REAPER update to 5.0

[minerman]

Have you seen the Kenny Gioa video's on the main Download page?,,, Very handy!!

Yeah man, I've watched a few of 'em, they are pretty informative, but I don't use a lot of the functions Reaper has, honestly, I do pretty simple stuff...

I haven't fucked with it too much. I probably don't know 90% of what REAPER does. But I don't want to spend hours learning shit that has nothing to do with how my music will sound. I have a good workflow now, I don't need anything more. Like I said, I'd be happy with REAPER 4.0. Other than fixing bugs or whatever, the rest is just fluff to me.

Right, but the toolbars I've made are "Offline FX", "Bring FX Online", "Render MP3", "Render Track to mono", just little stuff that makes it quite a bit easier for me to do things with just one mouse click, instead of several...It's just a whole lot easier & faster for me to hit one of the toolbars I made, rather than to click through a bunch of menus....

It's really easy to customize this thing however you'd wanna...As long as I've been using it this is really the first time I've ever did anything like that...

 

[RAMI]

Right, but the toolbars I've made are "Offline FX", "Bring FX Online", "Render MP3", "Render Track to mono", just little stuff that makes it quite a bit easier for me to do things with just one mouse click, instead of several...It's just a whole lot easier & faster for me to hit one of the toolbars I made, rather than to click through a bunch of menus....

It's really easy to customize this thing however you'd wanna...As long as I've been using it this is really the first time I've ever did anything like that...

I wasn't directing my comment at anyone. Whatever works for you is good.

But the last 2 you mentioned, "Render MP3" and "Render Track to mono" already only take one click once you hit the Render button. I'm not sure why you'd need a short cut for that. I hit Render, the box comes up, I then choose MP3 or Wave, and Mono or Stereo is also right there. Not saying there's anything wrong with what you did, but to me, those are already things that literally take me about 1.5 seconds to accomplish. The "FX" things you're talking about, I don't even know what those mean.

 

[minerman]

I wasn't directing my comment at anyone. Whatever works for you is good.

Oh I know that dude...it's all good!!!

But the last 2 you mentioned, "Render MP3" and "Render Track to mono" already only take one click once you hit the Render button. I'm not sure why you'd need a short cut for that. I hit Render, the box comes up, I then choose MP3 or Wave, and Mono or Stereo is also right there. Not saying there's anything wrong with what you did, but to me, those are already things that literally take me about 1.5 seconds to accomplish. The "FX" things you're talking about, I don't even know what those mean.

Well, for me the "Render MP3" thing is I'd have to hit the "File" thing at the top, then find "Render", then hit the actual render button in the dialog. I know I could have just hit "Ctrl/Alt/R" (or whatever it is), but for me, just the single button brings up the render dialog box now....

The "offline fx" takes your effects offline, & frees up whatever RAM/CPU those were using...Say if you're using a bunch of plugs that are CPU heavy, you can "offline" 'em so they don't use any at all, for example...

The "render to mono/stereo" buttons I made freezes the tracks I have selected in the project/song, applies the fx to 'em, & takes all the fx offline all at one whack...Basically does the "apply fx to new take" thing, or "freeze track to stereo/mono" more or less...

Just little simple shit I did man, that makes it a little easier for me.....

 

[DM60]

We have to remember, Reaper is aimed at the HR crowd, they are not trying to compete with PT. They know many of us are trying to get a decent recording out of some sub-par equipment. I think on many of those things he is trying to keep it real. Like there is a statement Reaper works really well with WINE.

That being said, there is still an interface compatibility issue with Linux. So I wouldn't run out and install on a Linux machine just yet.

 

[DM60]

 

[ashcat_lt]

It's great to know about all the customization power in Reaper, but in order for it to be useful you first have to identify those things that you do regularly enough to warrant custom actions or whatever. Then you have to take the time to figure out how to do it. I often find myself doing something and thinking it would be nice to have a quicker/easier way, but I'm sure as fuck not going to stop what I'm doing to go find/make that. It would interrupt whatever flow I've got going, and most of the time I'm pretty sure it would only really apply to the one project, so...

I do need to work on learning the actions for zooming and scrolling and navigating the arrange window at some point. Even just memorizing the default key combinations would make things so much quicker and easier.

The one custom action I have made so far was on my live machine I made it so that pushing the spacebar saves the project as well as toggling play/stop. This was an attempt to keep me from shutting down after the gig without saving. Not something I want on my studio machine, but it has already saved my stupid/drunk ass at least once.

 

[minerman]

It's great to know about all the customization power in Reaper, but in order for it to be useful you first have to identify those things that you do regularly enough to warrant custom actions or whatever. Then you have to take the time to figure out how to do it.

This is exactly why I made those custom toolbars, because I do use those functions quite a bit, & it's just a lot easier for me to hit one of those buttons than to scroll through the menus. Sure, it's still about as fast using the menus, but it's all about what's good/easy for me....that's why I like Reaper so much...

 

[Greg_L]

I've been reading thread trying to come up with a shortcut that I need. I can't think of one. I'm like Rami, I use Reaper at about 10% of it's capability. Hell, maybe even less. I record like I'm going to tape. I don't even know the keyboard controls.

