. In the theme I'm using, I've added a toolbar button to show/hide FX. But the problem is that the visual on the button is reversed. When the toolbar is visible, the button is dark. When the toolbar is hidden, the button is lit. This is the reverse of what I want and only happens with this theme. Is there a way in the rtconfig.txt file to fix that?



I've had that same problem before. Unfortunately it's not fixable in the theme because you can't style individual buttons.

The cause of it is that the action you've hooked up to the button either doesn't return a state or reports the opposite state of what you want. As far as I remember I've previously solved this by making a SWS cycle action instead where you are able to flip the toggle state if you want. If there's a simpler way I would love to know about it as well!


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## robgb (Feb 8, 2019)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> I've had that same problem before. Unfortunately it's not fixable in the theme because you can't style individual buttons.
> 
> The cause of it is that the action you've hooked up to the button either doesn't return a state or reports the opposite state of what you want. As far as I remember I've previously solved this by making a SWS cycle action instead where you are able to flip the toggle state if you want. If there's a simpler way I would love to know about it as well!


Yeah, I've been knee deep in cycle actions the last couple days. So what's another few? ...


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## gsilbers (Feb 8, 2019)

like logic


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## robgb (Feb 8, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> I think the best reaper themes are the ones emulating Logic and ProTools for a reason


Yes. Because they look nice. But the Pro X-Tools theme I'm using is far prettier than Pro Tools itself, which I think may be the ugliest DAW out there. The designer clearly only used it as a starting point.


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## enyawg (Feb 8, 2019)

The lack of aesthetics is not so distracting for me in relation to audio product. i.e if an artist paints a picture his final product is visually critical, however an audio piece is not, so to be honest I need to get busy making music, & not care too much about feeling warm and fuzzy about nice artwork or excessive GUI, as audio & music is my art.

My studio is a good working mess; leads, mics, guitars, keyboards, drum etc everywhere.

I’m really happy with Reaper as my midi composer and some audio DAW... it looks fine and suits me. No directors, clients, producers or musicians have every complained. BTW I own Pro Tools HDX and both rock for different reasons.


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## Ledwick (Feb 8, 2019)

i think these images worked... possibly need to refresh the page.

the first one is "prologic" and the next is "rearth"



are they showing up?


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## Tod (Feb 8, 2019)

Okay, you want to see something ugly, this is my Reaper, and this is the arrange area.







This is my midi editor.





This is Reaper 3 and I prefer it because I like the sliders and the meters. I don't care what my DAW looks like, I just want it to be the best tool for my needs and Reaper does it.

Ha ha, I wouldn't change my Reaper for any other DAW in the world, even if it was given to me, because there's no other DAW that I could customize for my needs.


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## sostenuto (Feb 8, 2019)

Definitely _*fuggly*_ tho


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## pderbidge (Feb 8, 2019)

KallumS said:


> I dunno about you, but if I'm going to be looking at something for hours a day for the foreseeable future it better not look like ass.


Valid point, and with Reaper you have the option to tweak it which is one of the great things about Reaper but don't confuse pretty looking with functional. There is a balance. I've tried themes that looked really cool (to me) but in the end I found it wasn't always easy to keep track of everything in my project and so I've found the newest default, with some tweaks to meet a nice balance and I personally don't find it ugly but I understand that some do.


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## novicecomposer (Feb 8, 2019)

You can dress it up all you want with various themes but what I find annoying is the fundamental limitations as to seemingly trivial tweaks that should be done without any pain. 

For example, if I want to move the main toolbar to the top I get this duplicate toolbar. Instead of moving, it's copied. Is this expected? No.





Of course, I can replace the main toolbar at the original location below with something else (hopefully, an empty one) say, Toolbar1, I get this bizarre placeholder which is irremovable.


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## Jeremy Gillam (Feb 9, 2019)

What is Reaper?


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## Akarin (Feb 9, 2019)

Yes. Yes it is. It screams "designed by devs, not UI/UX specialists".


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## NYC Composer (Feb 9, 2019)

Tod said:


> Okay, you want to see something ugly, this is my Reaper, and this is the arrange area.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Nice looking combo organ.


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## Alex Niedt (Feb 9, 2019)

Tried to get into Reaper multiple times over the last decade, and every time I did, it made me grateful for the design and usability built into other DAWs. I've tried every Reaper theme that looks halfway decent and found every single one either annoyingly flawed or an eyesore. Typically both. Wish I could get back the hours I've spent customizing...


