v6.38+dev1020 - October 20 2021

[Jae.Thomas]

v6.38+dev1020 - October 20 2021
* Includes feature branch: media item solo markers
* Includes feature branch: media item lanes
+ Linux: make initial focus of various windows (e.g. perf meter) match that of macOS/Windows
+ Media explorer: add action to rename file
+ Media item comps: simplify choosing and navigating comps
+ Media item solo markers: add actions to add and delete solo markers
+ Media item solo markers: add item click mouse modifier to solo item within track
+ Media item solo markers: add mouse modifiers to move and delete markers
+ Media item solo markers: add mouse-drag modifiers to solo media item within track
+ Media item solo markers: add preference for default crossfade length
+ Media item solo markers: add theme colors
+ Media item solo markers: draw faint unsoloed peaks
+ Media item solo markers: store solo markers with comps
+ Media item solo markers: support mouse-editing solo marker fadein/fadeout
+ ReaScript: add GetSetProjectInfo_String() RECORD_PATH_SECONDARY

Full changelog / Latest pre-releases

[dsyrock]

I tried but really not sure what is the main purpose of item solo markers

[Jae.Thomas]

I can't seem to get the solo markers how i figured it would work, but this looks awesome!



I would expect that the media item would solo over "overlapping" lanes where other media exists WHICH IS FUCKING AMAZING because it would almost work like a better take system, at least potentially, I am dealing with how to do both ways

but so far, it seems the display changes, but I can hear all three takes no matter what i do. I need to see exactly what this does and if I'm doing it right. Just had only 5 rushed minutes with it cause I'm leaving for work

[schwa]

This is the general idea. Run the action "add solo-in marker at cursor" to solo a media item within its track:



You can also set the media item left-drag mouse modifier to "solo item within track ignoring snap" (note: just noticed the not ignoring snap version will still partially respect snapping, a bug):



Also please note this feature is likely to take a lot of time to get right.

[heda]

Originally Posted by Jae.Thomas

v6.38+dev1020 - October 20 2021

+ Linux: make initial focus of various windows (e.g. perf meter) match that of macOS/Windows

Thank you... All windows now work well, except the FX Chain windows which is still wanting focus attention. but all the others are good.

Media item solo markers are great!

[Coachz]

What's a solo marker for?

[Triode]

The eagerly awaited comping, surely

[Pink Wool]

Originally Posted by schwa

This is the general idea. Run the action "add solo-in marker at cursor" to solo a media item within its track:



You can also set the media item left-drag mouse modifier to "solo item within track ignoring snap" (note: just noticed the not ignoring snap version will still partially respect snapping, a bug):



Also please note this feature is likely to take a lot of time to get right.

Holy moly!

[AZpercussion]

Doesn't work well on copied items with shifted source. Also it works weird if I add an item after comping and want to include it in the comp.
And i still hear all zones. win 8.1 portable reaper.

In concept view... how this item based concept will work with multitrack? Would be much better to have an ability to hide all lanes and get main comp lane for next editing step, and then show all lanes, copy current main lane or it's part to a new lane and continue to compilling.

Basically I think it can be solved with razor area. Razor edit is a recent feature with not fully unlocked potential. May be better to go deeper in razor than make a new feature... Just my opinion, though.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by Coachz

What's a solo marker for?

If I'm reading correctly, it's vaguely similar to the old Cubase takes but instead of splitting items and "who's on bottom" being audible, you do it with the solo markers to decide which sections of which items you hear. So consider those 'regions of audible playback' for item sections. I think it would mostly serve those who have issues with splits, which isn't me but I think that's what it's generally for.

[FeedTheCat]

Thx devs, what an exciting release!

It also took me quite a while to understand how solo markers are meant to be used (schwa's GIF did help a lot). I think my biggest gripe is the visual representation. It's not easy to discern which section is soloed. And I'm guessing it'll get a lot worse once stretch markers are added to the mix.

Have you considered a "solo region" approach instead of markers?

Here's a mock-up I made a while ago on item lane comping. (It might be a horrible idea as it's based on the track, I haven't shared it ) I do think that the "region" approach works pretty well though.

[BPBaker]

I'm getting some weird peaks behavior in this build when extending an item past its end point when "loop source" is disabled.

