2 issues away from buying......

im pretty new to computer based DAW's but i have worked with a digital 12 track for the last few years. my biggest issue is understanding how to use auto punch in and out. I am recording by myself and have no one to push buttons for me. I'm not worried about doing multiple takes. I want to keep what im doing in the same track. I'm recording my guitar while playing along with my backing tracks.... I get to a point, i screw up.....get my SH@# together on the next measure... I finish the rest of the song.... now i want to fix where i screwed up or just keep recording from that point on, but i want to hear playback maybe 2 measures before i want to start recording again. you know, so i can play along and have record start on its own. im used my 12-track where all i have to do is select a point in time where i want to punch in automaticly,push a button, that punch in point is saved. now i can just keep recording until the end of the song or i can set up a punh out point the same way. can some one please explain in idiots terms how to do this? easily? my 2nd issue is, where do i go to mixdown my tracks? lets say i just want to mess with oldschool hi's mid's and low's for 1 guitar tack or for the whole finished project, master eq? if anyone can guide me through these problems, i'll buy the license tonight. I'm very impressed with this program's ease of use...until now. these are huge road blocks for me REMEBER....THIS IS FOR AN IDIOT!

so this auto punch thing is just as big of a problem as the rest of the forum says it is...... ouch!

Hey! I'll help :) Auto-punching is REALLY easy in REAPER. After you've finished recording. Right-click the record button on the transport and set it to "Record mode: time selection auto-punch" Now click and drag in the track panel to highlight the area you want to "fix." Set your play cursor to anywhere you'd like to start, hit record. REAPER will play the song and automatically start recording during the time selection and will stop recording at the end of the time selection. For your second question, when you say mixdown do you mean adjusting EQ per-track? If so, just click the FX button on the track (or in an empty FX slot on the mixer) and you can add any effect you'd like. REAPER comes with some amazing effects. ReaEQ and ReaFIR are both excellent. There are a lot of really great JS EQ's too. I'm really liking Stillwell's rbj1073 EQ. I hope that helps :)

If you right click the metronome tool at the top right you will get a menu for setting up a click track, but at the bottom of the window you have options to set your pre-roll. Basically it will playback the number of specified measures set in the window before the edit cursor when you play, record, or both, depending on what you have flagged.

i think i just wet myself! It was easier than i thought, i have been sweating this for days! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! The tutorials and screenshots i was looking at, i believe were outdated or older versions of Reaper. now with this plugin eq, i tried using ReaEQ but when then window was brought up, i could not get the parameter faders to changes anything in the sound. i had the fx button armed but i couldnt hear any difference. then whole concept of plugins is still new to me. that 1st issue was the big one. i think when Papa John's cuts me loose tonight, im going to get my license and buy this thing. after only 12 hours of using it, divided into playing with my son, getting distracted by tv, and just forgetting i was recording in the first place, i am totally won over. i did kinda buy my Line 6 UX2 because the Reaper community said it was a perfect match for the software. but, for the hell of it, I tried Reason adapted and Ableton live lite which came with the ux2, and wasted alot of time just trying to lay a track down. I imported an mp3 and recorded several tracks over it within about 5 minutes of first opening Reaper. pretty much just guessing my way around it at that! I wanted something easy to use, i was told about Reaper....SH@# the bed! ummm.... is there anything i need to do or know about the buying process?

Punch in recording works great, but i prefer to comp tracks, Just lay down a couple tracks and pick tha best aprts of each and combine them far easer and gives you more to work with. Especially with vocal takes i always sing three versions, and make a working track from those three.