In Reaper it is only possible to create a tape stop with something like the following custom action:
>Item properties: Clear item preserve pitch
>Time selection: Set time selection to items
>Item: Add stretch markers at time selection
>Time selection: Remove time selection.
This way one can drag the left/right handle of the stretch marker down and it creates a tapestart/tapestop effect. However this way the audio gets longer and you can't easily tweak the curve with a mouse modifier.
A workaround is to use a take's pitch envelope. This way one can pitch the audio down without making it longer and edit the curve but it sounds "artefacted/stretched".
REQUEST:
Idea 1 (just like Logic): Make a button, in the item properties for example, to toggle each item fade to either control volume or do a Tape Stop/Start. Of course when in Tape mode the fades should change to a different color in order to visually see immediately which items have normal fades and which tapestops.
Idea 2 (IMO better): Being able to create a fade as well as a tapestop/start for the same item. A nice way to do this could be that at the edge of the item where the mouse pointer turns into the fade tool, when pressing a modifier it turns into the tape tool and so you can choose to drag which envelope you want. Again they should have different colors for visual distinction and you should be able to individually adjust the fade as well as the tape time and curve.
Yea a genuine pitch/rate envelope (what a 'tape stop' is ) is long requested, I also dislike the stretch marker approach, which functions but is a hammer when often you want a tweezer.
Thanks for the suggestion. Gave your action a quick try and I got it to work once, afterwards it didn't work, then it seems to move my item to the start of the track and it generally has a lot of steps, like selecting reasamplomatic, selecting the item with the audio from which to import, go back to the MIDI item etc.. need take time to check the action more carefully and see if I can understand the process and make it a bit simpler.
The Xenakios tool doesn't show up in my Reaper but under the post you linked Xenakios himself wrote that it is only available for Windows and as I am on a Mac machine it is no option for me.
I still hope, even if I get your action to work reliably, that this feature request isn't ignored. Looks like I am not the only one interested in easily tapestop/starting items.
Thanks for the suggestion. Gave your action a quick try and I got it to work once, afterwards it didn't work, then it seems to move my item to the start of the track and it generally has a lot of steps, like selecting reasamplomatic, selecting the item with the audio from which to import, go back to the MIDI item etc.. need take time to check the action more carefully and see if I can understand the process and make it a bit simpler.
The Xenakios tool doesn't show up in my Reaper but under the post you linked Xenakios himself wrote that it is only available for Windows and as I am on a Mac machine it is no option for me.
I still hope, even if I get your action to work reliably, that this feature request isn't ignored. Looks like I am not the only one interested in easily tapestop/starting items.
yeh that sounds like in he sws resources dialog where the template is in a slot - the 'offset edit cursor' tick box in the corner needs to be ticked for it, otherwise the item doesn't go where it should.
from template post : n.b ensure template is in sws s&m resources template slot 2 and **'offset by edit cursor' ** is ticked
stepwise - very quick in use if doing it right:
once the action is assigned it is as swift as :
select item of interest > trigger the action > click on 'import from arrange' > draw your envelope, auditioning results. (see my gif - thats how quick it is in reality - you hear results in realtime on playback (i tend to loop the area) - note: you don't need to glue/apply fx to hear result - thats for seeing it.
( rs5k appears automatically, the take in question zooms to view also selected, so literally all you have to do after executing action via keystroke etc. is to mouseclick 'import from arrange' button and then start envelopin' )
in comparison a native function would be: select item > click/action to display pitch/rate envelope > draw envelope.
so one more step.
i've not fired it up in a while so will double check its all ok on my mac.
EDIT: its all good. ensure the "pitch-rate-adjust-my-item" template is in slot 2 of SWS resource dialog and the "offset edit cursor" tick box is ticked.
then assign key(s) to the action "pitch inserter - loop fix" in actions window - ( i use shift P. )
then its a matter of select item -> shift-P > hit import from arrange, then click the envelope and draw.
it is pretty sensitive (big pitch range) as thats what i was after, you can tweak things if interested to use pitch bend which is less extreme/less fun imo. can describe if asked.
