MIDI Loop Recording in REAPER

[Ike5000]

Hi,
i feel the same about midi-loop recording in Reaper - it just doesnt work right - even in the 4xx version!

Its one of the most important features in a DAW for many users - why can this bug not be fixed?

REAPER NEEDS CUBASE-ESQUE MIDI LOOP RECORDING (or name any other DAW that has proper midi recording, because honestly every other DAW has).

This is not to hate on Reaper - i treasure the work, the community and the many customization options - but if the most basic things cannot be accomplished with it - what is all this worth at the end of the day?

[Hoof Hearted]

All I have to say is reading your guys's posts is like listening to a bunch of Physicists and Doctors talking about advanced technological issues and such.
This little thread just blew my mind and I couldn't even understand much of what was being said. WOW!
Thanks for just letting me hang out in the same room, and not calling me stupid (which I am)! :^D

JK...sort of... I do love that members on REAPER seem to know their sh!t, though...it's comforting

[Ike5000]

Originally Posted by Hoof Hearted

All I have to say is reading your guys's posts is like listening to a bunch of Physicists and Doctors talking about advanced technological issues and such.
This little thread just blew my mind and I couldn't even understand much of what was being said. WOW!
Thanks for just letting me hang out in the same room, and not calling me stupid (which I am)! :^D

JK...sort of... I do love that members on REAPER seem to know their sh!t, though...it's comforting

Yes, but that doesnt solve the problem. I'm a bit puzzled: why is it so hard to implement proper midi recording in Reaper? For those that mainly record real instruments that wouldnt be a problem. But we live in the 21. century and a lot of music in composed solely inside the box. You need proper midi recording and editing for that - something which seems to be absent in Reaper. Or maybe I'm too simple minded and i just cannot operate Reaper properly. But then i wonder why i can operate any other DAW after playing around with it for a couple of hours. I learned Cubase autodidactically when I was 15 years old (the version before Cubase SX it was), I learned Ableton Live with a little help from the Manual and by some online tutorials. My friend runs Logic on the Mac - I was able to operate it in no time - just from my experience with other DAWs. Why is Reaper the only DAW where it doesnt work that way?

[Ike5000]

anyone else bothers about it?

[winbe]

yep, I care about it, I just replied on a 2009 thread...

I am now used to the problem, but become tired.

Why can't we have proper midi loop recording in Reaper?
I just ask to be able to record a simple drum pattern, or a chord sequence, without having to think to explicitely play my first note/chord a bit late !

[ivansc]

Still hanging on to my Amiga 1200 and Bars n Pipes Pro for this and the many other MIDI issues that remain un-addressed.

I know one gets more flies with sugar than vinegar, but I think many of us re starting to wonder just how many votes the thus-far ignored outstanding MIDI elevated FRs need to get before they start getting some attention.

....and that is ONLY the elevated ones, not all the rest.


It has been a very long time since anything MIDI other than minor bug fixes was addressed in new releases.

[Scoox]

Truth be told, the current recording modes are simply unusable, poor and unpolished, and they are the main reason REAPER is no good to electronic music producers who mostly work with MIDI. Of the currently provided recording modes some are plain buggy (I won't even bother to report the bugs because this needs a complete revamp), and some are useless out of the box. Having used many other DAWs, I know what works: all we need is the following three MIDI recording modes, which are **mutually exclusive**:

LOOP BUTTON ENGAGED:

1) Overdub: Current pass is merged with existing material, and the combined MIDI is played back.

2) Replace: If MIDI input is detected at the beginning of the loop or very near the end of the loop (user configurable), the entire MIDI media item, which spans the length of the loop, is replaced by a new empty one which contains the new MIDI notes. If no MIDI input is detected, the previous pass is played and is not replaced.

3) Takes: A new take is created ONLY if MIDI input is detected at the beginning of the loop or very close to the end (user configurable). If no input is detected, the last take is played until MIDI input is detected. And for takes we need some proper lanes, not this "free item positioning" madness.

+ In all cases: A MIDI item is created to fill up the time between the loop markers. However, if when the Record button is disengaged no MIDI input was detected, the MIDI media item is automatically removed.

+ Ability to undo / redo last pass, should be an assignable command.

LOOP BUTTON NOT ENGAGED:

1) Overdub: Existing material is merged with MIDI input. As it grows during recording, the currently being recorded MIDI item is merged immediately with any items it bumps into, thus there are no splits between the new item and the old ones if they come into contact during recording.

