Reaper is the lightest DAW on system resources. Cubase is deep, heavily engineered and cerebral but I think it’s mainly because users never stop asking for more features and ways of doing things. All DAWs do the same thing they just approach it in diferent ways. I moved from Reaper to Cubase mainly because I work by myself now and I think the MIDI tools are more developed.
Indeed, I couldn’t agree more. Reaper can also do a lot.
The approach is different yes, that’s probably why we go to one or another DAW.
There are really few things I can do in Cubase that I can’t do in Reaper in the MIDI editor but I understand that it might not be your case as may be I just don’t use certain tools.
Also, in Reaper you somtime have to create the Tool if it’s not native. I, for instance, created a Solo button for the selected track, in the MIDI editor. Or I have created a tool that allows the window in the MIDI editor to follow or not the timeline in the project view. It’s double edged, you can do a lot but you have to dig, ask for help or do it yourself.
The funny thing is that I customized Reaper to have a Cubase like behavior and it’s very nice now. But as I said, I couldn’t use the default setup…
Try quantising audio in Reaper and you soon see why. It’s insane when you’re using it for a period and then come back to Cubase and press ‘Q’ and it just processes without fuss.
Reaper is probably the future for many though due to their licensing and how most larger DAWs are going subscription model. So it’s well worth being familiar with.
I have not upgraded to latest Cubase and am still using the legacy one which is unfortunately out of support. I have tried other DAWs such as FL Studio and Reasons. Neither one works for me. Workflow is not right and Cubase is the only one that works for me. I will try some others.
So, I have started the 90 days trial of Ableton Live (on a laptop)
I just tried to make some EDM track on the fly and my first impression is that, despite that I don’t know how to make many things 
, I feel it to be a bit more convenient, more flexible, less clicks, less windows. And it close so quickly for now.
I will dig a little deeper and see what comes of it
Give it some time haha… Wait until you get into heavy drum racks and effects chains. 
Im an Ableton user as well, although to be honest haven’t opened it really since Cubase 12 came out.
I have to admit, Ableton’s ‘arrangement’ workspace is pretty awesome the way it handles audio and midi almost like ACID Pro did. But when it comes to actual arrangement and mixing, and just moving around the song in general, Cubase (and most other DAWs) has it beat. The fact there aren’t even any key commands for rewind/fast forward/etc to move around are so frustrating during playback. Who knows, they may have updated it. I have 11.3.3 installed now, but last time I opened it was over a year ago, aside from making sure it still opened when I got my new Mac last month.
It’s perfectly capable of doing everything, but in some spots its workflow is just odd to me.
Every DAW has its advantages and disadvantages depending on your workflow and needs. I have been with Cubase for a bunch of years off and on but I’m actually going back to Pro Tools as of now. Why? I’m doing mainly acoustic recordings/productions at the moment and even though I’ve invested quite a lot in Cubase I’ve come to realize that the basics are more important to me than a boatload of new features. Not being able to rearrange tracks in the console is a constant annoyance. No metering on ARA tracks is another. Solo being red and mute being yellow is just confusing and goes in the face of other daws and hardware mixers. The list goes on. All small things maybe but they add up to become a big nuisance to me. In spite of a bunch of random bugs Cubase is fairly stable for me at the moment but the GUI is inconsistent and sometimes songs won’t open for no reason. Other people may have other experiences and expectations and might love Cubase exactly the way it is. I don’t feel it anymore.
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