KVR :: Hosts (Sequencers, DAWs, Audio Editors, etc.) » How is Reapers midi functionality compared to Logic? [View Original Topic]
There are 93 posts in this topic.
LGK_Dude - Sun Jun 17, 2012 2:19 pm
Hello Reaper users,
I'm wondering if someone could let me know Reapers midi functionality compared to Logic. I mostly a midi musician (I write all my progressive rock music starting in midi & also do full orchestral mockups) and I'm thinking of switching to either Reaper or Cubase. I would love to get some honest feedback as to how well Reaper handles advanced midi sequencing.
Thanks!
Mutant - Sun Jun 17, 2012 2:26 pm
You can read some subjective opinions here or just download a free for 30 days fully functional trial and form your own subjective opinion
hibidy - Sun Jun 17, 2012 2:34 pm
I don't have a copy of logic sitting handy, but I'll be more than happy to tell you what I don't like about reapers midi
-first and foremost, unless you use the groove editor (which is ok, but not super flexible) there is no way to edit more than one midi clip at a time. What this means is you must either glue all the midi clips together and edit, or do them one at a time. Oh, and the gluing doesn't work too swift for doing the next track obviously
It' a joke.
-@groove tool: Fantastic idea, but it doesn't always work. Frequently I'll have a groove I want to extract/apply and it will take doing it more than once to finally get it to take. Also, some of us have had crashing when applying grooves. I sent fingers the crash report, but he didn't have x64 to troubleshoot it
-There are what seems like an endless array of hoops to jump through. It is so difficult to simply want to quantize with 90% and a 17% swing. Don't believe me? Try the demo yourself!
-It doesn't always work
Frequently, notes don't play right on beat one or copy correctly. This is especially true with "regions". The time spent tracking down the problem and correcting them is unacceptable.
The worst part is, I can't remember the last time there was an update (of any kind) to midi. People complain about it and the devs seems to be ignoring us completely. I'm not likely switching hosts again. Every host has some fatal flaw that just ruins my workflow, but these are things the just kill me in reaper. Up until a couple of months ago I had every confidence there would be improvements. I endorsed reaper religiously and praised all the great things about it. I have accepted that midi is DEAD in reaper.
stillshaded - Sun Jun 17, 2012 3:00 pm
Try presonus studio one. I prefer the piano roll to logic or reaper or cubase. Its a great balance between complexity and efficiency. Very quick when you get good with it, the only one I prefer to it is FL studio.
As far as midi processing it lacks some things. The groove template implimentation is the bes I've seen. Plus you can load an audio clip into melodyne and drag it to a midi track AS A MIDI CLIP WTF. We're living in the future.
chokehold - Sun Jun 17, 2012 3:05 pm
Believe "Mutant".
I've been a Reaper user since version zero point something now, and to say it frankly: I don't know why I even bothered with any other host in the past.
A few months ago my drummer had to do a project in Logic, and being his "more experienced buddy" he came to me asking for help. We spent hours, trying to find out how the hell stuff works in Logic, and we spent ages searching for "Logic Automation Tutorial" on google and sh*t like that.
All i ever caught me saying was "holy crap, that's much easier in Reaper".
The same with MIDI and the whole instrument handling et cetera.
To be honest, I don't think Reaper's MIDI handling is perfect. But it's far more there than Logic's, and the only thing that's truly missing from it is something like FL Studio's step sequencer. I know, everything in the step sequencer can also be built in a piano roll with drum icons ... but it's somehow not the same.
As against hibidy, I have no problems with quantization or humanization.
The notes that don't play properly on beat #1 are an argument, but there's an easy workaround: make the MIDI item start a little early in the timeline, and if that doesn't help, drag the beginning of the note 1px left or right of the beat #1 line.
I know, it's just a workaround, but it works.
Other than that, Reaper's MIDI editor is as good as any other MIDI editor.
jancivil - Sun Jun 17, 2012 3:14 pm
automation IS a terrific PITA with Logic. Logic's way of doing things is unique! For MIDI, Logic requires to have a separate hyper edit window for each lane, which was one deal-killer here.
Other than [timing issues], Reaper's MIDI editor is as good as any other
vs.
more than one midi clip at a time: you must either glue all the midi clips together and edit, or do them one at a time.
yeah, so in Cubase you can have all the clips [events] you like with their own names in a 'part/track' and edit it in one window. once re-glued the key editor adjusts accordingly.
that isn't subjective. there are things other hosts do better than REAPER, I'm sorry.
Akiha - Sun Jun 17, 2012 3:40 pm
There are a number of glaring features missing like the ability to edit more than one clip at a time. The biggest annoyance though is the amount of small things overlooked. There are constant issues with zoom, display etc that are ignored, and have been for some time.
Really advising tryout out the demo; if anything to see if you can handle some of the annoyances in the way Reaper approaches midi. It's a shame as the setup for audio work is great, just the dev's keep ignoring these issues to tack on new features...
aMUSEd - Sun Jun 17, 2012 4:33 pm
stillshaded wrote:
Try presonus studio one. I prefer the piano roll to logic or reaper or cubase.
Personally I don't think it has anything to offer over Reapers and is weaker in some respects (eg velocity editing is much less intuitive or direct than in Reaper's editor). On the other hand Logic is one of the most powerful midi handling environments there is - very few hosts compare to it and Reaper certainly doesn't (even though it does the job for me).
braj - Sun Jun 17, 2012 4:45 pm
aMUSEd wrote:
stillshaded wrote:
Try presonus studio one. I prefer the piano roll to logic or reaper or cubase.
Personally I don't think it has anything to offer over Reapers and is weaker in some respects (eg velocity editing is much less intuitive or direct than in Reaper's editor). On the other hand Logic is one of the most powerful midi handling environments there is - very few hosts compare to it and Reaper certainly doesn't (even though it does the job for me).
+1 I moved to Studio One and like it overall, but I am constantly missing things from Reaper's midi editor. Studio One I would describe as 'spartan'. The multi-edit or whatever you call it though is great, overlaying your current edit in line with whatever other tracks you select, makes placing notes in relation to eachother very easy. And the groove functionality is wonderful. But Reaper IMO has a much more full and mature piano roll at this point than Studio One.
LawrenceF - Sun Jun 17, 2012 5:06 pm
Unfortunately, there's much more to midi workflow than the piano roll or any single midi edit screen. Try splitting up midi clips in Reapers arrange sceen and you'll see what I mean. if you split where notes happen to be crossing the split point.
I agree with Amused about Logic. Likely one of the top 3-4 midi sequencers ever.
braj - Sun Jun 17, 2012 5:20 pm
LawrenceF wrote:
I don't disagree with any of that Braj. Unfortunately, there's much more to midi workflow than the piano roll or any single midi edit screen. I think what S1 is doing is laying a good foundation to build on going forward... getting the basic stuff right.
Definitely. If i could get more scale templates in S1 that alone would 'complete me', Reaper (with an add-on) has hundreds and that is really useful for working in the piano roll whether or not you know the scale already
I wish you could define custom scales in S1 by clicking notes on that little keyboard, that would be brilliant. Like you say, the foundation is there
Quote:
Try splitting up midi clips in Reapers arrange screen and you'll see what I mean.
I don't get that, it is easy easy in reaper, just place the cursor and click S. Am I missing something that makes that hard? Maybe its a two-handed operation vs. using the split tool, but definitely not harder IMO.
nineofkings - Sun Jun 17, 2012 5:40 pm
hibidy wrote:
-There are what seems like an endless array of hoops to jump through. It is so difficult to simply want to quantize with 90% and a 17% swing. Don't believe me? Try the demo yourself!
What does this mean? 90% quantization? It's not hard, there's a "swing" setting in the MIDI editor with a percent slider that you can easily put to 17%.
hibidy - Sun Jun 17, 2012 5:45 pm
nineofkings wrote:
hibidy wrote:
-There are what seems like an endless array of hoops to jump through. It is so difficult to simply want to quantize with 90% and a 17% swing. Don't believe me? Try the demo yourself!
What does this mean? 90% quantization? It's not hard, there's a "swing" setting in the MIDI editor with a percent slider that you can easily put to 17%.
So what you are saying is if you want an entire project to be 90% quantized (strength of course) and a swing of 17% then that is "easy" in reaper? We're not working on the same projects
braj - Sun Jun 17, 2012 5:57 pm
One great trick with Studio One is that you can grab a groove from audio or midi, and apply it to either as well. The way this integrates these two worlds is wonderful and why I went to Studio One. And Pro has melodyne integration so you can easily grab midi from any mono audio clip like your voice or guitar phrases. It is brilliant.
Andywanders - Sun Jun 17, 2012 6:36 pm
LGK_Dude wrote:
I would love to get some honest feedback as to how well Reaper handles advanced midi sequencing.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Compared to Logic..?
Not a Reaper user, but I've used Logic since it first came out on the old Atari so I think I'm more than qualified to comment.
IMO when it comes to "advanced MIDI sequencing" as you put it, Logic rules and Reaper doesn't even come close.
