issues evaluating reaper (new user pov)

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edit to clean up - click on "last edited by aciddose" for the original and the last version which are most important, although don't take my word for it if you're interested.

you probably don't want to read anything but the first post and the last page unless you want to wade through an evolution of sorts. can be mucky, you've been warned.

the signal-to-noise ratio in this thread is way worse than i wanted and almost entirely my fault. there are also issues where people didn't see where i'm coming from with "racks" as in 19" racks with patch bays for midi/audio where-ever your favorite position is/was if you ever used this stuff.

lots more noise if you read the thread.

i'm moving this thread's resulting parts to FR as suggested, anyone coming here now would be only to review the thought-process, discussions and arguments that had to be made and come to some conclusion in order to reach the point in FR.

i'll update this post with links as they're created.

mouse-wheel not working w/some fx

[vocalid]

I'll be honest with you, I haven't read more than 2 or 3 lines of your post....

what a waste of both our time :P

Have fun with an other DAW, as this one is just not for you..... tough luck!

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so your solution to problems is to ignore them? why bother replying to my post?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails

believe it or not - the appearance of the application to a new user is probably the most important factor influencing sales and so to the programmer the top issue. existing users already gave up their cash so opinions like "it's not for you" are meaningless.

thanks for the help by the way. great way to support reaper! "use something else".

[vocalid]

Originally Posted by aciddose

so your solution to problems is to ignore them? why bother replying to my post?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails

believe it or not - the appearance of the application to a new user is probably the most important factor influencing sales and so to the programmer the top issue. existing users already gave up their cash so opinions like "it's not for you" are meaningless.

thanks for the help by the way. great way to support reaper! "use something else".

Because people who come on to a forum to arrogantly diss a program don't really deserve anything else.... you don't like the program, you are free to go and buy Sonar X1 (which sounds like the program you are wishing fr) or Cubase or any other.....

There wasn't a single line that says something positive about reaper... so, you totally disliked it, there is really no use in trying to keep you, perhaps it's not a software for everyone.

[Janne83]

Ive read through your post.

Somehow i see youre trying to use Reaper with other softwares workflow. I had the same problem when I started to play around with Reaper. (Coming from Logic and Digital Performer background)
Its a steep learning curve but it is worth it. It is totally user customizable and its up to you to set up your style of work (it may take some time to set up this)

Also I think you would get a warmer response if you presented your issues with less "attack based" method.

regards J

[dasombre]

I did not feel anything negative about your post.
Just want to add that Reaper can do anything you want, you have just to configure it that way and this takes some time but as previously stated it's well worth it.
You can make Reaper your own personalized workhorse (including decluttering the menus and put thing where you want them).

You have to see reaper as a work-platform where you decide how you want things to be rather than a colored solution for the feature junkies with no customization besides key-commands like Cubase or Logic.

In return you get a very cheap but very stable and reliable and fully customizeble piece of gear for your work. It's up to you.

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yes you can do the things i want to do - it's the manner in which you can do them which is the issue. none of the issues i bought up are solvable in any other way unless there are unknown options; in which case i'd love to know about them. (the dialogs can already use folder structures? how? vst plugins can receive mouse-wheel messages? how? etc)

obviously my post would seem to be an "attack" by certain people, which is why i linked to the wikipedia article on the psychology i assume is associated with such a defensive response to my post.

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why would i post anything positive about reaper? what use would that be to the developers?

if you insist - reaper's modularity in audio routing is ideal, and it's the only host that offers abstraction of this nature, where a "track" is a container for any number of "channels", "effects", "instruments" and so on. (see #1)

support for vst 2.x's full capability with modular routing, combined midi/audio processing and many other features is great. some hosts support some of the same features, but i can't say for certain that any support all of these features. (see #2)

the provided UI customization is also great. it is lacking in a few features (not everything is customizable) but these are non-essential and could be added in the future. no other host provides for this. (see #3, #4, #5)

[Janne83]

Originally Posted by aciddose

yes you can do the things i want to do - it's the manner in which you can do them which is the issue. none of the issues i bought up are solvable in any other way unless there are unknown options; in which case i'd love to know about them. (the dialogs can already use folder structures? how? vst plugins can receive mouse-wheel messages? how? etc)

obviously my post would seem to be an "attack" by certain people, which is why i linked to the wikipedia article on the psychology i assume is associated with such a defensive response to my post.

in reality my post is not an attack but an attempt to see improvements happen in reaper. these issues are mentioned countless times by people who have tried reaper but decided not to purchase a license due to those issues.

why would a person put so much effort into not only describing the problems, but also the solutions to the problems? not only that, but in a precise, technical manner taking into account many related issues? just to cause a ruckus?

