View Single Post
Old 04-15-2018, 03:20 PM   #5
vdubreeze
Human being with feelings
 
vdubreeze's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Brooklyn
Posts: 2,613
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by EvilDragon View Post
Honestly, if I need "detailed MIDI editing", I go to the actual MIDI editor (which CAN work on the whole project as a whole picture, showing multiple tracks and items at the same time, the whole nine yards). Haven't used an inline MIDI editor which didn't get on my nerves in one minute flat.
Try as I might, it's the actual midi editor that I find more frustrating to use. Even setting it up for a few tracks of keyboards to view as a whole (for a jazz piece, not dance music, full range of keyboards) I find it an unproductive place to be. It just doesn't behave visually and focus-wise without me constantly having to adjust something simply to get it back to my visual. Switching between playing while listening, stopping and tweaking a few things at the top octave of one track and the bottom of another, then going back to listening - it's not a transparent enough workflow. The two modes don't lock to each other, and if they can I'd love to know how and I can just chalk it up to Reaper's baffling defaults.But it isn't for lack of poring over the manual. As I mention, the word "inline" appears just once, and it doesn't lead to any info. I eventually figured out what the tool does in the upper right of the inline editor are, but believe me, the manual doesn't even acknowledge their existence : )

I need to watch the midi tracks not in edit mode because they have to be visually in context with audio, and when I click on a midi track to edit a note I don't want it to totally change what's in front of me, where the track doesn't go directly to the note I clicked on with the same zoom and scroll context, clearly shown with the whole range of the part visible, and a sensibly small amount of bars before and after. I can't put my finger enough on what Reaper is specifically doing that I don't want to have found a solution in the prefs. But if I need to view the big picture of midi and audio, and see the entire range of the parts, when I use the midi editor I spend too much time unnecessarily rescrolling and rezooming the editor windows when entering and leaving them. If there's a way to have it work more sensibly I'd love to know, but all of the Reaper midi editing insight I've found hasn't related to this issue of going in and out of the midi editor while not feeling like I'm switching programs. It's an oddity, this strict lack of congruity between the two modes (track view and edit mode) that doesn't exist in other DAWs that I do mixed audio/midi in, so its not flowing naturally, or natively, is a frustration for me, no matter how powerful the editor is.

If someone can lay out exactly which defaults to change to make midi editing not such a separate environment from the general tracks I'll be quite a happy camper : ) and very appreciative. I'd love to hear from those who are doing mixed audio/midi projects in Reaper, where the midi is used to capture a musician's performance and (not for quantized EDM and not speaking of drum parts), with editing of notes done as desired, I'd be interested to find out how they made Reaper work for them in the context of this issue I have with Reaper and midi editing, as I think I've taken it about as far as I can poking around, and it's still a nit to me.

Thanks : )
__________________
The reason rain dances work is because they don't stop dancing until it rains.
vdubreeze is offline   Reply With Quote