[Vagelis]

Wow it' really happening!! Going to try right away, huge thanks devs <3

[Vagelis]

Back to report. Can't say i find solo markers very useful, i have sometime now experimenting without getting any results and seems time consuming.
Can't we have the standard approach with razor edit and another to automute item parts relative to the length of the item on first or last lane? (by splitting or moving the items)

[PhelixK]

* Includes feature branch: media item solo markers

!!

Originally Posted by FeedTheCat

Thx devs, what an exciting release!
Have you considered a "solo region" approach instead of markers?

Here's a mock-up I made a while ago on item lane comping. (It might be a horrible idea as it's based on the track, I haven't shared it ) I do think that the "region" approach works pretty well though.

Hmm, me too worried about the visual aspect by using colored markers on composite blended backgrounds -and other existing item elements. No clue if this is possible at all, but the simplicity of swipe comping with region ranges appeals to me, perhaps with option to write labels inside or above the bars, regardless of the vertical space needed.

[Vagelis]

Ok i tried again with mouse modifier and works a lot better than the actions..
But please can the marker stay in place when we move the item?
It will help a lot to keep the muted part in case we want to nudge an item and select a different audible portion of the item. I think the same thing should happen when we move item contents. Because now when i move the item or its contents, the whole comping is messed up.

EDIT: Also media item modifiers are a lot and in use and another one for comping would require to use a lot of key modifiers. Would it be possible to have an action like armed that when we press it to enter the comp mode and have the same behavior with mouse modifier?

[nofish]

While being worked on comps, could this maybe be considered:
Comps saving full state of the take and not just the active takes.

Especially saving split/crossfade position with comps would be useful imo (suggested here also).

edit:
To clarify, these suggestions would be mainly targeted towards improving the existing 'slice and dice' takes comping system, not the new solo markers comping system.

[Gass n Klang]

Don't wanna be the spoil-sport. I really appreciate, that there's a comping system initiated. But I'd love to see it running into the right direction.

Some things have to be considered early I think:

1) how to save and check different comps against each other
2) how to compare comps to rough takes(/lanes)
3) how to work with non-click based recordings
4) how to combine comps with standard editing techniques? e.g.: you do your drum comping and want to cut out the spill one the tom mics between toms hits. After that the drummer asks you to play a different take again.
5) how to do edit the final comp at all? if you need to stretch some parts, time-correct things or do pitching?

All these things are easily solved by another approach: playlists (alias track alternatives alias track versions).

In my experience as a longtime professional working audio engineer (professional as I'm making a living from it): leaving the recorded material untouched while comping to a separate lane/version/alternative is the most flexible thing for different workflows.

I used many different DAWs intensivly like Cubase, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Bitwig, Sequoia before I came to Reaper. I hate Pro Tools for nearly everything else but their playlist system is one of the two reasons, so many people are using it (the other reason is track based editing instead of item based editing).
So I'm begging you: Please keep the flexibility, reaper is known for and go with something like playlists.

[Vagelis]

Bug, it starts to comp correctly when i drag the marker with mouse modifier to the edge of the item and back.

[nofish]

Originally Posted by Gass n Klang

1) how to save and check different comps against each other

Haven't tested yet, but this should be covered with this I think:

+ Media item solo markers: store solo markers with comps

[musicbynumbers]

Originally Posted by Vagelis

Ok i tried again with mouse modifier and works a lot better than the actions..
But please can the marker stay in place when we move the item?

I haven't tried it yet Schwa but from seeing your gifs, This was my first thought too that the markers might be better if they were lane based BUT they would still need to move along with everything else so maybe they can act like an item within the lane area for the actually soloed track so they can be moved easily along with big edits.

I can see that it could be messy if not tied to an item though..

Also.. does this work for multichannel grouped edits too? off to try now!

I like where it's going though!

[musicbynumbers]

Also.

It might be worth for your own sanity mocking some of these things up in a gif before coding them to save time if we do end up ripping them apart!

Anyway.. Off to try it!

[JamesPeters]

Originally Posted by heda

Thank you... All windows now work well, except the FX Chain windows which is still wanting focus attention. but all the others are good.

A bit more info: FX chain window only makes the panel "unhide" if REAPER isn't fullscreen. When REAPER is fullscreen, the panel behaves normally upon launching the FX chain window.

Also: if some windows happen to be left open when REAPER is closed (Performance Meter for instance, check the list I'd made before, most of which are under the "view" menu), when REAPER is run the next time, those windows want attention and the panel is "unhidden" (until those windows are closed and re-opened). This however does not happen when REAPER is started fullscreen.

