Remove Auto Split Takes

[dvillalon]

The default behaviour of Reaper is to automaticly split all takes at the begining or ending of any new take with a different length.

This happens to become a mess when you have a lot of takes with different lengths, which can happen for several reasons. The most common: an aborted take for some mistake while recording.

There's another way of working which is with the option:
Options > New recording that overlaps existing media items > Creates new media items in separate lanes (layers).

THIS LAYOUT WOULD BE PERFECT, but... it works as layers. And it will only play the TOP layer, unless it's muted... then it plays the next one. This means for working you have to mute every single take or "piece" that you don't want to use, and it becomes complicated to manage this way.

JUST BY ADDING THE OPTION "DON'T AUTO SPLIT TAKES" EVERYTHING WOULD BE MUCH EASIER. You would see every take in a different lane, then you manually split takes where YOU want (All lanes split simultaneously) and then you select the "piece" you want of each take with a single click.

A WAY AROUND TO DO THIS IN CURRENT VERSION:
Put every take file in a different track, then select all tracks, right click and use "Take > Implode Items accross tracks into takes". Then you have all takes unsplit... shorter takes have a "space" where they are empty, and you can manually split the takes as you whish. The downside is that you have to manually assign colors later...

Thanks!
Diego

A link to a thread of people having the same issue:
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=108312

[pietro79]

Has there been a response to this?

Is there a way to turn off "AUTO SPLIT TAKES"?

[Coachz]

Great idea.

[killergege]

I agree.

As a workaround, there is also an option on the right click menu that allows you to merge items into takes on each track (I don't remember how it's called though).
It should do the same as your workaround, without having to move the items to different tracks.

[Coachz]

I would like to see the "Empty Item" sections gone and simply extend the wave out with a flat line showing no signal and the auto splits removed. That would go a long way to cleaning it up.

[pietro79]

Hi Coachz
Why would getting rid of empty item help you--could you explain?

[Coachz]

Originally Posted by pietro79

Hi Coachz
Why would getting rid of empty item help you--could you explain?

Visually you would only see one item per lane with all media items in the take forced to the same length and that is neat.

[matthewbarnhart]

Originally Posted by Coachz

Great idea.

+1. I think this would be a dramatic improvement over the current (messy, IMHO) Takes UI.

Also, thanks to the OP for mentioning the Layers option. It's closer to Cubase's system, but it doesn't work for grouped tracks.

[Coachz]

I also really like the consolidated take above all takes on Studio 1.
Very intuitive.

[TDI90]

+1

Getting rid of the auto split would be fantastic. That along with the two below problems make takes very frustrating to use in Reaper.

1) If you have six takes for a verse, but two for a chorus; if I accidentally click under the chorus Reaper selects a lane, even though it's blank. It is there because the verse has a lane. Then I lose what chorus take I had selected.

2) All lanes residing within the space of a single track makes dealing with a relatively large number of takes very difficult. I'd have to make a single track take up the entire vertical screen space sometimes. This combined with the auto splits is very depressing to use.

The reality is that Cubase has a very good take system, which has some fundamentals which Reaper should base itself of such as;

- take sizing
- ability to move and manipulate individual clips on each lane
- no auto splits

[farjedi]

I feature requested the same thing a while back. Obviously nothing happened.

I don't understand why reaper is so crippled in this way..it seems..illogical.

Everything else is so customisable and yet this feature is not and the default is so impractical I don't understand how it can be used professionally. IMO.

Luckily Reaper is for my own private use and I don't record bands I just produce/compose. But the one time I did use Reaper for recording a band professionally I quickly realised I had an utter mess to clean up and that was not fun or a good feeling.

If they fix this one thing, it has the same functionality as Cubase, which I was using in the recording studio before but since I've used reaper so long now it's moved on so much i can't use it so well anymore.

Please fix this Cockos.

[bFooz]

Originally Posted by TDI90

1) If you have six takes for a verse, but two for a chorus; if I accidentally click under the chorus Reaper selects a lane, even though it's blank. It is there because the verse has a lane. Then I lose what chorus take I had selected.

2) All lanes residing within the space of a single track makes dealing with a relatively large number of takes very difficult. I'd have to make a single track take up the entire vertical screen space sometimes. This combined with the auto splits is very depressing to use.

1 - there are options "Show empty take lanes" and "Allow selecting empty take lanes"

2 - there is an option "Show all takes in lanes" which might be helpful

[TDI90]

Originally Posted by bFooz

1 - there are options "Show empty take lanes" and "Allow selecting empty take lanes"

2 - there is an option "Show all takes in lanes" which might be helpful

Thanks for point one, my eyes missed that option in front of me!

As for point 2, I am giving feedback on the show takes in lanes feature itself. As it stands now, you need to make the vertical size of the track bigger to see the lanes.

In Cubase, the lanes are independent to the track and the lanes pop up below the track in question. This means that you do not need to mess around with the size of tracks and can just have a button which shows and hides lanes as needed.

[bFooz]

Originally Posted by TDI90

In Cubase, the lanes are independent to the track and the lanes pop up below the track in question. This means that you do not need to mess around with the size of tracks and can just have a button which shows and hides lanes as needed.

There was a thread recently where swipe comping was discussed and that it would be scriptable. And separate lanes very closely relate to that.

For a bit different workflow, there are some actions for exploding takes, search "explode" in the action list.