Reaper tips

[Argle]

Ok that's enough heavy shit for now, let's do some quick tips to unwind. No doubt you are aware of splitting items by S. That's an ok way to trim items, but I prefer the trim left and right commands. Bind them to a couple of ergonomic keys and you'll find yourself using it all the time rather than splitting and deleting.

[Argle]

It's easy to miss, but you can actually search the Preferences page! Great if you're looking for a possible preference but don't know where it is located.

[Argle]

There are four different envelopes you can apply on a per-item basis: volume, pan, mute, and pitch. Of the four, pitch envelopes are by far the most interesting and useful. By default the range is +- 3 semitones. That's ok, but you can change that, allowing you to do wild pitch swoops. Additionally you can quantize the pitch.

The limitations of pitch envelopes is they are item-only, and don't work on MIDI. But for MIDI pitch bending you can refer back to the ReaControlMIDI post.

So yep, pitch envelopes, give them a try.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Argle

[Argle]

You may be familiar with Slate Trigger or Drumagog. They are (expensive) programs that let you take recorded drums and overlay or replace them with drum samples. You can actually do the same thing with a stock Reaper plugin! Granted it's not nearly as powerful, but if you're in a bind and need to do drum replacement this could be just the thing. It's called drumtrigger. Load it up and check it out. Here's a preset that I made.

Threshold depends on the level of your signal. I set this based on a signal that has been normalized.

Set the retrigger interval high enough so you don't get unwanted flams.

Original signal mix, easy enough. 100% if you want to hear the original drum, 0% if you want to replace the drum.

For MIDI note, 38 corresponds to the GM snare specification. Set it accordingly.

Trigger align can be used to nudge the timing.

So, you strap this to your live track. Then you create a MIDI send from the live track to your drum virtual instrument. Give it a try, it works surprisingly well for quick and dirty drum replacement. In case someone sends you awful quality live drums to mix, this gives you a way out.

Edited November 25, 2013 by Argle

[Argle]

Screensets are a good way to economize your windows and workflow. If you have only a single monitor they will be of particular use, since there are way too many useful windows to reasonably keep on the screen at any time. But even multi-monitor setups can benefit from screensets. I'll go over window screensets which I think are the most immediately useful, but there are track view and selection sets as well that you can look into.

Ok, so here is a basic setup, the arrange window and mixer. Let's save it as the first screenset.

Next is a sort of track inspector screenset. Only a single mixer channel is shown at a time, the one that is currently selected. To give more arrange space you can hide the master track. This will be the second screenset.

Last we'll create a screenset with the track list and project media bay. Save as the third screenset.

Now because the first 3 screensets have default key mappings of F7/F8/F9 (can be changed from action list), let's switch between them. Pretty sweet. People working on a laptop or single PC screen will find immense use from screensets.

Of note on the screenset page is auto-save when switching screensets. Enabling this will automatically save changes to your current screenset when switching, but you can potentially screw up a screenset.

[Argle]

There is a really cool step sequencer being actively developed called sequencer_baby. All thanks to the Reaper forum user jnif for taking an utterly barebones and not very useful toy, and transforming it into a wicked tool. To see what an amazing accomplishment this has become, take a look at the original sequencer_baby plugin (included in Reaper). Then take a look at sequencer_baby_v2 (included in v4.5). Then look at jnif's current iteration of the plugin.

Check out the forum thread here for links and general discussion. The current version is 35 (!), and it's only been developed by jnif for a month and a half.

To install it you'll want to download the zip, unpack the plugin and copy it to your Reaper folder\Effects\MIDI.

Some great features about this step sequencer is the drum mode, the ability to select the number of rows you want, each row can be set to a custom MIDI note, freely resizable GUI, and in the latest iteration, automation lanes.

So, yeah, keep your eye on this plugin for damn sure. It's not much to look at, but it's already been packed with features.

Here's a quick demo I made showing the basic features.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Argle

[MindWanderer]

Great stuff, Argle. I'm installing a brand-new computer this weekend, so I'll get to put a bunch of your customization suggestions to use from scratch. It'll be a dual-monitor setup, so I'm looking forward to figuring out how to optimize my visual space. And actually, Metal Man's tip for how to quickly play back an imported MIDI without having to assign all the tracks to instruments was pretty great, too (although I haven't tried it yet).

One suggestion: Can you organize the tips by category? E.g. Shortcuts, Display/Layout, and Features? I find tips that let me do completely new things much more valuable than ones that let me save a few seconds.

Also, I saw this:

I use CamelPhat to do "fake" sidechaining; four-on-the-floor offbeat pumping. It's super easy to accomplish this if you have a plugin that has an LFO that can modulate volume, and a ramping LFO shape.

You don't necessarily need an LFO plugin for this, since Reaper lets you use an LFO in place of an automation envelope. It's not as versatile as the LFO options that come with some plugins (I use TAL-Filter), but it's there, and, usefully, it applies to anything you can assign to an envelope. I particularly find it fun to apply an LFO to the LFO (useful for wobble effects).