[amagalma]

Originally Posted by Gass n Klang

Don't wanna be the spoil-sport. I really appreciate, that there's a comping system initiated. But I'd love to see it running into the right direction.

Some things have to be considered early I think:

1) how to save and check different comps against each other
2) how to compare comps to rough takes(/lanes)
3) how to work with non-click based recordings
4) how to combine comps with standard editing techniques? e.g.: you do your drum comping and want to cut out the spill one the tom mics between toms hits. After that the drummer asks you to play a different take again.
5) how to do edit the final comp at all? if you need to stretch some parts, time-correct things or do pitching?

All these things are easily solved by another approach: playlists (alias track alternatives alias track versions).

In my experience as a longtime professional working audio engineer (professional as I'm making a living from it): leaving the recorded material untouched while comping to a separate lane/version/alternative is the most flexible thing for different workflows.

I used many different DAWs intensivly like Cubase, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Bitwig, Sequoia before I came to Reaper. I hate Pro Tools for nearly everything else but their playlist system is one of the two reasons, so many people are using it (the other reason is track based editing instead of item based editing).
So I'm begging you: Please keep the flexibility, reaper is known for and go with something like playlists.

I agree. I really do appreciate the effort and time you give to improve the comping system, but if I may express my opinion too, I think that it is taking the wrong direction.

[musicbynumbers]

Still not tried it yet but something that comes to mind is what about the take system we already have?

If the take system we already have had a way to add markers like this in so it didn't need cutting it would be very powerful and give us what a few other daws have.


I do like the idea of also having it on a lane basis too but if so, then it would be better served as more of a "item" itself that can solo/mute what ever is with it.

Or something like that

[tonalstates]

Originally Posted by Gass n Klang

Don't wanna be the spoil-sport. I really appreciate, that there's a comping system initiated. But I'd love to see it running into the right direction.

Some things have to be considered early I think:

1) how to save and check different comps against each other
2) how to compare comps to rough takes(/lanes)
3) how to work with non-click based recordings
4) how to combine comps with standard editing techniques? e.g.: you do your drum comping and want to cut out the spill one the tom mics between toms hits. After that the drummer asks you to play a different take again.
5) how to do edit the final comp at all? if you need to stretch some parts, time-correct things or do pitching?

All these things are easily solved by another approach: playlists (alias track alternatives alias track versions).

In my experience as a longtime professional working audio engineer (professional as I'm making a living from it): leaving the recorded material untouched while comping to a separate lane/version/alternative is the most flexible thing for different workflows.

I used many different DAWs intensivly like Cubase, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Bitwig, Sequoia before I came to Reaper. I hate Pro Tools for nearly everything else but their playlist system is one of the two reasons, so many people are using it (the other reason is track based editing instead of item based editing).
So I'm begging you: Please keep the flexibility, reaper is known for and go with something like playlists.

Totally agree +1

[Reflected]

Originally Posted by schwa

This is the general idea. Run the action "add solo-in marker at cursor" to solo a media item within its track:



You can also set the media item left-drag mouse modifier to "solo item within track ignoring snap" (note: just noticed the not ignoring snap version will still partially respect snapping, a bug):



Also please note this feature is likely to take a lot of time to get right.

WOW
can we have this faded color featured for muted tracks

so items on muted track will have this faded color instead of messing the whole arrangement with a dark color for muted tracks?

really this will be neat!

[musicbynumbers]

midway through trying it

I think if it worked on the original take system too it would very powerful for sure!

I like being able to solo tracks on there own though though..

I'm not a fan of the fact that you can't edit or easily exchange the stuff on one of the lanes without it breaking.

Maybe there should be a master solo area that overrides everything else meaning that if you edited a unsoloed track it would automatically mute the areas of items on lanes below or above it.

Bug wise.. it breaks the marker positions very easily it seems if the item is timestretched?

[musicbynumbers]

Originally Posted by Reflected

WOW
can we have this faded color featured for muted tracks

so items on muted track will have this faded color instead of messing the whole arrangement with a dark color for muted tracks?

really this will be neat!

Agree about the muted tracks thing. Not always easy to see what's muted

[musicbynumbers]

Originally Posted by Gass n Klang

All these things are easily solved by another approach: playlists (alias track alternatives alias track versions).

I'd hope they can find a system that gives all the things you mentioned but not tied it to a track basis but some kind of container on the track that can do all that.

