Old 09-08-2009, 04:19 PM   #1
SevenString
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Default Reaper for Live Performance

For the past few weeks, I've been successfully using Reaper as the hub of my virtual rig for live performances.

Basically, I have my vocals and guitar running through separate Reaper channels, with some EQ, compression, and delay on the vocals, and my guitar is now running into the Waves GTR Solo plugin. I have this GTR plugin set up so that it is controlled via a midi controller for quick patch switching and virtual stomp box control.

Next up, I have dedicated track with EZ-Drummer and some post fx.

Synced up to Reaper, I also have an instance of Reason running with about 14 virtual instruments, including bass, piano, various synths, horns, strings, etc.


Now, what I've done to USE all of this is, I have a set of grouped tracks for each song that I want to perform. For each song, I'll have midi for drums, routed to the EZ-Drummer track, and various other midi parts, all routed to Reason, bussed to individual channels for control of the different instruments.

I have dozens of songs set up this way, some with just drums and bass, ready for me to fill in the guitar and vocals, and some with up to a dozen tracks, for much more intricate arrangements, but in each case, I'm still performing the guitar and vocals live.

By default, I have muted all the folder tracks (the master for each song). Then, to play any one song, I just un-mute it and press play. Instant "full band" sound.


Anyone else using Reaper for live music?
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Old 09-09-2009, 02:08 AM   #2
norbury brook
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I use reaper live, as a host for my keyboard sounds which is quite demanding of a laptop as I use,

Garritan Steinway
Scarbee rhodes through Halion
and 3 Instances of Atmosphere

I run them all at 64 samples using Asio4All and the onboard sound from my bootcamped MacBookPro (Xp sp3)

I use an roland RD700 keyboard which goes into the laptop via USB and an Alphatrack which sits on the keyboard for controlling mutes/levels of the tracks.


been using it for 18 months now,not one hitch


MC
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Old 09-09-2009, 10:15 AM   #3
SevenString
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Quote:
Originally Posted by norbury brook View Post
I use reaper live, as a host for my keyboard sounds which is quite demanding of a laptop as I use,

Garritan Steinway
Scarbee rhodes through Halion
and 3 Instances of Atmosphere

I run them all at 64 samples using Asio4All and the onboard sound from my bootcamped MacBookPro (Xp sp3)

I use an roland RD700 keyboard which goes into the laptop via USB and an Alphatrack which sits on the keyboard for controlling mutes/levels of the tracks.


been using it for 18 months now,not one hitch


MC
Cool stuff.

In the future, I've been thinking of plugging in a keyboard for my live shows so I can actually perform more parts. I want to be as interactive as possible, and songs like Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" have very little guitar.
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Old 02-15-2014, 02:21 PM   #4
serginhosimoes
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SevenString View Post
For the past few weeks, I've been successfully using Reaper as the hub of my virtual rig for live performances.

Basically, I have my vocals and guitar running through separate Reaper channels, with some EQ, compression, and delay on the vocals, and my guitar is now running into the Waves GTR Solo plugin. I have this GTR plugin set up so that it is controlled via a midi controller for quick patch switching and virtual stomp box control.

Next up, I have dedicated track with EZ-Drummer and some post fx.

Synced up to Reaper, I also have an instance of Reason running with about 14 virtual instruments, including bass, piano, various synths, horns, strings, etc.


Now, what I've done to USE all of this is, I have a set of grouped tracks for each song that I want to perform. For each song, I'll have midi for drums, routed to the EZ-Drummer track, and various other midi parts, all routed to Reason, bussed to individual channels for control of the different instruments.

I have dozens of songs set up this way, some with just drums and bass, ready for me to fill in the guitar and vocals, and some with up to a dozen tracks, for much more intricate arrangements, but in each case, I'm still performing the guitar and vocals live.

By default, I have muted all the folder tracks (the master for each song). Then, to play any one song, I just un-mute it and press play. Instant "full band" sound.


Anyone else using Reaper for live music?