[Argle]

Great stuff, Argle. I'm installing a brand-new computer this weekend, so I'll get to put a bunch of your customization suggestions to use from scratch. It'll be a dual-monitor setup, so I'm looking forward to figuring out how to optimize my visual space.

I've been thinking about doing a post on using dual monitors. It's really pretty straightforward, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt doing a writeup.

One suggestion: Can you organize the tips by category? E.g. Shortcuts, Display/Layout, and Features? I find tips that let me do completely new things much more valuable than ones that let me save a few seconds.

I've been thinking about that as well, since the first post has turned into a complete mess.

Also, I saw this:You don't necessarily need an LFO plugin for this, since Reaper lets you use an LFO in place of an automation envelope. It's not as versatile as the LFO options that come with some plugins (I use TAL-Filter), but it's there, and, usefully, it applies to anything you can assign to an envelope. I particularly find it fun to apply an LFO to the LFO (useful for wobble effects).

If you're speaking of parameter modulation, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you can modulate a volume envelope, only plugin parameters. So you would have to modulate a gain knob in some plugin to achieve a sidechain sound. Yes that works, but is rather a lot of work compared to loading up an FX chain of CamelPhat that has been saved with a sidechaining preset. Parameter modulation is awesome though, definitely plan to do a post on that.

[MindWanderer]

If you're speaking of parameter modulation, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you can modulate a volume envelope, only plugin parameters. So you would have to modulate a gain knob in some plugin to achieve a sidechain sound. Yes that works, but is rather a lot of work compared to loading up an FX chain of CamelPhat that has been saved with a sidechaining preset.

Well, yeah. There are many ways of doing the same thing, and since this is a thread specifically about Reaper, an option that uses its native features seemed appropriate--especially when the suggestion on the table comes from an $85 plugin. Especially since Reaper is a prime choice for people who don't want to spend a lot on a DAW. Although, as I said, TAL-Filter can do this as well. And sidechain compression, and sidechain gating, can be much more powerful tools when used creatively.

[jnWake]

One thing I've always wanted to post here... About envelopes. Pressing V will open/close the volume envelope of the current active track. Same works for the pan envelope by pressing P, so you don't have to spend time creating functions for that

[Argle]

Since MindWandered mentioned it, here are some ideas for setting up a dual monitor setup. You can do good stuff with a single monitor and various screensets, but dual monitors give you more freedom than a single monitor ever can. The windows of most importance are the arrange window, mixer, and MIDI editor (for people who do MIDI). Those are the ones you will always be switching between, so we need a good setup for them.

The simplest setup is to simply extend the Reaper window to cover the second screen. Simple but IMO not the best setup, since you have to split your gaze vertically as well as horizontally. Better to have different windows in the two monitors. Let's keep the arrange window on the left monitor and have the mixer on the right monitor. One way to do that is drag and drop the mixer as a right-docked window off the arrange window, then adjust to fill the screens.

Much better. The other important screen is the MIDI editor. I like that to go in the secondary screen as well. This is a million times better than trying to split the arrange window and MIDI editor on one screen, which is almost unusable. For added quickness use the action to toggle the mixer (Ctrl-M by default), and you can bounce between the mixer and MIDI editor.

Lastly you can have separate windows, rather than have them docked onto the main window. Remembering back to the docking tutorial, you ctrl-click and drag on a window's tab to create a floating docked window. This allows you to have a floating docked window in your secondary monitor.

So there we go, ideas for dual monitor setups. Pretty straightforward. I recently added a third monitor and that's a bit more difficult deciding what to display on it. Currently I use it for the navigator, which looks pretty dreadful when you squash it down, but nice and usable in a full screen.

[Argle]

One thing I've always wanted to post here... About envelopes. Pressing V will open/close the volume envelope of the current active track. Same works for the pan envelope by pressing P, so you don't have to spend time creating functions for that

To be extremely pedantic, those ARE actions that you're speaking of. The default key binding happens to be P and V, but they appear in the actions list like everything else and the key assignments can be changed.

[MindWanderer]

Beautiful, just the sort of tips I was looking for. That'll help my productivity immensely. I've never used dual monitors at all before, so some of these ideas never would have occurred to me.

Another action I make too much use of is H, the "Humanize" key in the MIDI editor. I know humanization != randomization, and randomizing is what it does, but in a time crunch it can be better than nothing.

[Argle]

Arp!0 (Arp Bang Zero) is classic Reaper... terrible name (Cockos, anyone? Stretch Markers??), GUI is not much to look at, but surprisingly deep and powerful. It's a MIDI arpeggiator. While it doesn't come with Reaper, you can grab it here for free. It does more than mindless arping, it has gating, transposing, accents, and a plethora of other control possibilities. The ability to click and drag parameter steps makes for fast editing. A no-brainer download for any electronic MIDI composer.

Here's a quick demo showing the basic features.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Argle

[Argle]

Ok I separated everything into categories in the OP. I hope it makes some kind of sense.

[MindWanderer]

Ok I separated everything into categories in the OP. I hope it makes some kind of sense.