Much more flexible as then it doesn't matter if you rearrange the song as all these things move with the container.

If you have it tracked based. Surely if you move the song (or say SFX project) around in time even a little bit then don't all the track comps become out of time?

[BirdBird]

Thanks a lot for the work on a new comping system, it is very exciting to see it being worked on.
I would like to point some issues that I see with it:

Visuals
While the visuals reflect what is going on, from the perspective of the user they are hard to read. I believe the main reasons are:
* The visual changes that are the easiest to spot are inserted to *other* items instead of the one the user is operating on
* Once there is a significant number of markers on items, it becomes very hard to read what is going on
* Visual ambiguity, in the following image I have created two regions using the mouse modifiers on the lanes 2 and 3, however this creates a "phantom" region to the eye on the lane 1, creating a confusing situation where it looks like the item is not silenced between two solo markers. Creating a colored area between markers could help alleviate this. (but it adds further to the issue of creating more distractions on items the user is not working on)


Flexibility
The solo markers belong to items, but in usage, the solo behaviour is tied to the context around the items (adding markers to all overlapping items), this means the second the context changes the comp also gets broken. An example is trying to insert new items to the comp. (very common when recording) The user would have to figure out how to "sync" the new item manually to the existing comp.


Workflow
I would like to mention swipe comping that embass had here: Swipe Comping by Embass


The main benefit is the user gets to reveal what they want instead of functionally hiding things they don't want, (I believe this is similar to the behaviour of playlists in Pro-Tools where the user *adds* slices of items they want to their comp, instead of muting slices on items that they don't want.)
This makes it so user is completely free about how they want to edit the "takes" that they have sliced out without worrying about markers or any persistent data on items.
In my opinion this is cleaner to use than the direction solo markers seem to be headed, it is easier to read and understand and maintain from the perspective of the user.


Running out of mouse modifiers
Looking at the future, there will eventually be too many behaviours executed with mouse modifiers on media items to implement new features, I believe the addition of solo markers approaches this mark. (Personally found myself struggling to find a modifier thats both easy to hit and unused)
Having the ability to switch between multiple mouse modifier mappings would help with this. (opt-in tool workflow)
I think taking advantage of using existing behaviours (Razor Edit in this case) would also help with it.


Current Bugs
These are probably already known as solo markers are brand new, but wanted to report them anyway:
* Scrolling items or moving item left edges makes solo markers move at twice the speed
* Edits to solo markers are destructive to solo markers on overlapping items on other lanes while the user is dragging them around (instead of being destructive on mouse release)
* Mouse modifier to insert solo markers can't be used on MIDI items (but they can be inserted with the actions)
* Making edits to the items that cause splits remove solo markers (or perhaps scroll them out of the items bounds?)

[musicbynumbers]

If we could have the insert actions for mouse cursor that take into account that track too that would be great

I know we have mouse modifiers for these but key commands are good too as I'm running out of modifiers

[BirdBird]

Here is something fun to play around with for everyone else testing, if you add solo markers to all "takes" from start to end you can sort of swipe comp

[musicbynumbers]

Originally Posted by BirdBird

Here is something fun to play around with for everyone else testing, if you add solo markers to all "takes" from start to end you can sort of swipe comp

This mentally works better for me

Also, the Embass way could still be part of it if we had mute and solos for each lane perhaps. But would need some tweaking so this way you show would be better.

[musicbynumbers]

As a side note..

The left click modifier called "Solo item within track" is very useful

It allows you to click in an muted area to then make that one area soloed and mute the others. Very good for fast trying out takes.

[Gass n Klang]

Originally Posted by musicbynumbers

If you have it tracked based. Surely if you move the song (or say SFX project) around in time even a little bit then don't all the track comps become out of time?

Track based edit groups means: you can cut anywhere you want and all tracks that are grouped and have items at cut cursor position will be cut.

It surely can be implemented that comps move along with the "destination" playlist. But sometimes I want them to get out of sync: e.g. when you work on timing.

[ferropop]

Originally Posted by BirdBird

Here is something fun to play around with for everyone else testing, if you add solo markers to all "takes" from start to end you can sort of swipe comp

This feels a trillion times closer to correct to me. Excited there's movement in comping in general though!

When doing new recording passes that overlap existing markers, the bounds of that recording pass should be the two new markers that supersede everything that was there, and that should become the active area. PUNCH recording without splits!