Menus go to options/customize menus/toolbars. In that dialog you can make subfolders by right clicking in the blank content area.

Mousewheeel: Preferences/Mouse and set mosewheel targets window with focus.

If you have any more questions just ask



J

[Mercado_Negro]

1) What VSTs or VSTis are not receiving mouse-wheel messages correctly?

All my plug-ins seem to work fine here (Brainworx, Slate Digital, Sonalksis, SPL, etc., etc.). Follow Janne83 advice and configure your Mouse-wheel behavior in Options/Preferences/Editing behavior/Mouse.

2) What's the difference between a "instrument rack" and a track with a VSTi routed to different tracks for audio outputs which you can process independently and also routed to separate tracks for MIDI channels? What can you do with an "instrument rack" that you can't do with a setup like this (which you can create fast by just dragging the VSTi from the FX Browser to the Track Control Panel)?

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janne83;

in reality my post is not an attack but an attempt to see improvements happen in reaper. these issues are mentioned countless times by people who have tried reaper but decided not to purchase a license due to those issues.

why would a person put so much effort into not only describing the problems, but also the solutions to the problems? not only that, but in a precise, technical manner taking into account many related issues? just to cause a ruckus?

anyone interpreting my post as an attack is misinterpreting it. i see absolutely nothing i would change except maybe to expand on where i say "unusable". what i mean is that the extra effort required to cope with these issues i've brought up (leaving out others which i haven't yet invested the effort to discover) is going to offset any benefits of using reaper in the first place. this would be a different situation if i needed to use reaper as a tool to get some kind of job done - for the majority of the market however (#) of which i am a member the desire is to use it as an instrument for one's own enjoyment .

(#) (based upon my observation, which may be incorrect, but i feel is very likely to be correct)

[Janne83]

Originally Posted by aciddose

janne83;

in reality my post is not an attack but an attempt to see improvements happen in reaper. these issues are mentioned countless times by people who have tried reaper but decided not to purchase a license due to those issues.

why would a person put so much effort into not only describing the problems, but also the solutions to the problems? not only that, but in a precise, technical manner taking into account many related issues? just to cause a ruckus?

anyone interpreting my post as an attack is misinterpreting it. i see absolutely nothing i would change except maybe to expand on where i say "unusable". what i mean is that the extra effort required to cope with these issues i've brought up (leaving out others which i haven't yet invested the effort to discover) is going to offset any benefits of using reaper in the first place. this would be a different situation if i needed to use reaper as a tool to get some kind of job done - for the majority of the market however (#) of which i am a member the desire is to use it as an instrument for one's own enjoyment .

(#) (based upon my observation, which may be incorrect, but i feel is very likely to be correct)

Sorry if it sounded like this. I personally dont find your post offensive.
We are here to provide you help with any issues you have just try to describe your issues in a more compressed format.

J

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as i said, yes, you can accomplish this with a track. the difference is that a track is considered such an absolute in reaper - for example if i insert two stereo instruments on a track, how can i route the stereo outputs independently? the answer is to create two tracks of course, but this just complicates things.

this issue is not too critical because the situations in which you'd need a "rack" entity separate from "track" and "channel" are probably rare. why would you want to insert two instruments in a single track when you could instead create two tracks and route them as required?

clutter of course - except that generally you're not going to have hundreds of instrument tracks and even if so they could be placed in a folder, as i said i could do.

it's more a matter of convenience in multiple ways. one is that having a "rack" for instruments, sends or other "processors" (midi -> audio, audio -> audio, midi->midi, audio->midi, ...) outside the scope of a track allows them to be more visible, rather than being hidden behind several layers of folders and tracks.

another convenience is that with such a system a default "rack" could be incorporated into the channel exactly as it is now, and in fact would require no "global" version because you could just as easily create a track named "global" or whatever you like. processors could be inserted there, and dealt with as individual groups of channels rather than being mixed in some hidden way into the existing track. you could select that for example instrument #1's stereo pair goes to 1/2, and instrument #2 goes to 3/4.

essentially my request is to fix the issue of not being able to handle such routing/grouping issues without creating extra tracks - that is, to fix a limitation of the current track system by _adding_ functionality, not changing it.

