Glue item without name change?

[Tod]

Hi all, I'd like the ability to glue items without the name changing. The way it is now, it adds "-glued" to the name.

The reason this would be a great advantage is for glueing rendered midi item. When I am close to having my projects done, I like to render most or all of my midi tracks to audio tracks. I do this by recording in real time the outputs of all the VSTi output tracks, and the items all end up as full song items.

Consequently there is a lot of silence that I can remove from most of the recorded items and when I edit out all the silence I end up with several items on each track.

To explain further, before I render I create a folder I call "Rendered Midi". Inside that folder I create another folder I call "TEMP", and that's the folder I select in "Project Settings" just before I render the midi.

Then when the midi is all rendered and I've edited out the silence, I select the "Rendered Midi" folder, and then glue and re-name the source files for all the individual items. Then I can delete the "TEMP" folder and I usually end up with audio files that are less than half the size of the original files. In short it saves a lot of space and also takes less time to load the projects. It can also ease up on the CPU.

What I'd like to be able to do is use the SWS action (pict below) to rename the individual items, "Xenakios/SWS: Auto-rename selected takes...". This action quickly renames the items (not the source files) the way I need them.

That's why the ability to "Glue" the items without the names being changed would be very handy and save a ton of time.

[X-Raym]

I have a glue script which does that already in reapack with also color preservation. But the most advanced is the spk77 breeder advanced glue. Also in reapack. With it you can preserve more things like fades for eg.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by X-Raym

I have a glue script which does that already in reapack with also color preservation. But the most advanced is the spk77 breeder advanced glue. Also in reapack. With it you can preserve more things like fades for eg.

Thanks X-Raym, do you by chance have the titles to these scripts, I looked all over ReaPack, but must not have had the right words for the filter.

[Edgemeal]

Originally Posted by Tod

Thanks X-Raym, do you by chance have the titles to these scripts, I looked all over ReaPack, but must not have had the right words for the filter.

Try using "spk77 Breeder" as filter in reapack browser...
name: spk77_GlueTools
Script: Breeder_spk77_GlueTools.lua

Thanks X-Raym!

[Tod]

Originally Posted by Edgemeal

Try using "spk77 Breeder" as filter in reapack browser...
name: spk77_GlueTools
Script: Breeder_spk77_GlueTools.lua

Thanks X-Raym!

Okay, thanks Edgemeal, "spk77_GlueTools" did it. Kind of strange "glue" didn't work, I guess because of the connected words.

[Judders]

When you cut bits out of the rendered audio, you are not creating any new files. Who you glue, you are, so the files need to have different names.

Rather than rendering the entire song length, cutting and glueing, you could save a lot of time by just freezing the tracks, which will give you the gaps automatically, if the gaps are there in your midi items.

[hopi]

hey Tod... have you ever used Flash File Renamer?

https://flash-renamer.en.softonic.com/

that is one link to it...

I use it often for many things, one of them to drop a given bunch of files into it and to remove [or add] something to the file name...

so for example...if 'glued' is bothering you in a folder of files, you can get that out of all the file name very fast and easy...

it can do a lot more as well...

there are other renaming tools but I do like this one

[Tod]

Originally Posted by Judders

When you cut bits out of the rendered audio, you are not creating any new files. Who you glue, you are, so the files need to have different names.

Rather than rendering the entire song length, cutting and glueing, you could save a lot of time by just freezing the tracks, which will give you the gaps automatically, if the gaps are there in your midi items.

Thanks Judders, yes I know about the whole file vrs glued parts of a file. Maybe you missed that in my original post. This is primarily for one of my clients that uses his computer and Reaper for his live single gig. Obviously having the lesser audio sizes speeds things up for him especially when loading the songs at the break for each set.

Heh heh, I've basically arranged and recorded close to 200 song for him in that last 4 years. Each song will of course have bass and drums, but all of them will also include other instruments, mostly Piano, Steel, El.Piano, strings, and many other various insturments.

Originally Posted by hopi

hey Tod... have you ever used Flash File Renamer?

https://flash-renamer.en.softonic.com/

that is one link to it...

I use it often for many things, one of them to drop a given bunch of files into it and to remove [or add] something to the file name...

so for example...if 'glued' is bothering you in a folder of files, you can get that out of all the file name very fast and easy...

it can do a lot more as well...

there are other renaming tools but I do like this one

Thanks Hopi, I'll check it out, I've already got a file manager that basically does what you're talking about.

the main thing about this situation is I want to keep all the files right in Reaper without having to reload them. I've already got a pretty good system down for doing this, but with this script and the SWS action I have, it's going to be really fast and save a lot of time.

[Judders]

Originally Posted by Tod

Thanks Judders, yes I know about the whole file vrs glued parts of a file. Maybe you missed that in my original post. This is primarily for one of my clients that uses his computer and Reaper for his live single gig. Obviously having the lesser audio sizes speeds things up for him especially when loading the songs at the break for each set.

I got that, what I meant was you can't have multiple files with the same name, and clarifying why for anyone else reading (wasn't presuming you didn't know).

If your midi items are already split up, then freezing will speed up the process considerably. Though you will still have the renaming to do.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by Judders

I got that, what I meant was you can't have multiple files with the same name, and clarifying why for anyone else reading (wasn't presuming you didn't know).

If your midi items are already split up, then freezing will speed up the process considerably. Though you will still have the renaming to do.

Thanks again Judders, I'm one of those old farts that use "full song" midi items, because it basically gives me track based midi so there's no individual items.

I record all my midi from my keyboard. I use "Record: MIDI overdub" and record every thing right in the Midi Editor.

I could edit the midi items, but that would take just as long as editing the audo.

[Judders]

Originally Posted by Tod

Thanks again Judders, I'm one of those old farts that use "full song" midi items, because it basically gives me track based midi so there's no individual items.

I record all my midi from my keyboard. I use "Record: MIDI overdub" and record every thing right in the Midi Editor.

I could edit the midi items, but that would take just as long as editing the audo.

Hehe... yeah, I use midi overdub to play stuff in and overdub cc stuff too. I'm not good enough that I can do a whole song in one pass though, and I don't create items before I record, so I have items wherever I punch in and out. All I have to do is stretch out any items that have long release or reverb so that freezing doesn't cut the tail off.

I never render at 1x speed though. I set the render buffer to 64 samples to minimise midi jitter and other associated weirdness with large buffers and midi, then freeze offline at full speed.

[rob.ashcom]

Originally Posted by Judders

When you cut bits out of the rendered audio, you are not creating any new files. Who you glue, you are, so the files need to have different names.

To be clear, actually they don't. At least as far as the name you see on the item. Perhaps something is going on behind the scenes, but I just named a glued item the same as its original source name and nothing exploded.

I haven't tried the script yet, but I share the OP's frustration that so many things (including naming suffix/prefix conventions) are configurable in Reaper but this isn't. But it's a minor nit in a big bundle of love I have generally for Reaper.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by rob.ashcom

Perhaps something is going on behind the scenes

The only way is if the glue settings result in a different file type or if you haven't saved the project etc and the original file is in location A and the glued file goes to the default render location and so on. Reaper operates as 100% non-destructive so there won't be a situation where the original gets replaced, which means glue must result in a different file name, or file type per glue settings. That being said there could be value in not adding -glued if the file type changes but would be confusing IMHO simply to change behavior based on that.