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+--- Thread: Reaper Questions... (/showthread.php?tid=707)
Reaper Questions... - Terry93D - 09-27-2019
...hello all. I use Reaper primarily, and there are some aspects of it that have been irritating me just a little bit. Hopefully ya'll can help.
Firstly, how do I add the option for quintuplets? Yes, I know I could fake it by fiddling with different sizes of triplet, but that's troublesome and irritating. It's not even necessarily that I use quintuplets a lot in my music. I just want the option.
Secondly, the MIDI controls irritate me. When I'm fiddling with volume or expression, it's a bunch of green bars. Workable, but ugly, and I think it skews my perception in a way that a line and points along the line wouldn't. If there's a way to change that, I'd very much appreciate it.
Thirdly and lastly (for now), is there a way to build a "tempo track"? I don't know how to explain this. I know Reaper allows tempo markers and so on, but I want something a little easier to use - once again, akin to a line. Something that allows for me to draw the tempo and create a more naturalistic ebb and flow in the tempo then a bunch of separate markers with machine-esque transitions-to-new-marker.
If anyone can help me... please. I would appreciate it.
RE: Reaper Questions... - Paul Battersby - 09-27-2019
(09-27-2019, 01:33 AM)Terry93D Wrote: Firstly, how do I add the option for quintuplets?
The way I would do it, is to draw 5 notes of the desired length (16th note, 8th note, whatever), select the 5 notes, then, while holding the Alt-key (assuming you're using Windows) drag the right edge of the last note towards the first note. This will compress the distance between the notes. Just compress them to fit into the desired beat.
(09-27-2019, 01:33 AM)Terry93D Wrote: Secondly, the MIDI controls irritate me. When I'm fiddling with volume or expression, it's a bunch of green bars. [...] If there's a way to change that, I'd very much appreciate it.
Currently there is no way to change that but the people at Reaper are currently developing and testing a feature that will allow you to draw smooth MIDI curves within the MIDI editor.
(09-27-2019, 01:33 AM)Terry93D Wrote: Thirdly and lastly (for now), is there a way to build a "tempo track"?
Click the "trim" button in the master track to bring up a menu that will allow you to make the tempo map visible. You can then draw points in the tempo map to represent tempo changes. Initially the changes will look like a square wave but select a point or points, left click to bring up a context menu and you can change "point shape" from square to linear so instead of the tempo changing instantly from one point to the next, it will be a gradual change. I don't think you can draw tempo curves.
RE: Reaper Questions... - Chris Spyratos - 09-27-2019
(09-27-2019, 01:33 AM)Terry93D Wrote: Firstly, how do I add the option for quintuplets? Yes, I know I could fake it by fiddling with different sizes of triplet, but that's troublesome and irritating. It's not even necessarily that I use quintuplets a lot in my music. I just want the option.
Quoting from the Reaper forums:
You can type the grid value manually. So, 1/20 would be quarter note quintuplets grid, 1/40 would be eight note quintuplets, and so on (basically, you take the note value and multiply by 5).
(09-27-2019, 01:33 AM)Terry93D Wrote: Secondly, the MIDI controls irritate me. When I'm fiddling with volume or expression, it's a bunch of green bars. Workable, but ugly, and I think it skews my perception in a way that a line and points along the line wouldn't. If there's a way to change that, I'd very much appreciate it.
I personally use automation items for modulation, expression etc. CC's in the midi editor are cumbersome. Just put ReaControlMIDI on the track FX and use this to control CCs.
(09-27-2019, 01:33 AM)Terry93D Wrote: Thirdly and lastly (for now), is there a way to build a "tempo track"? I don't know how to explain this. I know Reaper allows tempo markers and so on, but I want something a little easier to use - once again, akin to a line. Something that allows for me to draw the tempo and create a more naturalistic ebb and flow in the tempo then a bunch of separate markers with machine-esque transitions-to-new-marker.
Reaper doesn't have a tempo track. It has a tempo map with limited possibilities. I use playrate instead for nuanced alterations in the tempo. This can be controlled by automation items as well. Careful though, as it can mess with the pitch in audio items.
For the last two I personally hope that they will be sorted out in version 6.
RE: Reaper Questions... - Mattias Westlund - 09-27-2019
(09-27-2019, 03:35 AM)Paul Battersby Wrote:(09-27-2019, 01:33 AM)Terry93D Wrote: Secondly, the MIDI controls irritate me. When I'm fiddling with volume or expression, it's a bunch of green bars. [...] If there's a way to change that, I'd very much appreciate it.
Currently there is no way to change that but the people at Reaper are currently developing and testing a feature that will allow you to draw smooth MIDI curves within the MIDI editor.
This is one of several similar reasons I never bothered upgrading to REAPER 5. The piano roll lanes have been finicky and unintuitive forever and despite tons and tons of complaints from users over the years, the develpers have chosen to just leave it as is. More fun to implement new features than fix old broken ones I guess.
Nowadays I'm so used to the way it works that it doesn't bother me as much as it used to when I migrated from Cubase to REAPER some decade ago, but it's still a very clunky system. If REAPER 6 fixes this and other longstanding bugs and quirks, I might consider getting a new license.
RE: Reaper Questions... - Paul Battersby - 09-28-2019
(09-27-2019, 08:01 PM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: This is one of several similar reasons I never bothered upgrading to REAPER 5.
I can't remember if we've already discussed this here somewhere but, have you seen the Julian Sader MIDI CC editing scripts? To me they are essential MIDI tools. Hopefully soon to become obsolete by being replaced by something even better as a native part of Reaper but until then, I'd hate to be without them again.
RE: Reaper Questions... - Terry93D - 10-01-2019
Thanks ya'll for the excellent answers. I now can not only get triplets but quintuplets, even septuplets (septlets?) or duplets (in compound signatures). I will definitely be using that automation thing - ReaControlMIDI - for my next projects, and thanks also for the playrate thing. Given its limitation regarding audio items I'm not sure whether or not I'll use it, so I hope that they add something to enable drawing a tempo curve in the future.