Old 10-24-2011, 11:32 AM   #1
Sound asleep
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Default group items, and link midi items

for me, reaper really needs the ability to group items into blocks. pretty sure i posted this before, but i find it's a really important feature. any item could be grouped, end even accross tracks. you can group multiple groups together. so say you have two groups, and group them together, when you ungroup, they don't ungroup into the primary elemental items, but they would split back into the previous two groups, and you could do this as often as you want.

another thing, that is linked to that (no pun intended) is linking midi items.

for me, i never know when i'm gonna want to change something. if i come up with an awesome melody over a beat i did, and then i want to change the beat a little to make it sound better together, i need to go and change my beat.

but if i've already copied my items and made verses with it i may have many copies of the beat i need to change, so now, i need to take forever and go into every single one just to change one note. and i might miss one as well.

but if i could link all similar items that would be so easy. you could link by function key and click and drag, you could link by right click when two or more same items are selected. and you could unlink one or more items by right clicking and selecting action unlink. so say you want to change only the 3rd bar of a beat throughout song, no problem just select quickly all first 2 bars and select unlink. and then select link again, and they're back linked but only together, without 3rd bar.

looping helps with this, and that's great and i use it and would continue to do so. but i also would like to link same that are not adjacent.
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Old 11-11-2011, 12:28 AM   #2
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really? i am the only reaper user that cares for something like this? dang nabbit. please other people want this as much as i do.


oh, and did i mention..... bump.
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Old 11-11-2011, 04:57 PM   #3
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It looks like at least part of your proposal is already possible with item groups and pooled MIDI items. For example item grouping works already across tracks. So, could you describe in more detail what is missing in current item group implementation and pooled MIDI item implementation?

One thing that you seem to be proposing is "hierarchical item groups" or "groups inside groups". That could be useful. Maybe Reaper should allow even partially overlapping groups. Would that be feasible?


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Old 11-11-2011, 09:40 PM   #4
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Originally Posted by jnif View Post
It looks like at least part of your proposal is already possible with item groups and pooled MIDI items. For example item grouping works already across tracks. So, could you describe in more detail what is missing in current item group implementation and pooled MIDI item implementation?

One thing that you seem to be proposing is "hierarchical item groups" or "groups inside groups". That could be useful. Maybe Reaper should allow even partially overlapping groups. Would that be feasible?


jnif
not sure what you mean pooled midi items. never used pool in reaper. used it in cubase, and basically all that was was access to recorded midi items. didn't know reaper had groups, will investigate, good to know, thanks. but ya, hierarchial would be even better.

but the biggest thing for me, is linked items, and linked within groups and things like that. so that i can have groups which are the same, or items that are the same within groups, and changing one thing within one changes in all others.

what would be really boss is if there would be even a group or link manager, which would let you unlink an item within a group without undoing the group. either a list with hierarchy that would display like folders within windows explorer, or some other way perhaps.
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Old 11-12-2011, 10:17 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by Sound asleep View Post
not sure what you mean pooled midi items.
Pooled MIDI items are similar to what you are describing as linked items.
Sometimes pooled items are also called "ghost copies".
Just search for "pool" in Reaper's action list and preferences.

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Old 11-13-2011, 03:27 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jnif View Post
Pooled MIDI items are similar to what you are describing as linked items.
Sometimes pooled items are also called "ghost copies".
Just search for "pool" in Reaper's action list and preferences.

jnif
ok, well that sounds quite awesome, i'll check it out. thx.
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Old 11-14-2011, 10:08 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jnif View Post
Pooled MIDI items are similar to what you are describing as linked items.
Sometimes pooled items are also called "ghost copies".
Just search for "pool" in Reaper's action list and preferences.

jnif
ok, yes, quite cool, just two actions that i couldn't find which would make it amazing. option to have action for clicking and dragging an item whilst creating a ghosted copy. so ex ctrl shift drag duplicates and links.

also, there is a handy button to unlink items. very great. but there is not an easy way to link similar items. it would be cool if you could select two items and link them. let's say you forgot to ghost them to begin with or something, it would be much faster to be able to just have the action to link them. me, i'd put that in my right click menu when i have two same files. ideally option would be grayed out whenever items are not identical or whenever only one item is selected. but just doing nothing is not a disaster, or a error window stating you can't do that, and tick box to select "do not show again".
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Old 11-14-2011, 10:48 AM   #8
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Pencil-draw should create a pooled copy, when pooled mode is turned on and another midi item is selected. +1 to that