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what is the point of having mouse-wheel support hidden in a configuration dialog? why is it off by default?

of course if it's a valid reason i'll shut up, but i can't think of one and it would be such a minor change to make it work by default.

it is possible a lot of people have tried reaper, found the mouse-wheel not working and given up. (this influenced me significantly the last time i took a look at reaper)

ok - i've looked at this more closely and apparently reaper is pushing messages via sendmessage rather than using the vst specification's "whee" vendorspecific call (as implemented in cubase). this is arguably better and i've fixed my code to work correctly with these messages. the fact "whee" is implemented as part of the specification (vst 2.4) however means there are going to be plugins that depend upon it and cubase creates a huge issue with their "we're too lazy to fix our code, so we'll make you implement our work-around in yours" methodology.

i'd probably argue against implementing "whee", but it might be added as a plugin-specific option that the user can select "in case the plugin doesn't respond to mouse wheel."

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the folder issue is not one of sub-folders.. it's the way in which they're configured. i know it supports sub-folders of course, but the configuration dialog uses a flat list for some reason instead of a folder/tree structure (i should have said _tree_) which would help to hide a lot of the clutter when using those dialogs.

this is probably a one-time issue for a new user, there are available ".reapermenu" files online for a lot of people that might be perfect for them, and generally you wouldn't need to make modifications once you decide on a particular configuration.

that said, there is a lot of unnecessary difficulty caused by the type of UI used in the dialog (flat list view) considering the number of elements being worked with, and there is no "preset system" or "themes" for menus which would help a lot. for example a practical application might be that you'd change the content in menus depending on what types of tasks you're doing.

improved "themes" incorporating all elements, not just colors would be ideal in some cases. i'm not sure if this is already possible, but the included themes don't seem to modify the menus and there is no "menus themes" section anywhere.

[grayter1]

Originally Posted by Janne83

Mousewheeel: Preferences/Mouse and set mosewheel targets window with focus.
J

Thank you, thank you, thank you...

I use NI's KORE Player a lot, and this was the only VI that I couldn't scroll through the patch list with. I have all the add-on packs, making the list huge. This fixed that.

To the original poster, I come from 10 years of Logic, and for me, Reaper was difficult to wrap my head around. When I began asking questions here a few months ago, I encountered some of the same "push back" to criticism. However, this is a wonderful community, and I've learned a great deal here (like today).

With that said, some here have to realize that as cool as Reaper is, it's not perfect - no DAW is. New users are going to get frustrated and vent as we work through the learning curve. Experienced users have to be patient with us newbies. "Go use [X] program then", shouldn't be the go-to answer.

My learning curve was reduced significantly by reading the manual, the forum and watching training videos. Reaper is a different way to think and work, but as others have said - it's well worth it.

tg

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it certainly is better, but for me not a "new" way to work, but the "only" and "obvious" way to work. the more i look at options in reaper the more i find they did things the way i'd have done them, had i considered them long enough. (in many cases i already had!)

however, i also find in almost every area there are UI issues or minor lack of functionality which could improve the experience for new users by a huge margin. i'm going to try to share all of these issues as i experience them if they're looked into by the programmers in an attempt to see these issues eliminated for new users and in some cases probably also leading to an improvement for existing users.

another thing i've noticed is that the default context menus are horrible - of course this is the most common complaint though so it's probably not very helpful. for example having to go to "insert ->" is non-obvious at first, although after figuring this out _and_ understanding menu customization you can add it (some of "insert") to the right context menu[s] yourself.

that is just another tie-in to an original problem though - that it's quite a bit more difficult than necessary to accomplish these types of customizations - only worsened by the fact that they probably should be that way in the first place. cockos' incorporation of more "community" produced features would improve the product again by a huge amount.

[Janne83]

Originally Posted by grayter1

Thank you, thank you, thank you...