I missed that little detail. I ticked "offset by edit cursor" and it works as it should. However it seems like each time I open a new project the option is again unticked. Also tried re-saving my default project template after ticking it but it doesn't help. You know how I can set it once forever?
Anyway, once I ticked the box I got it to work ONE TIME as you describe and it is really great that way, but all other attempts always resulted in Reaper opening the "add fx" window and making me choose a Plugin to add. If I choose a plugin it adds that plugin to the audio-take, even though the MIDI-take is active in the arrange window. So I have to close the add fx window and the Audio-take fx chain and open the MIDI-take fx chain where I already find a loaded instance of Reasamplomatic. After that I have to select the audio-take again in order to be able to "import item from arrange" and again select the MIDI-take to work on the envelope. This way it is way more hassle than it could be. You have an idea what I might be doing wrong?
FYI
I have done everything as you describe except for 2 things:
> For some reason the resource window didn't let me drag your template to slot 2. As it was on slot 4 I changed the corresponding step in your action to "SWS/S&M: Resources - Paste template items to selected tracks, slot 4". This should be no issue, should it?
> I removed the action to zoom into the selected item as I prefer always zooming myself when I need. I guess this also should not break anything important?
Please let me know, would be awesome if I got this to work smoothly and predictably.
Switching to slot 4 could be ok if its exactly the same action in same position , tho need to check.
you can right click to clear a slot and then load new one trad style btw. For trouble shooting having it slot 2 is better.
Get it working first then go nuts with the tweaking!
Odd since have never had any issues here on win or Mac for years - except the offset box being reset after a reaper version update, nor from any of the users who downloaded
Is there an 'apply' button in resources for settings to stick?
Edit: yes sounds like the sampler and item loads fine but the item fx chain you are shown second try onwards is the wrong take.
You could have some fx window pref that's unusual or the part of the macro that selects the take and shows it's item fx has changed.
I managed to get 'offset by edit cursor' to stick. There was no option to set this in the resource window but there was an option inside Reaper's action list called 'Offset track template items by edit cursor' which when turned on remained active.
I also reimproted your action in its default state and managed to change the track template slot to 2 (thus keeping your action in its original state), but the problem remains. It always wants me to add an effect to the wrong take.
2 other bugs that I noticed to occur:
-> when I drag the envelope to crate a tape stop, few ms/sec after playing back the sample it always produces a klick.
-> I set up my envelope mouse behaviour to add and move points on left drag and useually it works fine. When adjusting the envelope in your action sometimes it starts to move the whole segment up and dpwn instead of adding points.
In the attachment you can see my fx window prefs (sorry for bad quality, I need to reduce my screenshots a lot to be allowed to upload them here). I tried disabling 'Only allow one fx chain window open at a time' but it didn't change anything.
I don't think Reaper has changed the actions behaviour, otherwise I would also not work on your computer, am I right?
EDIT:
Got it to work by inserting another 'Take: switch items to next take' after the first one. Probably could have just got rid of the first one as now there are 2 in a row, but anyway as long as it works it works.
Also didn't notice the bug with the envelope point drag anymore, yet the bug with the click is still there. By playing with the release inside the sampler I noticed it happens when the sound ends. I will anyway like to have the release as short as possible so it ends with the MIDI note and it should do that without a click of course.
And another thing: the generated MIDI note is often too short. Can it be set to be the same lenght of the take/item?
Click could be a tiny auto fade at end of splits/items, search prefs .
Naturally i'd like it very much to work for everyone seamlessly as it does for me and presumably the hundreds of other downloaders, but not sure I really deserve to have issues called a 'bug' when there are so many prefs and configs that can affect things!, when it's a macro I made a while back to help me and others - am no scripter or programmer.. tend to offer thing that user can tweak to their needs.
by all means tweak settings play around, hope u get it sweet.
Btw You can learn a bit by unticking consolidate undo points on the macro so you step back with undo and see what each command did/does.
