Seamless changing while playing song option

[Bevoss]

I'd like to request an option in the marker or transport settings globally, to delay changing while the transport is playing until the next bar period, as defined by the grid. Even 2 beats, 1 bar and 2 bars would be enough, although go nuts if you want. There's a very good reason for this, and I'll explain why.

In Live, you can preview a song arrangement BEFORE you change it , eg you want to see how the bridge rolls into the verse, except your current arrangement is verse-chorus-bridge-chorus. You can set a marker/region up to change to the start of the verse in Reaper, but getting that sucker smooth is nearly impossible, and there's an audio dropout. With the grid option however, you can have the chorus playing and casually hit the verse or region marker key, then it'll change when it gets to the next bar defined by the grid, without stuttering and losing time...as long as it was recorded to a click at least. The cursor goes to the position and blinks there until it kicks in.

This is an excellent way to try out different arrangements without all the copy-and pasting normally associated. It's a lot of fun too trying out new mixed-up edits on a loop.

Anyway, I think it's one of Live's best qualities for multitracking, along with it's key mapping that you've surpassed here. I'm pretty sure the big boys haven't got this either. No idea how much coding is involved but I think it's a very valuable feature to have.

I guess I'm a bit new here to be making feature requests, but oh well, I've thought it through I think. Up to you now Justin. Thanks for listening. And thanks for fixing the regions and jump to time window, it's sweet now.

Cheers
Bevoss

[Justin]

Try this:

http://reaper.fm/files/reaper170-smooth.zip

(extract over 1.70)

options menu->smooth seeking

-J

[Bevoss]

Congrats on some great coding! I'll throw in a few ideas now that I've played around with it some:

* Options to change within a set beat number, eg 2 beats, 4 beats, 8 beats, 16 beats, 32 beats etc (or equivalent bars ie 1/2,1,2,4,8,16)...so for example you could hit the marker after the verse starts and it'll change 16 beats later. It's at one bar now, but two-four bars is easier, you don't have to be so on the ball, and even bars is natural for timing.

* Region/Marker Mode : Option to change at Region end (or possibly next marker)...this is actually groundbreaking because Live can't do this, it's always locked to the click/grid.

By this I mean a song not done to a click, but cut up into regions properly based on the kick, could still be jumped around in sync. One region will be playing, you click on the region you want to play next, and when it gets to the end of the region it flawlessly changes to the next one. Brilliant! This would work better for odd time songs too.

* Maybe have the cursor blink while it's waiting at it's new spot to start.

NB** At the moment the 'go to next/previous marker' shortcuts will only go back one marker in smooth seeking mode, that's it, it'd be nice to use this to jump back several markers, especially if we have 2 bars or 4 bars option to do it in.

Thanks Justin...you're the man!