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Old 03-24-2022, 11:22 AM   #26
Klangfarben
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Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ferropop View Post
It's not trivial though, what if the foot pedal is engaged in the MIDI happening during preroll, how should that be dealt with? Should it pedal your input? And if not, now your preview of that data is incorrect. What if you press the pedal during preroll - should it pedal the MIDI that's there? etc.
Well, look. It CURRENTLY is inconsistent. You can record audio during a pre-roll. MIDI you can't. And there is a pref for enabling audio recording during pre-roll but none for MIDI. IMHO it makes no sense to enable pre-roll recording for audio but disable it for MIDI. If you are worried about a trigger pedal being captured as midi, that is easily solvable a couple ways. First, also have a pref for recording midi during pre roll (which in your case you could just turn off). Second, make it work the same way as a captured audio pre-roll, which by default starts the item at the target measure, not the pre-roll measure. If you want the pre-roll audio, you have to trim the item back. Just make it work the same for midi. Then your pedal press won't be there unless you trim the item earlier. So literally, to solve the issue you are just making it work the same way audio pre-roll recording currently works. Simple.

I think the best way to demonstrate the problems here is by looking at this from the perspective of a new user. So, basically here is what a new user is looking at.

1) You can record audio during pre-roll but not midi during pre-roll. Since a new user has no idea this is the case (nor is it easy info to find) they will set a pre-roll, record midi and... it won't be there. Pretty confusing.

2) The pre-roll will not work unless the metronome is enabled. The transport pre-roll will still work without the metronome enabled, but the pre-roll audio itself won't be recorded. So, the new user happens to have the metronome disabled, records their audio then trims the item back. Only to find... it's not there. They are just trimming back a duplicate of the recorded audio of the target measure. Extremely confusing.

3) Since pre-roll only works with the metronome, it cannot be set to anything other than bars/beats. So a new user that comes to Reaper and tries to figure out how to record 2 seconds of pre-roll will be stumbling around the forum and reading the manual only to find... it's not possible. Again, pretty confusing.

4) Count-in as opposed to pre-roll does not record anything at all during the count-in. Oftentimes a new user won't want to hear a previous bar or has a tempo change on the recording bar and thus will use a count-in versus a pre-roll. But unlike how they have set up their pre-roll they will again go looking around how to record during that count-in only to find... it's not possible. Cue the look of confusion on the new user's face. Or when they set a count-in and record ever so slightly before the downbeat (like pretty much everyone on planet earth not named Steve Gadd or Vinnie Colaiuta do) only to find... it's not there.

Now like I said in my above post, if you just make them function the same between audio/midi and pre-roll/count-in then you don't have any of these issues. Everything is consistent and new users won't be confused about how this works. And per Ferro's question above regarding things like a midi trigger pedal to start recording, it is easily solved simply by making them function the same. No inconsistencies between them, no confused new (or experienced) users. Everybody wins.
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