Old 03-12-2012, 05:55 AM   #1
ivansc
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Default Midi insert question

Cant believe this has not come up before - I was editing a midi bass line in Reaper and decided to extend the 1 chord in the verse turnaround by inserting an extra bars worth of the existing bass line.

Easy, I thought, just highlight and copy the bit I want, move the cursor to where I want it to be inserted and hit insert.

WTF moment ensues.

What on earth is going on? As far as I can see all that happens is that the new part is pasted OVER the existing part and they both play together.

Am I alone in thinking this implementation of "insert" is weird AND counter-intuitive?

Just when I think I am finally ready to drop BPP.....
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Old 03-12-2012, 09:08 AM   #2
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Originally Posted by ivansc View Post
Cant believe this has not come up before - I was editing a midi bass line in Reaper and decided to extend the 1 chord in the verse turnaround by inserting an extra bars worth of the existing bass line.

Easy, I thought, just highlight and copy the bit I want, move the cursor to where I want it to be inserted and hit insert.

WTF moment ensues.

What on earth is going on? As far as I can see all that happens is that the new part is pasted OVER the existing part and they both play together.

Am I alone in thinking this implementation of "insert" is weird AND counter-intuitive?

Just when I think I am finally ready to drop BPP.....
Sounds likes a job for "paste", not "insert".
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Old 03-12-2012, 09:37 AM   #3
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I think that one requires Trim Content Behind Media Items when editing enabled.
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Old 03-12-2012, 05:01 PM   #4
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ChrisC: Regardless of what you call it, the standard behaviour in Paste is to overlay on top of the existing stuff rather than squeezing the new stuff in where I select for the paste operation.

I will go have a look at the trim options and see, but the default behaviour is just plain illogical as far as I am concerned.
Every time I think I am making progress adapting to Reapers mad MIDI methodology, something like this comes along and bites me in the arse.

I bought Johnny Ginese's videos and hopefully they will help me one I get time to watch them.

Cant believe how bloody long winded some things still are in Reaper MIDI.

O.K. All the trim behind option does is destructively edit the existing material BEHIND the paste.
What I am trying to do is paste AND insert my new material at the point of insert.

Example: I have four bars of section A which then goes to section B and C at the fifth and sixth bars.
I copy one of my first four bars and want to insert it in between section B and section C, but not overlaying either. When I tried just copying and pasting, the paste operation pasted over the existing material without either deleting or moving it over. In other words, the new stuff was pasted in AS WELL as the existing and my track length remained the same, where it should have been one measure longer. All this needs is some sort of option to insert new material and move existing which surely to goodness MUST exist somewhere in all the myriad Reaper options??

Trouble is, I have been through the manual several times and found nothing that logically leads me to a solution & the same goes for Kenny AND Johnny G's videos.
I am now convinced it is just me missing something' as there HAS to be an easy way to do this.

Last edited by ivansc; 03-12-2012 at 05:28 PM.
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Old 03-12-2012, 05:34 PM   #5
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C... the standard behaviour in Paste is to overlay on top of the existing stuff rather than squeezing the new stuff in where I select for the paste operation.

...
In my day job, I predominately work with MS Word and MS Excel. Both of those programs have different paradigms with respect to cut/paste.

In Word, when you cut something, the info that follows generally shifts so there is no gap. When you paste something at the cursor, it forces everything to shift to make room. This is what you expected to happen in Reaper, I gather.

In Excel, when you cut, nothing shifts. When you paste, you just paste over the contents of that location. Nothing shifts. Generally speaking, this is how Reaper works.

I'm not saying either way is right or wrong. My point is, there are different paradigms, and depending on your own experience, one or the other does not feel intuitive.
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Old 03-12-2012, 05:43 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ivansc View Post
Example: I have four bars of section A which then goes to section B and C at the fifth and sixth bars.
I copy one of my first four bars and want to insert it in between section B and section C, but not overlaying either. When I tried just copying and pasting, the paste operation pasted over the existing material without either deleting or moving it over. In other words, the new stuff was pasted in AS WELL as the existing and my track length remained the same, where it should have been one measure longer. All this needs is some sort of option to insert new material and move existing which surely to goodness MUST exist somewhere in all the myriad Reaper options??
I use Regions for this. There are probably other ways. Note that this will copy the section of every item, but if you want to repeat a section, this is not completely without use.

So, make a time selection of the area you want to copy.
Press Shift-R to create a region.
Ctrl-left drag the region to the location you want to copy.

