Loop a track for a couple of hours...

[myton]

Hi there,

I got a request from a (potential) customer.
He has a gaming channel and wants a rock track that loops for several hours to play in the background.
My plan was to create a 4-5 minute track and loop that but in a way that it doesn't loop the same way each time to prevent that it becomes boring...
I'm familiar with the SWS shuffle items action and wanted to use that to shuffle regions but apparantly that doesn't work...

Any suggestions from your side?

Many thanks in advance!

Greetings,
Ruud.

[Fex]

Originally Posted by myton

Any suggestions from your side?

He wants rock, so, bass, guitar, drums.... I probably wouldn't bother with vocals. Loop the lot.

Also, a soft synth.... and here's where the variation comes in;

Find two very different sounding presets, either of which sound okay in context when playing the same riff.

Switch off the synths UI, using instead Reaper's native UI - this will make the next step much easier.

Use automation envelopes to change every single parameter of the synth from the value in preset 1 to the value in preset 2, very slowly, over, say, one hour.

The changes will be subtle enough from moment to moment that the listener won't notice them, but by the end of the hour, the piece will sound very different from how it sounded at the beginning.

Over the second hour, they all morph back again....

[myton]

Hi Fex,

that's a very interesting approach!
I'm certainly going to try this; thanks a lot!!

[Fex]

No problem. Welcome to the forum!

[Fex]

I just had a thought. Look after it, it's an only child.

The guy's running a gaming channel, so he's presumably serious about his tech. I know he probably wants an mp3, not a DAW, but, oh, the possibilities....

He'd probably want to run Reaper on a separate rig for this (if only a laptop). He wouldn't have to learn Reaper, but you'd need to tell him how to set the project up.

Now, if you can just somehow get both rigs responding to the same controller.... because you don't want to get distracted and forget to reload....

But either way, think of the creative possibilities of custom actions to introduce.... well, anything, really, depending on the game.... with a single keystroke. A whole new loop when you level up. Reverb bombs on the kick as the RPGs land. Snare rolls as the machine guns fire. Extreme weirdness when the zombies appear. Loads of stuff I'd never think of in a million years.

I had to post. I mean, OP and his gamer buddy are never going to do this (me neither).... but maybe it will inspire somebody.