I also agree about the 'link items' proposal. I imagine this is going to be more complicated, because the items do need to be identical to become pooled copies.
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Old 11-15-2011, 11:57 AM   #9
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Originally Posted by Sound asleep View Post
ok, yes, quite cool, just two actions that i couldn't find which would make it amazing. option to have action for clicking and dragging an item whilst creating a ghosted copy. so ex ctrl shift drag duplicates and links.
Why not just use plain duplicate (ctrl+d) action. I know it's not the same as dragging the edge of item but still it is quite fast way to create row of pooled items.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sound asleep View Post
also, there is a handy button to unlink items. very great. but there is not an easy way to link similar items. it would be cool if you could select two items and link them. let's say you forgot to ghost them to begin with or something, it would be much faster to be able to just have the action to link them. me, i'd put that in my right click menu when i have two same files. ideally option would be grayed out whenever items are not identical or whenever only one item is selected. but just doing nothing is not a disaster, or a error window stating you can't do that, and tick box to select "do not show again".
This is a good idea. +1.

Here is a workaround:
You can change identical MIDI items to pooled items in Project Bay.
First enable "Toggle pooled (ghost) MIDI source data when copying media items". Then right click the item in Project Bay and select 'Replace in project'->'All instances'->'Track name'->'Item name'.
A bit complicated but if you have lots of identical item copies this is a lot faster than replacing all manually with pooled copies.

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Old 11-15-2011, 12:27 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jnif View Post
Here is a workaround:
You can change identical MIDI items to pooled items in Project Bay.
First enable "Toggle pooled (ghost) MIDI source data when copying media items". Then right click the item in Project Bay and select 'Replace in project'->'All instances'->'Track name'->'Item name'.
A bit complicated but if you have lots of identical item copies this is a lot faster than replacing all manually with pooled copies.
That's a nice tip.
Thank you.
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Old 11-15-2011, 08:59 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jnif View Post
Why not just use plain duplicate (ctrl+d) action. I know it's not the same as dragging the edge of item but still it is quite fast way to create row of pooled items.



This is a good idea. +1.

Here is a workaround:
You can change identical MIDI items to pooled items in Project Bay.
First enable "Toggle pooled (ghost) MIDI source data when copying media items". Then right click the item in Project Bay and select 'Replace in project'->'All instances'->'Track name'->'Item name'.
A bit complicated but if you have lots of identical item copies this is a lot faster than replacing all manually with pooled copies.

jnif
well, i miscommunicated i think. i actually don't really want pencil drawing pooled items. i actually hate that pencil ever draws anything but blank items. sometimes that gets really annoying for me. me when i want to duplicate, i always ctrl+drag an item. i don't even really use copy paste much. only over long distances. this lets me quickly and easily duplicate items and put them where i want.

what i was actually asking for was to be able to say, hold ctrl+shift and mouseclick, so that i may drag an item and place it elsewhere, while it's ghosted copy remains also in place. if i have multiple in a row, then looping does ghosted copy multiple in a row, and that's a feature i love. for a section, like chorus or verse or whatever, i find that's not a problem, looping and then a couple different items at end on change is fine, but if that section repeats somewhere, which it most likely will unless it's the bridge, then i don't want to have to go into all sections to change one thing i noticed later on i didn't like.

this is why i'd like to group as well. have grouped chunks, grouped sections, and linked midi items.



this is my preferred way of drawing. i don't even really use pencil in midi.

i just copy and paste. often selecting another midi note with similar velocity to what i want, as i generally record live first whatever i edit. and often times i'll want to duplicate note lengths as well, so i just duplicate always with whatever is like what i want, and if nothing is, then i copy one, and adjust, and then i have a new option to choose from for my next note.

>----<

right, with alot of items that might be cool, but it's still not as easy as linking with action. or at least i don't think i'd have that many to warrant it.

i'd probably only ever ghost something 4 times or something. so just quickly finding them, and linking them would be very fast.


the tricky part, is if you want to add a linked item. what happens, if you go to link items, and one of them is already linked with other ones? does it prompt you to ask what to do? remove prior link? add link? for me, it would always be add link.
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Old 09-28-2014, 02:30 PM   #12
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Default Linking Media Items (or making dependent clones)

I just wanted to thank everyone for the information in the forum in regards to a way to "link media items" so if you change something in one (e.g. a note) it will change it in another. Very handy for quick editing.

I also took a tip from the forum and setup alt-left click in mouse modifiers to copy and create a pooled/ghosted item.

This is really handy for me making drum tracks using the "TX16Wx" VST sampler and my drum machine free samples downloaded off of the net.

For drums, I make a one bar pattern I like using the Reaper midi editor and then copy using pooling so if I change a pattern it updates all the other copy/pooled patterns. Sweet!

The more I use Reaper the better it gets and they have done a good job with midi and this is a great DAW for the electronic music genre; especially, since Reaper is so friendly with VST's.
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