Old 12-10-2011, 01:48 AM   #1
Andrew479
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Default How to do step-record

Hello,
how to do step recording in Reaper? I mean step recording from MIDI inputs concerning note velocities. I searched through User Guide, watched tutorials, searched over the net and found nothing except there are two options in MIDI editor - "Use F1-F12 for step recording" and "Use all midi inputs for step recording", but how can I actually start step recording? If I check the second one and then started playing Virtual MIDI keyboard, nothing happened.

I read that some users succeeded in step recording, so I'd be happy to know how they did that.

Thanks
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Old 12-13-2011, 02:57 AM   #2
chammer
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Default Step Record Step by Step

Hi Andrew479,

Figuring out how use the Step Record function in Reaper (there actually is one) nearly drove me crazy, so if you're feeling frustrated I certainly can relate. Here is a step by step recount of how I enable Step Record for recording:

1) From the Track Menu select "Insert virtual instrument on a new track" and chose a virtual instrument
2) Click on the "Input" tab in the newly created Track Control Panel and assign a MIDI channel (or "All Channels") to your desired MIDI controller
3) Set the same channel assignment on your controller
4) Click on the "Record: Input (audio or MIDI)" tab and select "Monitor Input" (the first choice)
5) Hit the Record Enable button
5) To the right of the Track Control Panel in the Main Window and Edit Area Click, Hold, and Drag the mouse across the desired amount of time you'd like to Step Record your music (e.g. click and hold the mouse at measure 1.1.0 and drag it to measure 20.1.0.)
6) From the Insert Menu chose "New MIDI item" and your selected area will turn black
7) From the Item Menu go down to "Built-in MIDI editor and select "Open in editor (set default behavior in preferences"
8) A Piano Roll window will open up and you're ready to Step Record with your controller. The bottom bar of the Editor offers standard note values that can be selected under the tab name "Grid" (1/8, 1/4, 1/16, etc.) and the "Notes" tab actually refers to the duration of the notes you'll step record, or the amount of legato or staccato you want to play. Place the cursor wherever you want and start hitting notes.

From there on the devil is in the details, but that's the simplest way I've figure out how to Step Record in Reaper. Knowing Reaper, I wouldn't be surprised if there were other ways to do the same thing. I hope this has been of some help. Cheers.
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Old 12-13-2011, 04:23 AM   #3
ivansc
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Interesting. I have never ever used step record - I generally either play in a part with my MIDI keyboard and then "fix" the playing mistakes in the midi editor or just enter notes on the piano roll view with my mouse.

How does using step record provide a better or even substantially different workflow for generating a midi tack?
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Old 12-15-2011, 02:18 AM   #4
chammer
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Hi invansc,

I make music in both the ways you describe as well. I think that whatever MIDI input technique you use really depends on what you what want to achieve musically, squared with what's comfortable for you creatively (some people call that work flow). The type of Step Record I described I think has one really cool benefit to it; the musical feel is able to get very close to an actual performance in certain ways.

Here's an example, but I'm sure you can of others: for 4 bars of 4/4 time you want 4 different instruments playing eight notes in a strong, driving manner leading to a crescendo. They are playing the same pitches (tutti), and let's say you have a Trumpet, Clarinet, Cello, and Piano as your 4 instruments. By Step Recording each track one by one in the manner I described (specifically that you designate the note value under the "Grid" tab as 1/8 note values you keep the rhythm nice and tight, but you express "real world" transient feel by the slight variations in velocity, or loudness, from stroking the keyboard in a performance oriented way). The result is (or can be) a rich combination dynamics completely within the frame work of 4 instruments playing in a loud, driving manner to even a louder conclusion (let's say in MIDI numbers from Velocity 90 at the beginning of the passage to 127 at the end). However, at any (or every) given vertical moment (every eight note attack) each instrument has a slightly different but related velocity. I mean, with this method you can really nuance the expression of the notes. Perhaps you find that at a given moment the Piano (because its attack is so quick) needs to be played slightly softer to meld with the slower attack of the Cello. And this is done as a tight musical performance with multiple parts and not as an editor adjusting velocities after the fact.

This of course can be achieved by the methods you've described (after manual editing often), but because you don't have to worry about rhythmic placement in the way I've described, you can really focus on the nuance of the expression of a passage in a way that's unique to this method.

But again, only the technique is unique; the results can be achieved in other ways. Also, there are drawbacks to this method as note duration is fixed, and almost invariably (to get a real feel to the music) must be edited afterwards which doesn't happen in straight, real time MIDI record mode. Cheers
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Old 12-15-2011, 03:41 AM   #5
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(grin) I have edited MIDI the way I do it now for so long I suspect this old dog is not going to be able to easily pick up this new trick.
Thanks for the explanation btw.
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Old 02-12-2012, 10:10 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chammer View Post
Place the cursor wherever you want and start hitting notes.
And... nothing happens. :-)

The synth plays the notes, but nothing gets recorded in the piano roll.

The MIDI Editor's Options / Use all midi inputs for step recording item needs to be checked. Andrew mentioned this, but the list of steps is incomplete as a reference without it.

In this mode, I'm not sure how a 'grid' setting is of any use. In fact, since the number keys (above the alphas) aren't doing anything, it'd sure be nice if one could set the step record 'grid' to legato - i.e., have the step-recorded notes simply follow each other. The note lengths could then be determined by 1 (whole), 2 (half), 3 (32nd), 4 (quarter), etc., instead of having to mess with the Grid AND Notes drop-downs for every single step-recorded note (not practical). The period (.) could be used to designate dotted notes; some other key for triplets and another for rests.

