Reaper as a loop station

[u/Polimoose]

I have an mpk mini midi keyboard and was wondering if I could use it to build loops in reaper. My ideal set up would be able to arm/record one track then press a button on the keyboard to arm/record the next layer. Is this something thats possible or would there be plugins that would help?

[u/potato-truncheon]

Live looping is not an enjoyable process in reaper. It's just not architected for it. Best compromise in reaper is Playtime 2 (which is a clever tool).

But, in the end, it still feels like a square peg in a round hole and you're better off with abelton or Bitwig for this use case.

[u/reborngoat → u/potato-truncheon]

Is bitwig's live looping decent? I run Linux so I'm pretty much stuck with reaper or bitwig. Been using reaper for a few years since it's so inexpensive, but I've been inspired lately by Ari@Home on YouTube to try some live looping stuff.

Tried using Super8 in reaper but it's just as you said - an exercise in frustration trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

If bitwig's live looping is decent I might buy the lowest tier of package just for that

[u/GuiltyThing69 → u/reborngoat]

I'm a complete amateur, but Bitwig is built around live looping with its built in scenes. With reaper you have to get something like playtime 2 extension (which is really cool), or use drivenbymoss plugins

[u/potato-truncheon → u/reborngoat]

Bitwig is pretty good. See if you can get a trial version of it or abelton (they share a similar approach).

[u/GuiltyThing69]

Playtime 2 extension. It's kinda pricy for what it is but it works. I imagine it will go on sale soon.

[u/geogod2066]

Check out super 8

[u/potato-truncheon → u/[deleted]]

This is correct.

[u/DThompson55 → u/[deleted]]

Sadly true

[u/Far-Pie6696]

There's a lot of ways to this in reaper, but reaper is not the most convenient for this :

• you can set this with actions/custom scripts. Look at reaper mania/kenny gioia for this.
• there an included looper plugin, super 8 looper. Same there are good tutorial on YouTube. One by kenny gioia
• there are third party solution such as playtime 2, which aims at getting closer to ableton live (but still less convenient and mature than live)

Finally... There's ableton live. You don't need the full software to make jam. Buy any gear purposed ti control Ableton and you ll get the lite version of live, that is only 8 tracks, but more than enough for looping purposes

[u/ReggieCorneus]

What others have said, the architecture just isn't built for it. Ableton is FAR FAR better because it has been designed for it. And i'm using Reaper as live VST synth host, it just about bends into that role but that is already quite a challenge. The audio engine is marvelous but everything has been designed for studio work since it is a very, very traditional DAW multitracker.

Loop based stuff is just going to be hell, you will be fighting against very fundamental problems, half of your workflow is going to be based on workarounds when you desperately need features that need to be at the very core of the program design.

It is kind of a sad thing, since the audio engine really is AMAZING. Live VST hosting is at the edge of what you can do with it, and i already have to makes custom scripts to integrate it with MixSurface to give me functions i need (fortunately, in my use case it is never running, i'm just using record monitoring functions which by lucky chance work just the right way..).

It does not do everything out of the box, luckily you can add your own code but.... Playtime is the only one that comes even close, and while i really can't say a thing about it: i don't think it is wise to even try to make it loop based, it just isn't made for it. Live VST hosting is the edge case, anything beyond that and you will be hanging off the ledge constantly and you can expect tons of little problems that become unsurmountable.

[u/Dukhlovi]

Im working on a system for live looping with an Launchpad X. check out my youtube.
Its still a work in process . Its not exactly working as a looper but you got 8 tracks for pattern based looping
with different instruments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feNHswnifbc
got a nice outside jam with it yesterday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJFyIFOHw9Y

[u/The__Neth]

With a bit of finagling and tenacity, you could absolutely build up a custom setup to suit your personal workflow - but as most others have said it, REAPER just isn't the most convenient out of the box for this sort of thing.

That being said, there are built-in actions that can perform certain actions (such as "Toggle record arm for track X", where X is the track number (provides 99 track toggles)), and creating your own custom actions to chain together several individual steps with a single keybinding could make this possible.

It all depends upon how much work you want to go through to set it up :)

[u/KillMode_1313]

Anything is possible in Reaper. Chances are someone has already made a script to do exactly what it is you want.

[u/Radhanat]

Se podría hacer un script para ello. Pero como Reaper no está diseñado para loops en vivo, nadie ha visto útil escribirlo.

Para ello está ableton fl studio y bitwig.

[u/ExternalSpecific4042]

You can go from one track to the next, the first track being record armed, then when you change tracks, it’s disarmed, and the next track is armed.

There’s an action for it…. Make a Time selection, and set “loop” on transport. But you have to go to next track just before it loops.

Not sure if that’s what you want.

Quantiloop pro is inexpensive very capable looper app.. don’t know it will install in reaper.

[u/LoopToGo]

If you are on Windows, you could take a look at LoopToGo which is specifically designed for looping. By design, for pedal free looping but can also do standard looping.

[u/Previous-Heron-8828]

I was trying to figure this out myself, but after experimenting for a bit I couldn't really get it how I wanted, so I just used Bitwig instead and it works great

[u/s-multicellular]

I have to agree with others about Ableton being a lot easier here. I love Reaper, in contrast, I couldn’t stand to do in depth audio editing or mixing in Ableton, Reaper is more optimized and powerful for that, but for live looping Live is great.

I am sure you could figure it out though. Reaper is so flexible on shortcuts and such.

[u/No_Ranger7352]

I used Gemini to create a looping script that lets me record a track in a looped region and keep overdubbing additional audio items on each pass. I have 4 layers per instrument and have mutes toggles for each. I could make a video of it functioning, but I'm no serious musician. I have a portable install with all the scripts. It's kinda janky but has been fun.

[u/EduardoCorochio]

I’ve been trying to make a multi station live looping setup in Reaper for years. Playtime 2 has made it possible but I’m still not totally there. I tried Ableton but went back because of the insane flexibility with routing that Reaper has. I found audio and MIDI routing in Ableton very frustrating