This is addressed to somewhat experienced users who worked with both softwares:

What made you choose one over the other on the long run?

I have been with Reaper for quite some time but considering mixing and mastering my next project in Ardour. Not sure if it’s worth putting in the time to learn it from the ground up.

Please don’t make this about free vs. paid software.

Thank you!

  • @Unquote0270English
    2•11 months ago

    I started with ardour but got so frustrated with it randomly crashing and losing work that I gave up with it. It’s pretty solid if you don’t have this issue. Reaper is another level though imo, it can be hard to get used to but it’s so powerful with customisation, built-in plugins, and the actions that I would never go back to anything else if I wanted to use a linear daw again.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      1•11 months ago

      Roughly when was your Ardour experience? Maybe things have change since then? But hey, if you’re happy with Reaper, why not stick with it, right?

      • @Unquote0270English
        1•11 months ago

        It was a few years ago so it could well have changed. That said, I tried it again recently when they released the clip launcher and it crashed within a couple of minutes when adding vital to a track. I think that was reported and has probably been fixed but the remaining lack of recovery doesn’t give me confidence.

        I also reported the crashes and spent lots of time on IRC trying to find a solution when I was trying to use it but the ultimate response was that it was 3rd party vsts (and I believe my bug reports were never addressed) so I suspect nothing much has changed with it in that area. I never experienced the same thing in renoise, reaper or bitwig so I know which one I won’t be using.

        I mainly use Bitwig and hardware now so it’s not really relevant to me but I haven’t had great experiences with ardour and I consider losing work with no recovery at all to be pretty bad.