Best way to explain how to do so? I'm trying to use it live cosegui make the bass line along with addctive drums, but when I put various effects and compression in channels (in insert mode) it starts to catch, would like to know more about this configuration, because here in Brazil Reaper is still new, just feel good all protools and when I speak of reapper look at me with that face of pity, as if I used a bad program, but we know it's not much and wanted to show that the reaper is able (sorry flaws in the message but I'm using google translator) a hug
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Old 02-15-2014, 05:40 PM   #5
serr
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Yep!
Was just bragging about it again here: http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...02&postcount=7
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Old 02-16-2014, 01:45 AM   #6
MCCY
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I'm using reaper on a Win8 Tablet for livesounds from my EWI USB.
This is a nice solution to even use it with the buildin speaker when practicing a bit at home.
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Old 02-17-2014, 04:40 AM   #7
serginhosimoes
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Quote:
Originally Posted by serr View Post
Yep!
Was just bragging about it again here: http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...02&postcount=7

Tanks
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Old 02-26-2014, 05:02 AM   #8
EcBaPr
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it would be cool to see some stuff that makes Reaper more dynamic and adaptable to live performance.. a way of seamlessly moving playback between regions so the timeline could be non linear would be good.. "Loop Regions" that cycle until user input or are pre set to jump to another region after playing through once.

Also something like an "arrange" track would help with songwriting.. It could just be empty clips that acted as proxies for regions so you could quickly script an arrangement by ordering a few proxy clips on an arrange track, rather than needing to splice/paste every audio track in the whole project.

There would be tricky things to implement for that to work well but overall it would be great to see some enhancements and new approaches to timeline playback.
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Old 02-26-2014, 02:18 PM   #9
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I posted a thread on how our band used it for live performances - might be useful for you.

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.p...84#post1206184

While I still use Reaper to write our songs, I've abandoned it *for now* in favor of Apple Mainstage 3 for live performance. However, Reaper's great timecode features may bring me back as we look to sync visuals down the line.

What scared me away was the linear nature and the methods for moving between markers/songs just didn't seem right for what we needed to do.

Reaper wasn't designed to be a live performance tool, although *you can* do a great job with it if you are able to work within the confines or write your own scripts/code. We played about 4 shows with it - it can be done - and it was solid. Very much depends on what kind of show you are putting on.

But - keep in mind that Mainstage (if you have a Mac) is 30 bucks and really designed for live use.

Here are a few issues I had with Reaper for live use. I'm sure there are ways around, I really just couldn't justify the time/effort in hacking a DAW to become a live tool, when an excellent purpose-built live tool (used by Nine Inch Nails, The Dreaming, tons more) was 30 bucks. You don't need to buy Logic to get it - I think it used to be a bundle but its since been de-coupled from Logic.

* Looping regions with SWS extensions seemed to introduce delay. I could only get a perfect loop using the transport, giving us only one place we could play games to extend a solo or improv.

* Moving between songs and knowing which song you are on on was a bit tricky. I guess you could put a giant Text track banner - but I didn't look into it.

* Loading/Unloading VST's completely per song to save system resources seems to be quite a workaround/hack to get working. I'm aware of the live extensions for Reaper, but they just seemed a little kludgy to me.

* Being able to adapt quickly for what happens in a live environment, when things go wrong or change. Example: We were promised a 40 minute set several times, even up to the day before. We got to the show and I was told we had only 30 mins now because the national headliner wanted to go on earlier. This freaked me out as I had to boot up everything and slide things around to make our set fit the timeline. Hoping that now our click track was still lined up (yes it was all grouped, but it's a live show we are talking about - in front of a lot of people.) We had practiced the set many times and I had to carve it up in 30 mins to make things fit. Very stressful. Ended up leaving in a voice cue for the wrong song and then the correct cue came on soon after it. It's things like this you don't want to deal with. Each show you learn something new - just think of what you would do in these cases and have an answer.


Don't get me wrong - you can overcome a lot (if not all) of these issues if you are willing dig deep and invest the time. (I would continue to if I didn't already have an itch to buy a Mac.)

Mainstage definitely has it's own way of thinking and there are some issues if you want to start sending out Timecode. I'm currently trying to work around them and think I've found a solution. Overall I've been happy with MS. We just played our 3rd show with it last night. So far so good.

Now...back to writing songs. On Reaper.
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Old 05-01-2014, 05:13 AM   #10
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OK Tanks
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Old 05-01-2014, 06:35 AM   #11
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I use Reaper live with some tracks, vsti, and video at full screen on the secondary monitor which I connect to a projector.

Everything goes perfectly well. No single crash ever. Only with one problem Sometimes the top pin button appears on top of the video which is seen by the audience unless I do some tricks on the projector to hide the top part a bit
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