Help me love Reaper!

[Viacom Army]

Really diggin the in depth performance meter. It's really nice to be able to see exactly what channel is causing a problem or massive cpu usage. Anytime I've had a problem with something, it's been trial and error, so it's nice to have a screen where you can see each little thing going on. Some of my plugin meters are reallllllllll sluggish though. Is this normal behavior for Reaper?

[EvilDragon]

Mr. Kenny, multiquote button is your friend as well

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Mr. Kenny, multiquote button is your friend as well

Way ahead of you.

At least this post.

I fixed it after reading your other.

Where are the smileys?

Originally Posted by rennect

You can create buttons for this in Floating toolbar (press F and customize it)

Has anyone mentioned the idea of putting this in the transport bar instead of floating?

I'd love to visually see what grid mode I'm in without having to open the window.

I assume it's not possible to have the active button stay lit?

[Viacom Army]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

Has anyone mentioned the idea of putting this in the transport bar instead of floating?

I'd love to visually see what grid mode I'm in without having to open the window.

I assume it's not possible to have the active button stay lit?

Yeah, that was one of my original questions. For editing, I think having the grid subdivision buried in menus instead of on the transport bar is like having the track faders in a sub menu.

[joeymusicguy]

sorry to make another appearance with this same statement, but some of you seem to be failing to read what i'm saying specifically about the reverb-tail fx situation.

you don't need to be able to extend the right edge of the audio if you're going to use an ITEM FX. because all you need to do is add empty audio to it (you can double click in a time selection to do this, there are also several other easy ways to do this) and then glue it with your item. tada! your item is longer now. pretty much the same as audio-suite in protools, or plugin processing in cubase.

please do not mention that extending the right edge of items is important for time-extending fx anymore. i've already shot that down several times in this thread.

at any rate, im not asking for the current behavior to be removed as i understand reaper is to meet the needs of many different people. i'm only asking for the "right-edge stops at end of audio data" behavior to be available as an option.

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by joeymusicguy

you don't need to be able to extend the right edge of the audio if you're going to use an ITEM FX.

We don't NEED to, but we WANT to because it's easier to just drag the edge than inserting silence and then glueing >_>

[joeymusicguy]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

We don't NEED to, but we WANT to because it's easier to just drag the edge than inserting silence and then glueing >_>

perfectly fine with me, i might even find my self using it.

but for the sake of principle, i still believe in asking for the other behavior as an option. it's only logical.

[bogo]

Originally Posted by joeymusicguy

perfectly fine with me, i might even find my self using it.

but for the sake of principle, i still believe in asking for the other behavior as an option. it's only logical.

There is already a lot of options everywhere, I think we should take care to not have too many.

[AdamWathan]

I agree with Joey in some respects, if you can't extend the item into emptiness on the left you shouldn't be able to on the right either. It is just not logical.

I do agree that the current behavior is in no way really annoying or impeding my workflow, the notches make it very obvious that you are past the item source and it is handy for per item FX so it's not really a big deal. It is pretty confusing though for new users who don't understand what they are seeing and are wondering where the hell their item ends.

Joey, you'll definitely get used to the current implementation. There is no need to "write down every item length"... The notches make it ridiculously blatant and the item will snap to the notch point no matter what snap settings you have enabled. You are never going to perform an edit that accidentally exceeds the right boundary without noticing, so even if it sounds annoying, in practice it will not bother you at all, trust me.

[Viacom Army]

It honestly quit bothering me pretty quickly. More of a "what the hell is this doing" than an "I can't deal with this" kinda thing.

Dragging out past the beginning of an audio file was bothering me a little, so it's nice that I can turn that part off. I never print reverb returns to files, so I'd probably never need that silent extension at the end, but alas, it does not bother me.


Since this is my thread, I have a couple more silly questions.

1. Why can't I add a color to the master fader?
2. Can I dock the master fader at the right instead of the left?

[AdamWathan]

Originally Posted by Viacom Army

It honestly quit bothering me pretty quickly. More of a "what the hell is this doing" than an "I can't deal with this" kinda thing.

Dragging out past the beginning of an audio file was bothering me a little, so it's nice that I can turn that part off. I never print reverb returns to files, so I'd probably never need that silent extension at the end, but alas, it does not bother me.


Since this is my thread, I have a couple more silly questions.

1. Why can't I add a color to the master fader?

I can do that just fine here, just right click the track and set the color like any other track?