"Go use [X] program then", shouldn't be the go-to answer.

tg

Completely agree. But also questions should be presented in an organized manner. Somehow it is hard to read through 300 words of psychological analysis and coding proposals so we can actually answer the question.

J

[EricM]

Originally Posted by grayter1

Thank you, thank you, thank you...

2x. Just found out about this as well, as I preferred for scrolling
to work under mouse cursor, but didn't thought this was the issue
for some VSTs for not receiving mouse-wheel command.

Thanks for the tip Janne!

Also welcome to the op, constructive criticism is always welcome.
(Haven't read the op fully, so I cannot comment/debate yet).

e

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Originally Posted by Janne83

Completely agree. But also questions should be presented in an organized manner. Somehow it is hard to read through 300 words of psychological analysis and coding proposals so we can actually answer the question.

well it (pretty much everything?) isn't a question i thought you could answer, although thanks for trying.

i did explain that at the beginning of my post.

[Solar]

Originally Posted by Janne83

Completely agree. But also questions should be presented in an organized manner. Somehow it is hard to read through 300 words of psychological analysis and coding proposals so we can actually answer the question.

J

Can't agree more


First, welcome aboard @aciddose

And to the OP @aciddose, know something, NO DAW is perfect and if there is a function that doesn't seem to be in front of you in LOGICAL WAY, it happens to all other DAWs right? Anytime we use a DAW or discovering a new DAW even if that feature is there (but not there the way we wished it would), we say to oursevels ( damnnnnn WHY they didn't put it there to be obvious or daaaamn it should be there for me right?).... and the fun and amazing thing with REAPER is that you can come and ask to DEVs and even suggest and ask what you other fellas do think if that feature would be Integrate, be Up front so we can access it without having to do 600 actions before getting and most of the time... the AMAZING DEV TEAM at Cockos, they can make it happen from my experience.

And indeed didn't find the post of @aciddose offensive and I do believe that indeed YOU (as you said at the beginning of your post) that you DON'T know how to use REAPER because to USE REAPER you need to DIVE in the VISION USABILITY OF REAPER. Reaper is like any other DAW out there but Completely Different mindset. That's what makes Reaper what it is and will keep making it although the amazing people here including Dev Team and Contributors writing codes, SWS etc.. are working closely to make reaper have more easy Access Menus, Ways like Normal DAWs behavior (if I may say so) at the same time by letting Reaper be the Most FLEXIBLE DAW on the market which makes it deeply and creatively unique in it's approach just like another contender called Studio One (if you've heard of it).

Quickly about a TRACK being a track: for me I love the fact a track can be whatever you feel to be

Doesn't mean I don't agree with some points of the OP but, if we all could, we would add and reshape everything we see fit in our lives in 1 Click

So as @Janne83 said, ask a way but "chilax" a bit, let's always keep things cool in here

Good luck

[EvilDragon]

I forgot to say: welcome to Reaper forum aciddose! I remember you from KvR.

Man, that VST3.5 topic was tense.



To all others, aciddose did http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1427.html

[Subz]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

To all others, aciddose did http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1427.html

Wow!! long time since i have tested this one!! (Xwip has been about from before Reaper from what i recall?)

Hay aciddose!!

its djsubject here if you remember me

FYI, i use templates for all my multi out/timbre instruments so i only have to set them up once,

the hidden menu options might be a bit much at first but if you do stick with reaper & end up "rolling your own" i think you will appreciate many of the advanced hidden menus!

I still use XT inside reaper if i ever need any modular setups where there would be two instruments on t he same track with different fx on them

if you wanted the same fx on both (serial) then this can be done in a "Track" audio & midi pass through from one vsti to another

& the crowed is quite different here to that, that's in KvR, so no need for the added defences! here,

if you want to know the best way to do something you currently can not just ask & you will get advice

Subz

[Janne83]

Originally Posted by aciddose

well it (pretty much everything?) isn't a question i thought you could answer, although thanks for trying.

i did explain that at the beginning of my post.

Sorry if I misinterpreted your post. But some of your issues like the mouse wheel can be answered

No hard feelings I hope. A welcome to the forums from my side as well.

