Reaper Action : Unarm All Tracks for Recording

[WhiskeyJack]

I am probably the absolute worst culprit for leaving a track armed somewhere else in reaper while trying to track something else. It has gotten a billion times worse now that i use the collapsible folders in reaper now too. some can get hidden pretty quick and just left on. Out of sheer frustration tonight after learning i foolishly recorded over some good takes with i don't know what, i looked and low and behold while there isn't an out of the box shortcut for disarming all tracks at once you can very easily go into the Reapers Action list, filter for *UNARM* and give it a shortcut you wanna give it. I chose U for obvious reasons. It was already mapped to a feature i will likely never ever use so it was a no brainier.

Another reason why i really like this DAW!



I hope someone else other than me finds this useful

[rayc]

Disarm ... DISarm...disAREM...to unarm is to removed appendages.
Oddly, being a clutz, this isn't an issue I've encountered.

[Armistice]

I didn't even know there was an actions list...

I've done it once or twice but from memory it was undoable - didn't record over the other track, just sort of on top of it, and you could separate them later. Or maybe I just dreamt that up? I think I'd just hit Ctrl Z and start again.

Good find though - what I like about Reaper is that there are so many ways to make it work for whatever variances in method people have.

[Greg_L]

Yeah what the hell is an "action list"?

[WhiskeyJack]

Yeah what the hell is an "action list"?

Right? that's what i said! When i googled an answer to my question i was sort of mystified that this exists. And there is a shit load of stuff in there that exists and if i am understanding this correctly, you may be possibly able to automate maybe your own custom features? I stand to be corrected on that last bit but definitely check it out some day you are bored. And if thats the case and the macros it can create work similar to my AutoCAD macros there is potential (remote potential) to maybe get it to do some automated editing. Again though, i stand to be corrected.

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... om-actions

I think there may be potential to explore more. But when i do a scrolling glance through the list, alot of it all shit that is way out of my wheelhouse.

I didn't even know there was an actions list...

I've done it once or twice but from memory it was undoable - didn't record over the other track, just sort of on top of it, and you could separate them later. Or maybe I just dreamt that up? I think I'd just hit Ctrl Z and start again.

Good find though - what I like about Reaper is that there are so many ways to make it work for whatever variances in method people have.

Yes thankfully the way reaper stacks it's overdubs and stuff undoing my idiocy was pretty easy once i figured out what i had done but realistically it should have never happened. Just sort of a pain in the ass.

Disarm ... DISarm...disAREM...to unarm is to removed appendages.
Oddly, being a clutz, this isn't an issue I've encountered.

I agree with you 100% but that is how Reaper had it listed and worded. I don't make the rules Ray, i just play the game.

[Greg_L]

Ahhh, so it's basically keystrokes. I've never used a keystroke - too much to remember.

[WhiskeyJack]

As someone who has used autocad for a better part of his life, my keyboard is my lifeline to any software. if there isn't a keyboard shortcut for something i will try to make one.

Not that anyone cares but there used to be this project process at one of my old jobs that took about 45 mins to do in autocad. I just created a macro for it that did it in 8 seconds. I was so proud of what i had done i went and got my boss and my cad manager and showed them thinking i could negotiate some kind of bonus for the amount of time i just shaved off the average project and all i got was "that's cool, can you give that to the others"

I learned that day it doesn't pay to be better at anything.

[Greg_L]

As someone who has used autocad for a better part of his life, my keyboard is my lifeline to any software. if there isn't a keyboard shortcut for something i will try to make one.

Not that anyone cares but there used to be this project process at one of my old jobs that took about 45 mins to do in autocad. I just created a macro for it that did it in 8 seconds. I was so proud of what i had done i went and got my boss and my cad manager and showed them thinking i could negotiate some kind of bonus for the amount of time i just shaved off the average project and all i got was "that's cool, can you give that to the others"

I learned that day it doesn't pay to be better at anything.

My wife does the same kind of stuff at her job. She'll invent some process that shaves billions of man hours and human errors off a project and then she becomes the one that has to teach it to everyone else.

[JD01]

I don't know how to do any of these fancy things in reaper. I just use the mouse and a few menu options.

[Greg_L]

I don't know how to do any of these fancy things in reaper. I just use the mouse and a few menu options.

This ^^^^^


[mention]Tadpui[/mention] used to use a Faderport in some of his videos and I thought that thing was pretty great.

I'm still a mouse clicker type guy though.

[JD01]

I don't know how to do any of these fancy things in reaper. I just use the mouse and a few menu options.

This ^^^^^


@Tadpui used to use a Faderport in some of his videos and I thought that thing was pretty great.

I'm still a mouse clicker type guy though.

VHS and miner do loads of complex shit with code too.
I use folders, but they're really intuitive and sensible. You taught me how to use sends too. That was less intuitive and I'd have struggled to work that out on my own.

I still find automation a right pain.

[Greg_L]

Sends are like sends in real life on analog mixers. Folders....no idea what those are.

