I might actually finish a song

[caleb]

I have had a VERY large period of producing zero in my little home office come studio.

I'm happy to say that REAPER seems to have spurred me on a little to actually finish something. I'm speaking too soon of course - I may not actually finish anything.

However, I have to be thankful to REAPER for that. I haven't done a song end-to-end in the program but I've found that it's quite good for finishing.

Actually, some areas where it's really helped out is:

- reasonably low latency monitoring while recording from my keyboard - this has been really helpful to me.
- stable recording of midi during playback. I've had troubles with this previously and REAPER has really been "it just works" for me
- playback stability in general. In the song I'm working on I'm finding that other than the occasional glitch in playback (more my system than anything else) I haven't had too many issues with overwhelming crackling or not coping as I've had before.

These 3 factors have helped me like you wouldn't believe. I'm not fighting the program just to record and listen.

For example, I just loop play a chorus while playing on my keyboard into ST2 (Philharmonik) soundset to trial out and put together a violin part. I found this quite annoying in EnergyXT because I had real issues with performance, but REAPER (other than that occasional glitch) is pretty smooth and I find that I can find my next part easier than in EnergyXT.

I'm pretty sure I'll use REAPER quite alot going forward for recording, mixing etc... and I'll probably use EnergyXT to do basic song structure and composition in the early phases. Also - EnergyXT has a really cool live arrangement trigger functionality which is good for coming up with arrangement ideas etc...

I might even finish the song I'm working on! That says everything to me about a program.

If - I - could - just - finish - a - song!!!!!!!

:D

Regards
Caleb

[eightnine]

Lucky you, I haven't finished anything but stuff for work lately.

And +1 on the combo eXT for composing/arranging + Reaper for everything else.
Killer applications, put together it's like 80 euros, but infinite value.

[caleb]

Hey - do you use that combo too?

I actually ditched using EnergyXT as a plug-in in REAPER as I found it too painful. For a start REAPER steals all your keystrokes meaning that you are stuck with just using the mouse in eXT.

Then I started to find issues with some of my plug-ins and audio routing within eXT VSTi which I hadn't experienced in the standalone.

Then I noticed that if you're not careful you lose the ability to open the separate midi editor in eXT - that one well and truly pisses me off.

For the moment, I'm just intending on using it as a separate sketch pad to avoid those issues.

Do you see any of these issues?

Regards
Caleb

[eightnine]

I never tried eXT inside Reaper, and not even in other apps anyway, I always used it as a standalone app. Just one time I loaded it in cubase to route some stuff in an old project.

I use it exactly like you, as a separate sketch pad.
I lay down songs/sounds/samples and arrange them while also playing with a few fx (can't wait for multicore support) then I render the raws and mix on Reaper.

I find it being a perfect workflow setup for me, I just gotta find another app for mastering cause I sold WaveLab along with Cubase Sx.

When I get home for work I'll try what you describe and see if I get any of those issues.

[caleb]

Try this for the separate midi editor one.

Open a midi part in eXT VSTi in the separate midi editor, do some editing.
Close the midi editor.
Close eXT VSTi.
Save the REAPER project.
Now load up the REAPER project.
Open up eXT VSTi.
Attempt to open the midi part in the separate editor.

BANG! No midi editor opening up. And it never will for that project again. *cue evil music*

That was pretty much it for me and eXT VSTi in REAPER.
I'm hoping XT2 when it becomes a VSTi/fx won't have that problem.

In fact it would be awesome if eXT played much more nicely in REAPER because it has a real advantage if you like transerring midi from eXT into REAPER in a hurry. Switch midi outputs in eXT, Apply FX as new take (MIDI). Lightning quick way of turning a whole pattern based composition into several linear tracks in REAPER for later editing. What a killer combo that would make.

Regards
Caleb

[caleb]

Wow - REAPER is fucking cool.

If the couple of items that are driving me insane about using eXT in REAPER were removed there really are some cool possibilities here.

I set up a very simple track template with eXT as a VSTi set up with the midi out connected.

Then what I can do is add my track templates for VSTi in REAPER - like Wusikstation for example. These come fully loaded with a bunch of JS plugs I've put together for midi tweaking.

Then I route a particular midi channel from the eXT track to the Wusikstation track.

Then the midi coming out of eXT for that channel is triggering my Wusikstation while still giving me the pattern sequencing, live triggering capabilities of eXT AND the ability to use the JS effects on them before they get to Wusikstation.

Then when I want to render out the loops into one continuous midi part I can just Render FX as midi and have all channels in one track able to be edited in REAPER (a split track on midi channel would be a nice timesaver here), or I could render out one track a time if I wanted to.

I can use explode takes to produce different tracks that I can just move to where my VSTi tracks are.

This is just amazing! Talk about getting the best of both worlds.

Regards
Caleb