Thanks! Looks good.

sequencer_baby and arpbangzero make my eyes glaze over... those look like they need fairly extensive tutorials to make any sense of. At least, unless you have some idea in advance of what they're supposed to be used for.

[jnWake]

To be extremely pedantic, those ARE actions that you're speaking of. The default key binding happens to be P and V, but they appear in the actions list like everything else and the key assignments can be changed.

Oh sure but I meant you don't have to define them separately so you can save some time

[Argle]

Thanks! Looks good.

sequencer_baby and arpbangzero make my eyes glaze over... those look like they need fairly extensive tutorials to make any sense of. At least, unless you have some idea in advance of what they're supposed to be used for.

Haha, they may seem that way but they're not half as complicated as they look. Sequencer_baby is a MIDI step sequencer for drums ala what you'd find in FL Studio, and Arp!0 is a MIDI arpeggiator. For seq_baby I added a quick demo to the post showing the basic features. For Arp!0 the still shot looks more daunting than once you start using it. I made a demo of that here. There are many more complicated options, but you can just ignore them really. Note that you can collapse sections you don't need.

Both tracks output MIDI so remember to put them first in the chain, before any virtual instruments.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Argle

[Argle]

If you have 500 plugins the FX browser can look pretty ridiculous. Sure you can and should use the filter to find things, but there are more ways to be organized. That's where custom FX folders come in. Once you have some custom folders set up you can right-click on the FX button of a track to quickly access your folder structure.

[MindWanderer]

Oh my God this stuff is turning out awesome. SWS is absolutely amazing--I thought I was adding it just for the new Actions, but it's a rabbithole of tools. Just started looking at sequencer_baby; I need to learn how to use that effectively so it doesn't just keep playing for the whole song. Automating the volume would work but seems like a crude way of doing it.

Incidentally, I started with your "create folder" action and took it a few more steps for when I need a quick start on a compo: I made one action that imports a MIDI from a file, puts it all into one folder, colors it, renames it, shrinks it down, and opens up the I/O window so that routing is to the hardware MIDI is right there. Couldn't figure out any way to do that last step automatically, or to automatically strip all the CC items and stuff, but still this will be handy. One annoying thing, though: if you cancel one interactive part of the action, it keeps trying to do the rest and gets very confused (though Consolidate Undo Points makes this really minor).

[Argle]

Yeah man, SWS is must have. I may go over some of the other features like cue bus creation and the console.

Mind sharing your custom action? I always love having new ideas for time-saving macros. For stripping CCs, I have a custom action that is run from the MIDI Editor.

It sets the note channel to 01 as well, because I've found other channels can be problematic for certain VSTs. This is definitely a macro that every OCR Reaper user should have.

[Argle]

Take a look at this, then take a look at this. Did you see the difference? In the quick FX list, the plugin names are all preceded by VST, DX, or JS. While the quick FX chain list doesn't have those annoying labels. So, is it worth it to you to take the time to save all your favorite plugins as FX chains? It was for me. When I get a new plugin I would rather spend a minute saving it as an FX chain, rather than have to look at that VST label hundreds of times.

Incidentally, another benefit to using FX chains to access your plugins is the ability to have nested folders, which the regular FX browser can't do. So you could have a Distortion fx folder, and inside it a Guitar distortion subfolder.

Just an idea for you to consider!

[MindWanderer]

Mind sharing your custom action? I always love having new ideas for time-saving macros.

Sure. Feel free to suggest improvements.

Speaking of this:

I've found other channels can be problematic for certain VSTs

There seem to be some strange effects of channel selection with some VSTi's that I can't make a lot of sense of. With some instruments, when a note in a lower-numbered channel follows a note in a higher-numbered channel, with no gap, it has some specific "blending" effects. In some VSTi's (Zebralette and TAL-Noisemaker), it's a way to get portamento to trigger without notes overlapping. In Synth1's arpeggiator, it can make the pattern become offset. It probably isn't a Reaper-specific question, but why does this happen?

Edit: Fixed bugginess in previous version of custom action.

Edited December 16, 2013 by MindWanderer

[Argle]

Quick tip today, but you can swipe the mute, solo, and record arm buttons to quickly change of bunch of them at once. This can be done in both the arrange and mixer windows.

[Argle]

There seem to be some strange effects of channel selection with some VSTi's that I can't make a lot of sense of. With some instruments, when a note in a lower-numbered channel follows a note in a higher-numbered channel, with no gap, it has some specific "blending" effects. In some VSTi's (Zebralette and TAL-Noisemaker), it's a way to get portamento to trigger without notes overlapping. In Synth1's arpeggiator, it can make the pattern become offset. It probably isn't a Reaper-specific question, but why does this happen?

VSTs seem to react to different channel #s in unpredictable ways. I know it was a problem for me in Omnisphere, IIRC note channel overrides track routing, so it was like, wtf is going on here?? You would probably not encounter it recording or drawing MIDI, because the default is channel 01. So when you import a game MIDI and start having weird issues it's very annoying.

Edited December 13, 2013 by Argle