Not saying you can't get to where you want to go with Reaper's MIDI, but it's extremely painful to use. It's slow, cumbersome, ugly, unintuitive, unreliable backward, and clumsy. At best, it's nothing more than a tagged-on afterthought to an otherwise quite okay audio program and it gets in the way of creative spontaneity. It's seemingly ignored by the developers who apparently only want to cater for the audio engineering user-base. And with Reaper now at version 4+, it really doesn't look like it's gonna get any better.
Not wishing to piss-off the Reaper fans but I have tried Reaper a LOT and it's the LOUSY MIDI that keeps me from buying it. I know how good it is for audio. That's not in question - it's great for audio. But advanced MIDI sequencing..? Forget it.
To the OP. By all means try out Reaper's demo and see for yourself. That's the best way. But if your choices are Reaper or Cubase, then I think Cubase might be more suitable for you. Cubase has a similar pedigree to Logic - they both began life as MIDI sequencers and in that respect they're both strong.
Hope I haven't offended anyone
LawrenceF - Sun Jun 17, 2012 6:47 pm
braj wrote:
I don't get that, it is easy easy in reaper, just place the cursor and click S. Am I missing something that makes that hard? .
Easy's got nothin to do with it.
You're missing that splitting midi clips in arrange always also split notes, even when you don't want that, if notes happen to be crossing where you split. Might not be bad for quantized to the grid dance music but it's not so good for arranging midii by chopping up clips in arrange in any other genre where music doesn't stop and start right on the bar line.
braj - Sun Jun 17, 2012 6:55 pm
LawrenceF wrote:
braj wrote:
I don't get that, it is easy easy in reaper, just place the cursor and click S. Am I missing something that makes that hard? .
Easy's got nothin to do with it.
You're missing that splitting midi clips in arrange always also split notes, even when you don't want that, if notes happen to be crossing where you split. Might not be bad for quantized to the grid dance music but it's not so good for arranging midii by chopping up clips in arrange in any other genre where m,usic doesn't stop and start right on the bar line,
Ah yeah, I remember that
Actually I don't go around splitting clips that much, how is this handled in S1? LawrenceF - Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:01 pm
It keeps the performance intact by not spitting notes and by optionally playing notes beyond the end of the clip. You still hear the same thing. I'd be surprised if Logic didn't do the same. That was all kinda settled about 15 years ago.
What do you think happens when midi gets split when you drag a region marker around as you arrange your song, same thing. Again, dance music producers may not notice it if chords and bass notes and similar are right on the grid. Cubase does that also, always has, allows auto region splits and moves by dragging if's region markers, but midi notes don't get all chopped up when you do that.
It was a major issue for me in Reaper.
hibidy - Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:13 pm
LawrenceF wrote:
It was a major issue for me in Reaper.
hun un, reaper is perfect!
Funk Dracula - Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:21 pm
OP, can I ask why your interested in switching from Logic to Reaper if your primarily a MIDI player?
When it comes to MIDI editing, no other DAW really comes close to Logic. Maybe it's fault is it hasn't been "compacted" into one thing the average user can interface with easily... but every last little thing you want to do is right at your fingertips.
I can see a reason why people like having everything in one window, but one thing I think a lot of Logic users don't utilize is the "screensets". You can have the Piano Roll, and the Hyper Editor set up together instead of using "Hyper Draw" in the same window. All you have to do is set that screenset and it's one button away, content linked and all. I've got my first 9 screensets set in my template. #1 is Arrange, #2 is full screen Piano Roll, #3 is screen split Piano Roll/Hyper Editor, #4-6 are Environment Layers I designed with lot's of routing switchers, apreggiators, and other macros, #7-99 are open for options, like leaving different plug-ins open and in focus. Usually I have the Mixer window open in these, just different plug-ins opened in each screenset.
The only time I ever use the little viewer tabs at the bottom of the arrange window is for the Mixer. The channel view linking in the Inspector comes in really, really handy with this.
The other thing I would say is the AU format was/is a horrible match/decision for Logics crazy powerful MIDI environment. I can certainly see the benefit of using VST's in the internal/software MIDI world if your interested in third party MIDI plug-ins, but there isn't a whole lot of those.
@braj You can do what you describe in Logic. Certainly that's not the only reason you switched?
braj - Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:35 pm
Funk Dracula wrote:
@braj You can do what you describe in Logic. Certainly that's not the only reason you switched?
I didn't switch from Logic but from Reaper to Studio One. I'm on a PC so Logic wasn't an option. And yeah, it wasn't the only reason I switched, but it was a big part of it. The groove system in Reaper leaves a lot to be desired, and Studio One's Melodyne integration etc was a big draw (actually I haven't been using it much though). But the bottom line is I really like many things about Reaper still, and wish Studio One had some of them, like the ability to create and arrange regions, but S1 is simple and right now that helps me a lot.
LawrenceF - Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:36 pm
Here's the Logic 9 options for what I was talking about, how it handles splitting midi regions in arrange. Pretty much the same as Cubase (a bit less automatic though) and the one option for KEEP "unaltered" in Logic is identical to what S1 does by default along with a preference to cut midi at clip end or not the same way.
No offense, and not bashing Reaper at all, just saying it was a regular issue for me personally.
If you can't actually "arrange" midi in arrange by chopping it up without changing the musical performance that's not really good is it? It - the fundamental problem - came up quite early in midi sequencer development once they were not just using static linear midi clips, and various solutions were arrived at well before audio daws even were being used. These are generally the options everyone arrived at. Sonar and Samp likely do the same.
"Overlapping Notes" below means "notes that cross the intended split point".
Quote:
Handling Overlapping Notes in Divided MIDI Regions
If any notes in a divided MIDI region overlap other notes by more than a 1/16 note, you are asked if you want to keep, shorten, or split the notes.
Click Keep to leave all notes unaltered. The MIDI region is cut as expected, but you can end up with notes in the left half (earlier region) that are much longer than the MIDI region containing them. Such notes play normally, unless Clip Length is activated. (See Adjusting the Start or End Point of MIDI Regions.)
Click Shorten to truncate all overlapping notes, so that they end at the point where the original MIDI region was divided.
Click Split to divide overlapping notes across the two MIDI regions; two notes are created, with the same pitch and velocity as the original, and with the same total length as the original note.
If any notes in a divided MIDI region overlap other notes by more than a 1/16 note, you are asked if you want to keep, shorten, or split the notes.
Click Keep to leave all notes unaltered. The MIDI region is cut as expected, but you can end up with notes in the left half (earlier region) that are much longer than the MIDI region containing them. Such notes play normally, unless Clip Length is activated. (See Adjusting the Start or End Point of MIDI Regions.)
Click Shorten to truncate all overlapping notes, so that they end at the point where the original MIDI region was divided.
Click Split to divide overlapping notes across the two MIDI regions; two notes are created, with the same pitch and velocity as the original, and with the same total length as the original note.
The last Logic option above is what Reaper always does. Splits and always makes new notes.
braj - Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:49 pm
How do you access these sorts of options in S1?
LawrenceF - Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:57 pm
braj wrote:
How do you access these sorts of options in S1?
The option to continue to play musical notes past the midi clip / part end? In Options / Midi. It's "Cut Long Notes at Part End", the equivalent of the Logic "Clip Length" option and Cubase's same option for that. Leaving that off lets notes play their full length regardless of the length of the clip. So you can have a two bar midi clip "block" for arranging with notes longer than two bars, or notes that play well past the clip end, playing from it.
The other part re: not splitting is assumed, that you don't actually want to split / double up notes when splitting clips. There is no option to make it do that in S1 (split notes when splitting clips) and nobody has asked for one yet, not that I know of anyway. It's likely something pretty rare, to actually want that to happen. If you do want that, to split a chord into two chords or something on purpose, you have to do it in the ME with the knife tool.
I only bring this up for Reaper because it's not anything subjective at all, unlike some of the other stuff. It's something that physically changes what you recorded and (afaik) there's no way to option out of it yet.
Likely because midi in Reaper is clip based.
Funk Dracula - Sun Jun 17, 2012 8:10 pm
@ braj, sorry I don't know why I thought you switched from Logic...
It should also be worth mentioning the Transform function in Logic, a really powerful device that can process individual or multiple regions in the Arrange, or individual notes or multiple notes in the Piano Roll.
I keep hearing wonderful things about Reaper, but all on the audio aspect of things. One appealing thing about it for sure is the developer and community seem very focused and dedicated on updating it/adding features. Everything BUT MIDI though...
Every DAW has it's problems tho.. I have very few with Logic, but for instance, I would be pretty nervous using Logic in a live situation. Logic does crash quite often when you push it; so save save save.. I hear Reaper is almost crash-proof.
Like the OP, 95% of my sessions are 100% MIDI; that being said I couldn't think of a reason to switch other than sharing sessions with someone on a different platform (PC).
LawrenceF - Sun Jun 17, 2012 8:53 pm
braj wrote:
..and wish Studio One had some of them, like the ability to create and arrange regions,
I'm not sure how or why S1 appeared in a thread where a guy was asking people to compare Reaper to Logic for midi production.
But yeah, I agree with that.
I tend to personally favor Cubase in this area. They use 3 distinct sets of timeline markers, ordinary song markers, ranged loop markers and arranger block markers. All 3 can exist on the timeline together at the same time so the coverage for navigating around and re-arranging vertical ranges manually or automatically out of order is pretty darn complete.
