v4: SWS/S&M Extension

[X-Raym]

HI

As promised to Jason, this is a quick video for advanced tempo mapping using SWS actions.
By advanced i mean, no 4/4 or 3/4, no consistent BPM, and variable time signature every measure (except the intro in my case).
Because of that, some manual process is necessary (it can't be full automatized).

It's not a tutorial, just a demonstration, i will explain if you think it's good. It's kind of a mix between the Tempo Mapping 101 worflow and some SWS actions.
The SWS actions convert markers to regions, delete all regions and the brand new Move closest (measure) grid line to mouse cursor (may create tempo marker) are used.

=> Here is the video link <=

It surely can be optimised with other shortcuts, but what do you think of the overall process ?

EDIT : In the video, I could create the mesure 2 and 3 just with the Move closest (measure) grid line to mouse cursor (may create tempo marker) action without regions and markers, because they are the same time signature of the first measure. Thiw way, I could put markers just on time signature changes (which come every measure after the intro) or on heavy BPM changes.

[Jae.Thomas]

seems a little complex to me - but I will view it again later!

although your video helped a lot - I am getting results by putting both of those initial project settings parameters to "time" --- i wonder if that was causing my problem.

I really just want to drop tempo markers easily as I got through the song... maybe the midi note thing might help.

much appreciated!

[X-Raym]

It looks complicated because it's for complicated tracks but in fact it just take 10-15 minutes to make a 3 minutes track perfectly (if you already know the structure)
But if you have a relatively constant tempo track in fixed time signature, you can surely achive a tempo mapping by an other method far more easier and faster

Just put markers on the way with a keyboard shortcut and use the SWS action "Convert Project Markers to Tempo Markers". Don't forget to fine tune the result :P

[Jae.Thomas]

I don't want to clog up this pre-thread with my questions, especially because they are leaving the realm of the pre.

the comments here have been REALLY instructional.

thanks everyone!

[Jae.Thomas]

the first measure always gets "weird"

maybe you can join me here: http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.p...55#post1333055

[Argitoth]

FEATURE REQUEST: Get project chunk

It seems like there's no way to access the master play rate envelope. That's what I'm trying to get at.

[matthewjumpsoffbuildings]

Originally Posted by Argitoth

FEATURE REQUEST: Get project chunk

It seems like there's no way to access the master play rate envelope. That's what I'm trying to get at.

that would be great. Itd also be nice to be able to access/edit the data in the project bay chunk, since currently reascript offers no way to access or control the project bay functionality

[Anton9]

Feature Request:

I know we have "Move closest grid line to mouse cursor" but a "Move closest grid line to edit cursor" could be super useful aswell.

On second thought how about "Move closest grid line left of edit cursor to edit cursor" and one for "Move closest grid line right of edit cursor to edit cursor" ?

Thanks

[Native Acoustics]

Hello, really digging into the SWS extension for Reaper, i'm really LOVING THIS extension! thank YOU SWS!!

I have one question about some actions. I see a lot of very cool actions for MIDI, but they don't seem to be available when adding to the MIDI editor Toolbar, I can only access them in the actions menu when viewing the arrangement window and the docked toolbars. Am I missing something? Or are these awesome MIDI actions not able to be placed into the toolbar for the MIDI editor?

I will eventually get all my shortkeys programmed, but for now, I would love to have the MIDI toolbars populated with SWS actions until I get around to refining my shortkeys.


Running Mac OSX 10.6.8 & Reaper 4.61

[airon]

Something special (to me) incoming for 2.4.0 #4 .

Just makes me go:

[nofish]

Originally Posted by Native Acoustics

I have one question about some actions. I see a lot of very cool actions for MIDI, but they don't seem to be available when adding to the MIDI editor Toolbar, I can only access them in the actions menu when viewing the arrangement window and the docked toolbars. Am I missing something? Or are these awesome MIDI actions not able to be placed into the toolbar for the MIDI editor?

I will eventually get all my shortkeys programmed, but for now, I would love to have the MIDI toolbars populated with SWS actions until I get around to refining my shortkeys.


Running Mac OSX 10.6.8 & Reaper 4.61

It's a limitation of Reaper's API, meaning the SWS guys are only able to register actions in main section, not MIDI editor section unfortunately. That's why all the MIDI SWS actions have to live in the main section (for now).

Here's a post from Jeffos talking about it:

http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...postcount=1647

However, there's a workaround using Python to put main (MIDI) actions in MIDI editor toolbars:

http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...69&postcount=3

[Native Acoustics]

Thanks for the quick reply!
For now, the actions work from the main-toolbar/dock windows, so I just reduce the height of my MIDI editor window so I can see them. I guess I can add buttons to switch the Toolbars to MIDI toolbars for now to conserve the screen space.

[musicbynumbers]

I can verify Airon's claim

Very awesome Indeed!

Originally Posted by airon

Something special (to me) incoming for 2.4.0 #4 .

