We were having a discussion over in the General forum about envelope point editing, when it occured to me that Reaper is missing a small bit of editing prowess. I didn't think this needed to go in to the feature request issue tracker, because it's rather simple.
I've tried using the CTRL+SHIFT method to move selected envelope points a number of times. Can't say I found it very good, because I know a method in Protools that works faster and requires less precision.
The cursor, shaped like a flipped and flat "U" character, performs the up/down changes of section in Protools.
It lives in the upper third of the envelop lane. Reaper can do the time selection and selects envelope points within it. You can then change those with the slider ooooooooooooooover there on the left, in other words not where you're working.
I'm pointing this out because someone else has done this better, and I've spent thousands of hours with that method which turned out to work better than what we have in Reaper right now. I'm pretty sure Reaper could do this too.
- You don't have point your mouse cursor at a segment or envelope point, in other words you can be faster because you area you're pointing at is a lot larger. This is the empty area of the envelope lane, or if we used the same method as Protools, the upper third.
- You stay where your envelope points are and do not need to use the envelope control panel slider. It's over there on the left, but not here where I am right now. Travel time = lost time.
So what does Reaper need ?
A
"Drag" mouse modifier layer for the envelope lane context.
The upper third would be ok, but I don't think it's necessary to go that far. A "Drag" layer could do the "make time selection and select envelope points within it" by default, which is what we have right now.
The new functionality that basically just imitates the envelope control panel slider, would use CTRL+drag(in read/trim mode) to push the section of the envelope up or down.
This difference is that nobody would have to switch to read/trim mode to do it.
CTRL+SHIFT+drag would be the finetune.
This method fits right in to Reapers infrastructure and it's faster, easier to use because it requires less precision by the user and proven to work by probably millions of hours of use.
Automation editing, made a little easier yet again.