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Old 08-05-2020, 11:45 PM   #1
siniarch
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Default Combining Project B at the end of Project A files.

I cannot believe that REAPER does not have a merge feature? I looked for something like it and did some google searches, but the best way people have is copy and past or make the items part of a track template and insert that track template.

Neither is working for me so far to what I need to do.

I'm mixing a feature film. The director who also edited the film has divided the film into 6 reels. So I've been given 6 different timelines in Premiere. I loaded up my premiere and exported those to an XML final cut file. Then I converted that file to Reaper with VORDIO which worked great.

I went through each one of the 6 files and re-organized the audio into different tracks based on Dialogue characters, FX, Foley, Backgrounds and Music. So far so good.

Each file's start time is exactly what the timecode needs to be for it to be at the correct time of the entire movie. Now I am trying to combine the 6 reels into one REAPER file so I have the entire timeline in one project. Here's where I'm running into problems.

Although the track names are exactly the same, some files have some extra tracks. Currently I'm not able to find a way to just add Reel2 at the end of Reel 1 and so on. While keeping the audio in the same time location and same layers while only creating any new layers not currently in the project.

I'm doing this manually right now, but would love to have a way to do this automatically for the future.

Any advise would be really appreciated it. It shouldn't be too complicated, should it?
Thanks.
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Old 08-06-2020, 01:58 AM   #2
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Originally Posted by siniarch View Post
It shouldn't be too complicated, should it?
Thanks.
It really isn't, and I would be inclined to copy and paste items from multiple projects in multiple tabs onto corresponding tracks in a parent project. However, if you're doing this a lot, you might want to look at the potential of sub-projects:

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Old 08-06-2020, 02:08 AM   #3
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It really isn't, and I would be inclined to copy and paste items from multiple projects in multiple tabs onto corresponding tracks in a parent project. However, if you're doing this a lot, you might want to look at the potential of sub-projects:

Thank you. It is crazy to think that you cannot join projects. Seems like there should be an easy solution for this.

I ended up doing the Track Template trick. When I imported it, it duplicated the track names and move all the items to the beginning of the project so place it at 00:00:00) But it kept the items that were imported selected. So I slid them all over to the correct timecode.

Then, I have a custom script that lets me select items on any track. then select the track I want those items copied. And it copies the items without shifting time and then it mutes the original items. So I went track by track. I'd double click the importer track (which selects all the items on that track). then I'd select the same named track on the original project. Run my script. And voila. The items were in the correct track. The imported track had all the items muted. So later I knew which track to delete. It took about 1hr or more to combine all the 6 reels.

I certainly would rather have a join projects action, but I guess I have to wait for them to come up with that feature.

Thanks for your reply.

Last edited by siniarch; 08-06-2020 at 02:43 PM.
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Old 08-06-2020, 02:51 PM   #4
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Also, if there is someone who can program a script that could do this I'd be happy to pay for that.
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Old 08-06-2020, 03:30 PM   #5
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There's a way to 'append' Reaper projects to a current project:
https://forum.cockos.com/showpost.ph...35&postcount=2

It puts the tracks of the imported project below the existing ones, so not sure it'll help much in your case..
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Old 08-06-2020, 03:48 PM   #6
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There's a way to 'append' Reaper projects to a current project:
https://forum.cockos.com/showpost.ph...35&postcount=2

It puts the tracks of the imported project below the existing ones, so not sure it'll help much in your case..
Thank you for this. In fact this is the way I did it but it's not a simple method if I were to have to do this all the time.

1. All Items on 2nd project are placed on correct time but when imported this way, all items get imported at position 00:00:00. So the timing is completely off and needs to be adjusted after importing.

2. Although both files have same track names, the imported files come into new tracks with duplicated names as the first project. After shifting the new items to the correct time, I had to go track by track basically copying all items of NEW Track 2 to OLD Track 2 without shifting time (and so on for all other tracks). I have a script that does this which helps, but it is time consuming. (and more importantly there can be human error which would compromise the project.)