[Tadpui]

I find that I barely scratch the surface of the custom actions in Reaper. I take advantage of a few of them, and one or two I've assigned to a custom button.

Folders, though...I love folders! That's how I buss groups of tracks together. And I can collapse the folder so it doesn't take up so much screen real estate. 9 tracks of drums that only take up a single track lane on the timeline!

I've been using the custom action "clean project directory" a bit lately. It deletes any media files that aren't active in your project. So if you've done a bunch of takes of drums or something, then crop to active take so all of the previous takes are gone, you can clean up the WAV files and free up some space. For a bad drummer like me, I end up with LOTS of dead drum takes in an average project, so this comes in quite handy

I do love my FaderPort though. Just having a single fader to set volume and panning is actually way handier than I thought it would be. I still need to find a Star Wars figure that I can behead so I can turn my FaderPort into Darth Fader. It's a small dream, but it's mine

[JD01]

Ah, never having used analogue gear I had no idea what sends were.
I use clean project directory too, tad. Crap singer, millions of takes, sometimes to get a single line right. After a vocal session I always clean the directory before closing the project.

[Greg_L]

I find that I barely scratch the surface of the custom actions in Reaper.

I barely scratch the surface of anything in Reaper. I bet I use it at .01% of it's capability. I record tracks and use a few plugs. That's it.

Folders, though...I love folders! That's how I buss groups of tracks together. And I can collapse the folder so it doesn't take up so much screen real estate. 9 tracks of drums that only take up a single track lane on the timeline!

Maybe do a video about time/space saving tips and tricks in a DAW. I'd watch that.

I've been using the custom action "clean project directory" a bit lately. It deletes any media files that aren't active in your project. So if you've done a bunch of takes of drums or something, then crop to active take so all of the previous takes are gone, you can clean up the WAV files and free up some space. For a bad drummer like me, I end up with LOTS of dead drum takes in an average project, so this comes in quite handy

I've done this ever since my Cubase days. This is one piece of computer housekeeping I've always done. It takes no time to have gigs of unused crap just floating around. Before I close out any project I run a cleanup then save.

I do love my FaderPort though. Just having a single fader to set volume and panning is actually way handier than I thought it would be. I still need to find a Star Wars figure that I can behead so I can turn my FaderPort into Darth Fader. It's a small dream, but it's mine

Lol. That'd be pretty great.

[Minerman]

While I do use a few scripts (made by someone else, btw) to help program/"humanize" midi drums faster, I only use about 1% of Reaper's potential, just like the rest of you guys...

The action list is quite handy though, & you could make all kinds of shortcuts to personalize things to suit yourself, if you wanted to go that route...

What I do with Reaper really isn't that much different than the rest of you guys, I jumped into the deep end of fake drums, but that's just because starting out, it was the cheapest & easiest way to have drum tracks for my simple-simon songs...

[Armistice]

As someone who has used autocad for a better part of his life, my keyboard is my lifeline to any software. if there isn't a keyboard shortcut for something i will try to make one.

Not that anyone cares but there used to be this project process at one of my old jobs that took about 45 mins to do in autocad. I just created a macro for it that did it in 8 seconds. I was so proud of what i had done i went and got my boss and my cad manager and showed them thinking i could negotiate some kind of bonus for the amount of time i just shaved off the average project and all i got was "that's cool, can you give that to the others"

I learned that day it doesn't pay to be better at anything.

This is my life at work also. I'm the only person who can do a large number of important things - things that I invented - and I've tried to teach others but they're not interested - and it all works so long as I'm still there, doing those things. But now I have a small team, I can indulge my relentless need to explain to others how clever I am that way...

[vomitHatSteve]

I love the actions list. There are some really integral parts of my workflow that I've mapped to custom actions:
ctrl+shift+a - Select all top level folders (i.e. select all busses but not the tracks inside them)
shitf+s - split and left selelct (for trimming silence off the start of a media item)
ctrl+alt+t - delete empty takes (f***ing empty takes!)

Off the top of my head, possible ways to solve WJ's initial challenge would be:
click a track, ctrl+a to select all, click the arm button in any track to arm/disarm all
or
ctrl+shift + click the arm button on a track to exclusive arm that track (I don't know if that works, but that functionality does exist for solo and mute)

[WhiskeyJack]

shitf+s - split and left selelct (for trimming silence off the start of a media item)
ctrl+alt+t - delete empty takes (f***ing empty takes!)

AWESOME!!!! These two sound like something i could make great use out of.

For the first one though when it trims off the silence doe it add a fade to it too? And is it fairly smart ? Or do you find you still have a fair bit of editing to do afterwards?

[vomitHatSteve]

when it trims off the silence doe it add a fade to it too? And is it fairly smart ? Or do you find you still have a fair bit of editing to do afterwards?

That depends on what you have your settings at. If you have auto-fade in/out for new media items on, it will do that.
It functions the same as the regular split at cursor except that it selects left instead of right.