Steiny did a lot of stuff "maybe not so good compared to better methods that were worked out later" but they also got a heck of a lot of stuff right.
Markers was one of the things they got dead right, imo.
braj - Sun Jun 17, 2012 8:57 pm
stillshaded wrote:
Try presonus studio one.
There it is
kbaccki - Mon Jun 18, 2012 1:58 am
LawrenceF wrote:
The last Logic option above is what Reaper always does. Splits and always makes new notes.
I don't think it makes "new notes", per se, but it creates a new MIDI clip whose contents is the same underlying MIDI data... the end effect is new notes starting at the the beggining of the new MIDI clip. On reaper 4.something here.
Interestingly, if you delete the right-most clip from the split, then slip edit the right edge of the original clip -- the MIDI data is still there! See what I mean? It doesn't create new MIDI data, just a new clip region utilzing the same underlying MIDI data. Now Reaper's question is: what to do with the overlap? By default, it needs to truncate at clip bounds. Certainly, more options would be ideal!
However, it is possible to split a single MIDI clip into two overlapping MIDI clips if you absolutely had to... like this (one clip split into two, slip edited, overlapping notes manually removed):
Source MIDI clip:
Same clip in PRV... pick an arbitrary location w/ lots of overlaps for split:
Split clip at cursor... "truncated" MIDI notes... drag clips into separate lanes:
Double-click left clip to get back to PRV, select "Content" menu, select second clip to activate in same PRV:
Second clip activated... note first clip ghosted (you can activate inactive clips in PRV by double-clicking in inactive areas)... select overlapping notes from clip1:
Delete overlapping notes from clip1:
Activate clip1, and slip edit to "expose" the overlapping MIDI notes from clip2... note: the underlying MIDI notes are still there! In fact, the same underlying data can exist in clip1, clip2, or both at the same time. Highlight the overlap from clip2 and delete in clip1 (leaving the underlying notes in clip2 only):
After all slip editing and manual overlap removal, we have two clips equivalent to original:
Phew! If you have a need to do a lot of that type of splitting, then Reaper doesn't make it easy... if you need to do it here and there, as I do, then it's livable. Rather than split the clips, it'd probably be much easier to just create a brand new overlapping MIDI item and selectively copy whatever you need to copy, and remove the copied data from the source, etc.
The other thing to point out is the ability to display more than one MIDI clip at the same time in the same PRV, though only one can be "active" for editing. You can also display MIDI clips across tracks, not just the same track.
All in all, Reaper's MIDI is lacking perhaps compared to the competition, depening on the tools you depend on. That being said, it's more than capable for many many basic MIDI recording and editing operations, certainly compared to earlier versions. Myself, I do a lot of manual MIDI editing, and not a heckuvalotta humanization and procedural stuff... for humanization, I will literally alter timing and velocity by hand for every note, manually add notes here and there, etc... I'm that anal about it. Especially when it comes to realistic drum programming, to the extent possible.
fandango - Mon Jun 18, 2012 2:10 am
LGK_Dude wrote:
I mostly a midi musician (I write all my progressive rock music starting in midi & also do full orchestral mockups) and I'm thinking of switching to either Reaper or Cubase. I would love to get some honest feedback as to how well Reaper handles advanced midi sequencing.
For orchestral mockups do you use the channel lane (CC editing) much? In Reaper it's still a pretty miserable affair. Have a look at this feature request from 2008 to see what's still missing in this regard (and will still be missing in another 4 years).
http://forum.cockos.com/project.php?issueid=978
A real shame, I switched to Cubase and just learnt to put up with the dongle. Lost faith in Cockos ever improving the MIDI in any meaningful way that didn't involve just tweaking nipples on the MIDI editor and moving menu items around.
I do however use Reaper for purely the audio side of things (take rendered tracks from Cubase) and it's superb in that regard.
Funk Dracula - Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:59 am
kbaccki wrote:
LawrenceF wrote:
The last Logic option above is what Reaper always does. Splits and always makes new notes.
I don't think it makes "new notes", per se, but it creates a new MIDI clip whose contents is the same underlying MIDI data... the end effect is new notes starting at the the beggining of the new MIDI clip. On reaper 4.something here.
Interestingly, if you delete the right-most clip from the split, then slip edit the right edge of the original clip -- the MIDI data is still there! See what I mean? It doesn't create new MIDI data, just a new clip region utilzing the same underlying MIDI data. Now Reaper's question is: what to do with the overlap? By default, it needs to truncate at clip bounds. Certainly, more options would be ideal!
However, it is possible to split a single MIDI clip into two overlapping MIDI clips if you absolutely had to... like this (one clip split into two, slip edited, overlapping notes manually removed):
Source MIDI clip:
Same clip in PRV... pick an arbitrary location w/ lots of overlaps for split:
Split clip at cursor... "truncated" MIDI notes... drag clips into separate lanes:
Double-click left clip to get back to PRV, select "Content" menu, select second clip to activate in same PRV:
Second clip activated... note first clip ghosted (you can activate inactive clips in PRV by double-clicking in inactive areas)... select overlapping notes from clip1:
Delete overlapping notes from clip1:
Activate clip1, and slip edit to "expose" the overlapping MIDI notes from clip2... note: the underlying MIDI notes are still there! In fact, the same underlying data can exist in clip1, clip2, or both at the same time. Highlight the overlap from clip2 and delete in clip1 (leaving the underlying notes in clip2 only):
After all slip editing and manual overlap removal, we have two clips equivalent to original:
Phew! If you have a need to do a lot of that type of splitting, then Reaper doesn't make it easy... if you need to do it here and there, as I do, then it's livable. Rather than split the clips, it'd probably be much easier to just create a brand new overlapping MIDI item and selectively copy whatever you need to copy, and remove the copied data from the source, etc.
The other thing to point out is the ability to display more than one MIDI clip at the same time in the same PRV, though only one can be "active" for editing. You can also display MIDI clips across tracks, not just the same track.
All in all, Reaper's MIDI is lacking perhaps compared to the competition, depening on the tools you depend on. That being said, it's more than capable for many many basic MIDI recording and editing operations, certainly compared to earlier versions. Myself, I do a lot of manual MIDI editing, and not a heckuvalotta humanization and procedural stuff... for humanization, I will literally alter timing and velocity by hand for every note, manually add notes here and there, etc... I'm that anal about it. Especially when it comes to realistic drum programming, to the extent possible.
Good grief, that is horrible. I read it was bad, but dude, that is embarrassingly bad.
chokehold - Mon Jun 18, 2012 4:18 am
jancivil wrote:
so in Cubase you can have all the clips [events] you like with their own names in a 'part/track' and edit it in one window. once re-glued the key editor adjusts accordingly.
that isn't subjective. there are things other hosts do better than REAPER, I'm sorry.
that isn't subjective. there are things other hosts do better than REAPER, I'm sorry.
I don't know what you mean.
These options don't have any pre-bound key shortcuts to start with, but they can be assigned in a couple of seconds via the Preferences menu.
Select multiple MIDI items in a single track/lane and press CRTL+ALT+E on Windows to open all selected items in one MIDI Editor window. Switch between active items by double-clicking into the inactive area or an inactive note of another item.
You can even select multiple MIDI items on multiple tracks/lanes, then right-click on one of them and choose "Built-in MIDI editor --> open all track MIDI in new editor". That will open a new Editor with all selected MIDI items on all the tracks together. MIDI items on other tracks are "behind" the active MIDI item, switch between them by double-clicking on an inactive note.
So... why is Cubase's MIDI editor better?
Trakstar - Mon Jun 18, 2012 4:39 am
http://www.musicradar.com/gear/all/computers-software/other/rapidcomposer-541727/review
If youre only doing midi editing, this just got released. Its a dedicated DAW dedicated to Midi editing thats meant to have a superfast workflow concerning compostion. I know its not what your asking but you could do a lot worse than by giving it a quick look. Its an early release as yet but it seems to have a few bugs that no doubt will eventually get ironed out. Check the review and get a demo if its available, I was reading reviews and this caught my eye, saw the forum and remembered about it. Concerning other things, For me cubase was always the easiest For midi editing because i do believe it was them that started the whole midi tools options such as pen draw and erase which eventually got copied into other DAW. At the minute i use sonar X1 and it has the benefit of a built in step sequencer per audio/midi track/channel with seperate Quantize, groove, swing and humanization features which you can work with and then convert to midi,or convert midi files to step sequencer files which makes editing a whole lot easier and innovative. Thats my 10 penneth anyhows
kbaccki - Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:02 am
Funk Dracula wrote:
Good grief, that is horrible. I read it was bad, but dude, that is embarrassingly bad.
I'm not sure how you got "embarrassingly bad" from that. In Arrange, do your split, move the clip to where you want it, slip edit the clip to get back the notes that were virtually truncated in the split, then delete any notes at the split point that you don't want in the new clip. I think my example was fairly extreme... a clip of a piano passage involving dense, 7-8 note sustained chords, being split arbitrarily in the middle of a measure. In the case of a bass line or a simple pad or lead, removing any overlap would be that much easier. For things like percussion, except for things like cymbals, what's the chance you have so many overlaps straddling measure boundaries? Not too many, I don't think.