Would be nice to be able to do this and keep items imported in the correct time location as project 2. And then maybe create a script that mergers all tracks that are named the same. This would reduce the amount of work dramatically. All there would be left to do is arrange any tracks that are in Project 2 that are not in Project 1 to the correct location.

This project is 1hr 30min, but the actual tracks used currently are about 25-30 or so. But in the future I may have projects with 100+ tracks. So manually doing this would take for ever. I wish I knew how to code.
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Old 08-06-2020, 04:08 PM   #7
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In fact this is the way I did it
Ah this is what you meant by 'Track template trick'? Didn't get it.

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1. All Items on 2nd project are placed on correct time but when imported this way, all items get imported at position 00:00:00. So the timing is completely off and needs to be adjusted after importing.
Actually I think it takes current edit cursor position as "timeline 0" for the imported project, so if you move the cursor to the correct position before importing it should work (I could be wrong though as I haven't done it for quite some time).

But generally agreed, joining projects is currently quite tedious, unfortunately.
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Old 08-06-2020, 04:11 PM   #8
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Ah this is what you meant by 'Track template trick'? Didn't get it.



Actually I think it takes current edit cursor position as "timeline 0" for the imported project, so if you move the cursor to the correct position before importing it should work (I could be wrong though as I haven't done it for quite some time).

But generally agreed, joining projects is currently quite tedious, unfortunately.
Weird. I did move the cursor to the position I wanted the items to be imported at, but it still imported them to the 00:00:00 position. Maybe it's a setting under Reaper or Project setting. ?

If you ever find out how to do that, please let me know. Thanks so much for taking the time to read my post.
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Old 08-06-2020, 04:32 PM   #9
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I just tried and here it behaves as I said.
If if have say an audio file at min 1:00 in the to be imported project, move the edit cursor to min 1:00 in the current project, import the other project, it puts the file at min 2:00 here.
Weird indeed. I'll let you know if I can think of a setting or anything which may affect this.
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Old 08-06-2020, 04:42 PM   #10
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I just tried and here it behaves as I said.
If if have say an audio file at min 1:00 in the to be imported project, move the edit cursor to min 1:00 in the current project, import the other project, it puts the file at min 2:00 here.
Weird indeed. I'll let you know if I can think of a setting or anything which may affect this.
I think the reason why the items get place on the 00:00:00 for me is because Project 2 has the start time under project settings to let's say 00:12:00 (so 12 minutes into the movie)
But the project and the items both start at 00:12:00. It's not like Project 2 starts at 00:00:00 and the items do not start until 00:12:00. Maybe I my Project 2 had 12minutes of silence and then the items, it would put the in the correct position.

Hope that made sense.
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Old 08-06-2020, 08:47 PM   #11
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Hi siniarch,
don't forget to have checked the offset option as in the screenshot:


https://stash.reaper.fm/40158/offset_track_template.png

EDIT: And also make sure that the last touched track was the last track of the main project, or better add the new empty track at the end before importing second RPP as track template. Then it will not insert it semewhere inbetween the tracks of main project but at its end. It's easier to just move all the new items to the top track, then delete remaining emptied tracks from import.

Last edited by akademie; 08-06-2020 at 08:53 PM.
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Old 08-06-2020, 09:02 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by akademie View Post
Hi siniarch,
don't forget to have checked the offset option as in the screenshot:


https://stash.reaper.fm/40158/offset_track_template.png

EDIT: And also make sure that the last touched track was the last track of the main project, or better add the new empty track at the end before importing second RPP as track template. Then it will not insert it semewhere inbetween the tracks of main project but at its end. It's easier to just move all the new items to the top track, then delete remaining emptied tracks from import.
OH man, that is awesome. That's the setting I needed. I have that updated menu structure (can't remember what it's called) because it makes more sense to me, but it hides the original menu at the bottom. So I couldn't see that setting until you showed where it was. Then I found it.

Thanks so much.

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Old 08-07-2020, 07:39 AM   #13
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Well spotted!
I also have customized menus (ReaMenus) so I missed that setting too.
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Old 08-10-2020, 03:27 AM   #14
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glad to be helpful
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