repetitive structures
Unless you compose Free Jazz, repetitive structures play
a prominent role if you compose music. Whether you
create "classic", "drum'n bass", "EDM", "Pop" or "Rock" -
repeating parts are most important. They define the character
of a track. And of course - one capital function of a DAW is
to facilitate thee "repetitive structures" of a song.
Now let's take a look at Reaper: How does Reaper support
repetitive structures?
repetitive midi parts
For midi you just do a "pooled copy" of the midi-item - and
that's it: All changes you do in one of these copies instantly
applies to all the other "pooled copies".
This works with automation items too: You can pool-copy
the automation item, and thus create many identical
instances of this single item.
But what about audio parts?
repetitive audio parts
Audio clips can be copied anywhere - and so you can
create as many instances of an audio-wave as you like.
So there shouldn't be a problem.
But normally ...
... in an average song you would edit an audio clip. Imagine
a guitar phrase or a vocal line which has to be optimized.
That means you cut the audio-wav into single syllables
and edit them: Some syllables must be stretched longer,
some must be shorter, some fades have to be changed etc.
etc.
After finishing many edits you want this audio-phrase to
become a repetitive part of the song. This means you
have to pool-copy the whole part of wav-fragments and
wav-fades. What to do?
The Reaper expert now raises his hand and shouts
"subprojects!" Ok, let's see ...
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Subprojects
Yeaaaah, subprojects are a very elegant way of modularization
in Reaper. So our heavily edited wave-fragments can be
turned into a subproject. Therefor we have to do the following
steps:
1. Open the project settings
2. Set the recording folder
3. Select all audio-wav fragments
4. Action "create subproject from items"
5. Open the Audio Bay
6. Search for the new created subproject
7. Rename the subproject
8. Tab line on top: Load the just renamed subproject
9. Create and adapt regions for this subproject
10. Delete old unrenamed subproject parts (peak file a.o.)
11. Parentproject: Copy the subproject-wav to its various
positions.
Ok, after doing these steps (1) -- (11) you've done a perfect
job - and it looks quite good.
But .... let's think about it a little: How do other DAWs treat
this problem of "repetitive audio-wavs"? Or - apart from other
DAWs - can you imagine a faster way of dealing with repetitive
audios? Mmm ...
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Repetitive audio-wavs: Box!
The answer is easy: Just draw "a box" around the
audio-wavs and say "Box". We'll have only three fast steps:
1. Select all audio-wav fragments
2. Action: Box
3. Copy the Boxes "pooled" to all its places.
So there we are - a little faster - and not less elegant! The
only drop of bitterness is: Reaper still does not have such
a
"Box".