Can you do the same in Logic, where a clip split preserves the underlying MIDI data? It seems to me that based on the option LawrenceF posted Logic either hard-truncates the data at the clip boundary, or gives you the ability to play notes beyond the boundary. In Reaper the data is still there, but the notes are bound by the clip bounds. I suspect in Logic when you choose to split and truncate, the underlying data actually gets truncated. Also, the "play notes even though they don't show in the clip as being played" option would drive me batty... why is that note still playing if the clip has obviously ended, etc.?
I'd be curious to know if the above process of creating overlapping split clips is significantly easier in Logic... or even possible since it involes slip editing after the split.
Another thing to consider w/ Reaper is it's engine performance. I think if you actually ported some of your Logic projects over to Reaper you might see substantial improvements in multi-core performance, and perhaps overall performance. My understanding is that Logic stovepipes FX/synths based on entire FX bins, which leaves you open to saturating individual cores. To get around that you have to rebalance the cores yourself by physically re-rerouting your audio to different busses: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3161
Talk about embarassing!
Is that still a problem in Logic, or has it been addressed? That sort of limitation would drive me nuts, personally.
BTW, I'm a Sonar user myself, so no need for fanboi epithets.
stillshaded - Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:38 am
sorry about adding S1 into the mix, I'm just really thinking that people who are switching daws atm are going to be kicking themselves in a couple of years when S1 catches up to the (IMHO marginal) amount of features some olders DAWs have over it, and arrives there with a much more streamlined user interface.
don't get pissy about though.. if you've ever had a conversation "irl" you might understand that sometimes people interject ideas beyond the scope of the original subject matter
braj - Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:40 am
stillshaded wrote:
sorry about adding S1 into the mix, I'm just really thinking that people who are switching daws atm are going to be kicking themselves in a couple of years when S1 catches up to the (IMHO marginal) amount of features some olders DAWs have over it, and arrives there with a much more streamlined user interface.
don't get pissy about though.. if you've ever had a conversation "irl" you might understand that sometimes people interject ideas beyond the scope of the original subject matter
don't get pissy about though.. if you've ever had a conversation "irl" you might understand that sometimes people interject ideas beyond the scope of the original subject matter
Oh I appreciated the addition myself, I'm not feeling pissy
LawrenceF - Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:49 am
braj wrote:
Oh I appreciated the addition myself, I'm not feeling pissy
Yeah, no biggie. I just wanted to be fair because when Reaper drops into a discussion uninvited we do sometimes kinda rag about it doing that.
IIRC, it was a bit of a running joke here for awhile...
Question: "Hey! Anyone use Samp? How good is it?"
Answer: "Reaper"
So... equal treatment and fairness is usually a good thing. No biggie. I shoulda used a grinning smiley there instead of a shrug... to deliver the real intent better.
Bad attempt at humor. Apologies to Stillshaded.
stillshaded - Mon Jun 18, 2012 7:12 am
kewl, glad no one's too worked up.
Not trying to be flamey with my retort, I'm the type that like to heckle in a playful way but I gotta remember that doesn't always translate so well to Internet world.
Can't help but be a bit of a zealot for that app.
ok back to the topic at hand!!
LawrenceF - Mon Jun 18, 2012 7:51 am
kbaccki wrote:
I'm not sure how you got "embarrassingly bad" from that. In Arrange, do your split, move the clip to where you want it, slip edit the clip to get back the notes that were virtually truncated in the split, then delete any notes at the split point that you don't want in the new clip.
"Embarrassingly bad" is overly harsh
and somewhat personal (imo) and unnecessary bashing. But let's not minimize this. It is what it is and it needs fixing, optioning. It wont get fixed if people pretend that there's nothing wrong with it or that it's not a concern for some others. It is.
Take a - neutral and unbiased - step back and consider when and why people very often split midi clips on the timeline without thinking about it very much or at all beforehand. Most of it has nothing at all to do with song arranging. Most of it is for very simple things like partially quantizing clips, or splitting away a section and changing the clip velocity, transposing, or splitting away a section to use as a groove for another section, or splitting away a clip to just name or color it differently?
None of that should ever affect or change the actual musical performances, ever, (well, at least not unless you specifically tell it to?) sorry.
Any implication that it's not something typically being done or something that can be easily avoided, splitting up midi on the timeline in a professional midi sequencer, isn't my personal reality, mmv on that.
In all those cases I had to slow way down and take great care not to split over notes, which sometimes wasn't even possible at all, and sometimes meant I had to directly and carefully view midi data across 16-18 midi tracks before splitting anything to make sure no midi notes were under the intended split point ... or just do it like I do everywhere else but subsequently manually "repair" anything afterward on 5-6 tracks where any notes may have gotten split up.
So the issue is 100% legit, and not a bash. It's real, and it's (relatively speaking) pretty bad, for some.
Looking for various ways to excuse it or minimize wont help Reaper become a better midi sequencer.
P.S. All of this assumes it's still the same. I cannot say I've kept up with the latest releases or pre-releases, so (with Reaper) there's always a chance of something changing before you actually know about it. So I'm speaking in the "not distant" past tense.
Funk Dracula - Mon Jun 18, 2012 7:57 am
kbaccki wrote:
Another thing to consider w/ Reaper is it's engine performance. I think if you actually ported some of your Logic projects over to Reaper you might see substantial improvements in multi-core performance, and perhaps overall performance.
Your right about the multi-core distribution in Logic. But honestly those who are adding 15 inserts on one channel well... godspeed to them. I'm sure Reaper performs absolutely stellar with it's engine.
Pretty easy.
Cut, choose how to deal with the overlapping notes, copy drag it where you want it and move on... even make an alias of it.
I'm not sure what you mean by "clip view". If you mean, can you see the notes in the piano roll going outside the regions boundaries in the arrange than yes... clear as day.
Regardless, that whole crazy process you go thru in Reaper is nuts. No need to defend that now is there?
I guess the OP should take a closer look at Cubase for whatever reason he's thinking of switching, cause' IMO he should definitely fear the Reaper after seeing those pics. (hows that for a terrible joke?
) I can't comment on Cubase; but I can see the benefits of using the VST format and being cross-platform with that host. Funk Dracula - Mon Jun 18, 2012 8:19 am
LawrenceF wrote:
"Embarrassingly bad" is overly harsh
and somewhat personal (imo) and unnecessary bashing. But let's not minimize this. It is what it is and it needs fixing, optioning. It wont get fixed if people pretend that there's nothing wrong with it or that it's not a concern for some others. It is.
Didn't mean it to be overly harsh! But I guess it was... I apologize, it was a bad post on my end being a harsh comment without adding to the discussion.
Just after years and years of reading "Reaper does it better! Reaper does it better! Reaper does it better!" in forums, seeing those pics kind of shocked me.
Trakstar - Mon Jun 18, 2012 8:32 am
[quote="Funk Dracula"]
kbaccki wrote:
Your right about the multi-core distribution in Logic. But honestly those who are adding 15 inserts on one channel well... godspeed to them. I'm sure Reaper performs absolutely stellar with it's engine.
3 reverbs, 5 flangers, 4 delays, 2 distortions and 1 MultiFX plugin with a further4 EQs, 5 limiters , 4 tube amps and a bitcrusher for top end sparkle
LawrenceF - Mon Jun 18, 2012 8:47 am
Funk Dracula wrote:
Didn't mean it to be overly harsh! But I guess it was... .
Yeah, a tiny bit maybe, imo, mmv, yada, yada.
A couple of really brilliant guys code a pretty great DAW in a few years and just about give it away... nah... nothing embarrassing about any of that.
Did they do some stuff wrong? Sure, they all do, especially early on. I'd lay a good bet that at version 4 Logic wasn't exactly the bees knees, that they were still maybe solving some random irritating practical issues where they took a wrong turn somewhere ... maybe.
It will be very, very interesting to see what Reaper and S1 and Bitwig, Mixcraft, whatever, some of the newer DAW offerings, actually are 10 years from now... if the Mayans are wrong and we and they are all still around.
Of course, the Cubase's and PT's and Samp's of the world won't exactly be going "offline" during that time so some of them may be playing subjective catch up in some ways for quite a few years.
Reaper is pretty great. It's midi sequencer, maybe not so much.
hibidy - Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:22 am
@embarrassingly bad: Yes it is. The reason? Because the devs are better than that. If they wanted to actually put some time into midi and take care of a couple of these things, I seriously doubt it would be terribly difficult for them. The real problem (again
)
When was the last time they put any time into midi? 6 months ago? 8 months ago?
braj - Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:30 am
They may have really painted themselves into some corners with the clip-based midi though. It may be more about ability than will. They may just not have a good solution yet that won't break a bunch of other stuff. Making big changes in software creates a lot of bugs. They may be working on it but being quiet about it. Who knows?
hibidy - Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:34 am
braj wrote:
They may have really painted themselves into some corners with the clip-based midi though. It may be more about ability than will. They may just not have a good solution yet that won't break a bunch of other stuff. Making big changes in software creates a lot of bugs. They may be working on it but being quiet about it. Who knows?
