Use Reaper in live shows?

[Lena705]

Hey yall,
I love using Reaper, it´s great, however:
I want to play some live shows and I am looking for a way to not just replay a song, but to add like some synths to it with a MIDI controller.
Ableton live is supposed to be the best DAW for that but I dont really want to move away from Reaper for a few live shows, if possible.
If anyone has any tutorials/ advice/ different DAWs I could use better fot that I´d be very grateful!
Thanks in advance! :)

[shanabit]

Look up Project Tabs

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=189501

[mschnell]

For live playing VST instruments, search the Forums for "LiveConfigs". I am a very happy power-user of this kind of stuff.

-Michael

[foxAsteria]

Use only the 3rd party plugins you've tested extensively. If you've ever had a crash, track down the offending plugin and keep it far away from your setup. For greatest stability, stick to Reaper plugins where possible.

Reaper will work fine for this, but you'll need time to plan and test, as there are many different approaches.

I'll suggest SWS action markers for performing actions at the start and/or end of tracks and setting certain tracks to auto-arm so that they can be played through as soon as they are selected.

Once you have a working setup, don't forget to turn Lock on, so you can't accidentally change anything.

[cfillion]

And this is my approach to structuring projects for live shows in REAPER: 181159.

[ajaym]

Reaper is pretty rock solid and you can most certainly perform live with it. Assuming you have a generous amount of memory then using the SWS extensions you can set Reaper up to load multiple projects simultaneously and then use MIDI messages like program change etc. to switch around tabs, thus instantly changing your MIDI stack. This I think is preferable to loading projects 'on demand' but it does take more memory. A laptop combined with the KMI K-Mix makes a killer combination since you have an audio interface, full mixer, and control surface the size of a paperback book with enough ins and outs for most live work. You do need an additional MIDI interface mind you with this setup, if you have legacy gear to connect, but one or two el-cheapo USB MIDI adaptors plugged into a tiny four port hub are cost-effective and simple.
If you have a huge amount of USB-connected devices and are using a laptop, I can recommend the 'Plugable' 10 port USB2 hub which has performed solidly for years here in the studio.