Glen Fricker

Good day,

A few weeks back, I had a guitarist acquaintance who is facing financial issues and who needed a computer. So, I put together a laptop-based system using an older laptop that I had lying around.

Due to his financial status, he could not afford any software, so I began a journey into finding the best free software for his use. For the DAW I ended up with Reaper.

Not realizing it at the time, this acquaintance was not very computer literate and as a result, I found myself having to familiarize myself with Reaper. After a number of hours - actually more like days, I was finally able to provide him with a small degree of assistance in working with Reaper.

What I found particularly interesting to say the least, was that each and every operation that I had to learn in Reaper, I found myself saying over and over again, "I can do this a whole lot easier in SAW!" However, I really could not tell him my discoveries, as he was in no position to purchase SAW. But this is a moot point!

During my research, I came across a video with Glen Fricker, entitled, "Why I love Reaper with Glenn Fricker". As Glenn apparently was a SAWStudio user at some point, I was curious to say the least as to why Glenn had made the move to Reaper. I must admit, I was very, very disappointed with his responses.

At 2:20, Glenn makes the following comment "...and it just felt clunky..."!! Now that is an intelligent response! Clunky!! What in the world do you mean by "clunky"?

Again, at 2:28 Glenn makes mention of using customizable skins. Has Glen not heard of being able to use shades?

Glenn appears to be a very intelligent and influential individual. As a result, he has the potential of being of influence to others. I only wish that he would not make unsubstantiated blanket statements. I have queried Glenn on his use of the term "clunky" and am awaiting his response?

Anyhow, watch the video for yourself...I would be very interested in hearing your comments?

Hi;
In our studio we use both, Reaper for composition and Midi editing, then we export renders of each individual track and import those as wavefiles into SawStudio for further processing.
We actually do have MidiWorkshop but somehow I never got it to work for me to the point I felt comfortable with it.

I agree with a lot of the statements of Glen Fricker, but the fact that Reaper is endlessly configurable, I actually found the biggest handicap, as I waste a lot of time trying to work out how to do things. And when things go wrong it can take a lot of time trying to get back to a workable stable situation.
At the same time there is lots to like about Reaper aside from the affordability.
The Reaper manual, (from the way I understand it a labor of love) I find impossible to understand, even when I find the issue I am struggling with, the description / explanations are mysteries to me!

What I have always liked about SawStudio is that it fits me like a glove If I need to do something different I hardly ever have to look up the manual to find out how to do things because it is so intuitive to me, when I do it is most times very quick to find things in the manual or the fantastic forum.
Ultimately, the SawStudio workflow just works for me and never gets in the way of what I'm aiming for!

My 2c
Cheers!

"clunky" usually refers some sort of disruption in the workflow that your not use to...eg...messy...convoluted...overkill...hard to deal with...etc. But the word is highly subjective, what is clunky for you, might be perfectly fine for me. What Glen was referring to was his mastering plugins, but I don't think that using them in SAW was any more or less difficult, than in Reaper. I have Reaper just to play around with and learn. It does have some features that Saw doesn't have, so at some point I may have to process some tracks in Reaper, then bring them back into SAW. I don't see myself ever using Reaper for a project, because I don't see any real advantage over using SAW.

Glenn is just another human being with an opinion.
So am I and I totally disagree with his assessment of Reaper vs. Saw.
To me Reaper is a toy compared to SAW Studio.
Arguing about DAWs is a waste of time.
It's almost as bad as arguing over politics...:D.
Choose what works best for you and be done with it.
I'll let the idiots on the internet forums waste their time arguing while I'm using my time making music...:).