It's just been so long now. I'm not the glass half full kinda guy. People have been griping allot and they don't even respond. Releases are taking far longer than they used to and the prereleases CLEARLY show what they are working on. Nope, not going to surprise us. Hate the messenger, but just being honest. Hoping and wishing things will get better works......for even months at a time. Then you have to be realistic.
braj - Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:38 am
hibidy wrote:
the prereleases CLEARLY show what they are working on
They likely show what they are willing to show you, not what is on the dev's tables completely
I have to imagine they are aware of the issues and if they were easy to resolve they would be more visible. I'm not saying wait around for the features you need, I moved on, I'm just talking about the realities of software development. TheoM - Mon Jun 18, 2012 2:15 pm
just wanted to add... cubase and logic are what i consider the worlds 2 most powerful midi hosts.. with logic you just need to know what you are doing for really advanced stuff... but it is also very simple...
what someone said about spending so much time trying to work out how to edit midi controllers and automation, LOL that's so easy in logic. Hit a for automation and choose the parameter on the track. WOW, really hard
For virtual instruments midi automation, open hyperdraw and draw any controler you want like standard automation.
Or the hyper edit but hyper draw is easier IMO, hyperedit is for more advanced stuff.
one key, command Y (ok two keys) to automatically open hyperdraw on a midi part with the controller you have last touched.. or the view menu to choose which controller. It's so fekking easy it's ridiculous
iAnd logic's advanced "scripting" so to speak is a very powerful tool indeed and...
want to get really heavy? go into the environment and have fun.
Cubase rocks also for midi, i even edge it out slightly in front of logic because of the inline editing and project logical editor.
To compare reaper or s1 or live's midi to logic or cubase can not be ANYTHING than fan boy ism and just plain being silly.
kbaccki - Mon Jun 18, 2012 4:23 pm
LawrenceF wrote:
Looking for various ways to excuse it or minimize wont help Reaper become a better midi sequencer.
I'm not attempting to minimize or excuse anything. I'm only pointing out that earlier assertions in the thread that the underlying MIDI performance is lost are inaccurate. As my slip editing demonstrates, the underlying MIDI data of the original performance is fully intact, and moreover survives the split operation. If you do enough slip editing on the resulting split clips you can get two entirely overlapping clips containing all of the original MIDI data with nothing lost. The problem is the "do enough slip editing" part. I'm not disagreeing with that. Reaper needs more options for handling overlapping MIDI clips (which are allowed, obviously) as they relate to splits, merges, slip editing, etc... not to mention a bunch of other tools and methods.
The fact that I can manually go through that process means that some smart developer could implement the process in code. Split the clips as usual. In the leftmost clip find the notes that start in that clip but end beyond the clip boundary and extend the clip boundary to the longest note. Move the rightmost clip to the next lane to visually separate them. In the rightmost clip delete any notes that did not start in that clip. Seems simple enough.
Listen, I'm not trying to say that Reaper's MIDI editing is among the best available... it's really not. But the tenor of this thread makes it out to be as bad as it was in v2. And I didn't buy in until v3 because of the bad MIDI in v2, and essentially non-existent MIDI in v1. I think for basic MIDI editing, even for hand-sewn percussion tracks and such, the latest is more than capable. That being said... any really heavy duty, multitrack MIDI editing that I need to do I will do outside of Reaper.
hibidy - Mon Jun 18, 2012 4:33 pm
But the thing is, WHY must it be so tedious?
And trying to make a point is so hard when people try to excuse the inexcusable.
We're not talking about some hard-up/doesn't listen/pos company. We're talking about cockos....remember, when they constantly listened and the updates were so fast it was TOO hard to keep up?
Does anyone not remember how avid a fan I've been since I started using it? Hell, I loved reaper when I was still using sonar, but it wasn't quite there. Well f**k, after 2 1/2 years......I'm kinda tired of waiting. Starting to remind of tracktion and xt when they just died.
Sure, I can dance through hoops and get things done. So? Why on earth wouldn't cockos put the time into smokin' the competition? No excuses please, I've seen what the devs can do. What I see is a REFUSAL to improve
OSC, yeah....."we're all over that because icrap is so popular". But people are buying synths, and samplers, and so on daily........isn't reaper a "daw"? What f**king good does it do to have OSC and then be so damn clunky? LawrenceF - Mon Jun 18, 2012 4:49 pm
@kbaccki: I hear you man. I think you partially misunderstood me and maybe vice versa, perhaps I partially misunderstood you.
As to the solution... there's nothing to figure out. It's been figured out already. Just do what everyone else does. If there is a better way, then do that... but I suspect everyone else (Sonar, Samp, DP and the rest) are doing the same thing Cubase, Logic and S1 are doing. Dunno that for sure, but if you can pull up the manual for Samp or Sonar and see how they handle splitting clips, maybe it would be useful.
Sometimes re-inventing the wheel is good I guess... if the old wheel has issues. Sometimes it's taking a step backwards for no good reason other than maybe not looking close enough at what's working best already.
Thanks man. I'll see if I can dig up manuals for Samp and Sonar to see how they handle that thing. If everyone kinda does it the same way, that would suggest that maybe in this case it's the best way.
kbaccki - Mon Jun 18, 2012 5:01 pm
hibidy wrote:
@embarrassingly bad: Yes it is. The reason? Because the devs are better than that. If they wanted to actually put some time into midi and take care of a couple of these things, I seriously doubt it would be terribly difficult for them. The real problem (again )
When was the last time they put any time into midi? 6 months ago? 8 months ago?
)
When was the last time they put any time into midi? 6 months ago? 8 months ago?
Think of it this way: whatever they're doing, at least they're most likely not spending time implementing ProChannel modules.
Seriously, losing a little faith here...
LawrenceF - Mon Jun 18, 2012 5:04 pm
Here's Sonar: The manual is a bit fuzzy but here's splitting selection...
Quote:
Split At Selection
Choosing this option splits the clip(s) at the boundaries of the selected area. If you're splitting a MIDI clip, the split will not split any notes,
Choosing this option splits the clip(s) at the boundaries of the selected area. If you're splitting a MIDI clip, the split will not split any notes,
Samp's manual is also kinda fuzzy. I can only assume they use different names for that kinda thing, I cant find how it handles that. I'll take a peek at Mixcraft 6 since I have the demo installed. My guess is that it's likely kinda broken too but we'll see.
It is. I just tried it and it split the notes the same way, adds new note on's and new note offs to the data, to the new clip... and there's no option I can see to not do that.
The only thing left I have installed here is OhmStudio so I'll have a peek. No joy, not downloading and installing that beta for the 4th time right now. I guess it updated.
Anyway, dead horse beaten to a pulp.
kbaccki - Mon Jun 18, 2012 5:49 pm
From SONAR 8.5 Pro help... this is when splitting selected clip at "now time", you get an option dialog with a checkbox for "Use Non-Destructive Cropping When Splitting MIDI Clips":
Quote:
Use Nondestructive Cropping When Splitting MIDI Clips
If you check this option, SONAR hides any MIDI data (such as note durations) that overlap the clip boundary, without deleting any data. If you slip edit the new clip to expand the original boundary, SONAR uncovers the original data. If you don't check this option, SONAR deletes overlapping data when you split clips.
OK, sounds good so far... now I split at now time w/ above option enabled, I get two clips. The rightmost clip has any and all notes that did not start in the clip deleted (overlaps removed from rightmost clip). In the leftmost clip things are kinda good, kinda Reaper-ish... because I choose not to truncate I can slip edit the clip to get back the notes that would otherwise have been truncated in the leftmost clip... HOWEVER, when I slip edit, I also see the notes that I expect to be only in the rightmost clip! So I would still have to manually delete those overlaps from the rightmost clip.
Things got a little dicey before I had a chance to see what bouncing those clips would look like... in particular, for the overlap area after slip edit, do I have multiple note-ons for the overlapping notes? hibidy - Mon Jun 18, 2012 5:54 pm
kbaccki wrote:
hibidy wrote:
@embarrassingly bad: Yes it is. The reason? Because the devs are better than that. If they wanted to actually put some time into midi and take care of a couple of these things, I seriously doubt it would be terribly difficult for them. The real problem (again )
When was the last time they put any time into midi? 6 months ago? 8 months ago?
)
When was the last time they put any time into midi? 6 months ago? 8 months ago?
Think of it this way: whatever they're doing, at least they're most likely not spending time implementing ProChannel modules.
Seriously, losing a little faith here...
True that
I'd MUCH rather be able to just add alloy like I do
kbaccki - Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:02 pm
Gak! Worst fear confirmed in SONAR 8.5... I slip edit the leftmost clip to see the full duration of notes that had started within the bounds of the leftmost clip. The result of the slip edit is that I also get overlapping notes from the rightmost clip -- i.e., notes that should otherwise only start in the rightmost clip according to my original split.
Now here's the kicker: after the slip edit only, if I go to Event List view, I actually now see duplicate note-ons for the overlapping notes. Ugh! Ok, maybe bounce to clip removes the dupes... nope! After bounce to clip I end up where I started clip-wise, but because of the slip edit "into" the rightmost clip, my merged clip now contains duplicate note-ons at the slip edited boundary!
