Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Reaper VS Spek

Compare Reaper VS Spek and see what are their differences

Reaper logo Reaper

Reaper is a focused digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by Cockos. In the creation of the software, the digital audio technology company intended to make audio editing accessible to the masses.

Spek logo Spek

Spek helps to analyse your audio files by showing their spectrogram.
  • Reaper Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-06
  • Spek Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-26

Reaper features and specs

  • Affordable
    Reaper offers a full-featured digital audio workstation at a fraction of the price of many competitors, with a very reasonable one-time licensing fee.
  • Customizable
    Reaper is highly flexible and customizable, allowing users to script their own features and modify the interface to suit their specific workflow needs.
  • Lightweight
    Reaper is known for its low resource usage, meaning it can run efficiently on both older and less powerful computer systems without sacrificing performance.
  • Frequent Updates
    The developers of Reaper frequently release updates, ensuring the software remains current and packed with new features and bug fixes.
  • Strong Community Support
    Reaper benefits from a strong, active user community that provides tutorials, scripts, plugins, and other resources to extend its functionality.

Possible disadvantages of Reaper

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Beginners may find Reaper challenging to learn due to its extensive set of features and customization options, which can be overwhelming at first.
  • Less Industry Standard
    While powerful, Reaper is not as widely recognized and used in professional studios compared to industry standards like Pro Tools and Logic Pro, which could be a drawback for collaborative projects.
  • Limited Native Plugins
    Reaper comes with fewer high-quality native plugins compared to some other DAWs, which might require users to rely more on third-party plugins.
  • Complex Customization
    While customization is a strength, it can also be a downside for users who prefer a more straightforward, out-of-the-box experience, as the initial setup and tweaking can be time-consuming.
  • Interface Design
    The default interface design of Reaper is often considered less polished or modern compared to other DAWs, which might affect the user experience for some.

Spek features and specs

  • Open Source
    Spek is an open-source project, which means the code is accessible, free to use, and can be modified by anyone. This fosters community collaboration and continuous improvement.
  • Cross-platform
    Spek is available on multiple platforms including Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it a versatile tool for users on different operating systems.
  • Simple UI
    The user interface is clean and easy to navigate, which makes the tool accessible for both new and experienced users.
  • Lightweight
    Spek is lightweight and does not require substantial system resources, making it quick to install and use.
  • Fast Analysis
    Spek provides fast and efficient spectrum analysis, which is useful for quick checks and debugging.

Possible disadvantages of Spek

  • Limited Features
    Spek lacks some advanced features found in other audio analysis tools, which might be necessary for professional or in-depth analysis.
  • Slow Development
    Updates and new features can be slow to release, which may lead to limited support for newer audio formats or technologies.
  • No Real-time Analysis
    Spek does not support real-time audio analysis, which can be a limitation for certain types of audio engineering tasks.
  • Compatibility Issues
    There have been reports of compatibility issues with certain audio file formats, which can limit its usability.
  • No Collaboration Features
    Spek does not support collaborative features, which can be a downside for team projects and shared environments.

Reaper videos

Reaper DAW review - best free daw software for music production?

More videos:

  • Review - Why Reaper? | pros and cons
  • Review - Why I love Reaper with Glenn Fricker - Warren Huart: Produce Like A Pro

Spek videos

American Defense SPEK Red Dot Review

More videos:

  • Review - REVIEW SPEK MESIN ( PETARUNG KILOMETER )
  • Review - Review mesin Legenda Spek Touringan ~ C70 Racing

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Reaper and Spek)
Audio & Music
88 88%
12% 12
Audio
85 85%
15% 15
Audio Recording
87 87%
13% 13
Music
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Reaper and Spek

