Reaper tips & tricks

[Brian Skalinder]

The Reaper forums have a wealth of information, but a lot of it doesn't apply to the type of editing and mastering we do.  I thought I'd create this thread for people to contribute their tips & tricks that are applicable to our types of needs.  There's loads of standard functionality that is fairly obvious, but I had to poke around a bit for some of these options.  I'll kick it off, based on a few questions I posed recently...

• Is it possible to apply different FX to each individual Item within a Track?
  
  • Yes!  Main menu Options | Preferences | Media | Media Item Buttons and tick the FX and No FX checkboxes.  This enables an FX button on each Selection (regardless of whether one has FX associated with the Item) which one may use to open the FX dialog and apply FX to each individual Item.  This was a biggie for me, as one of the features I liked best about Samplitude SE was the ability to apply object-specific FX.  Thrilled to see Reaper does this, too.
• Can I edit at one time one or more FX that are associated with multiple Items?
  
  • No.  I found this disappointing, but fortunately there's a workaround.  See next question.
• Can I copy FX from one Item (or Track) to another?
  
  • Yes!  But not in "stock" form.  Download and install the SWS Extension.  This will enable you to create and save an FX chain (and its parameters) associated with one Item (or Track) and then copy/paste that FX chain into one or more Items (or Tracks).  Not as simple or straightforward as Samplitude's multi-object FX handling, but workable nonetheless.
• Is it possible to have the cursor snap to Markers and/or Item edges when clicking close to those objects' edges?
  
  • Yes and No.  Yes, snapping to Markers is easy - simply left-click the Marker label or line (not sure how I missed this before).  No, I've not found a way to snap the cursor to Item edges.  The workaround I've found for snapping the cursor to Item edges:  when creating an Item, also make it a Region.   After creating the Item, ctrl-double-click to highlight the entire item and then press ctrl-shift-R to create a Region.  Easy.  When navigating the horizontal axis, the cursor now will snap to the edges of the region (which are the same as the edges of the item.  Regions come in handy in other ways, too -- one may render and export Regions, which I don't think is possible with Items. (You may or may not have to tweak the Snap settings...the cursor snapped to Region edges when I tried it, but perhaps in my futzing around I configured my Snap settings properly to enable this activity.)
• Is there a way to create Markers (of one kind or another) that generate individual WAV files when rendering the final mixdown?
  
  • Yes!  Create a region (as noted above) for each Track for which you wish to produce an individual WAV file when rendering.  Then use the Autorender plugin (download; thread) -- basically a macro -- to create individual WAV files from each region specified.  The naming convention isn't quite as flexible as I'd like, but it's still a handy feature and batch-renaming is easy enough with a variety of available freeware tools.
• Not a feature-specific tip, but hopefully helpful nonetheless:  In some cases, there seem to be multiple ways to perform the same function.  When clicking an entity (Item, Track, Selection, etc.), try single-, double-, left-, or right-clicking to see what options become available, and also try doing so while holding down ctrl, shift, alt or some combination thereof.
• While zoomed in on the time axis, use the Navigator to move around in time within the project without having to zoom out.
• I've found the Floating Toolbar helpful, as it's customizable.  It's possible to customize the Main toolbar, too, but it remains fixed in the upper left corner and as far as I can tell it's width is tied to the width of the Track control area. I prefer keeping the Track control area as narrow as it goes, which results in vertical stacking of the buttons in the Main toolbar.  I prefer the buttons stretched out horizontally instead.  Using the Floating Toolbar allows me to have all my buttons spread horizontally.

I'll add more as I stumble across them, but the standard Reaper functionality (FX, Envelopes, EQ, etc. + the above) covers the core of my workflow requirements I've identified so far.

If you have other tips & tricks to add you think others might find helpful...add away!

[Gutbucket]

Just following along to see how Reaper works..
Thanks for starting the thread.

