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Old 01-20-2012, 09:26 AM   #53
stumpbroke1
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Sacramento, Ca
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chammer View Post
I have it on Forum advise that the following is not yet possible in the Reaper MIDI Editor. If that's not the case I apologize.

In the Editor it would be great if the Grid subdivision choices extended to: 1) odd numbers other than 3 (the only odd number choice, the Triplet) like 5, 7, 9, 11, etc., and 2) that time length over which the chosen subdivision could affect be user selectable to include all possible standard note values including dotted note values (e.g. eight note, dotted eight, quarter note, dotted quarter note, half-note, dotted half-whole, etc.) so that any portion of a bar in any time signature can so subdivided. I'm just a composer and not a programmer, but it strikes me that a useful and efficient layout for this function would be to have a Grid Parameter pop up window where these choices could be actuated.

This would open Reaper up to a community of those of us who utilize odd number subdivisions of the beat(s) regularly as a means to making music. The group of people I'm referring to, though no doubt there are others, hail from the modern classical composition and world music community. A feature like this in Reaper would, for instance, make East Indian style composition a much more viable possibility. As it stands now it appears that it's hardly possible to even talk of "work flow" in this area because the tools are so minimal, or outright missing.

In an attempt to flush out the details of what I'm proposing I offer this excerpt from an email volley I had with a friend about this issue recently, by way of describing how an old (ancient) sequencer program called Vision was set up to handle odd number subdivisions of a beat or beats. Cheers.

"Have you been able, or have you tried to enter quintuplets or septuplets via step sequencing in the MIDI Editor in Reaper? I've been unable to. Of course there are compositional ways to devise quintuplets and septuplets with eight notes, or quarter notes, etc., by constructing a polyrhythmic scheme... and although that's a great way to compose, it's not the application I'm looking for here. What I'd simply like to do, and what Reaper apparently does not provide, is to say, in 4/4 time input a 16th note quintuplet that would (obviously) occupy the full value of a quarter note. Remember the old Vision sequencer program from Opcode (step record/sequence-wise very sophisticated) which offered a note input parameter box that among things gave you a 2-part numerical division/note value equation feature where you could create any type of "tuplet" you wanted. I still have my Mac Plus with Vision and it still works!! If you don't remember, here's how it worked: the first pulldown box in the feature functioned as the numerical division of the beat or beats (e.g. if you wanted to make a septuplet you chose or typed in the number 7); the second pull down box, which offered no keyboard "type in" option like the first box, was where you selected the note value that was to be divided (quarter note, eight note, half note, or even dotted notes). It was (is) compositionally so seamless. You could be tooling along inputting straight 16th notes in 4/4 time, and then if you felt you needed an eight note quintuplet figure, you simply went to that note input box and chose 5 in the time of a half note and Vision would calculate an eight note quintuplet subdivision value for you to apply notes to (and/or rests). I've spent a good amount time with the Reaper manual and the program trying to find a similar function and I haven't been able to. I really love Reaper, and it has proven a number of times in the past that it has functions that I'm not aware of immediately, but even if this functions exists, the fact that it's buried somewhere makes it at the very least very difficult to compose with for those of us utilizing odd number subdivisions of the beat."
+1000
and get the grid to work right in odd meter and you have a winner!
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