2) Replace: All notes above and below are deleted, and they are deleted completely, not only half notes (if the key was released before the end of the note being deleted). I don't see how the current Replace mode is useful at all. As it grows during recording, the currently being recorded MIDI item is merged immediately with any items it bumps into, thus there are no splits between the new item and the old ones if they come into contact during recording.

3) Takes: If during recording an item is encountered, the item currently being recorded becomes a new take. The previous item is still there, but it is not played back.

MORE STUFF:

+ Recording modes should be GLOBAL, not per-track. We need a big button on the transport bar to indicate status an the ability to configure via right-click.

+ MIDI input quantize should also be GLOBAL as well as per-track, with per-track settings taking precedence over global settings. Again, we need a big button on the transport bar to indicate global input quantize status an the ability to configure the relevant settings via right-click.

+ We also need punch-in punch-out markers which are not the same as the loop markers.

+ Ability to play our VSTs during pre-roll even if the notes are not being recorded.

Once all of these have been addressed, REAPER will finally be a viable option for electronic music producers, till then a lot of us will stick with Cubase, Live or Studio One.

PS: Why isn't this getting any love?? Every Reaper update goes like this:

+ JS: fixed platform-specific rounding issues, improved code generation on some platforms
+ ReaSurround: fixed cleared input channel names when increasing channel count [issueid=4743]
+ Video: faster loading of videos/images
+ ReaSamplomatic5000: improved import media item from arrange to work better with section items

Etcetera. I think it's great that every little detail is being taken care of, but IMO these features (ReaSurround, ReaSynth, JS plugs, etc) are used by very few people compared with the number of people who are requesting better MIDI features. Perhaps improved MIDI is secretly in the works!!

[Scoox]

Post #38 of this thread by me on 08-25-2011, it's been over 6 years, still not done.

I do a lot of work with MIDI, and I like to record notes played live from my keyboard using loop recording. I absolutely love reaper for audio work, but it sucks for MIDI recording. I urge Cockos to stop assuming people only record guitars and drums and actually attempt to loop-record MIDI. It will hit them just how bad it is. I'm not going to be polite any more. I download the latest demo every now and then and it has never delivered on the following three points:

1) Only two recording modes needed: Overdub on, overdub off. The rest are useless. Get rid of them. Please see Studio One for a sensible implementation. Or Ableton Live. Or FL Studio, or Cubase. Live's implemenation is the simplest , you just loop-record with overdub on and you can undo while recording, so if you don't like a pass you can undo and try again. This also allows layering loop passes. Studio One provides an additional command to undo all passes (thus clearing all notes without disengaging record). Cubase's implementation is also interesting. Worth checking those out.

2) Allow undo while recording. This is mandatory for loop recording, if I screw up a pass of the loop I expect to be able to undo without having to stop recording first, manually jumping back to the start of the loop, etc. Not being able to undo completely kills the creative flow.

3) Global MIDI input quantize available with one click, not per track and buried inside a dialogue in a menu with no visual indication of its status.

These are things most other DAWs nowadays do as standard. My Reaper license covers up to v4. When I purchased I wanted to support the product because I had faith in it and its creators, but it they keep working on obscure features (that I bet most people don't even know exist and if they know then they probably don't use them) while the basic deficiencies remain unaddressed years after they were reported. Sure, some of the new features are nice (e.g. clip-based FX), but to me those are meaningless if I can't loop record MIDI. This is extremely frustrating because Reaper is otherwise such a good product.

[MikComposer]

Originally Posted by Scoox

Post #38 of this thread by me on 08-25-2011, it's been over 6 years, still not done.

I do a lot of with MIDI, and I like to record notes played live from my keyboard, specifically loop recording. I absolutely love reaper for audio work, but it sucks for recording MIDI. I urge Cockos to stop assuming people only record guitars and drums and actually attempt to loop-record MIDI. It will hit them just how bad it is. I'm not going to be polite anymore. I download the latest demo every now and then and it never delivers on the following three points:

1) Only two recording modes needed: Overdub on, overdub off. The rest are useless. Get rid of them. Please see Studio One for a sensible implementation. Or Ableton Live. Or FL Studio, or Cubase. Live's implemenation is the simplest , you just loop-record with overdub on and you can undo while recording, so if you don't like a pass you can undo and try again. This also allows layering loop passes. Studio One provides an additional command to undo all passes (thus clearing all notes without disengaging record). Cubase's implementation is also interesting. Worth checking those out.

