something i love about REAPER's automation

[mccrabney]

i recently posted in Q&A asking for tips to circumvent REAPER's "return speed", because it prevents me from effectively recording automation in REAPER.

testing/writing about this issue hilighted how REAPER can record automation even while playback is stopped (amusingly, this bypasses the issue described in the linked thread above -- no "return" is created when the playback cursor is stopped).



this is not new at all, but i wanted to say that i love this. it's terrific to be able to drop a point this precisely while the play cursor, all by assigned actions and learned parameters.

with the proper navigation shortcuts, this means you can write very accurate, very expressive automation patterns quickly, without any surgical mousework. during long sessions, i'm really grateful for this -- there is no aiming, no careful clicking, just the tap of a few buttons/pads/ and or faders and you're there.

and it goes without saying that it's good that there is no assumed "return" to the previous automation value, because that would be unexpected.

this is a lot like the MPC series, where you could toggle overdub without engaging the sequencer and insert notes and CCs at the edit cursor while the sequencer is stopped. it'd be really cool if REAPER could one day insert the track's last received MIDI message at the edit cursor - maybe i could take a look at scripting that somehow.

anyway, i wanted to post about one of the many many things i love about REAPER that i think might fly a little under the radar. i hope this is useful to someone, or maybe somebody else has a related tip that they'd like to share here.

i have noticed that, if your envelopes are armed, "Xenakios/SWS: Nudge volume of selected tracks up/down" doesn't get recorded, but i can live with that or try to find another way to record volume nudges.