Actions to "shift markers up/down a lane" would give us the same functionality of the current Next/Previous Take stuff, but with the HUGE improvement of no splits. Define a zone, and hotkey up/down through the takes. Want to change the zone? Move those markers, again cycle through that zone of takes. NO SPLITS.

Can't express enough how good this will be for Reaper once it's mature. It's pretty literally my Zone Markers idea I've annoyingly not shut up about for years lol, dozens of hours of thought and discussion put into that thread if that's helpful at all.

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=224536

[musicbynumbers]

Originally Posted by Gass n Klang

Track based edit groups means: you can cut anywhere you want and all tracks that are grouped and have items at cut cursor position will be cut.

It surely can be implemented that comps move along with the "destination" playlist. But sometimes I want them to get out of sync: e.g. when you work on timing.

If we could get comping to conform to a container rather than a track and have it so it can span multiple tracks (for multichanel drums etc) and still have all the functions you mentioned for recall then not only could it act like the protools one (by containing the whole length of the song) but could also give the same functionality to say a verse as it did a chorus but allow you to say use regions to double up the chorus (which would copy over the item container) without breaking the verse container too

Trying to have all the cake!

This way, we get something that can work well for very diverse projects like films, game sound etc where the timeline can get moved around a lot but it doesn't break this function.

[ferropop]

Originally Posted by musicbynumbers

If we could get comping to conform to a container rather than a track and have it so it can span multiple tracks (for multichanel drums etc) and still have all the functions you mentioned for recall then not only could it act like the protools one (by containing the whole length of the song) but could also give the same functionality to say a verse as it did a chorus but allow you to say use regions to double up the chorus (which would copy over the item container) without breaking the verse container too

Trying to have all the cake!

This way, we get something that can work well for very diverse projects like films, game sound etc where the timeline can get moved around a lot but it doesn't break this function.

The container thing is the ultimate dream, especially for ARA2 stuff like Melodyne and Vocalign. Especially Vocalign, that is SO specific about requiring items to be equal-sized or it freaks out. Currently the Reaper fix is to have to render comps to brand new tracks, which is a whole hell of a process.

[paaltio]

Originally Posted by BirdBird

I would like to mention swipe comping that embass had here: Swipe Comping by Embass


The main benefit is the user gets to reveal what they want instead of functionally hiding things they don't want, (I believe this is similar to the behaviour of playlists in Pro-Tools where the user *adds* slices of items they want to their comp, instead of muting slices on items that they don't want.)
This makes it so user is completely free about how they want to edit the "takes" that they have sliced out without worrying about markers or any persistent data on items.
In my opinion this is cleaner to use than the direction solo markers seem to be headed, it is easier to read and understand and maintain from the perspective of the user.

This is brilliant, did not know about this script! Basically Pro Tools's comping, yes.

While I'm truly excited to see this solo marker feature moving forward, I have to say I prefer the Pro Tools method over the Cubase/Logic style method that the solo markers seem to be steering towards.

My main problem with the Cubase/Logic style automatic comp propagation using some kinds of markers is the lack of independence on the comp.

Consider a situation where the performance has timing issues and I need to move some notes in one of the takes. In the solo marker system I would need to split and move the source lane to alter the timing. Really dislike this part about comping in Cubase every time I've had to do it: the original takes should never have to be altered! It's a real mess right away, and it's best to just implode the comp and edit after that. But now you've lost the takes and flexibility of easily making new comp choices.

Pro Tools's system is really simple, but it works: the comp is simply the main lane where portion of takes are elevated to using their razor edit equivalent. It's basically as fast as these automatically propagating comp systems, but the comp is entirely independent, and you can go to town editing the timings etc. You can always fall back to the original takes without any extra steps. I hope we can achieve that in REAPER as well, like the swipe comping script does above.

Of course I'm sure there are ways of getting this comp independence with the solo markers too, e.g. you could have an action that generates a single active lane from them and removes/disables the markers. But it seems like a bit of a clash of two different design philosophies. I would just honestly steer the comping system to the more independent comp system altogether.

But anyway I'm just really excited you guys are working on this, and I'm sure this is going to be the best comping system in the industry once you are on the other side of this!

PS. And lest I forget: multitrack editing!!! Both from multitracks recorded in REAPER and imported from other sources (i.e. you can't just autogroup recorded items). I would really like to see this basic functionality without scripts and then the community could enhance it from there.