After a long look at Reaper and a search in
the manual one important missing feature
struck me:
Midi: Track-Playback Parameter "Delay"
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Midi: Track-Playback Parameter "Delay"
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If you have many tracks it is important to have some
tracks played some milliseconds earlier than all
the other tracks. Think of instruments with a soft attack
like violins or strings. String instruments which are
tightly quantized on the grid must play ca. 40 ms
earlier than drums and bass.
On the other hand some tracks must be delayed
a little. In case you want a slight "laid back" feeling
you need to have the drums played some milliseconds
later.
So if you want to adjust the microtiming of tracks
in a song you need a "track-playback-parameter"
called "delay". This parameter causes a track
to be played earlier or later.
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Is there a workaround in Reaper?
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1. You can select all items of a track and edit (F2)
their properties. Here is a parameter "start in
source". Positive values let all the items play
earlier - negative values later.
But this "start in source" moves all midi notes
inside the items - and thus they don't stay
quantized on the grid. So you can't work and
quantize again on all these midi-items.
"Start in source" is not an item-playback-parameter,
instead it is a real note-move-action. So it's unusable
for microtiming adjustments.
2. The Midi-Plugin "Rea Control MIDI" doesn't
provide a delay-parameter. But the plugin
"JS MIDI Delay" does. Unfortunately you can't
set negative values:
So you can't let all the items play earlier, only
later. Not really good!
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Conclusion + Solution
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The best solution would be: Every
Track has a parameter called "Delay" which
effects the way a track is played only. So any
Track can be pushed to an earlier time (in
milliseconds or frames) or to a slightly later
time (in milliseconds or frames).
(If I didn't oversee something or somebody has
a better suggestion ... )