Multitrack audio and MIDI recorder for your Mac OS X

REAPER for Mac

REAPER for Mac

  -  26.92 MB  -  Trial
  • Latest Version

    REAPER 7.36 LATEST

  • Review by

    Sophia Jones

  • Operating System

    macOS 10.15 Catalina or later

  • User Rating

    Click to vote
  • Author / Product

    Cockos Incorporated / External Link

  • Filename

    reaper736_universal.dmg

  • MD5 Checksum

    5fb50a7fc069f99892b752c25e98762b

REAPER for Mac is a complete digital audio production application, offering a full multitrack audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing and mastering toolset.

REAPER supports a vast range of hardware, digital formats and plugins, and can be comprehensively extended, scripted and modified.

The app's full, flexible feature set and renowned stability have found a home wherever digital audio is used: commercial and home studios, broadcast, location recording, education, science and research, sound design, game development, and more.

From mission-critical professional environments to students' laptops, there is a single version of the tool, fully featured with no artificial limitations. You can evaluate REAPER for macOS in full for 60 days.

The applicense is affordably priced and DRM-free.

Features and Highlights
  • Efficient, fast to load, and tightly coded. Can be installed and run from a portable or network drive.
  • Powerful audio and MIDI routing with multichannel support throughout.
  • 64-bit internal audio processing. Import, record to, and render to many media formats, at almost any bit depth and sample rate.
  • Thorough MIDI hardware and software support.
  • Support for thousands of third-party plug-in effects and virtual instruments, including VST, VST3, AU, DX, and JS.
  • Hundreds of studio-quality effects for processing audio and MIDI, and built-in tools for creating new effects.
  • Automation, modulation, grouping, VCA, surround, macros, OSC, scripting, control surfaces, custom skins and layouts.
How to Use
  • Install REAPER by dragging it to Applications
  • Launch REAPER and configure audio device settings
  • Create a new project and add tracks
  • Import audio or MIDI files to tracks
  • Use FX browser to add plugins to tracks
  • Record audio or MIDI with input monitoring
  • Edit clips with tools like split, trim, and stretch
  • Mix using volume, pan, and automation
  • Render or export the final mix to audio file
System Requirements

macOS 10.5 or later

Intel or Apple Silicon processor

2 GB RAM minimum (4 GB or more recommended)

100 MB of hard drive space

CoreAudio-compatible audio interface recommended

PROS
  • Lightweight and fast performance
  • Highly customizable interface
  • Full-featured without restrictions
  • Frequent and stable updates
  • Excellent plugin and format support
CONS
  • Outdated default UI design
  • Limited built-in virtual instruments
  • No score editor for traditional notation
  • Requires manual setup for some features
Note: 60 days trial version.

Also Available: Download REAPER for Windows

  • REAPER 7.36 Screenshots

    The images below have been resized. Click on them to view the screenshots in full size.

    REAPER 7.36 Screenshot 1

What's new in this version:

MIDI editor:
- add support for Poly Aftertouch CC lane, which follows note selection
- add native CC/velocity lane preset support, right click on lane controls/divider
- add option to auto-filter CCs based on note selection, useful for editing MPE content
- allow reordering velocity/CC lanes via drag/drop of header
- add option for snap to use visible grid
- add option to display project time as H:M:S[:F] in ruler
- add action to select notes at mouse time position
- add actions to load/save CC/velocity lane presets, save default CC lanes
- add option to control whether default CC lanes are saved automatically on MIDI editor close
- changing note display (rectangles, triangles, diamonds) affects all MIDI items on the same track
- fix actions to set grid, multiply grid size by X when grid is currently set to 'measure'
- fix behavior of 'toggle show MIDI editor windows' with multiple windows open
- fix CC oddness after click-to-select notes (7.31 regression)
- fix potential crash when duplicating text events
- fix CC lane scrollbars when auto-scaling-down lanes
- improve click+drag note creation length snapping
- improve velocity lane editing behaviors
- limit horizontal zoom range to reasonable values
- list editor respects piano roll timebase when using fixed-tempo MIDI items
- move 'Time format for ruler' from options to view menu