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## EvilDragon (Feb 9, 2019)

I would rather have a highly flexible (*and extensible*) toolset than something shiny that doesn't work how I want it to, though. So Reaper is perfect for me. "Shiny" usually doesn't equal to "good CPU efficiency", which I do value a lot.


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## joebaggan (Feb 9, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> Nice looking combo organ.



Looks like Reaper took its design ethos from either Pacman or Geocities web sites. For me, the other main DAW players not only are incredibly powerful and feature filled, but they also look good and are more than customizable enough for my needs. For the fastest workflow, you're going to want to use key commands so I have no need for creating my own buttons/toolbars or whatever to support a mouse centric workflow.


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## MartinH. (Feb 9, 2019)

I have used Blender's 2.49 era UI for years, from my point of view anyone complaining about Reaper's UI is only a casual in dealing with ugly UIs . Here is what it looked like: 







And in terms of being complicated and unintuitive Reaper is nothing compared to zBrush...


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## Tod (Feb 9, 2019)

joebaggan said:


> Looks like Reaper took its design ethos from either Pacman or Geocities web sites. For me, the other main DAW players not only are incredibly powerful and feature filled, but they also look good and are more than customizable enough for my needs. For the fastest workflow, you're going to want to use key commands so I have no need for creating my own buttons/toolbars or whatever to support a mouse centric workflow.



Heh heh, I understand Joe, and I don't know how Reapers mouse and mouse modifiers compare to other DAWs, Reaper is pretty flexible in that regard.

I'm basically retired now but I still have a few clients that I'm producing along with creating instruments in Kontakt. Probably 60% to 70% of what I'm doing today is working with samples and Reaper is indispensable when it comes recording, editing, and saving samples, probably 75% of my toolbars and icons are dedicated to that.

Also every project is different with different circumstances, and the beauty of Reaper is the ability to easily modify toolbars and custom actions to fit the situation. I don't know how many things I do with Reaper that would be difficult or impossible with other DAWs.

I wish I had more videos to show what I'm talking about, but this is one that I made when I was creating loops for a strings library.


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## Divico (Feb 9, 2019)

Theres lots of beatiful themes out there. As far as I know no other DAW has this. Im using the Commala light theme. There are more beautiful ones out there for sure, like the Imperial theme. This one is to me the easiest on the eye. Not bloated and everything is easy to look at


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## ZenFaced (Feb 9, 2019)

I never used Reaper but there are some cool custom themes out there. I like the ones shown here by Robgb and Calebfaith. I remember back in the day I started out on Sonar and I always hated its gui so I spent hours trying to make it look good but there were so many options that I would get lost and distracted away from my project. Less is more


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## JEPA (Feb 12, 2019)

offtopic


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## robgb (Feb 13, 2019)

novicecomposer said:


> You can dress it up all you want with various themes but what I find annoying is the fundamental limitations as to seemingly trivial tweaks that should be done without any pain.
> 
> For example, if I want to move the main toolbar to the top I get this duplicate toolbar. Instead of moving, it's copied. Is this expected? No.
> 
> ...


There are sixteen toolbars. If you want a different toolbar in that location, right click and "switch toolbar." Easy peasy.


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## robgb (Feb 13, 2019)

JEPA said:


> offtopic



Not quite sure I understand the point of this video. He compares ReaComp to Fab Filter? ReaComp is a bread and butter comp included with the DAW. Fab Filter is a state of the art comp that costs a considerable amount of money.


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## tack (Feb 13, 2019)

robgb said:


> There are sixteen toolbars. If you want a different toolbar in that location, right click and "switch toolbar." Easy peasy.


He means the toolbar above the TCP which, as far as I can tell, can't be hidden. So if you want the main toolbar at the top of the arrange window, you can do that, but you can't actually hide the toolbar at the top of the TCP, only switch it to something empty (in which case it still consumes space).


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## robgb (Feb 13, 2019)

Alex Niedt said:


> Tried to get into Reaper multiple times over the last decade, and every time I did, it made me grateful for the design and usability built into other DAWs. I've tried every Reaper theme that looks halfway decent and found every single one either annoyingly flawed or an eyesore. Typically both. Wish I could get back the hours I've spent customizing...


Different strokes, I guess. I've extensively used every major DAW except Pro Tools and have found the usability of Reaper to far outstrip its competition. Go figure. I guess it really comes down to our own personal needs. Which is why we often say the best DAW is the DAW that works best for YOU.


