So if you wanted to see what a rendering program would do for you, but didn't want to take a chance costing hundreds of dollars, I hear ya.  Reaper is a simple shareware program that will render out midi out of a sampler for you.  Essentially, it's $0, but it's nag-shareware.  After thirty days, there's a nag window on startup.  If you use it, they want just $39.  That's about $20 less than that xbox game, so buy it if you use it.  :)

Anyhow, for nearly free, it's very impressive.  Check out their 2.0 beta.  It's not Sonar/Cubase, et al., and as far as I can tell, there is no freezing as such, but you can render out individual tracks as needed; they call it ";Stem Rendering";.

Frankly, this thing is impressive for everything it does, and still being less than half the size of its own pdf manual.  Slick.

http://reaper.fm

[quote author=drumcat link=topic=1985.msg10019#msg10019 date=1189644200]
So if you wanted to see what a rendering program would do for you, but didn't want to take a chance costing hundreds of dollars, I hear ya.�� Reaper is a simple shareware program that will render out midi out of a sampler for you.�� Essentially, it's $0, but it's nag-shareware.�� After thirty days, there's a nag window on startup.�� If you use it, they want just $39.�� That's about $20 less than that xbox game, so buy it if you use it.�� :)

Anyhow, for nearly free, it's very impressive.�� Check out their 2.0 beta.�� It's not Sonar/Cubase, et al., and as far as I can tell, there is no freezing as such, but you can render out individual tracks as needed; they call it ";Stem Rendering";.

Frankly, this thing is impressive for everything it does, and still being less than half the size of its own pdf manual.�� Slick.

http://reaper.fm
[/quote]

Wow, this looks like a great deal for people who don't want to spend big bucks on the big DAW's. Thanks for sharing this!

For what it does, Reaper rocks.  Knocks the crap out of Audacity and others like that.

I have just started getting into this program more and have had it for some time...Thanks to Justin, and it is awesome.�� I just did my audio for my independent drumline with it in conjunction with Cubase. 

[quote author=Coach link=topic=1985.msg10027#msg10027 date=1189651957]
I have just started getting into this program more and have had it for some time...Thanks to Justin, and it is awesome.  I just did my audio for my independent drumline with it in conjunction with Cubase. 
[/quote]

Mind if I ask what you did with Reaper that you didn't in Cubase?

Reaper isn't as easy for me right now when working with VSTs and I havent had time to figure out, yet, working with EQ in Cubase which I can do in Reaper.�� I understand that I can most likely do that in Cubase, and I have experimented with VSTs in Reaper and it will not work as I want.  And I just havent had time to figure it out.  :)

I've been trying this out over the past few days.  It seems like a solid program with a lot of features, but the method of loading VSTs is clunky.  As far as I can tell, each track needs its own kontakt player loaded, sort of like Garage Band does.   

Playback is a problem too.  The program hangs for a long time before it plays for the first time.

Another good ";free"; program is Ableton Live Lite that comes with M-Audio hardware.

[quote]I've been trying this out over the past few days.  It seems like a solid program with a lot of features, but the method of loading VSTs is clunky.  As far as I can tell, each track needs its own kontakt player loaded, sort of like Garage Band does. [/quote]

Try this-

http://www.cockos.com/forum/showpost.php?p=67729&postcount=7

1. Download the ";vst Kontakt.RTrackTemplate"; Template file
2. Open Reaper
3. Go to Insert ->Track from template ->Open template
4. Find the Kontakt template
5. Tweak to your needs


[quote]Playback is a problem too.  The program hangs for a long time before it plays for the first time.[/quote]

That's odd.  Anything weird in your Options - > Preferences -> Audio tab ?

[quote]As far as I can tell, each track needs its own kontakt player loaded, sort of like Garage Band does.[/quote]

This was exactly why I was using Cubase for all the Dynamic Editing, etc...and then using Reaper to do a quick Final EQ - because as Jesse likes to say...I always try to find the hardest, craziest way to do things.�� :)

I messed around with the playback settings and nothing fixes it.  I'm waiting to see if anyone on their site has similar problems or a fix.

The template file works well though.  Loading a VST as a track is different than cubase/nuendo workflow but it works fine.  I like that the program includes the ability to play video.  I'll be sticking to Ableton Live though. 

It took me a long time to wrap my head around the way Reaper handles VST's and routing.  I'm used to the channel strip style of Pro Tools and Logic.

The editing in Reaper has a long way to go, along with workflow issues.  It is kind of fun to Re-Wire it into Pro Tools though and use it as giant sampler.

It may be a bit convoluted in that you have to do a sampler per, but at nearly $0, it's not bad.  It beats $400 for simple rendering even if you have to do it a slightly longer way.