2) Allow undo while recording. This is mandatory for loop recording, if I screw up a pass of the loop I expect to be able to undo without having to stop recording first, manually jumping back to the start of the loop, etc. Not being able to undo completely kills the creative flow.

3) Global MIDI input quantize available with one click, not per track and buried inside a dialogue in a menu with no visual indication of its status.

These are things most DAWs nowadays do as standard. My Reaper license covers up to v4. Cockos keep adding complicated stuff to Reaper, some of it is decidedly rather nice (e.g. clip-based FX), but to me they are meaningless if I can't record MIDI. This is extremely frustrating because Reaper is otherwise such a good product.

I've been rude to them for years because of how midi workflow is designed. And I did that, because i knew there is no point in being polite at since it was already years in to reapers development. And I knew people will start loosing their mind the further they go in to working with midi so glad to see people getting there, shame it took so long thought.

[Lunar Ladder]

Originally Posted by Scoox

Post #38 of this thread by me on 08-25-2011, it's been over 6 years, still not done.

See the latch-replace recording mode. Record in a loop, listen to the last take over and over, and only when you start playing again it replaces everything from that point on until the end, then it keeps looping that take until it receives MIDI again, etc.

Originally Posted by MikComposer

I knew people will start loosing their mind the further they go in to working with midi so glad to see people getting there, shame it took so long thought.

1) Implying that people who aren't losing their minds haven't gone far enough into MIDI editing and 2) displaying a strong frustrated confirmation bias. Just like old times, huh?

[Scoox]

Originally Posted by Lunar Ladder

See the latch-replace recording mode. Record in a loop, listen to the last take over and over, and only when you start playing again it replaces everything from that point on until the end, then it keeps looping that take until it receives MIDI again, etc.


1) Implying that people who aren't losing their minds haven't gone far enough into MIDI editing and 2) displaying a strong frustrated confirmation bias. Just like old times, huh?

I'm not being sarcastic, but please read my latest post again. I have tried to love latch-replace many times, but it's useless, at least if you are trying to make music. Let me explain:

1) Latch-Replace starts replacing only after the first MIDI note arrives, so anything before the first received note remains. As a result, any notes near the start of the loop are very difficult to get rid of (overwrite) because you almost always hit the first key a little bit too late. I call this the "lingering note problem" which FL Studio used to suffer from a few versions ago. In an attempt to overwrite those early notes, the user might get overexcited and press the keys too soon, which in this context means before the next pass has even begun, thus the notes are recorded at the end of the current pass rather than at the beginning of the next. Result: the lingering notes linger on.

2) Furthermore, say the previous pass has notes in the first half of the loop, and you want to overwrite with a new pass where the first note is in the second half.f the loop? Again, lingering notes problem. As you can see, this recording mode is flawed and useless. It should at least replace the entire loop.

3) Even if this mode replaced the entire loop, as I said in my previous post, it's redundant. We only need two modes, overdub on and overdub off. The key is to implement a command to "undo last loop" and "undo all loops" like in Studio One. Or if you want to keep it simple, just bundle it all into the regular undo command (see note below).

Here is how I work in Studio One: I enable Overdub by default. If I need to overwrite something, I delete it manually first, then record, this way I prevent accidentally overwriting existing material. I set my loop region, and start recording. Since overdub is on, only one MIDI item is ever created, and notes are progressively added with each pass. I go ahead and record some notes from my MIDI keyboard, but I'm not happy with the results, so I run the "Undo last loop" command. Cool, let's try again. This time I get it right. Now I want to overdub some more notes into the recording and, fortunately, overdub is already enabled, so I can simply go ahead and play. Oops, didn't like that, "Undo last loop" again to the rescue. Try again. This time it works. And so on.

This workflow is conceptually very simple and yet extremely effective. There's no need for all these fancy confusing recording modes.

I mentioned above that Studio One has a separate command to undo recorded loops. This is a better idea than using the regular undo. For example, imagine a situation where while you are recording you tweak a knob and suddenly a loud burst of sound is produced. You lose your concentration and mess up the take, and your first reaction is to reach for the master fader and turn it down. Now you'll want to undo that last take, but Ctrl+Z will first undo the master fader move, which is definitely not what you want. Presonus have been very clever about this, because undoing an audio take and undoing a MIDI take, at least while recording, have a completely different set of requirements, and yet it is possible to record audio and MIDI simultaneously. By having a separate dedicated undo command for MIDI they avoid having to deal with a potentially very complex scenario.