I have found some Sws dialogs etc to behave less well after my Mac move so it could be many things.
- The midi note was short as it's a simple playback trigger and that item has to change length to match size of selected item, so made sense to make item length change and not also adjust midi note length.
you will always have to start playback before the midi note to audition before you decide to glue - just nature of the workaround
Sorry for calling that a bug. I probably extended the meaning of the word too far in lack for a better word. What I wanted to say is unintended behaviour (in my specific circumstances) while not necessarily implying a general fault inside the macro itself. I just wanted to figur out if I could set some things up differently so that it works on my system like in others.
Anyway I got it to now to a point now where it works sufficently quick for my needs. In any way much faster than other ways to achieve the desired effect in Reaper. So I want to thank you for taking the time to create this and to assist me in setting this up, much appreciated.
What I did is create a preset in Reasamplomatic that includes a ticked 'Obey note-offs' which prevents the sound from having a tail that might overlap with the sounds afterwards and tweaked the release so that the click resulting from this is almost not noticeable but there is also no noticeable tail to the sound.
I also set up a key command to extend MIDI note lenght by 1 grid step, so with a few clicks I can extend the note to the end of the item (which usually is on grid in my case).
So all I have to do now is
1) Press action keycommand
2) Select my Reasamplomatic preset
3) Press import item from arrange
4) Open Midi editor
5) Press keycommand to extend note a few times
6) Work on the envelope
Pretty satisfied with this
Just one last thing. I feel the pitch range sometimes is a bit extreme for my needs. You mentioned that I could set it up less extreme with pitchbend. You mind explaining how to do so?
No problem squire glad it's of use was just running out of ideas of what issue could be..
You Should be able to set your adjusted preset as default so sampler loads it straight away. Will check As template may overide the default preset.
Will need to remind myself how to use pitch bend for reduce extremes then will post back. Involves placing a reamidicontrol before the sampler in the template , aand making the envelope control pitch bend on that. Can then adjust pitch bend range in sampler.
Maybe I'll put that in a template rather than describe...
Once setup should act almost exactly the same really.
In Few hrs probably.
Can I ask why midi note needs extending?
It's just a 'tool'/triger to playback audio at item start.
Using the note to trigger and use note off wasn't really the intention. If it works tho, great!
It Was to allow pitch rate adjust of a section of audio. So you would edit adjust length of audio or glued audio instead of midi note.
my use case as example:
split audio section of interest using mouse and 'S' key - then shift-P to launch the sampler macro, 'import from arrange' - draw and adjust envelope until it sounds cool in context by looping the area on interest - then 'glue' or 'apply item fx to new take' for revision-ability, and maybe make some timing tweak with stretch markers or whatever. bosh.
I already tried setting it as default however the track template overrides it. I guess it would involve resaving the track template. You know how I could best do that without breaking it? Knowing how to do so might be necessary also in case I may have to do any adjustments to the template myself in order to assign the envelope to pitch bend.
TBH for my needs it was just more immediate to me to set the envelope for the MIDI item and move on and only afterwards I noticed that the sound does not play full sustained until the end of the item and then chops off immediately but is triggered like a oneshot the might overlap with audio that follows so I searched a fix for that. Didn’t really try to apply take fx but maybe in fact it is the easier solution, need to try. It would also allow more flexible editing, however one downside probably is that if I wanted to adjust the envelope I’d need to render a new take.
ok i noticed a few things that you had encountered, in no particular order:
if in sws resources you hit the sort of 'save icon' it overwrites the template with all kinds of shit that makes it go bad.
best to right click slot 2, goto load and directly put clean freshly downloaded template there.
the thing you noticed with an unnecessary fx window prompt was if your audio item was really short - shorter than the little midi item in my template. *
you can do weird super short pitch bends of course! but i chose a short midi item to stretch out to length of user audio item, if your is shorter, it breaks the macro.