It looks darker because of the default master track background overlay but it's still color-able.

2. Can I dock the master fader at the right instead of the left?

Yup, right click in the mixer on the background somewhere and just check off "Show master track on right"

[Viacom Army]

Man am I over looking the simplest things or what? I looked in that menu before to try and change it to the right side, but never saw that. After you told me where it was, I looked a little closer.

Also, as far as coloring the master track goes. I didn't have the master track showing in the track view window. I found that if you have it show in track view, then color it, then disable it in track view, it will be colored on the mixer. However, I don't see a way to color it on the mixer.

None of this is important to work flow really, just more or less first date kinda questions.

[neteqx]

Originally Posted by joeymusicguy

at any rate, im not asking for the current behavior to be removed as i understand reaper is to meet the needs of many different people. i'm only asking for the "right-edge stops at end of audio data" behavior to be available as an option.

Well said and I agree that the option should be available. I have never found this behavior obtrusive in my way of working, but there are so many customizable features in Reaper, this should definitely be one of them.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying about fades, I can see that I wasn't very clear so my fault. I know fades are in realtime which was precisely my point, but it really doesn't matter for this discussion.

What I was trying to show in my earlier post was an example of how others might find this feature useful in their own workflow. Like you said, there are other ways of doing things. It's cool that everyone can pick the way that works best for them. And I think you may agree that that's one of the many things that make Reaper such an awesome program.

On a different matter, I have a couple of first date kind of questions myself, but I need to save them for later 'cause I should get back to work. Hope you guys can help me out. Have a good one!

[Viacom Army]

This may be my dumbest question yet. I'm pretty sure that "glue selected items" is the same as "bounce selection" or "consolidate" in other DAW's. Just making sure this is a bounce function that takes into account crossfades, etc.

Only reason I'm asking is because nuendo has a glue function too that is NOT a "bounce track" kinda thing.

[AdamWathan]

Originally Posted by Viacom Army

This may be my dumbest question yet. I'm pretty sure that "glue selected items" is the same as "bounce selection" or "consolidate" in other DAW's. Just making sure this is a bounce function that takes into account crossfades, etc.

Only reason I'm asking is because nuendo has a glue function too that is NOT a "bounce track" kinda thing.

Yeah glue will take into account crossfades, it will not however take into account a single items fade in/out. So if you add a fade in and fade out to an item, and then try to glue it to render the fades into the file, it won't work. It will work if you stick an empty item behind it though. The best way to do that is to create your own "glue" macro to replace the native one. Here's mine...



This will allow you to glue/consolidate even empty space with an item. So if you have an item and you want to add empty space to the beginning and end, just make a time selection larger than the item, use this macro and it will create a new item that spans the length of the time selection with all fades rendered into the file and removed from screen.

[joeymusicguy]

Originally Posted by AdamWathan

I agree with Joey in some respects, if you can't extend the item into emptiness on the left you shouldn't be able to on the right either. It is just not logical.

I do agree that the current behavior is in no way really annoying or impeding my workflow, the notches make it very obvious that you are past the item source and it is handy for per item FX so it's not really a big deal. It is pretty confusing though for new users who don't understand what they are seeing and are wondering where the hell their item ends.

Joey, you'll definitely get used to the current implementation. There is no need to "write down every item length"... The notches make it ridiculously blatant and the item will snap to the notch point no matter what snap settings you have enabled. You are never going to perform an edit that accidentally exceeds the right boundary without noticing, so even if it sounds annoying, in practice it will not bother you at all, trust me.

i know, i was just being an ass

because i know if no one is on my side, it will never get put into the program

blah, this is why i wish i would have stuck with C++ on the side, so i can just make my own daw. i was programming on windows 2000 and xp so im pretty behind the times now haha.

[Kundalinguist]

Good one. Thanks.

[joeymusicguy]

Originally Posted by AdamWathan

Yeah glue will take into account crossfades, it will not however take into account a single items fade in/out. So if you add a fade in and fade out to an item, and then try to glue it to render the fades into the file, it won't work. It will work if you stick an empty item behind it though. The best way to do that is to create your own "glue" macro to replace the native one. Here's mine...



This will allow you to glue/consolidate even empty space with an item. So if you have an item and you want to add empty space to the beginning and end, just make a time selection larger than the item, use this macro and it will create a new item that spans the length of the time selection with all fades rendered into the file and removed from screen.

crap im going to need this, and i know im going to forget by the time i actually switch to reaper.

why doesn't glue on single item take fades into account? whats the reasoning for this?

