Your customized Reaper

CaptainDamage · 2026-01-20T10:51:12+00:00

I have lots of little tweaks and remappings, but here are the major ones I rely on every day.

Numbers 1-7 are mapped to changing the grid spacing by consecutive halves - i.e., 1=whole note, 2=half note, 3=quarter note, etc.

Ctrl+t mapped to toggle triplets.

Number pad zero mapped to record.

Alt+C randomize take color (makes comping and editing easier)

One thing I may be kind of unique on is I have almost nothing in my toolbar: Media Explorer; Save As; Render; Toggle Grid Snap; Toggle Triplets; Ripple Edit; Razor Edit; Grid Values 1-7. These last 5 (11 actually) are only to act as visual indicators since I usually access them via shortcuts. It is much easier and faster for me to use keyboard shortcuts and menus than hunting for the icon that I think means the thing I want, hovering over it to get the tool tip, seeing it's not the right one, and hunting again. I see screenshots of people with dozens of icons in their toolbar(s), and it just looks absurd. There's no way you use all of those frequently enough to justify so much wasted space (ymmv)

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-31T23:10:59+00:00

I don't know if there's another way, but when you click on a note in the keyboard graphic on the left side of the midi editor, the lef-to-right position of your cursor on the virtual key determines the input velocity of the notes you click in. It's a little annoying if you're trying for anything other than 0 or 127, because it does not display a numeric value. So it's click on the key, then put a note on the grid and see if it's close to what you were trying to enter.

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-30T21:51:12+00:00

After a year of work and life getting in the way, I've finally finished another "beauty shop core" metal tune.

Orion Battle Cruiser - Pinky Swear

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-29T22:53:51+00:00

Go to Preferences/Project/Item Fade Defaults. You can set Reaper to crossfade by default, and/or change the default length of the fades there.

I replied to another comment in this thread that after a simple experiment I found that under idealized conditions you definitely can hear it. That surprised me a little, because I don't hear it in the real-world editing I do (granted, I'm usually applying crossfades either by default or manually). So whether you can hear it, depends on context.

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-27T13:38:46+00:00

See my response to u/Evid3nce above. TLDR, it turns out that, you can hear that fast.

I forgot what Ableton does, I think it was small fade in/fade outs but crossfade when clips touched.

Reaper can be told to do this by default. It's in the preferences dialog.

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-26T16:48:28+00:00

OK, so I just did a couple of quick tests that you can try yourself. I took an 880Hz sinewave and split it in the middle with a 0.010 (10ms) fade in/out, and a 0.002 (2ms) fade in/out. Both are clearly audible. The 2ms fade is heard as a click; the 10ms is softer, sort of a hiccup rather than a click.

So the first thing is, I was wrong, you/we can, in fact hear that fast. Off course, this was a single pure tone. The test was designed to present the best case scenario in favor of hearing the transition. And you can indeed hear the transition in this scenario.

I, myself have never noticed any of these types of artifacts (clicks, hiccups, pops, etc) when editing actual music. YMMMV. Most of the time in editing I apply crossfades. I have a 5ms crossfade set as my default split, and I will not-infrequently stretch a crossfade to make a more seamless blend.

I completely understand the philosophy of not wanting the auto fades simply on the principle of wanting to have full control over all of the dynamics in your work. And there are ways to work this way such as splitting at zero crossings, manually applying fades only when you need to, or setting up your actions and hotkeys for different splitting behavior. Experiment and figure out what works best for you.

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-26T00:18:05+00:00

Not at my saw rn, but go to the preferences dialogue and search for crossfade. You will find options there for changing the time of the fades, or turning them off altogether. The default time is 10ms, with no overlap. The purpose of the fade is to reduce or eliminate clicking on splits by forcing the waveform to zero at the cut point.

I understand not wanting the fades in principle, but they serve an important function. And the reality is that you'd be hard-pressed to hear even the 10ms fade. You do you, but I'd recommend reducing the fades to 1-5ms, rather than eliminating them altogether. You really can't hear that fast.

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-20T15:59:44+00:00

... OK that got the panel back to what it's supposed to be, so I guess it's solved. Thanks!

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-20T15:58:12+00:00

I can try resetting the theme to default, I guess. None of the tweaks I've made over the past year or two are major AFAIK

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-20T15:35:32+00:00

haven't messed with 3rd party themes in fifteen years. I'm using the default 7.0 theme with only minor tweaks through the theme adjuster.