As I said, there are probably other ways, but this hopefully will help a little.
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Old 03-12-2012, 06:31 PM   #7
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Hey Ivan, turn on ripple before you paste and it should do that.
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Old 03-12-2012, 07:15 PM   #8
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Hey Ivan, turn on ripple before you paste and it should do that.
I don't think it will work if the insert point is inside an item.

However, it WILL work, if you first SPLIT the item at the insert point. Note that if you want the items on all the tracks to shift to the right, then every item must be split at this point.

Here's a video showing the two methods discussed.
First is using regions.
Second is using split only the single item, and using ripple editing.
Third is showing splitting all items, and using ripple editing.

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Old 03-12-2012, 07:43 PM   #9
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I don't think it will work if the insert point is inside an item.
True, thanks Kevin. I didn't consider that, pasting in the middle of a clip.

This is certainly where macros come in very handy. I imagine there are probably a few different ways to script that using ripple or insert silence.

Kinda off topic, but related to macros... does anyone but Euphonix make a device for that kinda thing? Maybe a USB device that is a supplement to the keyboard where you can put all kinds of custom functions, maybe on buttons with actual text you could read?

Whenever I look at that $20k Euphonix thing it makes me wonder why the lower level market doesn't make something like that, just that part of it, the programmable buttons.
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Old 03-13-2012, 02:28 AM   #10
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Like I said, workarounds that involve burying beans at a crossroads at midnight and wrestling a greasy goat....

I WILL spend a little time trying to figure out a way to do this, but such a rudimentary, no-brainer operation really should NOT be this complicated.

Has nobody but me ever needed to do this before?
(Mind you I am surprised it took me this long to find this out myself)

If I have no luck, this HAS to be a FR and I sincerely hope all MIDI nerds will vote for it if I make one later.
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Old 03-13-2012, 06:41 AM   #11
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KevinW's ripple solution is probably the easiest way to do this. Copy the bars you want, put the cursor where you want to insert, press 'S' to create a split, turn on ripple editing, and then paste.

It would not be hard for us to create an action "paste item, moving existing items forward" that essentially does the same thing.
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Old 03-13-2012, 12:22 PM   #12
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schwa - that would be SO useful.

As you have probably noticed, I have been struggling with Reaper MIDI for a very long time.
Love everything else about it, but because I am used to one particular sequencer that appears to have one of, if not THE best feature set out there, so still have to use BPP for the majority of my MIDI because I am used to it and it is very very efficient.

This one silly little thing made me realise I need to get more proactive and slap up a few more feature requests that might benefit everyone... and could actually be relatively quick and easy for you guys to implement.

I would be very grateful indeed if this did make it onto your shortlist for then next go-round. It came as quite a shock that something that I do every time I edit in BPP was not readily do-able in Reaper.

And thanks for your prompt response.
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Old 03-13-2012, 12:50 PM   #13
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That function is named "Paste Time" (CTL+Shift+V), in Cubendo. It creates space for whatever is in the paste buffer by pushing everything else on the track down the timeline.

I only mention it because the name of the function is succinct, in case Schwa wants to name his new function similarly.
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Old 03-13-2012, 03:08 PM   #14
ivansc
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Default joke alert

"Insert" works for me....


P.S. In BPP, all I have to do in the MIDI arrange window is highlight and copy the bit I want to insert, move the cursor to the place I want it inserted and then do "insert" from the drop down edit window.
The piece I copied to the clipboard is inserted at the cursor position and the MIDI stuff that was previously there is shifted so it starts where the newly inserted part ends.

FWIW I can also select a section of ALL MIDI tracks and do the same copy/insert routine, which inserts and shifts everything.

But there again if I really want to get cute, I can go to the overall project arranger window, where each bar of each track is represented by a block.
Any, some or all blocks can be cut pasted copied or moved with TWO mouse clicks.

*sigh* You lot just don't know what you are missing.... (grin)

Last edited by ivansc; 03-13-2012 at 03:20 PM.
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Old 03-15-2012, 06:39 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lawrence View Post
Kinda off topic, but related to macros... does anyone but Euphonix make a device for that kinda thing? Maybe a USB device that is a supplement to the keyboard where you can put all kinds of custom functions, maybe on buttons with actual text you could read?

Whenever I look at that $20k Euphonix thing it makes me wonder why the lower level market doesn't make something like that, just that part of it, the programmable buttons.
Perhaps that's why some people are so excited about using their iOS devices with REAPER's OSC control surface support.

If you really just want to use another (tactile) keyboard with dedicated buttons: just get another keyboard, some colorful stickers and markers, and a piece of software like junXion, Pure data, or Max/MSP. For different buttons: Arduino, Sparkfun.
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