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Old 08-27-2019, 05:22 AM   #1
dumtratt
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Default Reaper for broadcast radio and PA

Hi!
First off, I'm sorry if this has been covered in other threads. If there is one already, I'm happy to take directions there.

So. I work in Swedish radio and I've been dabbling with Reaper for mixing for a couple of years or more. Me and my colleagues, who have also grown to like it, are thinking we could use it for our live broadcasts and PA, like for small OB and recordings.

The caveat is playback of clips. I've looked into region Playlists in the SWS extension, playing straight from the resources media files and of course playing from the timeline.
Our current solution is a system called Digas, and an app in that system called turbo player. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree, but i believe it could be doable with Reaper.

This is what we would need to be able to do:

Play a clip on a track, and have some sort of indication that it's playing, like the region playlist window.
The reason I don't think the region Playlist is working 100% for our needs is that you can't skip to a position in the Playlist without it playing the next clip. We'd like the Playlist to be able to go to the next clip in the list and wait for a play command. If this works, it'd be great. Frankly, I'm hoping I've just missed something real simple and this is just an omission on my part.

The other thing I tried was playing files from the resources window. This is also a nice solution, BUT there's no visual indication that anything is playing.

Another test was playing from the timeline. This was good too, but it requires the operator to look at the timeline, and there's no way to display the file playing for the show hosts. Again, clear visual representation of what is playing is important.

Hit me with ideas! Or not... Anyway, thanks!

Last edited by dumtratt; 08-27-2019 at 05:54 AM.
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Old 08-27-2019, 06:27 AM   #2
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https://ultraschall.fm/ could be you friend

docs in german mostly, but not too complicated if you know reaper
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Old 08-27-2019, 12:45 PM   #3
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Oh wow! Thanks! That sure does look promising. I’ll def check it out
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Old 08-28-2019, 12:19 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dumtratt View Post
Hi!
First off, I'm sorry if this has been covered in other threads. If there is one already, I'm happy to take directions there.

So. I work in Swedish radio and I've been dabbling with Reaper for mixing for a couple of years or more. Me and my colleagues, who have also grown to like it, are thinking we could use it for our live broadcasts and PA, like for small OB and recordings.

The caveat is playback of clips. I've looked into region Playlists in the SWS extension, playing straight from the resources media files and of course playing from the timeline.
Our current solution is a system called Digas, and an app in that system called turbo player. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree, but i believe it could be doable with Reaper.

This is what we would need to be able to do:

Play a clip on a track, and have some sort of indication that it's playing, like the region playlist window.
The reason I don't think the region Playlist is working 100% for our needs is that you can't skip to a position in the Playlist without it playing the next clip. We'd like the Playlist to be able to go to the next clip in the list and wait for a play command. If this works, it'd be great. Frankly, I'm hoping I've just missed something real simple and this is just an omission on my part.

The other thing I tried was playing files from the resources window. This is also a nice solution, BUT there's no visual indication that anything is playing.

Another test was playing from the timeline. This was good too, but it requires the operator to look at the timeline, and there's no way to display the file playing for the show hosts. Again, clear visual representation of what is playing is important.

Hit me with ideas! Or not... Anyway, thanks!
as far as I remember theres a script solution somewhere which turns Reaper into something like Ableton... or...isnt there a sample playing pad somewhere? I cant rememberore precisely ..
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Old 08-28-2019, 11:30 PM   #5
dumtratt
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I've looked into Ultraschall and it's a great extension or whatever you want to call it, very nice. BUT! It still doesn't really solve the issue I'm looking to solve. The Soundboard VST that came with Ultraschall does its job, but not entirely for this application, unfortunately.

I'm leaning towards trying to script something for myself, but not very good in that department yet. Okay so my needs are:

- A playlist function - this is obviously key.

- Manual activation of each clip, so no automatic playing (unless operator says so)

- Two or more playlist items should be able to play at once, on different channels. So let's say I'm playing a song, and on a specific time, a jingle needs to play and it needs to blend in nicely with the song (hence the crossfading or different channels need). Clip 1 plays on channel 1, clip 2 plays on channel 2, or vice versa.

- Activation of clips should be mapped to ONE button per CHANNEL, not per clip. All the other solutions I've tried within Reaper has either allowed me to activate the clip via playing the timeline, or playing a specific clip on a specific button. I need to able to play the next clip in the playlist on the channel I've chosen. So let's say I have three channels called "Player", and ideally when I lift the fader of that channel, it plays the next clip in the playlist on that channel. This can sort of be done in the timeline, through very careful programming using Marker Actions and custom Actions, but it's tedious and timeline specific. Ideally, I should be able to import a playlist, like a simple m3u, into this Player thing and no extra programming is required for that specific playlist.

- Fader starts! Sorry, english is not my mother language so I might get this translation wrong, but I think it's called fader start or start on fader. So basically when I lift the fader of a channel, a command to play is activated. Right now I'm using an X-Touch as my controller, and I'm suspecting it's not natively sending a command when I'm lifting the fader, but I'm thinking you could probably script within Reaper that when the chosen channel's volume is greater than -infinite, the next item in the playlist plays...

