I have to confess, the rate of progress of Reaper features gets beyond my learning curve almost constantly. The rapid implementation of user feedback and Reaper’s vast customization are things that I both love and hate. I think it’s great, but I don’t ever feel like I’m keeping up with the expanding potential.
Anyway, a new feature in version 6.24 (6.26 just came out yesterday) was Razor Edits. I’m just now trying to get my head around it, and watched the ReaperBLOG update. It seems like it could be a game-changer, but I’m still in learning mode and probably won’t figure it out until I practice with it. One of the things that frustrated me when switching from Pro Tools to Reaper some years ago was the editing capabilities. I came to learn that Reaper’s Ripple Edit system could do a lot of similar things, but it never seemed as intuitive as what I could do in Pro Tools.
Has anybody worked with the Razor Edits yet, and what do you think about it?
Great question, Stan. I’d be interested in this as well. Haven’t explored this et, but it looks potentially pretty cool. I do use the ripple edit thing tons, though.
It’s supposed to be for “dis-contiguous” Items and such, so it probably won’t replace your standard editing practices (like Ripple), but when you do need more options this looks like it could be really helpful.
I’m still using Reaper version 5.25 or something. I haven’t updated yet because I have a large amount of projects that are still unfinished and I fear that if I update Reaper it might mess with the projects somehow. Seems like I’m behind the times, as usual.
I update every time they sat to, but I might as well run version -1.6 for all I do with it.
My glacier like workflow is part of my homage to the 8 track era. Now we have 8 snare tracks.
I watched the video and still haven’t tried using it. I think I’ve just shaped my workflow around its old limitations, and haven’t really found a need to change it. I’m sure if I started using it, I’d get used to it and like it, I just can’t think of a time I’d need it with my current workflow.
I understand that sentiment, I’m usually very cautious with any upgrades of any kind. With Reaper 5 to 6 there weren’t really any major concerns, but nonetheless I did try 6 out on a backup computer that I had 5 on already, before upgrading my main machine. I haven’t experienced any problems with old projects, and my understanding from the Reaper folks is that it should be a seamless upgrade - just more features.
Good point. When the tape machine studios expanded from 4 to 8 to 16/24/32/48/etc tracks, that just expanded the possibilities for arrangements and effects. When console recall automation came along, it just made things easier for mixers. Going from tape to digital was the big challenge for many in the industry, and took years to adapt to. With digital we have seen an almost unlimited explosion of possibilities so it’s nearly impossible to keep up with it. Reminds me of the phrase: “Less is more.”
Well, it’s good to see that others are in the same boat that I’m in. The old dependable rowboat, I guess. I don’t consider myself much of a “first adapter” on anything, usually, but I felt some pressure to keep up with the “cool kids” on the DAW front. Perhaps its just a case of FOMO.
As I’m understanding more about the Razor capabilities, it may be more of a specialized toolkit that might serve a certain post-production type of workflow better than a regular music workflow.
I plan on looking into it and trying it out soon. Generally, I find when I glance over the update patch notes or skim through ReaperBlog’s patch videos, 99% of things either don’t relate to me or I don’t really get what they do, so I just plod along as normal with what works for me.
But this feature seems to be standing out to many of the regular, expert users, so I am happy to invest a little bit of time to see how it may help me in the future.
Here’s a time-stamp on Jon’s video tutorial where he gets to the demonstration. That may give some ideas for what it can be used for. It looks like it works well for changing song arrangements, which could be very helpful. The trick may be getting all your mouse modifiers working the way you want for this specific technique.
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I does seem to promise faster editing, so I might take some time to get to know it. But, I hope it’s NOT like ripple editing which I can’t get to work for me. Maybe I just don’t understand it, but so far the combination of ripple editing and me has managed to mess things up big time. My conclusion was that it’s something for EDM producers and such. So I was surprised when you mentioned you use it a lot. I’m curious in what sort of situation you actually use it.
Just to throw my own experience out there, you have the Ripple Edit button on the toolbar that can be Off, Per (single) Track, or All Tracks. You can use that in conjunction with keyboard shortcuts or mouse moves and mouse modifiers. A handy keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+Delete (“Cut selected area of items”). With Ripple Editing OFF, that will just cut out your selected audio (selected with mouse on timeline or track) and leave the timeline intact. With Ripple Editing ON for single or all tracks, it will remove the audio and slide the items later on the timeline together with the ones earlier on the timeline. That one is a basic move IMO (known as “Dynamic Split” IIRC). You can also set up custom keyboard shortcuts for other moves using SWS Extensions. You can also use the keyboard shortcut “S” after clicking on a point and it will Split the audio, then do that another place and highlight the item/region between those splits, then Delete with Ripple Edit in the appropriate mode. I hope that helps.
You can use these any time you want to do away with sections of a song or recorded audio, it’s for anybody that needs or requires that function.
Stan’s description is spot on. The all-tracks ripple is great for things like moving all tracks closer to 1.1.0 so you don’t have 2 msrs of silence before your song start. You could, of r sure, just select the precise time on the ruler that you want to render, and then select “render to time selection” (or something like that); but one of the ways I use Ripple editing is to set it to “all tracks” and then insert and empty event at the beginning of any track, as long as the area I want to remove. Then just delete the event on that track and it removes that space on all tracks. So, all tracks, including markers, move back (forward?) to 1.1.0 or whatever I set it to. Easy-schmeesy.
I don’t consider myself much of a “first adapter” on anything, usually, but I felt some pressure to keep up with the “cool kids” on the DAW front. Perhaps its just a case of FOMO.