J

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Originally Posted by Subz

Wow!! long time since i have tested this one!! (Xwip has been about from before Reaper from what i recall?)

there is a "history" on the page although it's not very detailed, i'm sure it's too detailed anyway for most people's care. but that version is sort of embarrassing to be honest - it sounds good sure, but the gui never was really fully functional. i implemented that gui branis did without really fixing all the issues and "abandoned" it a couple years ago when working on other stuff. (nexus 2, and vanguard 2 which would apparently never be made public)

bit of a side-track but i just wanted to mention that (out of embarrassment for having it in that state) that version of xhip is kind of a rotting corpse and would hopefully soon be replaced by something much better. (see the page for this info, too)

Originally Posted by Subz

& the crowed is quite different here to that, that's in KvR, so no need for the added defences! here,
if you want to know the best way to do something you currently can (not?) just ask & you will get advice
Subz

well i had guessed that my post would seem like a "wall of text" and be a bit offensive due to that, i should probably have posted different threads in "feature requests" for each issue or something like that. actually i had hoped someone would comment on where i _should_ have posted it.

[EvilDragon]

You've posted well, I didn't find it inflammatory or anything.

What you could do, is use some more spaces between paragraphs, bolding sections, even using[INDENT] tags (forum member airon especially loves using indents and bullets ).


That's just the matter of visual appeal. I had no problem reading your OP post, however I had nothing better to do as an excuse.


Just keep posting, and I'm sure your developer background will be useful to Reaper devs. And if you even consider delving into Reaper's extension API, I believe the whole userbase is in line for lots of goodies to come.

[Subz]

FR Forum is here http://forum.cockos.com/forumdisplay.php?f=23

& the best forum for how to questions is here

http://forum.cockos.com/forumdisplay.php?f=21

hope you get the reaper bug & hang around!!

Subz

[Mercado_Negro]

Originally Posted by aciddose

as i said, yes, you can accomplish this with a track. the difference is that a track is considered such an absolute in reaper - for example if i insert two stereo instruments on a track, how can i route the stereo outputs independently? the answer is to create two tracks of course, but this just complicates things.

this issue is not too critical because the situations in which you'd need a "rack" entity separate from "track" and "channel" are probably rare. why would you want to insert two instruments in a single track when you could instead create two tracks and route them as required?

clutter of course - except that generally you're not going to have hundreds of instrument tracks and even if so they could be placed in a folder, as i said i could do.

it's more a matter of convenience in multiple ways. one is that having a "rack" for instruments, sends or other "processors" (midi -> audio, audio -> audio, midi->midi, audio->midi, ...) outside the scope of a track allows them to be more visible, rather than being hidden behind several layers of folders and tracks.

another convenience is that with such a system a default "rack" could be incorporated into the channel exactly as it is now, and in fact would require no "global" version because you could just as easily create a track named "global" or whatever you like. processors could be inserted there, and dealt with as individual groups of channels rather than being mixed in some hidden way into the existing track. you could select that for example instrument #1's stereo pair goes to 1/2, and instrument #2 goes to 3/4.

essentially my request is to fix the issue of not being able to handle such routing/grouping issues without creating extra tracks - that is, to fix a limitation of the current track system by _adding_ functionality, not changing it.

You don't need to use different tracks to route 2 stereo instruments, you could use each instruments' pin connectors (click on the "2 in 2 out" button each instrument) and choose "1/2 to 3/4" for one of them and "1/2 to 5/6" for the other; then insert all your FXs in that track and route them via their own pin connectors as well to apply such FXs. Bear in mind, that in this case you would probably need a JS effect like "SwixMitch" to merge both outputs (3/4 and 5/6) or you can do it within the FXs themselves (not the VSTis).

[hopi]

howdy aciddose... good name... I'm fresh out, can you pm me with a few hits? hahaha no really welcome to reaper...

I get the drift of your post, it's fine with me, and I've seen much the same now many times before.

In fact, a few years back, I felt somewhat the same way, coming from other DAW's like Cubase, Sonar, etc. where the 'instrument rack' is a given.

In fact, the first time I tried Reaper [ver. 2.x] I thought is was not kewl at all... but about a year later I tried it again and this time read the user guide and 'got with the concept' of reapers different way of doing things.

I've been totally using Reaper for a couple of years now and now totally in V4 [even as beta]...