I can't bring myself to check X1... (for a variety of reasons)...
LawrenceF - Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:06 pm
When you say "slip edit" I (now?) understand that to mean "trimming the clip edges right so the full note will play"? If that's what you mean, that's not really slip editing to me, that's clip trimming. Slip editing to me is sliding the contents of the clip, not trimming the clip edges.
Maybe that's why we kinda got crossed up earlier. In either case, either shouldn't really be necessary to play the full note... unless (partially my earlier point) the note off gets moved to a new place and there's no option not to cut notes at the clip border?
Here is a very simple example. Clip split at bar 3 and still sounds exactly the same, requires no editing, doesn't trigger something twice afterward or shorten any note lengths.
So "chop" clips at will with no regard for anything ever audibly changing. That two bar section (on those two tracks, or 32 tracks if splitting 32 tracks) will always sound exactly the same before and after. That first note plays all the way through on the split clip.
hibidy - Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:24 pm
kbaccki wrote:
Gak! Worst fear confirmed in SONAR 8.5... I slip edit the leftmost clip to see the full duration of notes that had started within the bounds of the leftmost clip. The result of the slip edit is that I also get overlapping notes from the rightmost clip -- i.e., notes that should otherwise only start in the rightmost clip according to my original split.
Now here's the kicker: after the slip edit only, if I go to Event List view, I actually now see duplicate note-ons for the overlapping notes. Ugh! Ok, maybe bounce to clip removes the dupes... nope! After bounce to clip I end up where I started clip-wise, but because of the slip edit "into" the rightmost clip, my merged clip now contains duplicate note-ons at the slip edited boundary!
I can't bring myself to check X1... (for a variety of reasons)...
Now here's the kicker: after the slip edit only, if I go to Event List view, I actually now see duplicate note-ons for the overlapping notes. Ugh! Ok, maybe bounce to clip removes the dupes... nope! After bounce to clip I end up where I started clip-wise, but because of the slip edit "into" the rightmost clip, my merged clip now contains duplicate note-ons at the slip edited boundary!
I can't bring myself to check X1... (for a variety of reasons)...
I fell all for it at first. Now it's just a memory. One great thing about reaper......when I want to record something, it's turn and go. Not "step right up, see what works today folks.......interleave........survey says......MONO! Ooooo, and too bad about that weird signal coming in from your guitar that seems like it's just one channel
kbaccki - Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:33 pm
Yes, to me slip edit means moving the left and right boundaries of the clip to expose different data. I think in other apps, you can "slip edit" a clip with a specific tool, and doing so changes the data within the clip, right? Whereas in Reaper, SONAR, etc., the only way to expose different data is to move the left and right boundaries of the clip... Like there is no "slip edit" tool, per se. Then "trimming" to me would be more specifically truncating clip data strictly to the bounds of the clip.
Anyway... as far as playing full notes, I just checked SONAR 8.5 behavior. When you split a clip in the middle of the note, the note duration actually gets truncated as far as the Event List is concerned (e.g., duration went from 918 to 587). If I then move to the right the right edge of the leftmost clip
... in my terms "slip edit the leftmost clip toward the right" ... I can see in Event List that the truncated note's duration increases with every increase of the clip boundary. Until you reach the original duration of the underlying note, of course. LawrenceF - Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:43 pm
kbaccki wrote:
Yes, to me slip edit means moving the left and right boundaries of the clip to expose different data.
Slip editing in Reaper and most everywhere means sliding the data (afaik) so your terminology there was throwing me off.
I was thinking... "why is he slip editing the midi in that case?"
But yeah, I finally caught on to how you were using that term. But that's actually not slip editing, it's clip sizing.
Anyway, didn't know that about Sonar, thanks. That maybe sucks a little. Never actually wanted to use it so... no issue for me personally. I would often put Sonar (for midi) in the same class as Cubase and Logic but that may have been an overestimation, dunno. It was an assumption from it being around so long, but maybe a totally wrong assumption.
Didn't matter either way since I never really wanted to use it anyway.
kbaccki - Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:55 pm
LawrenceF wrote:
So "chop" clips at will with no regard for anything ever audibly changing. That two bar section (on those two tracks, or 32 tracks if splitting 32 tracks) will always sound exactly the same before and after. That first note plays all the way through on the split clip.
They don't call it Logic for nuthin. I mean, we're not exactly dealing with a bag of bolts here.
Seriously, I know Reaper doesn't do that, as we've seen. And SONAR 8.5 is all sorts of confused, it seems, though I can't speak for X1.
My only gripe on what you show there is: would be nice to have some sort of visual indication that the clip virtually extends beyond it's boundary... i.e., it's not a "truncated" clip, but actually has active data that you can't see (at least in terms of note duration).
C-note - Mon Jun 18, 2012 10:25 pm
Just get Cubase - the best at Midi bar none.
hibidy - Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:02 pm
Ha! But, then you will have to be
fandango - Tue Jun 19, 2012 12:32 am
I may be
, but I'm finally happy with midi. That could just be the implants making me think that though... 
Trakstar - Tue Jun 19, 2012 3:19 am
hibidy wrote:
kbaccki wrote:
hibidy wrote:
@embarrassingly bad: Yes it is. The reason? Because the devs are better than that. If they wanted to actually put some time into midi and take care of a couple of these things, I seriously doubt it would be terribly difficult for them. The real problem (again )
When was the last time they put any time into midi? 6 months ago? 8 months ago?
)
When was the last time they put any time into midi? 6 months ago? 8 months ago?
Think of it this way: whatever they're doing, at least they're most likely not spending time implementing ProChannel modules.
Seriously, losing a little faith here...
True that
I'd MUCH rather be able to just add alloy like I do
At the minute i use sonar X1 and it has the benefit of a built in step sequencer per audio/midi track/channel with seperate Quantize, groove, swing and humanization features which you can work with and then convert to midi,or convert midi files to step sequencer files which makes editing a whole lot easier and innovative. Thats my 10 penneth anyhows
In sonar x1 to there's been a vast lot of improvements since sonar 8.5. And the prochannel for me is top dollar, I use the la2a more than the IK one in the Tracks deal. The 1176 emulation is also another, with added bonus of parallel mixing with the all button in mode activated. Really brings instruments to life. Top that off with Softube saturation and softube mix bundle just a click away with hardly any processor hit and Im laughing. The Midi handling has drastically improved with the ability to enable and disable any midi tracks in the same viewer . To do with midi splitting, its so much faster now to use the X1 tools bar, you can also split the notes with alt+left click and delete just as fast. Its a lot easier than selecting and deselecting from right click menus
and then you can always make a new clip with the spare midi and drag it into the browser and make a new folder anytime just with the midi edits in it, a bit like a track manager but midi clip manager, good stuff. I used to work with 8.5 and X1 expanded is a different product all together. Like comparing cubase sx1 to cubase 6.
Izak Synthiemental - Tue Jun 19, 2012 3:30 am
When it comes to Midi - Reaper is really weak here! Just try a very simple thing: try to record a midi loop in the overdub mode = so every loopcycle you add some stuf (forgot how its called in Reaper).
This is useful when you record a drum loop for example - ín the first round you record kick and snare i the next some hihats and then some percussions - its really hard to accomplish this easy task in Reaper from my experience.
It has been mentioned on the Cockos/Reaper forums that the developers might treat Midi as secondary and cater more to the classical recording artists, who often are very satisfied with Reaper.
Trakstar - Tue Jun 19, 2012 3:33 am
Izak Synthiemental wrote:
When it comes to Midi - Reaper is really weak here! Just try a very simple thing: try to record a midi loop in the overdub mode = so every loopcycle you add some stuf (forgot how its called in Reaper).
This is useful when you record a drum loop for example - ín the first round you record kick and snare i the next some hihats and then some percussions - its really hard to accomplish this easy task in Reaper from my experience.
It has been mentioned on the Cockos/Reaper forums that the developers might treat Midi as secondary and cater more to the classical recording artists, who often are very satisfied with Reaper.
This is useful when you record a drum loop for example - ín the first round you record kick and snare i the next some hihats and then some percussions - its really hard to accomplish this easy task in Reaper from my experience.
It has been mentioned on the Cockos/Reaper forums that the developers might treat Midi as secondary and cater more to the classical recording artists, who often are very satisfied with Reaper.
+1
hibidy - Tue Jun 19, 2012 11:34 am
Well, but they went this far
Anyways, dead horse. Gotta live with it or not. The more people complain about it, they more they ignore it. *sigh*
Trakstar - Tue Jun 19, 2012 12:36 pm
hibidy wrote:
Well, but they went this far
Anyways, dead horse. Gotta live with it or not. The more people complain about it, they more they ignore it. *sigh*
Anyways, dead horse. Gotta live with it or not. The more people complain about it, they more they ignore it. *sigh*
Thats really bad business, especially since it really started to gain ground
and now its the few minute flaws that start to show that ironically puts people off of what really is a top class program. Put it this way, for routing audio and the fact that I used to hook two Pcs together and use the reaper fx to send the audio back and forwards through the ethernet cable for some proper processing power when combining them was truly unique to reaper. This is where reaper can stand up and claim N0 1 status. I would use reaper but i needed the extra benefits of the other DAW's that have been going years, in fact I still try it out from time to time because its a stellar program. If only they would do something like REAPER X1 like cakewalk did with sonar 8.5, take care of all the problems people were experiencing and I do believe that would be it. End of discussion. Who Knows? perhaps they will, They can obviously program software and I bought most of the stilwell fx having first tried them in reaper!!. Whats happened?? I wish stillwell would make some proper emulations like UAD type fx because obviously they can. I would buy them all, and then if they ported them all to Reaper like a ReaConsoleStrip built into every mixer channel... Well you get the idea. We can but dream... Why is it people have all the good ideas apart from the software coders that are meant to implement this sort of thing to boost the sales of their Software.
hibidy - Tue Jun 19, 2012 12:54 pm
Understand that even though I'm furious at what seems like clear avoidance about the midi stuff, I still prefer it by leaps and bounds.