Big clock:
- support displaying multiple customizable wildcard patterns, rename to Big Clock Plus
- default wildcard patterns display transport status, recording tag, recording pass, current region, current marker
- add customization dialog
- add wildcards for $playing(text), $stopped(text), $recording(text); displays 'text' when play state matches, otherwise blank
- if enabling project recording tag display and there is no recording tag set, prompt to set the recording tag
- support custom colors during recording
- support visual click border, in addition to full visual click
- update more frequently even if project time position has not changed

Wildcards:
- $markername and $regionname return an empty string rather than falling back to marker/region number, if the marker/region has no name
- add $time, $localtime (date+time string) wildcards
- add $timesigfull, $timesignum, $timesigdenom wildcards
- add $trackitem wildcard, resolves to active take name of currently-playing media item on selected track
- add actions to set or reset $recpass to recording settings wildcard help menu
- document that any of the characters ' -_.' will be omitted immediately before or after a wildcard that resolves to nothing
- store separate lists of recent wildcard patterns per calling context (render, big clock, metadata, etc)
- support $projectlength for Big Clock Plus and metadata
- support project recording tag $rectag, see wildcard help in Preferences/Audio/Recording

ARA:
- improve behavior when track contains media items with mixed channel counts
- prevent possible crash when plugin supports fewer channels than media

Automation items:
- fix bad behavior when copying media items with 'move envelope points with media items' and ripple edit both enabled
- fix restoring LFO sine type when saving/loading projects

CLAP:
- do not query latency in response to latency-changed when plug-in is inactive
- fix MIDI editor CC lane names being cleared when using CLAP instrument FX

FX:
- embedded plug-ins can make preferred size decisions with DPI-scaling and TCP/MCP context
- embedded plug-ins can query whether the current UI being drawn is for macOS Retina

Media explorer:
- fix applying user-edited tempo metadata when inserting media into project
- preserve image when editing tags of wav/flac/wavpack
- support previewing m4a and other video-supporting container formats through a track if the file contains no video stream

Metadata:
- ensure IXML BWF_ORIGINATION_TIME is in the form HH:MM:SS rather than HH:MM
- fix display of certain picture description strings

Meters:
- enable track gain reduction meters by default for new tracks (unless the user previously changed or set different track defaults)
- support theme images for track gain reduction meters (meter_strip_h_gr, meter_strip_v_gr)

MIDI:
- fix setting 'do not send reset messages' for MIDI output devices
- internal overhaul/cleanup
- reduce duplicate messages when interpolating 7-bit outputs

ReaScript:
- SetProjectMarkerByIndex2 ignores negative IDnumber parameter
- support getting/setting project recording tag $rectag

Regions/markers:
- add actions to show/hide all or selected project regions and/or markers
- support hiding markers/regions from ruler via Region/Marker Manager
- support opening Region/Marker Manager from Marker Edit dialog

Take FX:
- use automatic silence detection for reverb tails, etc
- use tail-length information, if available, when processing tails

Toolbars:
- allow customizing via 'Edit me' action when opened as a menu
- improve frameless resize control hit testing
- enable frameless floating toolbar resize cursor on macOS

Actions:
- update last used media directory after importing multiple files at once

Configuration import:
- fix importing configurations larger than 4GB

Envelopes:
- fix automation copy/paste when track timebase is beats and partial measures exist in the project

Fixed lanes:
- fix comp area extending on grouped tracks with certain mouse modifiers

Linux:
- default to fast text rendering (v7.23 change reverted for Linux only)

Media items:
- fix displaying multiple embedded cues in media items

MP3:
- fix possible memory leak when updating metadata in existing file

Pin connection window:
- fix position when respawning due to FX I/O change (7.35 regression)

Project settings:
- ignore leading slashes in relative recording paths

Recording:
- use $rectag in default recorded filename wildcards

Region/marker manager:
- support displaying take markers in selected items only

Render:
- do not consider empty items to be mono when evaluating 'tracks with only mono media to mono files'

Ripple:
- respect setting to ripple when editing item edges when using nudge/set dialog or running actions to move right edge of items

Routing window:
- close any open folders when adding send to new track

Save as:
- add an additional confirmation when save to subdirectory is selected and project file already exists

Spectrogram:
- fix overdrawing glitches when zoomed in to sample-level

Track manager:
- when mirroring selection, selecting a new track deselects hidden folder children