I can't tell you enough [from my point of view] how much better, faster, and more 'logical' Reaper is than any of those other DAW's... but, of course that is just me.

The 'thing' about Reaper is the almost total ability to configure it as 'you' want it to be. This of course is not at all obvious at first, but it is there. I know that I have done this and many other users have done this, each in their own way.

You want the context menus to be exactly as you wish... you can do that. You want custom actions to do whatever? It can be done and then those and in fact ANY action can be added to a toolbar [floating or normal] and linked with an icon. You don't love the default icons? You can make ALL your own [I have].

Now the track\instrument\fx\routing thing... yep... it's a diff way of doing things [thank heaven!] and once you get into it [if you do] it is, to me, vastly better than the way the other DAW's work.

I really have no axe to grind about what DAW a person should use... use whatever makes you happy and whatever works best for your needs... is how I see it.

I am not saying Reaper is pefect... it's clearly been a constant work in progress.

I am saying that Reaper provides more user options and user freedom to set up a DAW as 'you' want it to be. The amount and degree of those options is overwhelming at first. Such is nature of more freedom! And of course, IF one wants to customize everything to their wishes, it takes time and effort from the user end. To me, this is all wonderful.

I think I can see from what you have posted so far, that it will take you actually working with V4 quite a bit more to become fluid in it. If you do, I'd love to hear what you have to say then.

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Mercado_Negro;
the pin connectors work but the UI is not intuitive in this respect at all. it might be better to have a global routing button that could display everything at once, but then obviously with too many effects it would become cluttered. then again, a solution to that would be just to have routing dialog with a list of all the effects and "all" included at the top of the list - in other words a drop-list "filter".

such a button, called "route" for example as part of the fx dialog replacing "x in x out" would be more intuitive.

my other issue with grouping can be partially dealt with using the "bay", but having the ability to separate the items in the "fx" list would still be ideal. having more than one list wouldn't be necessary, but it couldn't hurt to make it possible.

ultimately this is just another UI issue where the dialog hasn't had much work put into it. i see lots of feature requests regarding "post fader" functionality - having a generic (UI-only) separator would be useful along with it.

in addition to that i see now that you can't route midi at all - you can only route by channel, which is actually fairly pointless in software as we're not limited to cables and so don't really need to transmit packetized data with identifiers. (midi data, with a channel number.)

so:
- "fx" is a bad name, "plugins" would be a better description although wouldn't fit on a tiny button anymore i suppose.

- audio routing is presented in a non-intuitive manner even if you're a programmer, you'd still need to figure out routing is based per-plugin and it should be obvious to anyone that this requires more UI actions than having a global routing button next to or under "plugins".

- i can't see any midi routing ability at all

many of the UI problems i'm having seem to be related to places where minimal work was put into the UI. suggestions like my "tree-structure" for the menu editing dialog could be implemented in about 5 minutes, probably less.

for example:
- change control on the dialog to a tree-view instead of a list-view (standard stuff, two clicks, maybe 5 seconds effort)

slightly more complex:
- take the existing list and divide the entries at a colon ( into part A and part B
- sort the items (since they're already sorted, not needed)
- populate the tree-view with a group "A" if it's new, then continue adding "B" parts while "A" is the same

other changes like my complaint about "fx" vs. "plugins" or a more globally oriented "routing" button leading to an improved routing dialog with "filter" options are significant UI changes, but i'd have trouble to think of why anyone would actually find this less preferable than the current arrangement.

things like adding separation along with post-fader or other types of grouping functionality to the current fx dialog (which enable logical grouping of instruments vs. effects) are in a middle ground that seems to be pretty well favored by existing reaper users.

[Mercado_Negro]

@aciddose:

Your points are valid, just like everyone else's but take into account that many of us are used to these "systems" (universal track paradigma, pin connectors, etc.), and appreciate the way they're exposed in REAPER (actually, the whole track-channel-aux buss-blah thing is pointless to me and that's why I'm using REAPER). I for one wouldn't like to see a change in any of these features, unless it is for better, and to be completely honest your ideas don't look like it, to me. Thanks anyways for your input, I'm sure many people would agree with your suggestions

[hopi]

in addition to that i see now that you can't route midi at all - you can only route by channel, which is actually fairly pointless in software as we're not limited to cables and so don't really need to transmit packetized data with identifiers. (midi data, with a channel number.)

you can't rout midi? hmmmm... news to me since I route it all over the place... but perhaps you mean something different?

