How's Reaper's MIDI?

[dermichl]

When I tried R I had a very hard time to figure out why a Midi clip changed its length when I changed the overall tempo. I was told that there was a setting for this. I never understood why one bar in say 85 bpm should not be a bar long in say 92 bpm...

[TheMaestro]

When I tried R I had a very hard time to figure out why a Midi clip changed its length when I changed the overall tempo. I was told that there was a setting for this. I never understood why one bar in say 85 bpm should not be a bar long in say 92 bpm...

I’m quite sure that’s not a default Reaper behavior.
With audio clips, you need to find the setting that keeps the length/pitch regardless of tempo.

[dermichl]

When I tried R I had a very hard time to figure out why a Midi clip changed its length when I changed the overall tempo. I was told that there was a setting for this. I never understood why one bar in say 85 bpm should not be a bar long in say 92 bpm...

I’m quite sure that’s not a default Reaper behavior.
With audio clips, you need to find the setting that keeps the length/pitch regardless of tempo.

It was back then. Some users tried to explain to me why this would be a usefull setting. But I failed to see their point. I did never ever bother again...

[NAD]

You'd be surprised how some platforms have little timing inconsistencies that happen randomly and and are caused by how the software decides to read the timestamp of the note. I've had that in Cubase, of all the DAWs. I'd listen back to what I played and think "Well my timing sucks but not this much!". Some notes were way ahead of the beat, A quick research and activating the option "Use System Timestamp" solved the issue but all that showed me that, yes, even the most advanced DAWs have that kind of issue. Hence my question here.

That's surprising, I honestly had no idea. I guess with my terrible playing I always expect to have to do heavy quantizing and editing. I wonder how one would even go about reliably testing that in different DAWS?

I really like the tweaking aspect of Reaper. I actually like it too much to the point that it becomes an incredible excuse to procrastinate. Every time I open the thing I find myself spending too much time tinkering instead of making music, so there is that.

Well I'm no stranger to procrastination so I can definitely relate to that! (8-bar loop anyone? ) Fortunately however I've found I've reached a point of diminishing returns where I can no longer find much fault with how things are set up (at least with regards to Reaper settings, though not necessarily with obsessively testing new plugins that I don't need or wasting time discussing them in bottomless internet forums...)

[digitalboytn]

the inclusion of an events filter makes it more powerful for anyone who needs to do actual complex editing

That events filter gets a serious workout here, especially when I'm working with MIDI and it's great

To the OP....

You don't have to spend all of your time playing around with the customisation of the actual program itself....

That just wastes valuable production time...

One you have the basic workflow happening and you are more conversant with the program,you will only tweak a few small details to further refine the program for your specific needs....

Unless of course,you want to spend all of your time looking at the car and not driving it

[Danilo Villanova]

I've spent MANY hours customizing REAPER and organizing everything. But now I'm happily making music with it, so there is a light at the end of that tunnel

[mdstudio]

I'm using Reaper for very basic things on a Mac and I've never had any MIDI timing or docking issues either. I did change the theme and configured Reaper the way I wanted it to work in terms of the keyboard/mouse shortcuts and custom buttons with useful actions (completely optional), and there were no major issues. Performance has been great too, but I mostly use synths and not large orchestral libraries.

[enroe]

When I tried R I had a very hard time to figure out why a Midi clip changed its length when I changed the overall tempo. I was told that there was a setting for this. I never understood why one bar in say 85 bpm should not be a bar long in say 92 bpm...

I’m quite sure that’s not a default Reaper behavior.
With audio clips, you need to find the setting that keeps the length/pitch regardless of tempo.

It was back then. Some users tried to explain to me why this would be a usefull setting. But I failed to see their point. I did never ever bother again...

I really don't understand your problem because
there is the "time base" in Reaper:

"time" -----> a tempo-change doesn't move anything
"beats" -----> a tempo-change moves all items, but not their length
"beats (length, rate)" -----> a tempo-change moves all positions and lengthes

That's all you need to know. And yes, you can set the "time-base"
1. per project, 2. per track and 3. per item.