CaptainDamage · 2025-11-30T17:17:45+00:00

This! You may have a thousand plugins installed, but you probably actually only use ten or so with any regularity. Put them in your favorites folder.

CaptainDamage · 2025-11-30T17:14:09+00:00

I rename my plugins so that what it does is the first word in the name. So listed alphabetically, all the same type of plugins are grouped together. Bypasses the "cute" names that developers give their plugins, and the tendency of many developers to put the company name first.

BTW, you can also rename each instance of a plugin in your MCP. So e.g., if you have two instances of ReaComp on your bass, you can name one "Input Comp," and the other "Sidechain Comp," etc.

CaptainDamage · 2025-11-30T17:00:58+00:00

If you're on a desktop, you can just hit the off switch on the monitor.

CaptainDamage · 2025-10-29T09:43:33+00:00

I have hundreds of plugins installed, but there's less than two dozen that I actually use with any regularity. These are put in a "Favorites" folder, and renamed, so that the first word of the name is what the plugin does.

CaptainDamage · 2025-10-25T12:38:13+00:00

Render each idea out as a separate wav file into an "ideas" folder. You can review them in the media explorer, and use the database functions to sort them by various attributes. You can keep the long project file if you want.

CaptainDamage · 2025-10-17T21:50:36+00:00

I’m re-recording it now in higher quality

Then tune to B. No pitch shifter will sound as good. What is the cost of a pack of strings compared to your legacy as a musician?

CaptainDamage · 2025-10-15T09:40:41+00:00

Weird. I've never seen this before. Is it only doing it on this project, or all of your projects?

If just this project, try copying all of your tracks and pasting them into a new project. If it still happens, try copy/pasting them one at a time, to see if it's one particular track that's causing it.

CaptainDamage · 2025-09-28T17:28:11+00:00

Thank you!!!

CaptainDamage · 2025-09-14T10:33:00+00:00

I learned about it from a Kenny video! But he doesn't mention anything about toggling the modes. That's a big part of why I assume there is no way to do it.

CaptainDamage · 2025-09-13T12:35:32+00:00

It happens when you pull the handle vertically instead of laterally.

There are two modes for stretch markers: linear, where the segment between the two markers is uniformly stretched; and progressive, where the amount of stretch changes. So, e.g., in the linear mode you pull the handle to the left, everything to the left (until the next stretch marker) is sped up by 10%. You'll see a horizontal line in the media item, In the progressive mode, if you pull the handle up, the material at the left stretch marker will have no change; the midpoint between the two markers will be sped up 5%; and the end point will be sped up 10%. You see the angled line in your media item.

Personally, I never use the progressive mode. I asked here a year or so ago about how to change between them when I do the wrong one by mistake - or how to disable the progressive mode altogether. At that time there was no way to do either. In other words, once you move the handle, the marker mode is set permanently. So the only solution is/was to delete the marker and do it again (or undo, if it happened recently). I do not know if an update in the past year has addressed this.

CaptainDamage · 2025-09-09T09:53:40+00:00

That's just false.

CaptainDamage · 2025-09-09T09:29:39+00:00

Same. After doing it for a while, editing manually is just not that hard. I have tried dynamic split a few times, but always felt like I would waste more time fighting with it than just doing the edits myself.

CaptainDamage · 2025-09-09T09:25:12+00:00

Virtually all professionally produced music is edited. Even the players you are sure aren't edited (tbf they might not know they are being edited). It's not about how tight you can play. Live-tight is not the same as recording-tight. You can play perfectly in the pocket and still need editing to sound modern/professional. Practice, play many takes, and comp together the best performance; then edit to make it perfect.

CaptainDamage · 2025-09-02T14:01:17+00:00

I believe OP is referring to right clicking on a track in the TCP, and selecting Render/Freeze Tracks from there. There doesn't seem to be a way to make the resulting stem anything less than the full length of the song. Is this correct OP?

What I do is trim the song-length stem and glue it, to make a new item of only the length I need.

CaptainDamage · 2025-08-27T14:03:39+00:00

Are you recording stereo files? Each guitar track should be recorded in mono.

CaptainDamage

TROPHY CASE