[gofer]

I guess he means inside a track's FX chain. A long awaited feature. Multiple port routing would be nice as well, if he means that. This restriction is the most obvious when it comes to ReWire.

Also, the routing matrix is still completely MIDI-blind in all accounts.

As of a plugin rack, that's nothing I personally miss. But I'd like a much better FX chain window. When it comes to complex chains, it feels a bit like flying blind. I'd like to see the whole routing of my FX chain in one window and have visualized what signal goes where on which track channel.

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Originally Posted by gofer

As of a plugin rack, that's nothing I personally miss. But I'd like a much better FX chain window. When it comes to complex chains, it feels a bit like flying blind. I'd like to see the whole routing of my FX chain in one window and have visualized what signal goes where on which track channel.

i was probably describing the problem inadequately as well as my ideas have changed slightly after realizing that this can all be accomplished with minimal changes to the existing stuff.

through various additional systems for specific features (like a global view of effects/instruments via the "bay") and just by adding a couple very commonly requested features such as logical divisions (including pre-fader, etc) within the effects window which is basically just an improvement to the UI for that window not-counting the pre-fader thing, but it could go in-hand with it.

Mercado_Negro;

Originally Posted by aciddose

other changes like my complaint about "fx" vs. "plugins" or a more globally oriented "routing" button leading to an improved routing dialog with "filter" options are significant UI changes, but i'd have trouble to think of why anyone would actually find this less preferable than the current arrangement.

were you referring to this that you don't agree with? can you be more specific and maybe also explain why a particular change would be considered negative for you?

if these ideas can be smelted down to the right point i'll be able to add them in the feature request section. as i said i can't personally see why that change at least would be negative for anyone, since it works identically,

the same button would exist for "x in / x out" leading to an almost identical pin connector dialog only with the addition of a selection drop-list at the top for which effect it applies to. that would be pre-filled with the effect where the "i/o" button was pressed.

[hopi]

Also, the routing matrix is still completely MIDI-blind in all accounts.

even so, we know we can route midi...

[EvilDragon]

...but having it in matrix would be better.

[JonnyGinese]

Welcome to the forums and thank you for the constructive words to help improve Reaper!

I'm sure the Dev's will take it into consideration!

The menu clutter was a big turn off for me coming from Pro Tools.. but I'm glad i pushed past it. At first I scaled down the menu's to be super simple... Then I put them back to default because I found my self fishing for the functions in the top menu when i could have just had them on my right-click by default.

And It would be cool to close the main toolbar or move it somewhere else completely on the users command.

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Originally Posted by hopi

even so, we know we can route midi...

i _was_ talking about inside a track say between multiple effects. for example you'd only need one track containing an arpeggiator, then a midi "fit to scale" effect, then an instrument, then a wah-pedal effect. you could route the midi as desired say with modulation from the arpeggio going into the wah-pedal.

currently the only way i can see to accomplish this is by adding more sub-tracks, and using the main track as a folder.

[fieldswn]

Originally Posted by gofer

But I'd like a much better FX chain window. When it comes to complex chains, it feels a bit like flying blind. I'd like to see the whole routing of my FX chain in one window and have visualized what signal goes where on which track channel.

Amen to that!

[Mercado_Negro]

Originally Posted by aciddose

i _was_ talking about inside a track say between multiple effects. for example you'd only need one track containing an arpeggiator, then a midi "fit to scale" effect, then an instrument, then a wah-pedal effect. you could route the midi as desired say with modulation from the arpeggio going into the wah-pedal.

currently the only way i can see to accomplish this is by adding more sub-tracks, and using the main track as a folder.

I'm not sure, but IIRC you can merge plug-ins' MIDI outputs to MIDI inputs by right-clicking on the "x in x out" button.

Care to elaborate on this? :

"the same button would exist for "x in / x out" leading to an almost identical pin connector dialog only with the addition of a selection drop-list at the top for which effect it applies to. that would be pre-filled with the effect where the "i/o" button was pressed."

I think I wouldn't use that drop-list but maybe it's just me who's not getting that idea clearly.

Thanks.