Help with Reaper and pretty much everything.

[tengfya]

A little background- I've been playing various instruments and making some mediocre techno on and off for a year or two, so I'm no stranger to making up songs, rhythms, and melodies and the like. Until very recently, I used Sony ACID Music Studio 7 for quite a while. I left it because all I felt like I was doing was pasting together sample tracks and loops, not actually making anything. I then decided to purchase DubTurbo for pretty cheap. Big mistake. Stay away from DubTurbo.
Anyways, I just discovered REAPER a few days ago, and I'm very frustrated. I've been listening to a lot of dubtrot and the like and I've got several ideas for making some remixes, but I honestly don't know how to work REAPER. I have no physical synthesizers or MIDI instruments. I have very little money. I really want to just sit down and make something substantial, but I'm so unfamiliar with everything that I don't even know where to start. I figured I'd look around and find some help, but none of the tutorials are sticking.
So I really need someone who's good at REAPER to just sit down and run me through basic stuff like making complex waves on the MIDI keyboard or drums or whatever through a PM session or something. Even linking to relevant videos is useful. I've seen quite a few, but hopefully... Alternatively, I'd like a recommendation to a program that's easy to pick up, but still versatile and not limiting- and preferably cheap. Reaper looks incredible, but stupidly complicated in some ways.

I'm just frustrated. I feel really helpless listening to all of this stuff and all I can do is make a simple saw wave melody.
Sorry for the wall of text! And thanks in advance.

[TheShadowBolts]

Well reaper weve noticed is similar to Massive. Try going through presets and see what you find. Also... DJ Spike has his secret weapon VST (Little fuck) Called Dubtron which is a dubstep only VST. Real wierd but cool sounds. Check that out to hope we helped.

[Dr_Dissonance]

Errrr....REAPER is NOTHING like Massive...

Everyone seems to go to FL Studio as their go to Digital Audio Workstation, which is fairly user friendly and uber cheap (if you're not yar har-ing, if you catch my drift)...there are also plenty of free vsts and such littered around...

This thread has some interesting talk on specific vsts used: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=490

The whole "Sequencers, Samplers, Synths and VSTs" subforum has lots of stuff to consider as well!

And finally, if you like the sound of something someone made here, feel free to ask them! Everyone here is friendly and will point you in the right direction for what you want!

[tengfya]

And finally, if you like the sound of something someone made here, feel free to ask them! Everyone here is friendly and will point you in the right direction for what you want!

Thanks! I'll be sure to do so. And I love your stuff, by the way. Industry is Magic!