Reaper
Quick and Fast: NOT A FREEWARE, but Shareware! Reaper is well maintained and your license will cost you something. This is the most misunderstood program I’ve ever heard of. Please just read the whole chapter so you’ll be “in the know”.
Where to get it: http://www.cockos.com/reaper/ Only for Windows!
Reaper is a lot like Pro Tools and other pro software. It’s the other well known internet audio program besides Audacity. I’ve read some good articles comparing Audacity and Reaper. One good one is Here. Many things I’ve read say that Audacity is the simplest audio program while Reaper is the most complex (there are other programs that are in between).
In case you haven’t heard of Pro Tools or are new to audio, the Reaper interface looks like a physical sound board, with busses, sliders, etc. With Reaper it is possible to record audio and even burn various songs to CD. Unlike Audacity, Reaper looks like many of the pro audio programs and can do most (if not all) of what they can do, including MIDI.
lame_enc.dll: Reaper will need this little computer file to export MP3. You can get a free download Here. Put lame_enc.dll in the folder with your other Reaper stuff and Reaper will take care of the rest.
Tutorials: Get the PDF User’s Guide, which is Here, along with the software download. There is also the Official Documentation.
License and Use: This is where people get stuck and most of what you find on the internet is people who are being blatantly illegal with their license. This is the part that’s hard to understand, so Read This Next Part Closely!
First: The program itself is technically free, what you’re paying for is the right license to use the program. The program is updated fairly often to fix bugs which are found by the users. This is what shareware is all about.
Free Trial: When you first download the program, you’re given a free 30 day trial, which you are supposed to use to learn the program. As I said, Reaper is pretty intense if you don’t know audio editing.
Non-Commercial License: This is what you get after the free trial if you want to use Reaper for your own personal projects. If you make money with this license, you are acting illegally!!! The license costs $50 at this present time.
Commercial License: If you use Reaper to make money you will have to pay $225 for this license.