Just makes me go:

[Native Acoustics]

One more question for now, but not sure if it's relative to the SWS Extension. Is there a way to time stretch Envelope Automations with the clips they overlay? I have the "Move Envelopes with Items" checked on, but there is no effect when an item is time-stretched. However, when adding envelopes to a "Take Envelope: Pan, Volume, Pitch or Mute", those do time stretch.

Is there a function or setting somewhere that will allow the Track Envelopes to Time Stretch with the items they overlay?

[musicbynumbers]

Originally Posted by Native Acoustics

One more question for now, but not sure if it's relative to the SWS Extension. Is there a way to time stretch Envelope Automations with the clips they overlay? I have the "Move Envelopes with Items" checked on, but there is no effect when an item is time-stretched. However, when adding envelopes to a "Take Envelope: Pan, Volume, Pitch or Mute", those do time stretch.

Is there a function or setting somewhere that will allow the Track Envelopes to Time Stretch with the items they overlay?

Not at the moment but there's a lot of hope on envelopes becoming "item based" at some point soon.

There is however SWS commands to stretch or compress selected envelope points both in time and amplitude using actions by "fingers". Search for "fng env" and you'll find time

Perhaps you can combine them with actions to stretch the item as well but I have a feeling you won't get them to do the same amount.

it will happen though!

[Native Acoustics]

Aha! Awesome, yeah I saw that action but haven't got to testing it yet. Will do next. In the meantime, I've been creating some icons for user groove generation, will post them in the Reaper Stash soon.

[poplomop]

Warp grid
SWS/BR: Move closest grid line/tempo marker to mouse cursor:
- Prevent creating multiple undo points while shortcut is kept on being pressed
- Smoother reaction to mouse movements, not depending on the OS keyboard settings anymore
- While the shortcut is pressed, target grid gets "locked" to mouse so it isn't possible to accidentally edit surrounding grids
- Change mouse cursor when using the action (win only)
- Improved efficiency when dealing with high tempo marker count
- Note: due to the way upper improvements are made, you can't arm the action from the toolbar (as some users are doing here). If you really need that, you can create a separate macro just for that:
- SWS/BR Save edit cursor position, slot x
- View: Move edit cursor to mouse cursor (no snapping)
- SWS/BR: Move closest grid to edit cursor
- SWS/BR Restore edit cursor position, slot x
Added actions:
- SWS/BR: Move closest (measure) grid line to edit/play cursor (Issue 638)
- SWS/BR: Move closest left/right side grid line to edit cursor

Thank you Breeder!

[Anton9]

Well just great..., I installed v2.4.0 #5 and now all of the actions and entire extension has disappeared form REAPER.

Any way to fix? I'm using a portable install of REAPER v4.62pre2 on WinXP

[Jeffos]

Originally Posted by Anton9

Well just great..., I installed v2.4.0 #5 and now all of the actions and entire extension has disappeared form REAPER.

Any way to fix? I'm using a portable install of REAPER v4.62pre2 on WinXP

Tested #5 on XP, it's ok here, but I know what's probably going on... Just to make sure, please can you create an issue and attach a zip with your ini files? can you also please list the dll you have in REAPER\Plugins (DOS box: cd blabla\REAPER\Plugins, then: DIR > list.txt)?
TIA!

[heda]

instaled #5 here.. no problems win7 64
thank you for the fix of deleting tempo markers!! It's working perfectly now
And thank you for the Loudness functions!
Recently I'm more impressed with the extensions updates than with Reaper updates

[musicbynumbers]

Installed here on win 8.1 64bit and all good too!

I've sent Breeder a donation for the loudness implementation as it's well worth saying thank you for!

Not an easy thing to implement (I would imagine) and he did a great job on it!

Again Thanks!

[BenK-msx]

did a quick test on the loudness analysis, pretty cool stuff..

didn't take long to paste to envelope>invert points>compress them a bit and bingobango i'd ridden the faders.

[X-Raym]

The new loudness actions set is quite cool

EDIT 2 : Here is the link of the features requests on Code Google, if you want to support these ideas

I come here for two three feature requests.

1. Regions to Regions Subtitles

Context : There is already the gorgeous action Create regions from sel item(s) named with take
I have a whole audio story project, in which each item is named with its dialog line, and each track is dedicated to one character.

Screenshot :


Feature : It would be so powerful if these Regions could be transformed as Subtitle Region.
With Create regions from sel item(s) named with take (which already exist) and Regions to Regions Subtitles (the feature request), it would be possible to have an SRT for the whole project instantly. So powerful !

A shortcut would be Create subtitle regions from sel item(s) named with take.

2. Merge regions with same name (preserving subtitles)

Context : I have a lot of dialog lines which are in fact several items (with the same name, due to comping technique). The Create regions from sel item(s) named with take action make a lot of unnecessary regions - small regions with same name.

Screenshot with the Create subtitle regions from group item named with first take action :


Screenshot for what it wanted to looks like with the second feature request :


Feature : A simple action as Merge regions with same name could do the trick, if it preserves subtitles (that's why i put the feature request to SWS team )or if the Regions to Regions subtitles exists.


Those actions would be so awesome and perfect. No other DAW can compete against that I am sure that it could be helpful to a lot a person which make video subtitles or Automatic Dialog Replacement.

