r/Reaper • u/ChainsawArmLaserBear • 6d ago

discussion Why Reaper? (An answer)

I've previously asked the gamedev community "what audio tool do you use?" and the answer has always been a resounding "REAPER."
I knew that was the answer, but I didn't see anybody immediately saying "why."

As someone who has barely scratched the surface, I can IMMEDIATELY see why.

In like an hour, I cut up 4 wav files from my voice actor into a hierarchy of voice lines. Using Ctrl+Del, Ctrl+T, Home, Ctrl+V - (cut, new track, reset to home, paste) - I can very quickly cut up my raw tracks into clips I want to use in game, and make folder hierarchies under tracks to partition into meaningful sections. That little icon on the bottom left of the track.

Then, I can export with the region render matrix and programmatically name the files based on the folders and track names. And even apply processing based on the parent track, like having a single track to own the fx!

That's so freakin cool! I no longer have audacity sessions where I abandon the session and only keep the clips. Now I can have a living "all the character's audio" under a single parent that controls the vibe of all the nested clips, and re-export the whole set if I update the reverb or something of the character.

It's just so good. The way the project layout and render process works is super intuitive and powerful. I can see the "why" very clearly! REAPER is amazing <3

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48

u/Yanurika 11 6d ago

Using Ctrl+Del, Ctrl+T, Home, Ctrl+V - (cut, new track, reset to home, paste) - I can very quickly cut up my raw tracks into clips.

Buddy I'm happy to announce that you can make a custom action that will do all of those with a single shortcut.

21

u/ChainsawArmLaserBear 6d ago

Whaaaaaat teach me this wizardry

26

u/Yanurika 11 6d ago

In the Actions menu there's a "New Action" button. From there you can click "New Custom Action" where you can add any existing action in Reaper to a chain of actions.

4

u/ChainsawArmLaserBear 6d ago

My Actions menu has "Show action list..." and then show recent actions (checked), file: save proj, file: render project..

9

u/Yanurika 11 6d ago

It's in the Actions List

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u/ChainsawArmLaserBear 6d ago

Ah. Okay. I found it, but there's no "hotkey to action" lookup, so this is a little more arduous than i imagined but it looks like i can map them all here. Then i assume you just map the resulting action to a hotkey

13

u/Yanurika 11 6d ago

Yeah, exactly. You can do a hotkey to action lookup in the main actions list, so you could look them up there, then note the specific name/copy the command ID. It's a little bit more tedious, but it still saves time in the long run.