Cockos did not release REAPER 3 until they were ready to market it. Instead, they offered pre-release builds in public to all of their users, and continued to refine and develop as users told them what they liked, what they did not, and best of all, what new features were most important to them.
Major changes – A HUGE upgrade:
* Automation lanes
* Nested track folders
* Multiple tabbed projects
* Multichannel (greater than stereo) media support, including MOGG
* FX parameter controls on track and mixer control panels
* Customize toolbar icons and actions
* Programmable MIDI joystick/game controller support
* Inline MIDI editing
* Edit multiple MIDI items in one editor
* Sync MIDI editor to arrange view, including looped items
* Export project MIDI, with tempo map support
* MIDI event filter
* Track MIDI controls (manage bank/program changes, sysex, automate CC)
* MIDI hardware timing improvements
* Full sysex support
* All-native graphics rendering engine (better appearance and performance)
* Memory use improvements
* Soft controller takeover, including FX parameters
* MORE! Too much to list here!