Like I said, I know enough about it to futz my way through. I can do pretty much whatever I want with it. But it's PAINFUL at times. And I refuse to accept that tude from them about midi
But it's still the only host I'll consider seriously at the moment.
To try and offset my bitching:
It's hella stable
all my plugs work with it
super cpu efficient
Can be clean and tidy (folders, docking)
very powerful
Handles audio tracking better than anything I've ever used
LOVE the mixer!
LOVE the width control (is cubendo and PT the only other two? can't remember)
I like the way the rado 4 theme looks
Love the interface overall (and of course for many it's uber custom)
The SWS extensions are wonderful! And that they are supported and expect nothing other than a few donations (which I'm sure many don't make) for all that!
Geoffry makes a terrific FREE manual! And of course Kenny leads the way with his very well done viddys
so don't think I'm just complaining
I'm passionate about taking the next steps. I see NO GOOD REASON that midi can't get a little love now and then GRRRRRRR. sellyoursoul - Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:04 pm
Izak Synthiemental wrote:
When it comes to Midi - Reaper is really weak here! Just try a very simple thing: try to record a midi loop in the overdub mode = so every loopcycle you add some stuf (forgot how its called in Reaper).
This is useful when you record a drum loop for example - ín the first round you record kick and snare i the next some hihats and then some percussions - its really hard to accomplish this easy task in Reaper from my experience.
It has been mentioned on the Cockos/Reaper forums that the developers might treat Midi as secondary and cater more to the classical recording artists, who often are very satisfied with Reaper.
This is useful when you record a drum loop for example - ín the first round you record kick and snare i the next some hihats and then some percussions - its really hard to accomplish this easy task in Reaper from my experience.
It has been mentioned on the Cockos/Reaper forums that the developers might treat Midi as secondary and cater more to the classical recording artists, who often are very satisfied with Reaper.
If you right click the 'ar' (arm record) button on a track in Reaper, you can change how Reaper records. For what you have described, choose 'MIDI overdub'.
The first rule of Reaper is to right-click everywhere, and get familiar with those right-click context menus. If you see something in a menu that you want to change, got to 'Options > Customize menus/toolbars'.
hibidy - Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:25 pm
sellyoursoul wrote:
Izak Synthiemental wrote:
When it comes to Midi - Reaper is really weak here! Just try a very simple thing: try to record a midi loop in the overdub mode = so every loopcycle you add some stuf (forgot how its called in Reaper).
This is useful when you record a drum loop for example - ín the first round you record kick and snare i the next some hihats and then some percussions - its really hard to accomplish this easy task in Reaper from my experience.
It has been mentioned on the Cockos/Reaper forums that the developers might treat Midi as secondary and cater more to the classical recording artists, who often are very satisfied with Reaper.
This is useful when you record a drum loop for example - ín the first round you record kick and snare i the next some hihats and then some percussions - its really hard to accomplish this easy task in Reaper from my experience.
It has been mentioned on the Cockos/Reaper forums that the developers might treat Midi as secondary and cater more to the classical recording artists, who often are very satisfied with Reaper.
If you right click the 'ar' (arm record) button on a track in Reaper, you can change how Reaper records. For what you have described, choose 'MIDI overdub'.
The first rule of Reaper is to right-click everywhere, and get familiar with those right-click context menus. If you see something in a menu that you want to change, got to 'Options > Customize menus/toolbars'.
Forgive, but I think he's got that.
It's a bit dicey tbh. It works "ok", I have that as a default (god what a pain to change it everytime!). One other thing that would be nice for those of use who are not beat genius's would be global input quantize. Again, can't be THAT hard to implement considering they have an "input" quantize
sellyoursoul - Tue Jun 19, 2012 11:03 pm
hibidy wrote:
sellyoursoul wrote:
Izak Synthiemental wrote:
When it comes to Midi - Reaper is really weak here! Just try a very simple thing: try to record a midi loop in the overdub mode = so every loopcycle you add some stuf (forgot how its called in Reaper).
This is useful when you record a drum loop for example - ín the first round you record kick and snare i the next some hihats and then some percussions - its really hard to accomplish this easy task in Reaper from my experience.
It has been mentioned on the Cockos/Reaper forums that the developers might treat Midi as secondary and cater more to the classical recording artists, who often are very satisfied with Reaper.
This is useful when you record a drum loop for example - ín the first round you record kick and snare i the next some hihats and then some percussions - its really hard to accomplish this easy task in Reaper from my experience.
It has been mentioned on the Cockos/Reaper forums that the developers might treat Midi as secondary and cater more to the classical recording artists, who often are very satisfied with Reaper.
If you right click the 'ar' (arm record) button on a track in Reaper, you can change how Reaper records. For what you have described, choose 'MIDI overdub'.
The first rule of Reaper is to right-click everywhere, and get familiar with those right-click context menus. If you see something in a menu that you want to change, got to 'Options > Customize menus/toolbars'.
Forgive, but I think he's got that.
It's a bit dicey tbh. It works "ok", I have that as a default (god what a pain to change it everytime!). One other thing that would be nice for those of use who are not beat genius's would be global input quantize. Again, can't be THAT hard to implement considering they have an "input" quantize
Can you explain what is dicey about it?
To set things up so that you don't have to always change the track settings, you can save a track template. If you don't want to go through the context menu to open track templates, you can set a key shortcut for 'open track template'. For example, ctrl-T (opens track template directory), double-click MIDI track template.
hibidy - Tue Jun 19, 2012 11:12 pm
sellyoursoul wrote:
Can you explain what is dicey about it?
For one thing, it's really tough to always get it to be quantize strength "a" and "swing". Plus, you have to repeat it for every clip (which sometimes the project doesn't always remember exactly the way you want)
Too much info. I don't have licecap knowledge, so I don't have a way to show visually what I mean, but it's not a situation of 100% certainty.
What I want:
-all clips selected AND OR input global quantize setting. We'll use this as an example: 90% strength/17% swing. This is NOT easy to in reaper currently. Can you do it? of course! But the key word is EASY.
Again, finger "groove tool" allows for project based "groove", but I'm not a MPC guru. I don't always remember that a particular "groove" template is what I want. However, I know what 90% strength/17% swing should be like
hibidy - Tue Jun 19, 2012 11:14 pm
Er, again, forgive.......but "ctrl-T" makes another track here.
sellyoursoul - Tue Jun 19, 2012 11:22 pm
hibidy wrote:
sellyoursoul wrote:
Can you explain what is dicey about it?
For one thing, it's really tough to always get it to be quantize strength "a" and "swing". Plus, you have to repeat it for every clip (which sometimes the project doesn't always remember exactly the way you want)
Too much info. I don't have licecap knowledge, so I don't have a way to show visually what I mean, but it's not a situation of 100% certainty.
What I want:
-all clips selected AND OR input global quantize setting. We'll use this as an example: 90% strength/17% swing. This is NOT easy to in reaper currently. Can you do it? of course! But the key word is EASY.
Again, finger "groove tool" allows for project based "groove", but I'm not a MPC guru. I don't always remember that a particular "groove" template is what I want. However, I know what 90% strength/17% swing should be like
Try the track template thing that I mentioned above, being sure to set strength and swing in 'Track recording settings' before saving the template.
sellyoursoul - Tue Jun 19, 2012 11:24 pm
hibidy wrote:
Er, again, forgive.......but "ctrl-T" makes another track here.
I used that key combo as an example. You can set that key combo to 'insert track template'. It's default action is 'insert new track'. Do you know how to set key combos? I don't want to explain, if you already know.
Edit: sorry, got my lingo messed up a bit.
hibidy - Tue Jun 19, 2012 11:47 pm
TBH, I'm not sure I understand, so I'll leave checking all the for tomorrow (it's late here)
It is most definitely a good thing how customizable things are
EvilDragon - Wed Jun 20, 2012 12:17 am
kbaccki wrote:
As my slip editing demonstrates, the underlying MIDI data of the original performance is fully intact, and moreover survives the split operation. If you do enough slip editing on the resulting split clips you can get two entirely overlapping clips containing all of the original MIDI data with nothing lost.
WHICH is the basic work paradigm of Reaper - completely non-destructive editing. If you want to destructively split items, select the item after the split, then glue it. Then a new item is created only with the data contained in it.
