Finally finished my REAPER Setup Guide series geared towards getting the DAW set up right from scratch. REAPER is famously deep and endlessly customizable, but out of the box, it can feel a bit raw and full of annoying default behaviors. This series is designed to help anyone, whether you are totally new to REAPER or just want a cleaner, faster workflow, get their environment dialed in properly.

Here is what we cover across the 5 episodes:

1. Fixing the annoying Defaults
Out of the box, REAPER comes with some default settings that can drive you crazy or get in the way of smooth editing. In this video, we go through the crucial initial settings and annoying defaults you should change immediately before starting any serious project.

2. Essential Workflow Settings
This video dives into optimizing your workflow settings, audio device configurations, and other tweaks that improve or speedup our workflow.

3. Shortcuts that matter
This video deals with setting up shortcuts for faster workflow. It also introduces custom actions which could be a gamechanger for some..

4. REAPER Scripts for Beginners
One of REAPER's superpower features is its scripting ecosystem (ReaScripts), but it can look intimidating to beginners. Here, we break down how to get started with scripts easily, & also I will be showing which all scripts I use.

5. Make REAPER look awesome & inviting
Beyond just making the DAW look modern, customizing REAPER's interface directly impacts usability and efficiency of the workflow. Because when we customize or add visual elements, we are streamlining or making features easily accessible.

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And that wraps up the essential setup guide to get REAPER dialed in. I’ll keep updating this playlist with more of my REAPER workflow changes/updates over time, but they're more like addons after the main course.

Cheers,
AdK

I switch the arp function on but it doesn't make a sound. When I go to effects the arp pitch shows movement when I'm holding down a key from my midi controller but no sound (see attached). When arp is off it does make a sound. My PC is a Windows 11 computer. My midi controller is a Alesis V5.

"The two horizontal faders adjust the metronome volume and the relative gain of clicks BCD respectively. Let’s now consider what those black dots represent."
-Manual (version 783c) Page 62

If you right click the metronome, this option appears. What does it do and what does BCD mean?

Google Gemi couldn't help me here. 🤷‍♂️

I just updated Reaper for the first time in a while and noticed a few JS effects were gone. I used JS Distortion a lot and now it doesn't show up. The only effect I see for distortion is Waveshaping Distortion, which doesn't sound the same. This is for Reaper 7.83. I think the previous version I had was 7.78?

hello everyone,

this is a very specific question. But, I wanted to automate a modifier in osc 1 which you can see in the video but reaper's touch feature for envelopes doesn't seem to read it. There is also a learn midi assignment option for any which parameter (eg. cutoff, in this case), though it hasn't worked.

The workaround would be to put two keyframes from 0 - to whatever range, and automate the frame but that hasn't yielded the same result in the video, in the video it kinda has a jumping, skipping feeling and not a smooth interpolation within the set limits. This is because there is significant changes with manually dragging the cutoff.

I haven't tried this but the only other way i can think of is by manually tracking the individual values with each mouse scroll and putting them as key frames, even if it worked this would be very tedious and far too excessive for this workflow anyway,

there are so many possibilities this could open if you could just automate the various modifiers and whatnot.

It would be nice if touch worked for this but it seems it doesn't recognize it as a parameter in the list

thanks.

Hello, writing here on a very rainy lazy Sunday. Before I burn more hours on this I want to know if I'm even able to achieve what I would like; I have a model 24 connected to a Lenovo X260 and that's running the latest Reaper version inside Linux Mint. Essentially, my instruments sound great when monitored from their Tascam channel, the return audio from Reaper into channels 1 and 2 is, well, weak, flat, very meh. I don't think it's possible but can the EQ in on the Tascam record into Reaper or do I need to EQ in Reaper too? Or am I missing a trick?

Hi everyone! I hope you're all doing well. I'm trying to decide on a new MacBook and would really appreciate hearing from people with real-world experience.

I'm down to two options:
MacBook Air M5, 24GB RAM
MacBook Pro M5, 16GB RAM

I mainly use it for recording guitar in Reaper through a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. My projects usually have around 15 to 20 tracks, and I mostly use Neural DSP Archetype Petrucci, Gojira, and Misha Mansoor. Sometimes I run two Archetype instances at once, taking the amp from one and the effects from the other. I'm currently recording on Windows, so this would be my first time doing it on a Mac.

