Reply To: Has Anyone Tried Reaper and How Does It Compare?

I was in a slightly different situation than you, SEAS. I own EnergyXT (and contributed a bit as a user to EnergyXT1, a lovely program, but with a slightly chaotic marketing and help for newbies) besides other hosts.

some info about XT2 you might already know:
As EnergyXT2 came out (the problem for Jorgen Aase was that a big hype was over there in our forum, I was just the same as everybody else and praised XT2 to no end even as it was delayed, then delayed, and again delayed due to quite normal problems for a developer working on a complete new host in a new coding language) It had simply toooooo many bugs to be able to work in it. It was released – just my opinion – months too early, and I even suggested (following guitarzan who had had the idea) that Jorgen would decide to stop releasing it, ironing out the far too many bugs, and re-release it whenever he wished. Don’t forget, EXT1 users got EXT2 completely for free! So we could have used 1.41, the current older version, and nobody had had any reason to complain.

So EnergyXT2 was released as “ready” on June 15, and the next month got him a mighty disappointment from even the most loyal users (I can see clearly here why Frits decided not to setup a forum for Podium over at KVR, but then Frits wouldn’t run into those problems, because all new released versions are simply stable, just like the best hosts are stable, that is, as far as this is possible with our thousands of different setups). I had real problems with the CPU-hit for audio tracks, it simply was even worse than EXT1.4, and that wasn’t the strongest point of EXT1. A not too small number of my VSTis didn’t work great in EXT2, and so on.
So I started to look around, as the slightly chaotic (and at the same time charming) EXT1-information made it necessary that without constantly reading the KVR-EnergyXT-forum you could be quite at a loss with XT. Most valuable users like DarkStar, Jens (who had posted here too in eraly times), or at the beginning Nicfit and now Soma do their best to help.

After 4 weeks of trying out I bought Podium and Reaper. It was my birthday, if I had had to decide for just one I would have bought Podium and away you go, but Reaper is a really good host too.

There are a few rather private reasons why I use Reaper too, so have 2 hosts now 🙂 . I have a collection of field-recordings (of dubious quality, but for me it’s quite okay). I saved them in audio monkey (ape) format, and now Reaper can load those ape-files without me having to convert them before (which wouldn’t be a tough thing at all, I know). And besides some other things (I still learn the 2 different programs, mind!) sometimes it is an inspiration having 2 hosts.

Podium is my main host now. After a nice conversation with Koolkeys I had decided for Podium. I like the automation a LOT, would wish some small features like supporting sending midi from one to another VSTi and more, but all of this will come, or importing more than just the 1st part of a midi file in case you want to import one.

EnergyXT was unbelievably cheap as I bought it (in fact I got even that for free as I had used Massiva before, the then stopped first host Jorgen Aase had released, and all Massiva-users even got EnergyXT1 AND 2 for free!!).

I just can recommend it to anyone to use it inside Podium. You can load a vst-instrument and a vst-effects-version of EXT (1 and 2, I use 1 still at the moment) into any host, and the “main window” of EnergyXT is quite a workbench, a thing to experiment, to chain different VSTis and audio parts and midi parts and effects and combine them and so on…

In EXT1-times I got the impression nearly *all* users out there had bought a EXT-license (39Euro at that time), so all who own it can easily use it as an addition in Podium now.

The Reaper- fanbase is huge, as you can see if you go to the Reaper-forum, and I agree, this is well deserved as is the praise Frits, who seems to prefer it more silently 🙂 , gets. I know quite a few users who love one of those (let’s call it: independent in a way) hosts, and bash others. It used to turn into real ugly fights over at KVR. There is no reason for that, and it turned rather silly often.

I think Jorgen will come to his feet again in the future, but it must be hard to see how the huge admiration (he himself is not really innocent here as he talked about EXT2 in early not-even-beta-versions as if it would be, well, better than it is now 🙁 ) turned as the delayed EXT2 came out finally.

Podium is MUCH better for your CPU when it comes to audio, and stability is quite important too. EnergyXT2 is more stable now, but the CPU-hit if you use many audio-tracks is still annoying. I really wish he’ll get that sorted, but neither EXT1 nor 2 were good concerning this feature up to now.

Personally I don’t see the 3 “independent” hosts not as in fight with each other, as I own all 3 😀 . It’s just that I like Podium the best now, and all new releases do – like with Reaper – make real sense, and it already is a great program. I never thought looks were important, and I’m not sure if it is right to name it “looks”, but in Reaper and Podium I make songs just in the speed I want, whereas in EnergyXT2 I did more read in the forums about bugs, and searched this and that feature of XT1 to find out after many readings that it wasn’t implemented right now. I wish all 3 and Tracktion too success!