IIRs - Wed Jun 20, 2012 12:47 am
EvilDragon wrote:
kbaccki wrote:
As my slip editing demonstrates, the underlying MIDI data of the original performance is fully intact, and moreover survives the split operation. If you do enough slip editing on the resulting split clips you can get two entirely overlapping clips containing all of the original MIDI data with nothing lost.
WHICH is the basic work paradigm of Reaper - completely non-destructive editing. If you want to destructively split items, select the item after the split, then glue it. Then a new item is created only with the data contained in it.
Indeed. I think the fundamental reason that Reaper can't simply "do it the way the other sequencers do it" is because it uses the same editing paradigm for all types of clips as far as possible.
While I aknowledge that the clip splitting behaviour mentioned here might be an inconvenience for some people, there are many other really cool Reaper options that stem directly from that internal consistency, and I would personally miss those more.
For example, did you realise that MIDI clips can use alternate takes in the same way as audio clips? Whats more, the same clip can have both midi and audio takes at the same time!
Try this: insert a synth plug, and record a clip of midi. Then right-click the clip, and select "Apply track FX to items as new take": your synth part will be rendered as audio, then added to the clip as take 2. How cool is that?
EvilDragon - Wed Jun 20, 2012 12:56 am
Yep, that is indeed very cool.
sellyoursoul - Wed Jun 20, 2012 2:03 am
hibidy wrote:
TBH, I'm not sure I understand, so I'll leave checking all the for tomorrow (it's late here)
It is most definitely a good thing how customizable things are
It is most definitely a good thing how customizable things are
Maybe this will help a bit. http://i.imgur.com/PnI7w.png
LawrenceF - Wed Jun 20, 2012 2:46 am
IIRs wrote:
WHICH is the basic work paradigm of Reaper - completely non-destructive editing. If you want to destructively split items, select the item after the split, then glue it. Then a new item is created only with the data contained in it.
Quote:
Indeed. I think the fundamental reason that Reaper can't simply "do it the way the other sequencers do it" is because it uses the same editing paradigm for all types of clips as far as possible.
Look guys, it was just the one thing, don't change the music performance when I split clips on the timeline, that's all, nothing else. I don't care if they do it just like other sequencers do it or not, I just don't ever want the music performance changing when I split clips. Not an unreasonable request, and no paradigm should ever do that without you specifically telling it to... imo.
The others being directly compared by me are also non-destructive, to the notes and to the musical performance, so I don't get the point.
The only reason it went on and on here is because I made a short (very short) mention of it and apparently nobody seemed to know what I was talking about... so it got extended as I tried to explain it.
Does Reaper do some nifty things in other ways? Yes, it certainly does.
In a thread directly asking to compare Reaper's midi to Logic's midi you didn't expect a Reaper rainbow shower did you?
It's all good.
LawrenceF - Wed Jun 20, 2012 3:00 am
IIRs wrote:
While I aknowledge that the clip splitting behaviour mentioned here might be an inconvenience for some people, there are many other really cool Reaper options that stem directly from that internal consistency, and I would personally miss those more.
Absolutely. That makes perfect sense for you. For the way I work with midi, that one thing was actually damaging my music on a regular basis, unless I intervened to "slip edit" (trim) it back where it was (+ deleted the new notes)... something I've never had to do before in any other sequencer I used, mmv.
So I mentioned it. No big deal. At least it shouldn't be. Working users are reporting it, not just me. Someone just reported it again a couple of days ago, asking what can be done. A variation of the same problem...
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=104462&highlight=split+midi+clips
======================
"After the split the playback would sound exactly as it does now, but the items trim edges could be adjusted without revealing silence or doubled notes where there originally were none,
When I split audio I can adjust the trim points without changing the content of the original audio.
When I split a midi item I am involuntarily altering the content of the midi inside the item.
I work primarily with midi and the current behavior has in every instance been undesirable.
=======================
... which is pretty much all I was saying, the same thing.
But for sure, Reaper's universal track has some advantages. Another separate thing, a good thing... a really good thing.
IIRs - Wed Jun 20, 2012 3:38 am
LawrenceF wrote:
I just don't ever want the music performance changing when I split clips.
It doesn't change in Reaper: both new clips refer to the original data, just like splitting an audio clip.
As an ex-cubase user I used to find notes continuing past the end of the clip quite annoying, and I'm glad Reaper doesn't work that way!
LawrenceF - Wed Jun 20, 2012 3:42 am
IIRs wrote:
LawrenceF wrote:
I just don't ever want the music performance changing when I split clips.
It doesn't change in Reaper: both new clips refer to the original data, just like splitting an audio clip.
As an ex-cubase user I used to find notes continuing past the end of the clip quite annoying, and I'm glad Reaper doesn't work that way!
If you have one D#3 across a two bar range and split the clip and then have 2 D#3's across a 2 bar range, how is that not changing if the note is now triggering twice in that two bar range instead of only once? Audio crossfades on split, you never hear the split, midi triggers again, at 127 if that was the original velocity. That, you do hear.
Now multiply that by 18 tracks and multiple split notes triggering in places where nobody actually ever played a note. Not sure how that's not a problem for anyone else... but I'm also not suggesting or implying that it should be a problem for anyone else, really I am not ... just that it is / was for me.
So it's all good. Thanks IIR. There's nothing to disagree about here. It just clearly needs a simple option not to do that. That's all.
sellyoursoul - Wed Jun 20, 2012 4:05 am
Notes splitting is annoying in some cases. I wish there was an option for that behavior in Reaper.
LawrenceF - Wed Jun 20, 2012 4:14 am
Anyway, not sure why we're hung up on something so obvious. An option would fix it, and those who actually prefer that behavior that would still be fine, by not turning the option on.
One more option among the many that's already there. No biggie. I never personally demanded the option or anything so aggressive, I actually waited a couple of years for it.
IIRs - Wed Jun 20, 2012 5:36 am
LawrenceF wrote:
If you have one D#3 across a two bar range and split the clip and then have 2 D#3's across a 2 bar range, how is that not changing if the note is now triggering twice in that two bar range instead of only once?
You have two D#3s because you now have two clips. In each clip the data has not changed: the note re-triggers because you have introduced a clip end and clip start in the middle of that note, and Reaper does not allow notes to play beyond the ends of clips.
I'm not saying you are wrong to want it to work differently, or that there should not be an option to change it: just pointing out that it is in fact non destructive, and internally consistent with the audio editing paradigm.
kbaccki - Wed Jun 20, 2012 6:19 am
LawrenceF wrote:
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=104462&highlight=split+midi+clips
======================
"After the split the playback would sound exactly as it does now, but the items trim edges could be adjusted without revealing silence or doubled notes where there originally were none,
When I split audio I can adjust the trim points without changing the content of the original audio.
When I split a midi item I am involuntarily altering the content of the midi inside the item.
I work primarily with midi and the current behavior has in every instance been undesirable.
=======================
I just added to that thread. The recommendation from DarkStar was to extend clip boundaries (good! solves the invisible sounding notes issue, IMO), but also preserve the overlapping notes between the clips (bad!
). There needs to be an option that creates two entirely disjoint clips (or 3 in the case of selection-based splits) whose union produces exactly the source clip. I think that behavior is actually better than what you've displayed from Logic splits because it properly displays note length across the split rather than hides it… LawrenceF - Wed Jun 20, 2012 7:52 am
Thanks.
I'm in full agreement with anything that means I would play a midi sequence, split a bunch of tracks for any reason, play it again, and never hear anything different from what I heard before, without doing anything else. Now how that will be made possible in Reaper's architecture doesn't matter much to laypeople really, as long as it ends up there optionally, while not forcing that on people who'd rather it not do that.
Hindsight would suggest that bringing Cubase into the discussion as an example of a common approach kinda threw it all off track, because Reaper isn't built like any those other things. My bad on that.
The only real point there was to get the same resullt in the end, don't change anything or play anything differently or however one cares to technically view or define what happens now to make you hear different stuff, as long as it sounds the same.
I appreciate your input.
Thanks man. I think this is about as "settled" as any net discussion ever gets. Ending very well.
liquidsound - Wed Jun 20, 2012 8:01 am
Sorry posted in the wrong place
hibidy - Wed Jun 20, 2012 12:24 pm
sellyoursoul wrote:
hibidy wrote:
Er, again, forgive.......but "ctrl-T" makes another track here.
I used that key combo as an example. You can set that key combo to 'insert track template'. It's default action is 'insert new track'. Do you know how to set key combos? I don't want to explain, if you already know.
Edit: sorry, got my lingo messed up a bit.
Ah, now I think I understand. You're talking about resetting key commands. Yeah, that is a terrific thing.
hibidy - Wed Jun 20, 2012 12:26 pm
LawrenceF wrote:
Anyway, not sure why we're hung up on something so obvious. An option would fix it, and those who actually prefer that behavior that would still be fine, by not turning the option on.
One more option among the many that's already there. No biggie. I never personally demanded the option or anything so aggressive, I actually waited a couple of years for it.
One more option among the many that's already there. No biggie. I never personally demanded the option or anything so aggressive, I actually waited a couple of years for it.
Thats what I was thinking (if I'm following) is why would it have to change the previous stuff?
There are 93 posts in this topic.