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## robgb (Feb 13, 2019)

tack said:


> He means the toolbar above the TCP which, as far as I can tell, can't be hidden. So if you want the main toolbar at the top of the arrange window, you can do that, but you can't actually hide the toolbar at the top of the TCP, only switch it to something empty (in which case it still consumes space).


Ah, I see. I put a toolbar full of track actions above the TCP and the more general actions in the main toolbar, so it hasn't ever been an issue for me.

There is a way to get something like this, but you have to create an empty toolbar and that takes a moment or two:






Download the below toolbar button, put it in your data/toolbar_icons folder, then open an empty toolbar and use this blank.png for the EDIT ME button's icon. Rename it Empty Toolbar and you can put it wherever you like.

Download:


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## Tod (Feb 13, 2019)

Humm, a lot of this brings up a question, do you care more about looks, or do you care more about functionality?


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## robgb (Feb 13, 2019)

Tod said:


> Humm, a lot of this brings up a question, do you care more about looks, or do you care more about functionality?


Personally, I care about both. Functionality is most important, but the aesthetics of a piece of software can also be creatively inspiring. As someone above said, it isn't very inspiring if your gear looks like ass. For some it doesn't matter, but most of the world responds to the visually pleasing.

My biggest complaint about Reaper (what????), is that the built-in FX are not very pleasing to look at. Something I wish would change, but probably won't.


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## thevisi0nary (Feb 13, 2019)

Tod said:


> Okay, you want to see something ugly, this is my Reaper, and this is the arrange area.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Hey could you tell me what that velocity toolbar is all about? I've been looking for ways to easily see what velocities correlate to what intensity of sample is being triggered (for libraries that only have a few dynamic samples).


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## Daniel James (Feb 13, 2019)

I hear it has a great personality though.

-DJ


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## vicontrolu (Feb 13, 2019)

Who cares about aesthetics when you can work 3 or 4 times faster?


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## Tod (Feb 13, 2019)

thevisi0nary said:


> Hey could you tell me what that velocity toolbar is all about? I've been looking for ways to easily see what velocities correlate to what intensity of sample is being triggered (for libraries that only have a few dynamic samples).



I don't think my toolbars will help you with that, but there are ways you can test that. The first thing you can do is test the velocity by playing velocities one at a time from 1 to 127 and keep track of the output levels. I use a spreadsheet for this.

As you're testing and you find values significantly different, that would indicate a another layer is playing. Doing it this way will also give you an idea of what the velocity intensity is.

With Kontakt you can open the instrument up in the "Edit" mode and setup the "Mapping Editor" so that you can see the velocity layers as you select the different groups. Also at the same time check the velocity intensity in the Amplifier module.

I charted out the Velocity Intensity for kontact back some years ago and this is what I came up with. The different colors are different percentages for 20% to 100%. This chart shows the dB drop as the velocity comes down for each percentage.






I should add, that for instruments with few layers (less then 10) a velocity intensity of 65% to 75% seemed to work fairly well for most instruments.


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## MartinH. (Feb 13, 2019)

Daniel James said:


> I hear it has a great personality though.
> 
> -DJ



Iirc you once showed a few cubase midi editing features in a video that made me a bit envious as a Reaper user. But there is no way I'm switching.


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## PeterKorcek (Feb 14, 2019)

Just my opinion, but *visuals are very important* when working for extensive period of time. I tried Reaper several times, was decided for sure that I am gonna stick to it, still have it installed, but overall I keep coming back to Cubase, because it is just more pleasing for me to work there. 

Tried multiple skins (many of them are rubbish and many of them are just derivates of the few workable skins)
You have to customize stuff (which is of course how Reaper is built)
The overall feel of incoherence (menus, layouts, etc)

I am just saying how I feel about design/visuals, in contrast, I am amazed by the flexibility of the program and how efficient it can be


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## MA-Simon (Feb 14, 2019)

I use Rhino 3D  It's super ugly.


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## vewilya (Feb 14, 2019)

tack said:


> Reaper's UI is a bit of a mess, in my opinion. Lots of hideous warts all over the place, and ultimately it's hard to shake the feeling that even the sexiest themes are lipstick on a pig.
> 
> Nevertheless, after some tweaking, I can just about tolerate the state of things. As long as I don't open the Add FX window.  (My toolbar icons need some major love, though.)
> 
> But as others have suggested, although looks are important in those early days, a lasting relationship is built on so much more.


This looks nice! Is it on Reaper Stash?


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