Jamie Pauls
My wife of almost 23 years is a photographer. She owns the biggest, baddest iPhone they make and has taken over 60,000 photos and videos since 2014 which, amazingly enough, always transfer to her newest phone via iCloud every time she upgrades. I, on the other hand, love all things audio. I enjoy making music, listening to high quality audio, and even editing that audio to make it sound as good as I possibly can. Over the years, I’ve played with various pieces of software that work to varying degrees with my screen reading software. Some audio editing programs have been relatively inexpensive, while some have been quite pricey. Over the past five or six years, I have increasingly come to appreciate a particular piece of audio editing software called Reaper.
Reaper is open-source software which means that people are able to make contributions that shape the direction of the program. Because of this, blind people, in close collaboration with Cockos, the developers of Reaper, have been able to write a plugin called Osara that adds a number of keyboard actions to Reaper as well as making the product speak in ways it might not otherwise. Reaper runs on both Windows and Mac, and is equally accessible on both platforms.
Although it is possible to use Reaper free forever with just a few reminders to pay for the product, the $60 U.S. is well worth the money for anyone who truly makes use of the product. Whether you are a professional musician, a singer, or someone editing podcasts for others, the sky is pretty much the limit for anyone using Reaper.
Reaper is a nondestructive editor, which means that pretty much any edit you make to a piece of audio can be undone. Once you get a piece of audio the way you like it, you can then “render” your Reaper project as a file that can be played by anyone. Examples of files to which a project might be rendered include MP3 and FLAC, just to name a couple.
Reaper is also a multitrack editor, which means that you can add many layers of sound to a project whether it be birds, rain, wind, and water, or many instruments playing your original composition. You can add effects such as reverb to your project, and manipulate it in a seemingly endless number of ways.
The downside of using Reaper is that with power comes complexity. Until you play with the program a lot, it is easy to forget what you have learned. You will most certainly make some mistakes, and probably some really ugly edits, until you get the hang of things. Fortunately, you don’t have to learn to use Reaper on your own, and you don’t have to learn from YouTube videos that feature presenters who have no idea what a screen reader is, let alone how to explain concepts in a way that a blind person can make sense of.
The Internet radio Station The Global Voice has recently launched a series of audio training modules called Reaper Made Easy. Although free to all, anyone is welcome to contribute monetarily if they are able and would like to help expand the content that is currently on the site. The training modules are produced by experienced Reaper users in the blind community who are able to explain concepts from the definition of a DAW—digital audio workstation –to how to install Reaper and get it up and running. Instructions are provided for both Mac and Windows users.
In addition to the Reaper Made Easy site, you can also visit the Reaper Accessibility Website. This site is a Wiki, which means that the site receives regular contributions from experienced users. This is a great resource for starting from the ground floor as far as learning to use Reaper is concerned. Once you become comfortable with the basics, you can move on to more advanced articles of interest to you depending on how you intend to use Reaper, regardless of your operating system of choice. Many people use Reaper on both Windows and Mac, transferring projects from one computer to another for convenient editing.
Another great resource is the Reapers Without Peepers email list. This is a very high-traffic list, but it is well moderated. Although the list owner keeps subjects on topic, Reaper is such a powerful piece of software that many areas of discussion are permitted.
Finally, Brian Hartgen has produced a training course entitled Reaping the Benefits! Using Reaper Audio Workstation, OSARA and JAWS for Windows. The course costs $112 U.S. and consists of nine lessons. Brian’s course does not discuss Reaper using a Mac, nor does it talk about the use of Reaper with the NVDA Windows screen reader. Finally, Brian’s course does not discuss using Reaper for music production, but only audio editing. If you are someone who is not interested in music production, primarily works in Windows and uses JAWS as your screen reader of choice, this course might do the job for you. Brian will present all information in one place without the need for you to do any looking around on your own, but keep in mind that the other resources mentioned above are free. The Reapers Without Peepers community can provide personal paid training if someone requests it.
The Reapers Without Peepers (RWP) moderator can also provide you with access to a shared Dropbox folder that contains a ton of great content from tutorials to examples of audio and music produced with Reaper as well as information about virtual instruments and audio interfaces that work with Reaper.
The Bottom Line
For anyone who is serious about producing high-quality audio using software whose developers are truly interested in making their product accessible to the blind, Reaper is a great program to consider. Making Reaper even more appealing, there are a number of high-quality training resources, both free and paid, that can help you learn Reaper as a blind person. At $60, Reaper is affordably priced for most, and provides a 60-day trial period before you are asked to purchase the software. It runs on Windows and Mac, and works with VoiceOver, JAWS for Windows, and NVDA.
Product Information
Reaper is developed by Cockos, Incorporated. There is a 60-day evaluation period, after which time the program costs $60 for versions 6.0 through 7.99. At the time of this writing, Reaper is at version 6.60.
This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.
