Cockos documented every REAPER release since its 2005 preview

The tool moment

REAPER 1.0 shipped on 23 August 2006, according to Cockos's own dated release-history log, which traces the software back to a first installer, private release on 18 December 2005, followed by rapid point releases through early 2006 that added basic VST and VSTi plug-in hosting, MIDI input and recording, and preliminary control-surface support. Cockos, the small company behind it, describes itself as having been founded in 2004, building software meant to give musicians a lightweight, deeply customizable alternative to larger commercial DAWs.

What the documents show

The whatsnew.txt log is Cockos's own maintained, dated engineering record — a strong primary source for what shipped and when, though it documents technical changes, not marketing claims. Read closely, it lists no stem-separation or source-separation feature anywhere near the 1.0 release; only VST and VSTi hosting, MIDI support, and control-surface handling appear in that window. Any stem separation available in REAPER today comes from third-party scripts or extensions added long after 2006, not the original release. Cockos's own current about statement, by contrast, is a living mission description, not a dated 2006 record, and should be read as the company's ongoing self-description of an independent, profit-cautious development model rather than a launch-era statement.

What stays with the musician

REAPER's 1.0-era feature list — recording, VST hosting, MIDI, control surfaces — hands a musician the tools to capture and route audio and MIDI, not a system that arranges or mixes on its own. That division carries forward: any AI-assisted feature added today through a third-party REAPER extension still expects the musician to decide what to do with a separated stem or a suggested edit, since REAPER itself was never built to make that call.

Judge it by listening

Cockos's own changelog gives a concrete, checkable method: because every dated version note has been public since 2005, a reader evaluating a claim about a REAPER extension's AI feature can look up exactly when a given hosting capability, such as VST or MIDI support, was actually added, rather than trusting a vendor's framing that REAPER has always supported something. This is an editorial method, not a listening test performed by this outlet, but it is one any reader can repeat against the same public log.

• Does a REAPER extension's stem-separation claim describe a 2006-era core feature, or a much later third-party addition?
• Can a specific feature's arrival date be checked against Cockos's own public changelog rather than assumed from the product's age?
• Is founded in 2004 and released in 2006 being treated as the same event, when the documents describe two different milestones?

REAPER's history is unusually well documented because Cockos chose to keep dating every change in public. That openness is itself worth naming as a rare condition among DAW vendors, and it is what makes a claim about REAPER's feature history checkable at all rather than a matter of vendor say-so.