[live2496]

Me too. I need to dig into this a bit. Thanks Brian for passing along your findings.

[Brian Skalinder]

FYI, performed a few updates and additions to the OP.  I've now gotten through the bulk of my standard workflow, aside from envelopes, so not sure how much more I'll be adding.  Hopefully others will chime in.

[Brian Skalinder]

Wow...there are boatloads of actions buried in windows within windows within windows, several layers deep in menus / context menus, or that do not appear in the GUI at all by default.  Fortunately, there are a few lists of actions / or shortcuts (the last appears to be a sub-set of the previous two):

• Actions | Show action list
  
• Help | HTML Lists (auto-generated) | Actions
  
• Help | HTML Lists (auto-generated) | Mouse modifier keys and action shortcuts
  

I had a fairly easy go of it customizing the Floating Toolbar with one-click actions and / or assigning keyboard shortcuts to the ones I want.  Between keyboard shortcuts and the Floating Toolbar, I now have Reaper configured pretty well for my basic, admittedly limited needs:  track and item FX (e.g. mid/side processing, compression/limiting, EQ, etc.), individual and / or grouped item property edits and processing (e.g. fades, normalization, etc.), envelopes (e.g. volume, panning, etc.), navigation (e.g. stepped zoom in/out, zoom to selection/entire project, jump to next/previous marker, etc.).

* My only complaint at the moment:  I can't arrange the Floating Toolbar, Navigator, and Transport and/or Big Clock quite the way I want, as a single row of buttons and displays along the top of the window.  In floating mode, they cover up the timeline and region information at the top, and when docked they're forced to the bottom of the window.  Still, that's a small nit.

Overall, I'm impressed so far.  It's not Samplitude SE, to which I've become accustomed, but it's very similar in many respects -- especially the hugely important object (item, in Reaper-speak) editing.  No program is perfect (including Samplitude), but this is easily Good Enough.    After exploring Samplitude Music Maker -- ugh! a completely different product from SE with almost no useful features for my purposes -- and contemplating the price of the other Samplitude options, it's settled:  I think I'll purchase a Reaper license.   

[Brian Skalinder]

I think I'll purchase a Reaper license.

One final update.  I had a forehead-smacking (d'oh!) moment this morning when I realized I hadn't yet tried running the SAM SE v9 installer in XP-compatible mode.  Aside from a minor installation error that didn't seem important, it installed and seems to be working just fine.  So I'm going to pass on the Reaper license for now.  Hopefully my foray into Reaper will be helpful to others, and I'm thrilled to know Reaper will be waiting for me when I move on from SAM SE.

[Gutbucket]

Back home safe and sound, thanks for sharing the trip.

[page]

I'm bumping Brian's topic since I'm down to just a few things I'm missing (or doing the hard way). I moved to Reaper from Audacity because the VST bridge and effects preview drove me batshit crazy and Izotope's RX (which is awesome in it's own right) isn't a full fledged editor.

I've found that I can apply FX to individual tracks if (and only if) I duplicate the track and set it to mono L/R. Is there a better way to achieve this? In Audacity it was a simple "Split Stereo" option, here I have to:

• Select my stereo set and then [Track > Duplicate Tracks]
• Select each set of tracks and then do [Item > Item Settings > Take Channel Mode: Mono (Left) (or right)]
• Pan each L/R track to the respective L/R pans.

Is there an easier way to break that stereo pair into 2 tracks & items? I may just keep doing that since having individual FX options is really handy.


Also, is there a way to have the master track show by default?


Last, how do you merge two audio files? I can add audio files to tracks, but when I try and mush them together it wants to do fades/crossovers. I just want to connect them. What am I doing wrong?

On the bright side, doing a non-clock sync/mix is much easier here than Audacity if you can live with the stretch mode. I have a video link somewhere that details it.

