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Old 08-09-2011, 08:12 AM   #16
Lawrence
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 21,551
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Trying to be helpful and add some constructive comments even though I don't use Reaper's midi editor. Things that may be useful for the ongoing discussion. So please take all this in the spirit intended since I don't even really use Reaper's ME.

The filter list specifically... it's (respectfully, raw functionality aside) 99.9% function (it does the stuff that needs doing) and 0.1% design. It's just really klunky and relatively unintuitive and kinda really cluttered.

There's gotta be a better way - design wise - to get to the same place(s) than with that filter list.

As visually stunning as some of the V4 themes are ... this view, with the midi editor fully extended and the filter list open so you can actually navigate the midi tracks and similar, is arguably just (imo, mmv) just not very good... comparably speaking.
  • In a large midi project you'd have literally hundreds of little buttons in that list with their hundreds of little letters to do stuff. Each track has 4 buttons and each clip on every track has four buttons.

    Not sure why you'd need a bunch of little record and solo buttons there when the ME only puts focus on a single part at a time anyway? Wouldn't one single Record, Mute & Solo button on the actual editor window do that for whatever track has the edit focus?
  • You have to keep it open to have those functions available so closing it is a no go if you plan to work in the full ME for any length of time using those functions.
  • The list is unnaturally long because every clip gets it's own line. You can collapse things but still... that the list itself is much longer than the actual arrange track list isn't good.
Some other things there that just don't make a lot of sense to me personally (mmv on the subjective) are...
  • The kinda huge width of the piano roll taking up horizontal edit space. In addition to the width of the docked filter list.
  • The uniquely odd small sizing targets for the controller lane height, off fully to either side instead of the entire thick bar being a sizing handle all the way across.
  • Maybe not being able to (haven't tried in 4) call an instrument GUI and/or replace an instrument with a new one and/or change an instrument preset when the arrange tracks and mixer are both not showing while working in the ME like this. For all the many tiny little buttons in the list that many people might not ever use, you'd think one of them would be "I" to call the instrument.
Hopefully some of that will make it into the future discussions. This is a mode (ME full) I've worked in with midi in a lot of sequencers and this one is just really klunky to try to work in.

Suffice to say, this screen shot would not make a good ad pic for Reaper 4.



Last edited by Lawrence; 08-09-2011 at 08:36 AM.
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