[enroe]

Sorry guys, let me be more specific:

My main question is: "how stable and precise is Reaper's MIDI timing". Some of the people I work with are the kind of musicians who play irregular groups of 11 against 5.
If the timing of the take is not what they played in, there WILL be consequences.

Yes, but that is not a question of your DAW. Just because every DAW works
very solid regarding MIDI-timing.

It's a question of the connection of your MIDI-interface with your OS. All
problems in MIDI timing that I have experienced at some point were always
due to the MIDI interface and its connection to the operating system.

[dermichl]

When I tried R I had a very hard time to figure out why a Midi clip changed its length when I changed the overall tempo. I was told that there was a setting for this. I never understood why one bar in say 85 bpm should not be a bar long in say 92 bpm...

I’m quite sure that’s not a default Reaper behavior.
With audio clips, you need to find the setting that keeps the length/pitch regardless of tempo.

It was back then. Some users tried to explain to me why this would be a usefull setting. But I failed to see their point. I did never ever bother again...

I really don't understand your problem because
there is the "time base" in Reaper:

"time" -----> a tempo-change doesn't move anything
"beats" -----> a tempo-change moves all items, but not their length
"beats (length, rate)" -----> a tempo-change moves all positions and lengthes

That's all you need to know. And yes, you can set the "time-base"
1. per project, 2. per track and 3. per item.

I totally forgot what made me stay away from R. It‘s those rolling eyes from devotees who are unwilling to accept other’s points. Why on earth is there a difference between the length of one bar at various tempi? Overengineered and counterintuitive.

[replicant X]

deleted

[NERF_PROTOSS]

I totally forgot what made me stay away from R. It‘s those rolling eyes from devotees who are unwilling to accept other’s points. Why on earth is there a difference between the length of one bar at various tempi? Overengineered and counterintuitive.

it's an important option to have if you want something to occur at the exact same point in time (and/or for the same length of time) regardless of tempo. bars are relative.

but, again, it's not the default setting. you got the rolling eyes because you changed a setting you didn't understand and then complained about it. it's like if I coloured all my tracks bright pink and then came here and said "why are all my tracks bright pink, reaper is dumb"

[dermichl]

I totally forgot what made me stay away from R. It‘s those rolling eyes from devotees who are unwilling to accept other’s points. Why on earth is there a difference between the length of one bar at various tempi? Overengineered and counterintuitive.

it's an important option to have if you want something to occur at the exact same point in time (and/or for the same length of time) regardless of tempo. bars are relative.

but, again, it's not the default setting. you got the rolling eyes because you changed a setting you didn't understand and then complained about it. it's like if I coloured all my tracks bright pink and then came here and said "why are all my tracks bright pink, reaper is dumb"

Ok, so how the funk do you happen to know what I did? At the time I installed R and gave it a test drive it was the default behavior for some reason... That‘s what I don‘t like in R it‘s the devotees that asume things they can‘t know and explaining oddities in their religion with stupid users...
If R suites you fine go ahead but leave others be and learn to cope with different opinions!!!

[TheMaestro]

I totally forgot what made me stay away from R. It‘s those rolling eyes from devotees who are unwilling to accept other’s points. Why on earth is there a difference between the length of one bar at various tempi? Overengineered and counterintuitive.

it's an important option to have if you want something to occur at the exact same point in time (and/or for the same length of time) regardless of tempo. bars are relative.

but, again, it's not the default setting. you got the rolling eyes because you changed a setting you didn't understand and then complained about it. it's like if I coloured all my tracks bright pink and then came here and said "why are all my tracks bright pink, reaper is dumb"

Ok, so how the funk do you happen to know what I did? At the time I installed R and gave it a test drive it was the default behavior for some reason... That‘s what I don‘t like in R it‘s the devotees that asume things they can‘t know and explaining oddities in their religion with stupid users...
If R suites you fine go ahead but leave others be and learn to cope with different opinions!!!

Don’t come across like a stupid user, and you wont be schooled.

[dermichl]

@TheMaestro: So to sum it all up: R is the uttermost DAW one can think of. And anybody who doesn‘t gel with it is a retarded morron and not worthy?! Did you ever think of visiting the doctor‘s place?