How is Reapers midi functionality compared to Logic?

[braj]

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.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

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]

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]

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]

@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]

@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?

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]

Here's Sonar: The manual is a bit fuzzy but here's splitting selection...

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,

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]

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":

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]

@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?

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]

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]

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]

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)...

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]

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]

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]

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).