Reaper's way of dealing with the "complex scenario" is to disable undo while recording. Works but sucks. MIDI recording undo should be separate. There is nothing inherently complex about undoing a MIDI take, it simply means "delete the notes recorded in the last pass". If Cockos devs like this idea, they could improve on Studio One's implementation by making the "Undo last loop" and "Undo all loops" per-track, as well as providing two commands to "Undo last loop (all tracks)" and "Undo all loops (all tracks)" which could be conveniently mapped to a MIDI controller hardware button.

I don't know if that makes sense.

[Kejnel]

I agree with Scoox.

Undo last pass while recording is a must. Without it, loop recording just sucks and is practically unusable because you have to stop the music all the time. I thought it was just a limitation of MPC 1000 but now we have this discussion in the context of a modern DAW...

I would even go further and allow "per-note undo" as an alternative to "undo last pass".

Anyone familiar with careful loop sequencing would benefit from this stuff.

[Scoox]

Originally Posted by Kejnel

I would even go further and allow "per-note undo" as an alternative to "undo last pass".

Interesting idea, not sure though undoing one note at a time would be too useful though, because normally you would just scrap the last pass entirely and do it again withoutdisrupting the flow. If you are going to undo one note at a time you might as well hit stop and delete individual notes with the mouse. I mean, have you seen this workflow elsewhere? I'm not dismissing your suggestion, I just want to be educated.

[themixtape]

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but honestly, what's wrong with MIDI recording? I've had hardly no issues with MIDI in Reaper, and I do a lot of it.

I do the whole take system as "separate LANES", which I feel is amazingly helpful. I hate the default Reaper take system.

It's relatively easy to globally set tracks to "input quantize".. you just select all tracks (by holding shift), and right-click the record button for each track... set your quantize settings... then deselect all tracks.

Honestly, am I missing the point? I've done overdub and loop recording, and it works great. The timing's fine, too. I get like 5.6ms latency, which is hardly noticeable (M-Audio Delta 66, OMNI I/O)... literally a soundcard from 2001. Fantastic performance.

Again, I'd love for everyone to explain to me what I seem to be missing. Thanks!

[Kejnel]

Originally Posted by Scoox

Interesting idea, not sure though undoing one note at a time would be too useful though, because normally you would just scrap the last pass entirely and do it again withoutdisrupting the flow. If you are going to undo one note at a time you might as well hit stop and delete individual notes with the mouse. I mean, have you seen this workflow elsewhere? I'm not dismissing your suggestion, I just want to be educated.

You are probably right that manual editing with the mouse in such case is sufficient but sometimes I wish I could erase just a few last notes very quickly without touching the mouse while keeping the rest of the pass. A minor issue. Probably not worth implementing.

[Bri1]

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but honestly, what's wrong with MIDI recording? I've had hardly no issues with MIDI in Reaper, and I do a lot of it.

Again, I'd love for everyone to explain to me what I seem to be missing. Thanks!

Hey- your not the minority m8-- reaper seems to perform well here,whatever i throw @ it-- and sometimes i'm actually wanting things to break,to test extremities -but- no--solid so far.. ..ok maybe a few little things, but, in total-solid. =)
TBH i don't go for 1000+track madness-- just try to keep things in most simplest forms- and tend to do a lot of stitching afterwards (new sessions) where i join older parts,and extend them new compings trying to expand a piece of some kind..
Other times- just do random spontaneous multirecording sessions -- where it all gets done in that single session..but ya know-- it's just a hobby for me doing that sort of thing.. reaper handles 90% without fail,reliably so far.
Maybe some others are 'missing' somethings?

[gentleclockdivider]

no problems recording midi , same approach explained by 'mixtape ' , make use of the diffenret lanes /.
Here's how I do it ,
Create folder .
Record on a child track .
Doing overdubs on added child tracks .
Satisfied with the result ?
Merge all child tracks and move them to parent folder track , or not ...it's up to you .

Reaper no good for electronic music ?, dumbest comment I've read in a long time.

[Kejnel]

^^ gentleclockdivider: your method is too complicated.

