Originally Posted by Stevens119
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I know a little about Reaper, and I can tell you that Reaper is now 64 Bit, and Pro Tools is still 32.

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Most of the mathematics are not as important as how the sound is recorded. It's possible that many people believe because a recording program isn't as expensive, it isn't as good. This isn't true, as with any recording program, you will still be using the same sound engine. For instance, on a Mac, it's core audio.

The concept of 64bit and 32bit means absolutely nothing unless you're dealing with a large amount of sample based instruments. What does it mean? It's the bit rate of the program's compiled code. At 32bit a program can only access a max of 4gigs of RAM. If a program can run at 64bit it can access a ridiculous amount of memory, many terabytes worth - more than anyone can currently afford or even put into a machine. What is this good for? Well, composers who have to load gigs and gigs of orchestral samples into memory so there's no lag when composing.

The bit rate of the programs code does not change it's audio quality. So Reaper being 64bit capable means nothing. In fact, unless it's got a way to use 32bit plug-ins, it would mean that most 3rd party plug-ins wouldn't currently run in Reaper.

Now if an audio card and a program could do a sample rate of 192/64 - that would be significant. However current computer technology is not available to support such files as they don't even exist yet. As far as I'm aware the only program that can even do 32bit recording depth is Nuendo - but that hasn't helped it's cause of being an industry standard. Mostly because most cards can't do it anyway.

The idea that all DAWs on the Mac are using CoreAudio as their sound algorithm is incorrect. CoreAudio is Apple's sound engine for the computer to output sound through Mac's output and to deal with Midi instruments tied to the machine - it's not the DAW's algorithm to output from the program.

As I mentioned in my post - one's experience with Pro-Tools is an opinion based on how it works for them and that you know it very well. Something better technically is already around, but it's splitting hairs based on how someone works and what they like in a program. There are editing features in other DAWs that outshine Pro-Tools.

BTW: Pro-Tools is no longer the de facto standard. Though it is a great brand name like Kleenex.

Jody Whitesides
A Funky Audio Lap Dance For Your Ears!
www.jodywhitesides.com