[Gutbucket]

I recommited to sticking with Samplitude by sealing the deal on their $200 end of year offer which upgrades my limited Samp v10 Master Edition to the full Samplitude Pro X version and includes a license for the additional Cleaning & Restoration Suite (for IzotopeRX-like corrective manipulation).  That will get me around track count limitations which were the main thing I was bumping up against in v10 ME as well as offering a number of other nice features that may prove helpful.

I'll continue to follow the thread to keep a thumb on things Reaper. 

[kirk97132]

Yeah I tried Reaper and IMHO if you are doing computer RECORDING it is a nice program, as for editing/mixing I thought it left a LOT to be desired.  I moved on to Adobe Audition cs5.5 after running V3 for years. 

[page]

Yeah I tried Reaper and IMHO if you are doing computer RECORDING it is a nice program, as for editing/mixing I thought it left a LOT to be desired.  I moved on to Adobe Audition cs5.5 after running V3 for years.

yeah, I can see that. I came from Audacity > RX which was a major step up in so far as plugin support and functions improved dramatically, but RX was strictly an editor; it wouldn't do a mix/render so no 4ch action. While Reaper isn't perfect by any means, it does work and I'm only out $60.

[Walstib62]

OK, here is no doubt a real dumb question. I have used reaper to multitrack record several shows now with no problem at all. It saves wave files as well as reaper peak files (??)
When i try to open a project in reaper, that was recorded in reaper, it won't open, saying that the .wav files aren't recognized. What am I doing wrong?
The files open just fine in Audacity.

[page]

OK, here is no doubt a real dumb question. I have used reaper to multitrack record several shows now with no problem at all. It saves wave files as well as reaper peak files (??)
When i try to open a project in reaper, that was recorded in reaper, it won't open, saying that the .wav files aren't recognized. What am I doing wrong?
The files open just fine in Audacity.

out of curiosity, what happens if you copy just the wav file to another location and add it as an item to a blank project? I wonder if there is something wrong with the caching/peak mechanism (the reapeaks data)

[ironbut]

If you have multi tracks recorded (either more than one stereo or mono tracks) you probably need to select the individual tracks (select all if you like) and drag and drop into the a project.
It sounds like you're trying to open a parent folder which holds each track in their own file.
It's easy to do if you find the file in "Media Explorer" where you can select all the tracks, then drag it up to the open project above it (if Media Explorer is docked).
It might seem like an extra hassle but that's one way you build a mix in Reaper. In editors like Audacity you don't have a mixer  anyway (IIRC) so there's no reason to have this feature.
Also, if you remember the name of the project, you should be able to re-open the whole shebang by selecting it in "recent projects" (Main menu>File>Recent Projects).

[BlindGuyEars]

Please vote for increased accessibility in Reaper!

Hi folks. 
I'm asking you to please take a few minutes of your time and express your support for improved accessibility in Reaper, over in the Reaper online forums.

What do I mean by accessibility?
I mean slight software modifications to Reaper that will allow it to work well with screen access technology used by blind and visually-impaired computer users.

Some reasons why this is important:

1. Many blind and visually-impaired studio professionals, musicians amateur and pro, do not have software choices you do, when it comes to DAW's, plug-ins etc. 

2. Many of us are on limitted incomes, which makes Reaper's low license cost extremely attractive.

3. Many of us do not have brand new purpose-built DAW's, so the fact that Reaper can run on less than optimal hardware is excellent!

4. Accessibility is fast becoming a requirement for colleges, universities and workplaces making software purchasing decisions, so it would be good for Reaper to get ahead of the curve on this.

5. Great PR for Reaper!

If you could express your support for this initiative at the following URL, it would be greatly appreciated!
http://forum.cockos.com/project.php?issueid=3888

Thank you for your time and consideration.

So far, we are only receiving support from other blind and visually-impaired folks. As you can imagine, our numbers are not that impressive, so support from the wider community would be wonderful. Feel free to distribute the link and any of this note to other forums, such as Gearsluts, Sound on Sound, Harmony Central etc.