Anyway,

I have no idea what changed in my settings but I am now able to record midi essentially in overdub mode when I use "free item positioning". This way I am able to undo each new item and record on a single track. I have to disable recording each time I want to undo (but I don't have to stop playback, which is enough for midi) but I can make my macro to do that.

Interesting. I swear I wasn't able to do it before. It had always removed all items recorded before.

[Kejnel]

^ Important point: You can't have overdub mode enabled for this to work. You simply have to record midi input. Reaper's recording modes could use a clean-up. It gets very cluttered.

[Scoox]

I'll need to check that trick out.

And regarding input quantize, it's 'easy' to select all tracks, right click, click the applicable menu item, check a check box, click OK. This can be done with one click in most recording software. Also, AFAIK there is no way to tell whether input quantize is on or off just by looking at the mixer.

[Scoox]

Actually, even without trying, it can't be the same thing. If overdub needs to be off for this to work, clearly I won't be able to blend several passes together e.g. drums. It only works if you play all on every pass.

[TonE]

Can Reaper work like trackman, from Atari ST? If yes, how?
http://www.hollis.co.uk/john/trackman.html
http://atari-music.fddvoron.name/trackman.htm

It's very quick and intuitive to use so you spend your time making music instead of fiddling with the computer.

[Kejnel]

Originally Posted by Scoox

Actually, even without trying, it can't be the same thing. If overdub needs to be off for this to work, clearly I won't be able to blend several passes together e.g. drums. It only works if you play all on every pass.

Please, definitely try it out. It creates a new item for each pass even if there is no recording so you can blend individual passes as you please. Don't forget the track has to be in "free item positioning" mode so all items will play at once. You can then undo each item separately when the recording is stopped (or create a macro to do that and continue recording).

[Scoox]

I would really want to get this working, but so far I've not had much luck.

I've enabled Free Item Positioning, and selected 'Record input (audio or MIDI)'. With these options in place, all MIDI gets recorded as a series of superimposed items. The problem is:

1) After recording one pass, it doesn't play back. Overdub always plays everything that has been recorded. The way it's working on my end, I have to stop recording in order to hear what I've just recorded, which in the context of the workflow I'm hoping for is an unnecessary extra step.

2) After I stop recording, Ctrl+Z will undo *all* items that were created during the last recording, rather than removing one at a time as has been implied here. I could select individual items with the mouse and delete one at a time, but what I'm trying to achieve is to forget the computer is there and just play away, with a couple of buttons on my MIDI controller assigned to "undo last" and "undo all", plus transport controls.

If this is how it's supposed to work, then it won't cut it for me.

The problem here is that Reaper has all the loop recording modes in the world except the ones that really work for live MIDI input recording. The workaround suggested here may work (hopefully I'm doing something wrong), but no mentally sane person would intuitively associate the words "free item positioning" with "overdub" or "undo last pass". I hope I'm not coming across as peevish, I'm just pointing the elephant in the room.
Personally, I don't mind whether the passes are blended together or recorded as superimposed items, the latter being more flexible in a way. I just want to be able the stacked result without having to stop recording, and to be able to undo one item at a time (ideally again without having to stop recording although, fair enough, a macro could take care of this. Ideally this should work right out of the box as a built-in recording mode, so new users find Reaper more compelling.

[jlgrimes11]

Originally Posted by Scoox

I would really want to get this working, but so far I've not had much luck.

I've enabled Free Item Positioning, and selected 'Record input (audio or MIDI)'. With these options in place, all MIDI gets recorded as a series of superimposed items. The problem is:

1) After recording one pass, it doesn't play back. Overdub always plays everything that has been recorded. The way it's working on my end, I have to stop recording in order to hear what I've just recorded, which in the context of the workflow I'm hoping for is an unnecessary extra step.

2) After I stop recording, Ctrl+Z will undo *all* items that were created during the last recording, rather than removing one at a time as has been implied here. I could select individual items with the mouse and delete one at a time, but what I'm trying to achieve is to forget the computer is there and just play away, with a couple of buttons on my MIDI controller assigned to "undo last" and "undo all", plus transport controls.

If this is how it's supposed to work, then it won't cut it for me.

The problem here is that Reaper has all the loop recording modes in the world except the ones that really work for live MIDI input recording. The workaround suggested here may work (hopefully I'm doing something wrong), but no mentally sane person would intuitively associate the words "free item positioning" with "overdub" or "undo last pass". I hope I'm not coming across as peevish, I'm just pointing the elephant in the room.
Personally, I don't mind whether the passes are blended together or recorded as superimposed items, the latter being more flexible in a way. I just want to be able the stacked result without having to stop recording, and to be able to undo one item at a time (ideally again without having to stop recording although, fair enough, a macro could take care of this. Ideally this should work right out of the box as a built-in recording mode, so new users find Reaper more compelling.