[Viacom Army]

Oh thanks, at least it preserves the start and end fades so you can still alter them. I think this is actually pretty cool. When I'm consolidating a track, I usually remove start and end fades anyway so they're there for mixing in case something weird is going on and I need to alter them. I do find it odd, however, that you have to program a macro so consolidate tracks like that.

My impression so far.....in a comical sense.....if Reaper was a house....

"WOW, I love how the furnace knows what room I'm in and adjusts the heat according to my own internal body temperature and mood"

...but...

"Why do I have to turn on the kitchen sink, then put on one shoe, tap the wall twice, and skip down the hallway naked JUST TO OPEN THE FRONT DOOR?"

[joeymusicguy]

Originally Posted by Viacom Army

Oh thanks, at least it preserves the start and end fades so you can still alter them. I think this is actually pretty cool. When I'm consolidating a track, I usually remove start and end fades anyway so they're there for mixing in case something weird is going on and I need to alter them. I do find it odd, however, that you have to program a macro so consolidate tracks like that.

My impression so far.....in a comical sense.....if Reaper was a house....

"WOW, I love how the furnace knows what room I'm in and adjusts the heat according to my own internal body temperature and mood"

...but...

"Why do I have to turn on the kitchen sink, then put on one shoe, tap the wall twice, and skip down the hallway naked JUST TO OPEN THE FRONT DOOR?"

you've nailed it, haha

[AdamWathan]

Originally Posted by joeymusicguy

crap im going to need this, and i know im going to forget by the time i actually switch to reaper.

why doesn't glue on single item take fades into account? whats the reasoning for this?

The reasoning I believe is that "glue" in REAPER is intended as a function solely for taking two items and joining them into one. So it takes into account a crossfade between two items purely out of necessity. Since the fade in/outs at the beginning and end of the selected items can still exist, they remain. It's not like a "render selection into one item" command like consolidate does in Pro Tools.

I personally like the Pro Tools way and that's what I'm used to so I prefer it, but I can see the value in the default way. As long as I am able to create a simple macro to do things my way, it's not a big deal to me.

[Kundalinguist]

Originally Posted by Viacom Army

"WOW, I love how the furnace knows what room I'm in and adjusts the heat according to my own internal body temperature and mood"

...but...

"Why do I have to turn on the kitchen sink, then put on one shoe, tap the wall twice, and skip down the hallway naked JUST TO OPEN THE FRONT DOOR?"

Because you would never think to do so otherwise. Consider it a gift.

[hopi]

Took me awhile to get that glue works a few diff ways....

First, as expected to join two or more items...

But it was not immediately obvious that if you glue just one item...[just smear some glue on itself] that it turns that single item into a unique item.... you would not notice this unless you did something like first split the item and then apply glue, to each part, one at a time.... now, each of those split parts no longer will drag out to the whole item... this is a very important function of glue to know about....

you can of course make a custom action to move along a track and apply glue in this way to each of many individual items along the track.

There are a few ways to skin the same cat in reaper as far as consolidate goes...

the custom action posted here works well and is one for sure...

there is also render the time selection and add it to a new track automatically...

also worth mentioning, that if you have glue in your toolbar, you can arm the icon.... again, handy for doing that 'glue to itself' for many little separate items.

[Viacom Army]

Well, my first day test driving Reaper went pretty well. Took me longer than usual to edit a song down for mix prep, but that was mostly because of not being familiar with things yet.

Every time I'm ready to bitch about one thing, I notice something else that I've always wished for. The "implode selected tracks" is a GODSEND for me. I do a lot of sectioning off when tracking bands, so I may have two or three sets of drum tracks, domino the guitars just for fast tracking, etc. After editing everything, I usually bounce things down to "one take", which takes a few minutes in any system I've used. It's also a pain cause you have to remove effects and panning and rout them to mono outs and bounce. LOVE this implode thing...LOVE IT.

Thanks to this wonderful user base, all your help is appreciated. I hope I'm not getting on anyone's nerves yet asking all these questions. I'm rapidly trying to put it to the fire, and hoping it works out. I do promise that I am searching and reading first for the things I want answered before asking. Funny how it seems like in a few minutes I always get a response if I just put my questions here though.

I have a few more. I'll get to them as I go.

Thanks again to everyone so far.

[Viacom Army]

I have a couple more questions if that's alright. Trying to keep all this in the same thread, so bare with me.

