REAPER is my favorite DAW (digital audio workstation) and not just because you can buy a personal/small business license for only $60 (although that is pretty cool.)

I’ve tried a lot of different DAWs (including Pro Tools) and REAPER is easily my favorite. In my opinion it’s better software than programs that cost about 10 times as much. On top of that, they’re always improving it; they come out with new updates with improvements all the time.

REAPER FEATURES

+ 64-bit audio engine for ultimate audio quality & maximum headroom.
+ Unlimited routing capabilities (sidechain any plugin.)
+ Many high quality plugins included.
+ Active forum.
+ Small 4MB download.
+ Completely full featured. No limitations. Unlimited tracks.

REAPER Power!

If you go the REAPER route then I definitely recommend picking up REAPER Power! because it will help you learn all of the features of this kick ass software. There’s a lot of great time saving tricks (such as how to use track templates) in this book, it’s worth far more than it’s price (which is about $26 as of this writing.)

Audio Interface

Of course you will need some kind of audio interface for your computer to use REAPER (unless you want to do entirely sample based or MIDI programmed music.) I use the E-MU 1616M and am pretty happy with it. I did a lot of research before buying it and it looks to be the best value for the money as far as professional sound quality at a low price. But it doesn’t have that many inputs and it’s got a virtual patchbay system that many people find annoying (I do too, but I deal with it.)

I’ve been using it for over a year now and it’s worked great except for one thing, the MIDI input broke so I had to buy a separate USB MIDI interface to plug my keyboard into.

If you need more inputs you may want to try the M-Audio ProFire 2626 which has 26 inputs.