Haven't tried midi loop recording in Reaper in a long time. It always did seem unnecessarily complicated compared to other DAWs. I use Live, Reason, Studio One. I tend to enjoy Reason's loop Recording the best for quickly getting ideas down (although version 10 seems to have some timing issues). I love the new take vs alt take command in Reason. I think Reason is pretty much overdub mode always. You overwrite by either manually deleting or undoing your take, or just pressing the new take key command then recording. I think everything can be done on the fly.

Ableton's Session View is nice too but what I like most is the ability to set different loop points for different clips which would be difficult to implement in Reaper without a Session View. Ableton's arrange view loop recording is a little more cumbersome than Reason's IMO but its probably that I don't use it that much and it defaults to overwrite mode which starts overwriting your performance after the loop pass.

Both programs Auto Quantize is global and has certain quirks the other ones don't.

Ableton lets you record triplets and straight notes at the same time.

Reason's Auto Quantize lets you choose strength. Reason's is also easier to get to (on the transport bar), where Ableton's is hidden in a menu (that can be a little difficult to get to).



I think individual track quantize was what I didn't like most about Reaper's midi Recording which is similar to Sonar and Logic (more so Sonar than Logic). Logic's implementation was a little better though be having everything right in the inspector where it is easy to get to. Also quantize settings of one track is "remembered" for the next added track. Also even auto quantize is nondestructive in Logic as you can reduce your strength slider to zero to get back to your original settings and everything is updated in piano roll in real time.


That said every DAW has a little quirk at least when it comes to loop recording (some alot more so than others though).


I can't really rate Reaper too much though as I haven't tried it in over five years, so hopefully they improved since then.

[TonE]

Any youtube videos of the goal? Then everything exlained step by step here? Then each step possibilities could be checked for Reaper. Otherwise its difficult to communicate precisely.

[Scoox]

I also find Reaper's per-track quantize unnecessary, but maybe someone has a use for it? The only time this may be useful is if you are recording several players playing on MIDI controllers, and you just want to input quantize some and not others. This may be useful if each player could assign a button on their MIDI controller to toggle input quantize individually, but there isn't an action even for the current input quantize, so it seems Reaper assumes this feature is only controlled by the one person.

Still, let's think logically about this: is there any benefit to using input quantize over quantizing post-recording? I'm kinda asking this rhetorically. My theory is that the only time input quantize is useful is when using 'overdub loop recording', the point being that you want the pass you've just recorded to sound tight while you are recording the next pass, so you are not distracted by the mistimings of previous pass. If you are not recording over a loop, then you might as well quantize manually afterwards. I do wonder how many Reaper users actually use input quantize. Assuming my theory is correct, that it's only useful for loop recording, what if a note is misquantized, i.e., the result of input quantize does not match what the player had in mind? With no ability to undo while recording, input quantize becomes a distraction and even a hindrance.

As I said, there's no way to tell if it's on or off, not without a lot of clicking. In DAWs where input quantize is global it's already easy enough to forget if the thing is on or off, so you can imagine per-track input quantize and no UI state indicators is not helpful.

There is no easy one-click way to toggle input quantize in Reaper (at least not that I can find), which is something I typically do *while* recording. For example, enable input quantize while recording the bass drum so it lands exactly on the grid, the disable input quantize to record other samples for which you may want to feel more "human", all without having to stop recording.

In Ableton Live you can undo while recording in arrangement view. It works exactly the way I want, although IMO Studio One's solution is more flexible, but either is better than Reaper.

[Scoox]

Originally Posted by TonE

Any youtube videos of the goal? Then everything exlained step by step here? Then each step possibilities could be checked for Reaper. Otherwise its difficult to communicate precisely.

I've had a look but couldn't find a video on YouTube of another DAW working the way that's being proposed here. That doesn't mean nobody uses these features, of course. To me it seems crazy so many users here don't even see the problem, especially the devs.