I have a huge project I need to finish before I do this fucking upgrade. I aint risking it.

 

[minerman]

I've been reading thread trying to come up with a shortcut that I need. I can't think of one. I'm like Rami, I use Reaper at about 10% of it's capability. Hell, maybe even less. I record like I'm going to tape. I don't even know the keyboard controls.

I have a huge project I need to finish before I do this fucking upgrade. I aint risking it.

I hear ya man, the things I've mentioned are really easy & simple to do, otherwise, I wouldn't do 'em....

This is my big, fancy toolbar I customized. I took more than half that shit off there, because I never used it anyway, & replaced 'em with buttons that do functions I do use quite a bit (the theme button I put there because the theme editor is in the actions list now...I'll probably dump that button eventually, the new theme has some things I don't like & I'm still working on 'em trying to get used to it, but that's just me...)...


I have one other button/toolbar in the midi editor that I made, it randomizes velocities for my drum programming. It has 2 sliders (highest level/lowest level), & I just select the notes, adjust the sliders & it's done. This actually saves me a shit-load of time...I could use the built-in humanize function, but I have more control over it this way IMO...YMMV...

I would recommend a portable install if you did wanna try the update, but I've honestly not had any trouble at all, & I have a bunch of songs/projects that I was kinda worried about, but not now...

 

[mjbphotos]

I have a huge project I need to finish before I do this fucking upgrade. I aint risking it.

Doing the update didn't affect anything for me, I just chose the 4.xx GUI and went into half a dozen songs (tweaking mixes) with no discernible difference.

 

[jiff 41]

I've been reading thread trying to come up with a shortcut that I need. I can't think of one. I'm like Rami, I use Reaper at about 10% of it's capability. Hell, maybe even less. I record like I'm going to tape. I don't even know the keyboard controls.

A very handy shortcut I did (I've only got a few) is after recording I press 'S' to save or 'D', It just saves a little bit of time messing with that box that comes up!!,, especially when doing takes/mistakes , Just my workflow, which is what it's all about?

 

[RAMI]

A very handy shortcut I did (I've only got a few) is after recording I press 'S' to save or 'D', It just saves a little bit of time messing with that box that comes up!!,, especially when doing takes/mistakes , Just my workflow, which is what it's all about?

Isn't it "Control + S"? "S" splits items. What does "D" do? I thought that's "Dynamic Split".

 

[Greg_L]

So yall are making shortcuts for things that only take a half second anyway? No judgement, but that kind of stuff doesn't matter to me.

 

[RAMI]

So yall are making shortcuts for things that only take a half second anyway? No judgement, but that kind of stuff doesn't matter to me.

That's what it looks like to me, too. It's like pressing one button instead of another. So far, any short cut I've seen is a short cut for something that takes about 1.5 seconds to do anyway. I don't mean in this thread, I mean over the years.

 

[Greg_L]

I guess the only "shortcut" I use is my own self-made track template for drums. I'll load up 8 tracks at once for my drums. They're all assigned to their corresponding mics/inputs already because I always leave my drum mics plugged into the same inputs. So that does actually save a little time from loading each track one at a time, labeling them, and assigning inputs. Maybe 30 whole seconds. I'm so efficient!

 

[DM60]

If you look at the vid I posted about what is new in 5, they talked about improving the grouping function. Has anyone tried this yet? I would think Greg your drum template would be using grouping.

 

[RAMI]

If you look at the vid I posted about what is new in 5, they talked about improving the grouping function. Has anyone tried this yet? I would think Greg your drum template would be using grouping.

I still haven't figured out grouping. I use folders, and I have a feeling that's what Greg's talking about, too, but I might be wrong.

 

[ashcat_lt]

I've actually saved quite a few track templates, and I've actually used a couple of them more than once.

I did save over the default project so that any time I start a new project it automatically loads an instance of EZDrummer with a simple MIDI click track (half-time, double tempo for better MIDI resolution)looped out about fifteen minutes and an a track assigned to the input (record armed and monitoring on) I usually use for my guitar with an instance of GTune and the PodFarm Vox model tweaked to a reasonable starting place. That's where most of my new recordings usually start anyway, so it saves me maybe a minute getting up and running.

 

[Greg_L]

I don't know anything about grouping or folders. I send my individual drum tracks to a group drum track that I make myself, but I do it manually. If there is some function that does that for me, I have no idea what it is, where it is, or how to do it. I adjust each piece of the kit with the individual tracks, and use the group track for compression on the whole kit and reverb. I don't even know what "folders" are in Reaper.

I really am a philistine with this stuff. I run Reaper updates as a matter of habit cuz it's there, but I don't know about or use 99% of the features in Reaper. I keep my shit basic and simple. If it means a mix takes one minute longer than it could with shortcuts and DAW features, so be it.

 

[RAMI]

I don't know anything about grouping or folders. I send my individual drum tracks to a group drum track that I make myself, but I do it manually. If there is some function that does that for me, I have no idea what it is, where it is, or how to do it. I adjust each piece of the kit with the individual tracks, and use the group track for compression on the whole kit and reverb. I don't even know what "folders" are in Reaper.

HA! That's funny. I'm the exact opposite. I use folders but never figured out how to make groups.