Maybe there's already an equivalent to this, which is pretty much how SONAR works, IIRC, and I just haven't found it in the Reaper manual yet.
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Old 02-15-2012, 07:58 AM   #7
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In the OPTIONS menu in the MIDI editor you must select "Use all MIDI inputs for step recording". Make sure your channels are set correctly on your controller and in Reaper.

As for changing the note value I really don't know how. I have a QY700 which uses the number pad like you said, but I've not checked to see if this can be done in Reaper.

If I remember correctly, MIDI velocity information is taken into account when you play a note on your controller for step entry.

So I poked around in the actios list a little bit and found that you can create shortcuts to "insert" notes of different lengths, legato etc. Just search "insert" in the actions list for the MIDI editor. I played around with using the NUMPAD and it is quite easy to assign them to your needs. Some of the keys already have assigned actions (multiple shortcuts on many) which you can alter to taste. For instance the NUM 2 shortcut is also assigned to CTRL DOWN, which you could remove.

Last edited by Unikorn; 02-15-2012 at 08:33 AM.
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Old 02-21-2012, 05:30 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ivansc View Post
Interesting. I have never ever used step record - I generally either play in a part with my MIDI keyboard and then "fix" the playing mistakes in the midi editor or just enter notes on the piano roll view with my mouse.

How does using step record provide a better or even substantially different workflow for generating a midi tack?
Also, I prefer step record because I am used to entering music using finale (then later sibelius) which is basically step record. Some music that I enter is very difficult, and far beyond my ability to play accurately on a real instrument, let alone a synth with some input latency. For these pieces (such as a beethoven sonata) it is far easier to use step input than to try and play the part in and fix mistakes after the fact (for me; I understand that my keyboard skills are not stellar).
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Old 02-22-2012, 07:59 PM   #9
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I am also having the same difficulty with step record - - -and actually-- an hour ago it was working; midi editor window open; Akai LPD8 being tapped and new midi notes visibly recorded on the screen as the other tracks played; all was good with the world. I went to dinner with out closing anything and upon coming back there is no longer any drum sound coming from my tapping and there are also no new midi notes being recorded in Piano View. However, when I tap the controller, the appropriate keys on the piano roll depress.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Tim
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Old 02-22-2012, 08:09 PM   #10
zydeceltico
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Figured it out. You have to have the VST open while you're step recording. Hope this helps somebody.

Tim
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Old 11-21-2014, 01:07 PM   #11
KenWDowney
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Default Just not getting it

I'm totally blind, and am having to do this with keyboard shortcuts. I'm not seeing any options for step recording in preferences, including the midi editor screen, and just can't get this to work. I create my selection, add my item, end up having to select all because I can't seem to get the original item alone selected, get the midi view piano role, but can't find any options anywhere to enable step recording. Can someone help?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew479 View Post
Hello,
how to do step recording in Reaper? I mean step recording from MIDI inputs concerning note velocities. I searched through User Guide, watched tutorials, searched over the net and found nothing except there are two options in MIDI editor - "Use F1-F12 for step recording" and "Use all midi inputs for step recording", but how can I actually start step recording? If I check the second one and then started playing Virtual MIDI keyboard, nothing happened.

I read that some users succeeded in step recording, so I'd be happy to know how they did that.

Thanks
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Old 11-21-2014, 03:08 PM   #12
Fex
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KenWDowney View Post
I'm not seeing any options for step recording in preferences, including the midi editor screen
As UserZero and Unikorn said, it's in the Options menu in the MIDI editor.
It's the 13th option in that menu, 3rd from the bottom.
HTH
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Old 11-23-2014, 05:04 PM   #13
KenWDowney
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Default Midi editor?

When I think of the midi editor, I think of the one you access by hitting control enter. It shows all the events and their associated ticks. I'm not seeing an options list in that window, or a way to get one to pop up. Is there another type of midi editor I'm supposed to find?
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Old 11-23-2014, 05:21 PM   #14
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I don't know what you get by hitting control enter, but you mentioned the piano roll earlier - that's the window.
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Old 11-24-2014, 09:19 PM   #15
KenWDowney
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Default Grid Change Keystrokes and a question

I have uplodaed the following keymap to my server, and y'all are welcome to it. It'll change the way you input MIDI, especially through step recording. The windows key is added to the numbers 1 through 6 to get straight whole notes through 32 notes, and control is added to give the dot. There are also functions to automatically multiply and divide grid size to get larger or smaller values, and I intend to expand the map later on to make worrying about grid sizes unimportant, but for now here it is. www.BlindLabyrinth.com/ChangeGrid.ReaperKeyMap
Now you can step record the way you always were meant to, with absolute ease. Being blind, I designed this mainly for blind folks, and I suppose it's nothing for a sighted person to just click the value they want, but the screen reader kept on stopping reading the box halfway through trying to get to the next value, so I created the system. Hope it helps someone.
Now I have a question. There are audio review options in the midi editor, but they don't do anything during step record at all. I really need to be able to hear what's happening in the rest of the project while I'm recording, and I don't even hear what's on the same track when I add notes, though everything in note review is selected. When I go to MIDI Access, I hear everything just fine, but nothing while recording. How do I get this to work?
I also have a question about MIDI access. When I go in there and arrow through the notes, it plays an entire beat. I don't want to hear a whole beat necessarily, but just what notes were entered on whatever tick I land on. I know it's doing this because the notes in the first part of the beat are tied to the ones in the second part of the beat, but it makes it hard to hear where the mistakes really are, so an optional second way to hear the notes, where they were laid down, would be great. I think both ways are important ways to hear what's happening, so please don't trash can the old way, just give us an option to hear tick by tick.
Thanks!
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