The goals are pretty simple:

1. Ability to undo while recording in loop recording - overdub mode. Studio One's implementation is a good staring point.
2. Global input quantize with a nice fat UI indicator.
3. Make the above two functions available as actions in the Actions list (so they can be assigned to keyboard shortcuts and MIDI controller buttons)
4. Bonus: Get rid of the useless recording modes? Maybe take a poll, if it reveals literally zero users are using a particular mode, then remove it.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by Scoox

4. Bonus: Get rid of the useless recording modes? Maybe take a poll, if it reveals literally zero users are using a particular mode, then remove it.

No, some of the ones you consider useless, I use all the time so it's not zero.

[Scoox]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

No, some of the ones you consider useless, I use all the time so it's not zero.

Which concludes my poll

Edit: Actually, I'm curious:

(1) MIDI overdub
(2) MIDI replace
(3) MIDI touch-replace
(4) MIDI latch-replace

In loop recording, only (1) is any good, (2), (3) and (4) are useless. Don't take my word for it, try to do anything meaningful using these modes and see it for yourself. When recording straight through (not over a looped section) some of these modes may be of use, but with auto-punch is there really a need for (3) and (4). I mean, even withOUT auto-punch, (3) is hopeless, it can never produce any remotely predictable results.

[TonE]

No video, no recording of midi output, so we can see how it should look after each recording, no diagrams, no good starting point for analysis. Making too many, too quick conclusions is never good. For Reaper it looks like this:
-analyze your situation first
-analyze the target goal
-analyze your made assumptions as a list
-find out best settings in Reaper
-find best internal actions
-find best external actions, sws,lua
-request or write new actions, lua,eel
-finally create custom actions which lead to target goal behaviour

In just writing, I like how Ableton in arrange, Studio One, program x,y,z does this and that, will not help much here. We do not know your situation, your goal, which assumptions you made, often too many, not knowing your settings, if you are using sws, reapack, installed all actions available through reapack. Then what were your tried custom actions, and why they did not work, what was missing? Then solving the problem could be much easier. Now, we can read about it, and say, OK. Not enough information given, no external input from our side.

And best is starting with a precise scenario, not abstract scenarios. Precise would be something like:
-record in loop
-2 bars of midi
-notes coming from single track, from single midi port
-how to add new notes
-how to delete errors in recording, description of the error exactly, what type of error for example
-quantized,unquantized?

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by Scoox

Which concludes my poll

Edit: Actually, I'm curious:

(1) MIDI overdub
(2) MIDI replace
(3) MIDI touch-replace
(4) MIDI latch-replace

In loop recording, only (1) is any good, (2), (3) and (4) are useless. Don't take my word for it, try to do anything meaningful using these modes and see it for yourself. When recording straight through (not over a looped section) some of these modes may be of use, but with auto-punch is there really a need for (3) and (4). I mean, even withOUT auto-punch, (3) is hopeless, it can never produce any remotely predictable results.

Just keep in mind, people record MIDI without loop recording - like me, I never need it or use it which is why other options may be valuable to others. I don't use/need MIDI 'that' much to be fair but when I do I do.

[TonE]

Scoox, I have something for you. Just try, then telling what does not work. Here we have Reaper, most flexible DAW on earth, the limit is our imagination.

-loop enable within loop markers
-enable metronome
-create a time selection
-create a new track, put the synth you like there
-create a child track, record enable
-play something according to metronome
-then try next custom action*


*

PHP Code:

Custom: RECORD NEW LAYER
  Go to start of time selection
  Insert or extend MIDI items to fill time selection
  Track: Set automatic record-arm when track selected
  Track: Set track record mode to MIDI overdub
  Script: me2beats_Duplicate tracks without envelopes and items.lua
  Script: gen_Retrospective Record (MIDI).eel
  ReaScript: Close all running reaScripts 


[Kejnel]

Originally Posted by Scoox

I would really want to get this working, but so far I've not had much luck.

I've enabled Free Item Positioning, and selected 'Record input (audio or MIDI)'. With these options in place, all MIDI gets recorded as a series of superimposed items. The problem is:

1) After recording one pass, it doesn't play back. Overdub always plays everything that has been recorded. The way it's working on my end, I have to stop recording in order to hear what I've just recorded, which in the context of the workflow I'm hoping for is an unnecessary extra step.

2) After I stop recording, Ctrl+Z will undo *all* items that were created during the last recording, rather than removing one at a time as has been implied here. I could select individual items with the mouse and delete one at a time, but what I'm trying to achieve is to forget the computer is there and just play away, with a couple of buttons on my MIDI controller assigned to "undo last" and "undo all", plus transport controls.