the audio you launch the item on should be a second or more long, your pitch envelope can still only do something in the first half second tho and be 0 the rest so net result is the same.
if you 'apply track fx to item as new take' instead of glue - it's less permanent, you will get audio to play with and still be able to go back and tweak by selecting the envelope take again and adjusting. (thats what i did in the .gif earlier)
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for a less severe pitch bend here is a new template to load into slot 2 of sws resources: (as mentioned r-click slot 2 >>> 'load' is best.)
the pitch bend range is +-12 so much more tame (24 would be nice imo ), but 12 is reasamplomatic max.
i also set the release on the sampler to 0 as that is probably wise anyway so low pitches don't play on beyond item.
the item itself is shorter too now to avoid the problems with applying macro to short audio items
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if you do want to adjust template further and sampler parameters etc. do it this way to avoid weirdness:
using an empty project - right click empty space - go to load track template, find it 'pitch-adjust-with-pitchwheel2019'
it will load and place one very small item where the edit cursor is.
hit the item fx button go in and adjust the sampler settings to your preferred.
when satisfied (IMPORTANT)
have it so the sampler fx is floating & visible and the midi item is at start of project.
(this will ensure sampler floats whenever you execute the action)
then r-click track and go to save template, then ensuring 'save items and envelopes' (two tick boxes) are ticked before saving.
you shouldnt have to go back to sws resources. should work ok.
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^^^^^ that stuff is phazma specific
good luck and stop tape-stopping super short items!! (please don't stop.. stopping.)
edit: to anyone wandering by you also need the macro also to make any of this work, phazma has that already and modified it. so i am only posting the template. to learn more, read and grab here: https://forum.cockos.com/showpost.ph...55&postcount=1
EDIT2:
you may need to do the 'offset cursor fix' again setting at the insert track template menu as i just had that issue on restart where item was not going in place until i did that.. phew..
With few tweaks I got it to work consistently and pretty smoothly the way I want. Thanks for all the help!
I also found out what caused the envelope sometimes moving as whole and not just the single points: I had the option to select envelopes with time selection enabled in my action list. So whenever there was a time selection I wasn't able to tweak single points. Disabled it and it works.
In the end I still ended up using the pitch adjust envelope instead of pitch bend as 12semitones in fact is a bit restricted. Just need to get used to how the curve translates to sound, as I am used to Logic's tapestop-fades which sound great to me because they aren't entirely linear when drawn linear - they start rather gently but at the bottom of the curve they still go pretty low.
While it still would be cool if they added something like I suggested to Reaper for the sake of editing speed, for now I can definitely live with this solution which we set up. Actually it is even more flexible as it allows also for faster speeds than 1x, as opposed to only speeds between 0 and 1. As said, just have to get used to the envelope which is a bit difficult to tweak as the range is enormous.
Yeh I started out in 90s sample tracking which was all about pitch/rate messing with sounds, and sliding an 8bit sample to 5 times too slow was always fun so I like the extreme range, yet can musically time envelope changes in context, so it's not just random and can be rhythmical.
Btw if hide inactive takes after doing the import from arrange ( think it's some modifier + T ) the envelope will be full track height and full track zoom should make it bit easier to deal with the range.
edit: "show all takes in lanes (when room)" - cmd L on mac
Yeh I started out in 90s sample tracking which was all about pitch/rate messing with sounds, and sliding an 8bit sample to 5 times too slow was always fun so I like the extreme range, yet can musically time envelope changes in context, so it's not just random and can be rhythmical.
Btw if hide inactive takes after doing the import from arrange ( think it's some modifier + T ) the envelope will be full track height and full track zoom should make it bit easier to deal with the range.
Yeah I need it a lot for sounddesign purpouses when creating SFX for games/movies aswell as to spice up the arrangement with some effects (mostly when doing EDM/Rave music).
Btw can't find hide inactive takes action by searching take, hide and inactive.. in a bit of a hurry right now tough, so I probably just have to look with a bit more time.
Fade/TapeStop switch for Items (like Logic)
Linear Mode