Reaper Reviews

Top 18 Free Music Making Software for Beginners [2023]
Launched by Cockos in 2006, Reaper has grown into a robust, feature-rich DAW, offering full audio and MIDI recording, sound editing, mixing, and mastering functionalities.
5 PRO TOOLS ALTERNATIVES FOR RECORDING AND MIXING AUDIO
Reaper is a low-cost digital audio workstation with many features. It is available for Windows and Mac and can record, mix, and master audio. It has many features, including multichannel recording, surround sound support and a powerful effects engine. Reaper is a good option for home recording and mixing, and has many features that make it an alternative to Pro Tools.
9 Adobe Audition Alternatives That Do More Than Cleaning
Not as recognized as rivals like Ableton, Pro Tools, and FL Studio. If your employer or client requires you to have access to these tools and you’re only using Reaper, that could be a problem.
Best FL Studio Alternatives In 2022
Reaper puts its stamp in the conversation as it offers users an incredibly active community as well as everything you need in a DAW. Speed is one of the selling points with Reaper as it loads up extremely fast compared to certain DAWs. This is mainly due to its lightweight size, with its downloader being less than 20MB. In making Reaper, the software devs also did a...
Top 12 Audacity Alternatives You Could Use
Lastly, you can also check out Reaper, which features multi-track audio editing, processing, and more. Plus, it supports a wide range of hardware and plugins, and also comes baked with some pretty neat features such as the ability to record and edit musical notations with support for key signatures, multiple clefs, and more. What’s more, Reaper also supports scripting, so...
Source: beebom.com

Spek Reviews

We have no reviews of Spek yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Reaper should be more popular than Spek. It has been mentiond 80 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Reaper mentions (80)

  • Extensible Control of Reaper via OSC and Scripts
    REAPER is a powerful Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) with enormous customization possibilities. Its scripting support, external control capabilities, support for many DAW plugin formats, and compatibility with MacOS and Windows make it an obvious choice for building all sorts of integrations and automation. At Sonarworks, we use REAPER as a plugin host as part of our DAW plugin test automation framework. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Ask HN: Is There a Blender for Music?
    Almost free. https://reaper.fm It's cheap enough for almost anyone to buy and you can play around with the free version. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Best DAW for putting E-drum tracks on PC
    I'm a big fan of Reaper (reaper.fm). It's technically not free, but $60 is totally worth it, plus you can trial it full featured, indefinitely. Source: over 1 year ago
  • What Is the Future of the DAW?
    If you use the Linux port, you may want to use Yabridge to load Windows VSTs in a transparent way. http://reaper.fm/ https://github.com/robbert-vdh/yabridge. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Where do I start designing my own audio for my games?
    My recommendation would be Reaper from reaper.fm Reaper is used in the video game industry due to it's customization, routing, batch processing and scripting capabilities. It's very customizable and has small CPU footprint. Source: almost 2 years ago
View more

Spek mentions (48)

  • How to check bitrate/sample rate in Tidal.
    You can use Spek ( http://spek.cc ) to check the audio quality, frequency, bitrate, etc :). Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Is this site have genuine flac files (16 bit 44.1 khz)
    It should be genuine. I've never heard of any issues. You can also use http://spek.cc/ to check the authenticity of files, and that they haven't been re-encoded. Most legit flacs will have no cutoff, and 320mp3 will cut off at 20hz. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Which file Format are you using?
    Try converting a few wavs and see if you notice the difference. Use a quality converter like the one in iTunes (uses the Fraunhofer codec which is superior to LAME) and set to Custom MP3, 44100, Stereo, YES Smart Adjustments, and NO filter frequencies below 10Hz. You can check that the compresssion has not sacrificed much quality with something like the Spek spectrum analyzer app. Source: over 2 years ago
  • DJ Content for YouTube Sound Quality
    Dont belive me. Try analizing your video after you post it them in this http://spek.cc/. Source: over 2 years ago
  • What program is used to produce this image?
    Does anyone here knows what program is used in this? I only know Spek but this has different colors. I tried searching but I can't find any. Thanks! Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Reaper and Spek, you can also consider the following products

Audacity - Audacity is a free and open-source audio production software suite that includes a surprising array of editing tools and recording systems.

FL Studio - Image-Line's FL Studio, now on it's 12th version, is a well-known music production suite and the most popular beat processor on the market, due no doubt to its longevity. Read more about FL Studio.

REW - REW is free room acoustics analysis software for measuring and analysing room and loudspeaker...

LMMS - Make music with a free, cross-platform tool

Tenacity - Tenacity is an easy-to-use, privacy-friendly, FLOSS, cross-platform multi-track audio editor/recorder for Windows, macOS, Linux and other operating systems.

Ardour - Record, edit, and mix on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.