If this is how it's supposed to work, then it won't cut it for me.

The problem here is that Reaper has all the loop recording modes in the world except the ones that really work for live MIDI input recording. The workaround suggested here may work (hopefully I'm doing something wrong), but no mentally sane person would intuitively associate the words "free item positioning" with "overdub" or "undo last pass". I hope I'm not coming across as peevish, I'm just pointing the elephant in the room.
Personally, I don't mind whether the passes are blended together or recorded as superimposed items, the latter being more flexible in a way. I just want to be able the stacked result without having to stop recording, and to be able to undo one item at a time (ideally again without having to stop recording although, fair enough, a macro could take care of this. Ideally this should work right out of the box as a built-in recording mode, so new users find Reaper more compelling.

1) In my case it plays everything. I experience a proper overdub behaviour and I don't have to stop recording.
2) In my case it undos each item individually one by one even if all of them were recorded in one recording session (you start recording, record X items, stop recording).

We obviously have our Reapers configured differently which is not surprising considering how many options there are in Reaper. I would really love to help you more but I am completely unable to track those particular options I have enabled/disabled in order to get the overdub behaviour I get. Try to search in the action list with keywords for loop recording, takes etc. The only thing I can tell you that you can configure your Reaper for the same behaviour as mine. Oh, and I also use SWS extensions so you can try them too just to be sure.

[Scoox]

Originally Posted by Kejnel

1) In my case it plays everything. I experience a proper overdub behaviour and I don't have to stop recording.
2) In my case it undos each item individually one by one even if all of them were recorded in one recording session (you start recording, record X items, stop recording).

We obviously have our Reapers configured differently which is not surprising considering how many options there are in Reaper. I would really love to help you more but I am completely unable to track those particular options I have enabled/disabled in order to get the overdub behaviour I get. Try to search in the action list with keywords for loop recording, takes etc. The only thing I can tell you that you can configure your Reaper for the same behaviour as mine. Oh, and I also use SWS extensions so you can try them too just to be sure.

I've just renamed reaper.ini to ensure defaults are in place. It still doesn't work as you describe. Would you be able to do the same and check if it all still works? (previous passes can be heard, undo one pass at a time)?

If it's a configuration issue, it should be fairly easy to track down by doing a text compare between the factory reaper.ini and your current reaper.ini.

Much appreciated

[Scoox]

There's an option on the record arm button right-click context menu to "Monitor track media when recording". I thought this was going to do it, but it only works for media previously recorded (media recorded during previous pass doesn't count here).

[TonE]

Project settings, Advanced, Item mix, Items always mix.

Worth a try.

[Scoox]

Originally Posted by TonE

Project settings, Advanced, Item mix, Items always mix.

Worth a try.

Are you sure that does what we are talking about? I've ticked the checkbox, but the previous pass never plays back while recording.

-----

When using 'Record: MIDI Overdub' mode, I guess there's a possible workflow that I could get used to, the only draw back is that it requires prospective thinking, which can be a bit tricky since I can't really predict when mistakes are going to happen while playing live, and it's easy getting carried away and just jamming on when you are in the flow:

The idea is to engage 'Record: MIDI Overdub' mode first, then start recording. Every time you get something that sounds good, click the transport record button twice. This creates an undo history point 'Recorded Media', and resumes recording. Because we are overdubbing, we can hear the previous pass. A macro would take care of this:

Transport: Record
Transport: Record

To undo while recording, again another macro would come to the rescue:

Transport: Record
Edit: Undo
Transport: Record

I wonder how well this would work in practice. Using this method we could always go back to the last 'banked' recording (created by running the first macro), the problem is, we will inevitably forget to run the macro some times.

Maybe some one smarter than me could come up with a script that automatically stops recording when the playback cursor reaches the end of the loop, and starts it again just in time so when the playback cursor jumps back to the start it keeps recording. Or better yet, a script that creates an undo history point without even interrupting the recording. That would be exactly what I'm after.

[Scoox]

About MIDI input quantize, there's one more problem, this setting is saved with the project. You re-open a project a few days later, or months later, surely you can't be expected to remember which tracks had it on and which had it off.

Especially because this is the kind of setting that we never toggle back off right after recording, as that's the moment when we are more worried about checking and editing what we've just recorded than turning off input quantize in case later it gets in the way.

[TonE]

Do not use midi input quantize.