Hope anyone finds the time to point me in the right directions .. I'm not hoping anyone else will program this for me, or that it's integrated into a release of Reaper. I just feel like it COULD be done, and once I smell blood...
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Old 08-29-2019, 12:04 AM   #6
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Is there any reason why you don't use a Radio DJ software (like the free but good RadioDJ ) and route the output of that software through Reaper, maybe on more than one channel? You may use the free Voicemeeter Banana Software (https://www.vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/banana.htm) for the Computer Routing..
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Old 08-29-2019, 05:27 AM   #7
dumtratt
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Thanks again for an excellent suggestion the enterprise computers we're using couldn't open and install the Radio DJ software.. As the site stated, some virus softwares think RadioDJ is a virus.. :/

I love Reaper and I dream of me being able to do all these things within Reaper, since it's so flexible and customizable, I think that's why I'm stuck on Reaper.

Anyway, we HAVE a solution with a software that does all these things I wish was possible in Reaper, but the reason for us wanting to switch to another software is that the setup we're using now suffers from being cumbersome; big case with a soundcard that's far too big for what we really need AND it being extremely sensitive to changes. Like for instance if you start the computer and the USB cable just unplugs by 2 millimeters, the computer needs to be restarted, and we can't have that in a broadcast situation... Also the soundcard (A focusrite 22i8 I think) uses regular quarter inch jacks (?), and those famously are prone to plopping out.. So not a secure rig, and we're exploring the possibilites to improve on it.
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Old 09-08-2019, 03:58 AM   #8
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Playtime might do what you need: https://www.helgoboss.org/projects/playtime/

It works like the ableton live clip launcher, so by default your clips will be in sync with the tempo of the project and launch at the beginning of the bar and loop, but you can disable all these attributes by selecting the 'one shot' option for your clips.

Also Reaper's built in reasamplomatic 5000 might work for you.
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Old 09-08-2019, 09:15 AM   #9
Meo-Ada Mespotine
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dumtratt View Post
I've looked into Ultraschall and it's a great extension or whatever you want to call it, very nice. BUT! It still doesn't really solve the issue I'm looking to solve. The Soundboard VST that came with Ultraschall does its job, but not entirely for this application, unfortunately.

I'm leaning towards trying to script something for myself, but not very good in that department yet. Okay so my needs are:

- A playlist function - this is obviously key.

- Manual activation of each clip, so no automatic playing (unless operator says so)

- Two or more playlist items should be able to play at once, on different channels. So let's say I'm playing a song, and on a specific time, a jingle needs to play and it needs to blend in nicely with the song (hence the crossfading or different channels need). Clip 1 plays on channel 1, clip 2 plays on channel 2, or vice versa.

- Activation of clips should be mapped to ONE button per CHANNEL, not per clip. All the other solutions I've tried within Reaper has either allowed me to activate the clip via playing the timeline, or playing a specific clip on a specific button. I need to able to play the next clip in the playlist on the channel I've chosen. So let's say I have three channels called "Player", and ideally when I lift the fader of that channel, it plays the next clip in the playlist on that channel. This can sort of be done in the timeline, through very careful programming using Marker Actions and custom Actions, but it's tedious and timeline specific. Ideally, I should be able to import a playlist, like a simple m3u, into this Player thing and no extra programming is required for that specific playlist.

- Fader starts! Sorry, english is not my mother language so I might get this translation wrong, but I think it's called fader start or start on fader. So basically when I lift the fader of a channel, a command to play is activated. Right now I'm using an X-Touch as my controller, and I'm suspecting it's not natively sending a command when I'm lifting the fader, but I'm thinking you could probably script within Reaper that when the chosen channel's volume is greater than -infinite, the next item in the playlist plays...

Hope anyone finds the time to point me in the right directions .. I'm not hoping anyone else will program this for me, or that it's integrated into a release of Reaper. I just feel like it COULD be done, and once I smell blood...

I give a link to your post to our SoundBoard-developer. Maybe he finds a way to add one thing or another...
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Old 09-09-2019, 10:30 AM   #10
dumtratt
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wholehalf View Post
Playtime might do what you need: https://www.helgoboss.org/projects/playtime/

It works like the ableton live clip launcher, so by default your clips will be in sync with the tempo of the project and launch at the beginning of the bar and loop, but you can disable all these attributes by selecting the 'one shot' option for your clips.

Also Reaper's built in reasamplomatic 5000 might work for you.
Thanks! I'll try them both out

Quote:
I give a link to your post to our SoundBoard-developer. Maybe he finds a way to add one thing or another...
Thanks! It should fit right in to your already outstanding work. We'd really like a clear display saying what is playing, remaining time, and elapsed time.

In the meantime we started looking at external software and we've decided to give Go button on the iOS a try. It does what we need, but getting audio into iOS (and being limited to iOS) is tricky. Thank you again for your input

Last edited by dumtratt; 09-09-2019 at 11:05 AM.
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