1. Is there a way to be able to trim items who have their ends "off screen?"

2. Is there a way to key in fader values and pan positions from the track mixer? I do this often if I want the level the same for another track.

3. Which brings me to question 3. I really think I'll miss the copy paste track settings buttons from Nuendo if I switch fully. Does Reaper have an equivalent?

4. Is there a way to make tracks appear special in some way besides color? I'm thinking as in setting up busses, etc. A way to easily see them, fatter track or something like that.

That's all I got for now.

[chip mcdonald]

Originally Posted by Viacom Army View Post

"Why do I have to turn on the kitchen sink, then put on one shoe, tap the wall twice, and skip down the hallway naked JUST TO OPEN THE FRONT DOOR?"

you've nailed it, hah

I agree as well, and I'm a very long time Reaper user.

Reaper's procedures have become a bit convoluted as of late; don't take some people's attitude for granted around here, hopefully Justin realizes a few loud people on this forum don't represent Reaper's entire "audience". There is a user driven revamp of some of the menuing, and hopefully some sort of coherence will arrive from that.

The preferences menu has a lot of options that have some wide-ranging implications; there used to be a more... IMO... "conservative" default arrangement, but IMO things are presently a bit convoluted "out of the box". My take on it is that things have "evolved" so that the maximum amount of features are "on" by default that perhaps makes things a bit convoluted from the outset, as opposed to finding these things and *then* turning their functionality on after the fact.

Some here will vehemently (and pretentiously...) disagree, but it's a pseudo-free internet. Straightforward useability -> conditionally, individually modified complexity trumps "pre-determined complexity to be modified by the user post-new learning curve". IMO.

[joeymusicguy]

Originally Posted by Viacom Army

I have a couple more questions if that's alright. Trying to keep all this in the same thread, so bare with me.

1. Is there a way to be able to trim items who have their ends "off screen?"

2. Is there a way to key in fader values and pan positions from the track mixer? I do this often if I want the level the same for another track.

3. Which brings me to question 3. I really think I'll miss the copy paste track settings buttons from Nuendo if I switch fully. Does Reaper have an equivalent?

4. Is there a way to make tracks appear special in some way besides color? I'm thinking as in setting up busses, etc. A way to easily see them, fatter track or something like that.

That's all I got for now.

oh +1 for these (i hope #1 really does not rely on entire item to be visible, that would be so annoying)

2. right click!

[Viacom Army]

Thanks, I think that previous rule just sunk in. Right click everything....

[AdamWathan]

Originally Posted by Viacom Army

I have a couple more questions if that's alright. Trying to keep all this in the same thread, so bare with me.

1. Is there a way to be able to trim items who have their ends "off screen?"

Not sure what you mean, you can do it via key command but you can't click and drag anything that is off screen, what exactly are you trying to accomplish and how does it work in Cubendo?

2. Is there a way to key in fader values and pan positions from the track mixer? I do this often if I want the level the same for another track.

Right click for the volume fader, doesn't work on pan though.

3. Which brings me to question 3. I really think I'll miss the copy paste track settings buttons from Nuendo if I switch fully. Does Reaper have an equivalent?

SWS Snapshots, here's a video...

http://www.adamwathan.com/reaper/swssnapshots2.swf

4. Is there a way to make tracks appear special in some way besides color? I'm thinking as in setting up busses, etc. A way to easily see them, fatter track or something like that.

That's all I got for now.

You can individually resize the tracks, add a track icon or use colors. You can even use SWS auto color and get it to automatically set any track with "Bus" in the name to a specific color so all your busses look the same.

[joeymusicguy]

snapshots are such a beautiful thing

[McTamara]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

8. Mousewheel is your zoom tool, ALWAYS.

Why "always" ?

I didn´t get used to it so now my arrow keys do the "regular" zooms. At least on this "Test-Reaper" it feels nice.

MW only scrolls here.

[Viacom Army]

Originally Posted by AdamWathan

Not sure what you mean, you can do it via key command but you can't click and drag anything that is off screen, what exactly are you trying to accomplish and how does it work in Cubendo?

Well, it treats the "edge of the screen" as the hot spot for trimming. For instance, if you're zoomed in on say the first guitar hit of the song, the majority of the audio file is off screen. If you hover your mouse to the left of that peak it will show the trim icon and allow you to click and trim that file to that peak without having to zoom out or cut/delete/trim. It's a one click function that I happen to use often enough for it to be a nuisance.

