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Old 12-16-2012, 04:00 PM   #15
foxAsteria
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I've actually brought this topic up numeroustimes since I started using Reaper a couple years ago, but could not accurately describe the problem or reliably reproduce it until now. It also seems that not many people encounter it or understand what's happening. Truthfully, it wasn't till the other day that I even realized I had to use the 'ignore project tempo' option to make MIDI items behave predictably when changing tempo.

I guess most record to a click, which I sometimes do, but I find it very limiting and distracting. Too often it throws me off when I hit record and I lose my groove.

The problems you will encounter before you know what's going on are utterly inexplicable and intensely frustrating. Simply adding a tempo marker in a project of MIDI and audio was enough to just destroy an entire project if I didn't notice right away.

I agree with ivansc that this is borderline buggy behavior too; many times it seemed random and I could not reproduce it. Simply put, MIDI should behave like audio and obey timebase. But this is the case only if you remember to set the Item Source option right after you record. That's just silly. If you forget even once, you will wind up with midi items that are not in sync with anything in the project. It's a nightmare and sadly I had given up trying to write songs with varied tempo because of it.

All that needs to happen is that MIDI item internally correspond to a fixed tempo rather than a tempo that you might decide to change later (project tempo). That fixed tempo can be later synced to the dynamic project tempo without issue. There is ablsolutely no reason I can see that using a native action like "Create measure from time selection" on a piece of MIDI I just recorded should alter the MIDI item when it's clearly designed to adapt the tempo to it.

The really crazy part is that by default, if you are in Time timebase, MIDI item starts remain fixed to time position but stretch when you change the project tempo after the fact, creating gaps or overlapping items. This is not only counterintuitive, but completely useless is is not? When would anyone ever want this? It's an illogical mix of time and musical timebase (they keep their start position based on time but but the end follows the tempo.

Not to harsh on the devs, I do realize this is probably just an oversight that only unconconventional or advanced composers will typically encounter. I just want to point out as clearly as possible that the fix is simple as pie, because as long as I remember to check that Source Properties option after I record, everything works correctly in all three timebases, and more importantly, MIDI and audio items do not get out of sync because I happend to forget to change the properties.

How many people have been happily editing away at a project only to find later that some midi items earlier in the project are somehow hopelessly out of sync? It's maddening and has cost me countless hours to manually sort out. There's just no reason for it. That is why I made the FR priority 1, which I've not done before. Glad we're all on the same page about it.

If there are other discussions already on the topic, we might as well add the links here, or vice versa, so please let me know. Maybe I just never knew the proper terminology to search them out.

Thanks for listening, fellow Reaperites.
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