Invisible Take / capture Midi and/or Audio while play

[beingmf]

Thanks to DarkStar for the name "invisible take". it's just some feature i miss so much from Logic, where it is called "capture last take as recording". briefly: you jam along with a loop (e.g.) and come up with something great. of course you'd want to have a take recorded. before hitting "stop" and before hitting another midi key after the loop has cycled, hit a key (action). voilà: take is inserted between markers.

of course it'd be perfect if the same would apply to audio recordings (so to say: reaper ALWAYS records in the background, so if i hit ctrl-R at any point, i can drag the item's left edge and recover everything recorded up to that point - and beyond of course)


IT'S ONLY ONE TAKE! this is the most important thing about this. of course i could record all the time but you can imagine how this would end up...

[gofer]

++1 This was a great thing in Logic (I believe cubase does it too, even with audio??)

No more "shit, I missed that magic take".

[Reverbio]

+1 from me

[airon]

We sometimes call this preroll time for our field recorders. It's a great thing to have, and personally I wouldn't mind sacrificing a few megabytes of memory to have Reaper always recording on armed tracks.

+1

44100Hz/24bit takes up 129.2 kB/sec or rather 1292 kB for ten seconds. A recording buffer of up to 20 seconds is suggested, and who of us doesn't have a 40-50 MB of memory for this kind of thing anyway when you're arming up to ten tracks ?

As long as the configuration gives you a lowdown on memory requirements of the current setting, I don't see too much of a problem. It could treat recordings like that as any other. The default should still be that the item is placed where you hit the record button, but the user has to open the item up to the left to get to the material. The option to have that done automatically could sit right next to the preroll buffer.

Btw, has anyone checked whether we already have this ? Has happened .

[Tallisman]

in Cubendo it is called retroactive record, and it is killer!

I envision it in Reaper working somthing like this:
- In prefs the user sets the size of the Buffer(s)
- Buffers Default to monitor Midi Channel x and Audio input x
- x is supplanted by the inputs that are attached to record armed tracks (this can increase the size of total buffer space)
- Buffers are flushed the moment the user engages the record button on the transport, and they are suppressed or paused for the duration of actual recording.

if the user decides after noodling around that they need that bit, they simply right click the record button on a track they want the buffered bit to appear and select from a menu. The menu items are:

• Insert Retro-Rec Items on all record-armed tracks (at source prefered position)
• (action not menu item: )Insert Retro-Rec Items data on all record-armed tracks at edit cursor
• Insert Retro-Rec Item Data for this track at source prefered position
• (action not menu item: )Insert Retro-Rec Item Data for this track at edit cursor
• (Submenu: ) Select Retro-Rec buffer item to insert on this track (this offers a list of the available buffers and lets the user choose which to insert

that would be killer. I hope that is clear.

greetings
.tallis

[PitchSlap]

+1 I miss this so much from Cubase (its been a FR in my signature for quite some time now).

I really like your idea's Tallisman. I hope we see this feature.

I would like this while the transport is stopped too. Often when I'm just noodling away on the keyboard (without the project playing) is when I come up with things I'd most like to retrospectively capture.

[zorn]

Originally Posted by Tallisman

in Cubendo it is called retroactive record, and it is killer!

I envision it in Reaper working somthing like this:
- In prefs the user sets the size of the Buffer(s)
- Buffers Default to monitor Midi Channel x and Audio input x
- x is supplanted by the inputs that are attached to record armed tracks (this can increase the size of total buffer space)
- Buffers are flushed the moment the user engages the record button on the transport, and they are suppressed or paused for the duration of actual recording.

if the user decides after noodling around that they need that bit, they simply right click the record button on a track they want the buffered bit to appear and select from a menu. The menu items are:

• Insert Retro-Rec Items on all record-armed tracks (at source prefered position)
• (action not menu item: )Insert Retro-Rec Items data on all record-armed tracks at edit cursor
• Insert Retro-Rec Item Data for this track at source prefered position
• (action not menu item: )Insert Retro-Rec Item Data for this track at edit cursor
• (Submenu: ) Select Retro-Rec buffer item to insert on this track (this offers a list of the available buffers and lets the user choose which to insert

*bump*
that would be very very useful to me.

i would add :

• make it so that it can be switched on/off per track. (off being the default, obviously)
• let it record even when Reaper is not playing back.

And never loose that minute of inspiration again. That'd be really great !

is there an entry for it in the feature request tracker ? can't find it..

[JT3_Jon]

+1. In fact, in all honesty, this is the main reason why I'm still using Logic. Its so ingrained in the way I write and play music that I simply will not switch to an application that does not have this feature.

I jam ALL the time to my stuff, knowing that if I liked something I played its captured in a keystroke. I also use it all the time to precisely place key switches or midi CC changes, as the playhead doesn't have to be active for it to record what you've played! So I can make that articulation change right at bar3.4.1.246 before the next note faster then having to open the part and manually draw it in.

In fact, Cubase has taken it to another level where you can have the transport completely stopped, play a melody line, and cubase will record it with the spacing between notes you played, all without the transport running!!

PLEASE add this feature!!

[Evan]

Being able to capture ideas live, and independent of the transport bar and project timeline, is a huge plus for composition and making music with the DAW... (as opposed to simply recording and mixing a band)

The transport bar and the project timeline is not the best place to capture and express creativity, because it's a linear grid of judgment and punishment.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by Evan

Being able to capture ideas live, and independent of the transport bar and project timeline, is a huge plus for composition and making music with the DAW... (as opposed to simply recording and mixing a band)

The transport bar and the project timeline is not the best place to capture and express creativity, because it's a linear grid of judgment and punishment.

Part of the functionality is already in Reaper. "Send live output to disk" which IIRC sends everything that comes out of the master to disk regardless of whether transport is engaged or not. That doesn't fix your issue but it does show that a healthy portion of that ability is already a part of Reaper's current infrastructure. Meaning it might not be impossible to add sometime in the future.

[foxAsteria]

I would so fucking love to see this. So many "moments" lost to "red light syndrome..."

The FR reminds me of another FR idea (I'm not sure if it's been brought up), which was to have MIDI and audio inputs simultaneously and separately selectable for any track, thus the ability to record audio and MIDI on the same track (two items). Would be handy. I like to have both the MIDI and audio of a performance and would prefer they exist on the same track (obviously not playing back simultaneously) as separate.

One suggestion on the FR: I would rather see a dialog after running the action with a user configurable selection of time lengths to use (30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, etc). So I can decide on the fly how much of the recording I want to keep.

[kemper]

I would LOVE this feature ! Totally agree with how valuable and important this feature would be ! Of course , as long as you had a tick box to disable it if it affected performance too much.