I hope that makes some kind of sense.

I've also noticed that if you want to move the track in the mixer that's furthest left to a spot further right, but off screen at the moment, it won't let you do it in one drag. You have to move it to the edge, scroll, them move it some more.

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by McTamara

Why "always" ?

I didn´t get used to it so now my arrow keys do the "regular" zooms. At least on this "Test-Reaper" it feels nice.

MW only scrolls here.

Mousewheel regular - scroll vertically
Alt+MW - scroll horizontally
Ctrl+MW - zoom vertically
Shift+MW - zoom horizontally
Ctrl+Shift+MW - zoom horizontally and vertically at the same time

Works beautifully (and EXTREMELY FAST) for me.

[Viacom Army]

Originally Posted by McTamara

Why "always" ?

I didn´t get used to it so now my arrow keys do the "regular" zooms. At least on this "Test-Reaper" it feels nice.

MW only scrolls here.

For now I definitely agree. Zooming is my least favorite part of reaper so far. I'm trying to get used to it, but it's so inaccurate. Nuendo's zooming cursor vs. this mouse wheel thing is probably my biggest hang up at the moment.

[EvilDragon]

Eh, I find Reaper's zoom fairly accurate, no niggles at all. What are your mouse preferences?

[AdamWathan]

Originally Posted by Viacom Army

Well, it treats the "edge of the screen" as the hot spot for trimming. For instance, if you're zoomed in on say the first guitar hit of the song, the majority of the audio file is off screen. If you hover your mouse to the left of that peak it will show the trim icon and allow you to click and trim that file to that peak without having to zoom out or cut/delete/trim. It's a one click function that I happen to use often enough for it to be a nuisance.

I hope that makes some kind of sense.

I've also noticed that if you want to move the track in the mixer that's furthest left to a spot further right, but off screen at the moment, it won't let you do it in one drag. You have to move it to the edge, scroll, them move it some more.

Ah ok. Yeah nothing like that in Reaper. What I can suggest is creating macros from "Trim left/right edge to mouse cursor". This way you can hover your mouse anywhere over an item, hit the left macro or right macro and it will trim that side to the mouse cursor. I have mine set to Ctrl+A and Ctrl+S.

http://www.adamwathan.com/reaper/mousetrim.swf

[Tod]

Mousewheel regular - scroll vertically
Alt+MW - scroll horizontally
Ctrl+MW - zoom vertically
Shift+MW - zoom horizontally
Ctrl+Shift+MW - zoom horizontally and vertically at the same time

Hi ED,

So how are you able to do that? I've looked in prefs and can't find anything relevent. This is all mine does:

Mousewheel regular - zooms in/out horizontally
Alt+MW - scroll horizontally

Tod

[Viacom Army]

Tod,

All that is set in the Action List. Filter by the word "zoom" and scroll through all the options. You can set these to anything you want.

[joeymusicguy]

i personally prefer to press letters R and T to zoom in and out, like in PT

i use my mouse wheel button to "hand drag" the work space

and regular scroll wheel to move the vertical scroll bar

[Kundalinguist]

Originally Posted by chip mcdonald

I agree as well...Some here will vehemently (and pretentiously...) disagree, but it's a pseudo-free internet. Straightforward useability -> conditionally, individually modified complexity trumps "pre-determined complexity to be modified by the user post-new learning curve". IMO.

There is an obvious trade-off between being limited by a DAW company or let loose to do as we please, as is often our case in using Reaper. I think the devs may overestimate the desire of some to make extensive use of such DAW democracy. I'm on the border, being happy to have many customizable options at hand, yet also being overwhelmed by the paralysis of choice and perhaps a lack of foundational support in learning what it all means and how to use it. (Not for lack of a great forum, or Geoffrey's insightful books.)

However, I think that struggling emotionally against the tide of development by hoping for quick or immediate changes is counter productive. We are all witnessing on a nearly daily basis that we are being heard and that slowly or sometimes quickly, new ideas are implemented in ways that far outshine what is available anywhere else.

I think there is a rather organic, self-organizing principle here at work that no one entirely foresees. It is therefore difficult to allow this evolution to take place while demanding to know what the final product will look like, when that is impossible. When baking a cake, it is not always a reassuring sight to look into the spinning batter. And yes, there may be a few egg shells in there. We'll find them. In the meantime, let's enjoy our cake, knowing that another one is always in the oven.