I assume that further adjustment of subtitles (translation, lines split, overlapping) would be made in a subtitles editing software.

Tell me if i am not clear, i will make a video.
And if you have an other idea for what i'm trying to do, or if i missed something somewhere, let me know
PS : i hope I'm a the right place to suggest feature ?

EDIT : This talk about SRT reminds me an old issue i had. Here is a thread i wrote weeks ago. Because nobody answered, i think it's time to put it here as a feature request

3. Region names after SubRip SRT importation

Context :
When we import a SRT file, the regions are named "Subtitles #1, #2..."

Screenshot :


Feature : It would be great if the regions were named with the dialog line in the SRT file Far more handy than the dialog line index (wich is already set with the region index number)

[Anton9]

Originally Posted by Jeffos

Tested #5 on XP, it's ok here, but I know what's probably going on... Just to make sure, please can you create an issue and attach a zip with your ini files? can you also please list the dll you have in REAPER\Plugins (DOS box: cd blabla\REAPER\Plugins, then: DIR > list.txt)?
TIA!

Thanks for looking into this Jeffos.., which ini files do you want?
Oh, by the way if I reinstall sws-v2.4.0.4 everything is back to the way it was.

[airon]

Originally Posted by X-Raym

The new loudness actions set is quite cool

I come here for two three feature requests.
*snip*

You should post these in the project tracker (see Jeffos's signature for the link), and link back to that post of yours. That way you'll know when one of the developers announces that they're doing the feature.

[X-Raym]

Oh ! Sorry for messing this thread =/

I'm on it ! Thanks !

EDIT : Done ! Here is the link
Don't hesitate to leave a comment if you feel the power of these features !

[airon]

Scanning items for loudness is a big improvement for me, because any external scanner will only work on complete files, not a partial bit of it depicted by the item.

[heda]

It's a matter of time until it has automatic continuous update of the loudness envelope graph in the background each time an item in the track is modified.

[Breeder]

Originally Posted by heda

It's a matter of time until it has automatic continuous update of the loudness envelope graph in the background each time an item in the track is modified.

There are some corner-cases to consider when it comes to something like that.
So it probably won't happen any time soon because I'm kinda busy, sorry

[heda]

Originally Posted by Breeder

There are some corner-cases to consider when it comes to something like that.
So it probably won't happen any time soon because I'm kinda busy, sorry

Don't worry... It is great as it is now It is easy to manually update and it is very clever to export it at any selected envelope lane. We can have various dummy loudness graphs JS fx, each one with the graphs at some points, to display before and after changes for example.
Another feature would be to export all those values to a .csv file for reporting.

[musicbynumbers]

I think we're all hoping that with a bit of a tweak to the API we can get it do be something like this!

Breeder has taking it pretty far to be honest and done amazing work. I'm hoping the devs (with some encouragement from us) can take it that last mile!

[Breeder]

Originally Posted by musicbynumbers

I think we're all hoping that with a bit of a tweak to the API we can get it do be something like this!

I think the most important API addition would be the ability to take samples from the end of audio chain - that way we could measure loudness with all the FX, receives etc...
The way it works now is not all that bad, but it has shortcomings :/

[musicbynumbers]

Originally Posted by Breeder

I think the most important API addition would be the ability to take samples from the end of audio chain - that way we could measure loudness with all the FX, receives etc...
The way it works now is not all that bad, but it has shortcomings :/

indeed. I didn't mean to insult you It's been super useful for me already and has made levelling up loads of in game music and SFX so fast

It's huge improvement!

The ultimate addition would be an envelope on the master that auto updates itself every time to represent the overall curve. We are close though!

[Anton9]

Jeffos,

I'm still having that same problem, even with #6. I tried it on Vista and it works just fine. If you still want me to send the .ini files let me know which ones.

Thanks

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

GRIM extensions!

Global REAPER Interactivity Modules. Or something.

Jeffos, you never spoke your mind about this suggestion for renaming the extensions

[heda]

I think the extensions will be named Reaper 5.

[Native Acoustics]

Reaper 5? Did someone say REAPER 5!!!????

[Native Acoustics]

I miss this thing, I haven't used FL Studio in years. but one thing I miss most about it is the XY Controller. Particularly its "Smooth" knob, adds awesome aliasing for MIDI. Till this day, I cannot find one single tool to replace this thing. Lately, i'm considering getting an old junker PC and bussing MIDI through it just so I can take advantage of this little beast. Even better, a multi touchscreen display to be able to have several of these.

One of my favorite things about this tool is how well it smooths out jagged MIDI modulations. I looked into some software that can port a .dll called "jVSTwRapper", but it looks quite complex for porting .dll plugins over to .vst.

Is there possibly anyone who's up for the job? For some cashola?

http://www.image-line.com/support/FL...controller.jpg

[BogdanS]

after update sws to #8 and reaper to 4.611 all my cycle actions disappeared from the action list and dont work.

[X-Raym]

@BogdanS

Cycle Actions can be registered in any section of the action list (e.g. MIDI Editor)
Note: requires REAPER v4.62pre7+

This is why :P