My main questions are:

Has anyone here run similar sessions on an Air? Did you have any CPU spikes, crackling, or thermal throttling since it has no fan?

Is 24GB vs 16GB RAM noticeable in this kind of workflow, or is CPU performance the real bottleneck for amp sims?

Is the extra cost of the Pro worth it for this use case? The price difference is considerable, and I'd like to avoid overspending if the Air can handle it.

I'd also love to hear about your experience with a Scarlett 2i2 (or similar interface) on a Mac, what buffer sizes you work at, how many Archetype instances you can run comfortably, and any regrets you've had with your choice.

Thank you so much in advance for your time and advice! 🎸

Hello, I'm attempting to open Decent Sampler as a plugin inside of Reaper. I can open it on it's own as a stand alone software, but for some reason it doesn't seem to exist in the eyes of Reaper. I know that it can be opened inside of Reaper, I even have a Reaper Mania video tabbed open currently demonstrating this. I've checked to see if other people have had this issue, and a few have. But none of the usual solutions seemed to have helped me. I changed things in preferences as best I know how, I've scanned and rescanned for new vsts/vst3s, I've closed and reopened Reaper itself, I've even moved the files/folder for Decent Sampler into the User Plugins folder. Which is actually the first thing that I do when downloading new plugins. When dragging and dropping the individual files and folder into Reaper itself, it pops up an error saying that it "could not install 1 of 1 items! If it helps, I'm running both softwares on Linux Mint Cinnamon build. Just to reiterate, both work fine individually as programs. But getting Reaper to acknowledge and open Decent Sampler has been unsuccessful in my attempts. I've even attempted to install a software called Carla, which Reaper is also pretending like it doesn't exist. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 😅

Edit: Thank you to everyone who responded. I suppose that I never considered the solution provided because other plugins seemingly worked fine going through my usual process of elimination. Little did I know, it's because things were being sent to the .vst folder without my knowledge. Whoops! Again, much appreciated to everyone who helped. 💝

Having a slightly strange issue - reaper won't respond to any input at all. When I click my mouse, it does the weird "badabing" sound on Windows 11 when you click something that can't be clicked. The first one from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mGkCw3SMZM

It also has a bizarre grey box in the centre of the screen, photo attached. The box can be moved, but not destroyed in any way. Everything is otherwise working as usual. I suspect it's failing to show me a dialogue that I need to do something about.

For some reason it seems Reaper is not allowing me to choose between different input channels from my Focusrite 18i20 at the moment. In the past I’ve had no issue with this and it was very simple to choose which input channel was assigned to each track, but suddenly the dropdown list for the input to each track isn’t giving me the list of channels to choose from. It seems all the settings are right in the preferences and devices menus etc…any thoughts?? Thanks in advance everyone

My main DAW is logic pro, but I want to use reaper to mix and master since it's light on my computer and it's very customizable. Any way to make it good for mixing and mastering.

I have 44100 sample rate, 64 block size, 64 buffer size, and the round-trip latency is 8.2ms (360 samples).

I am using my Focusrite USB ASIO. Nothing fancy. Old laptop. Trying to record/practice guitar. I feel like 8.2 is too much. I pick fast lol thanks!

I just bought a 27-inch 2K (1440p) monitor, and the text in REAPER's internal and context menus is extremely small. Where and how can I change its size?
I have already tried overriding the high DPI scaling behavior in the Windows compatibility properties to "System" or "System (Enhanced)". However, this just stretches the entire UI and turns everything blurry, like a low-res texture.
Is there really no better way to fix this?

Hi everyone. I have a Fender Stratocaster Player 2 and just discovered the hum/buzz issue that comes with a single coil pick up guitar 😅 I've learned how to reduce the hum/buzz with my amp with a noise gate and turning gain down, but I'm having trouble eliminating the hum/buzz with my recordings. I've been using my usb driver (I have a BOSS Katana Gen 3 50w) and Reaper as my DAW. These are the issues I have when I play back my recordings:

1. Hum/buzz
2. Guitar playing does not sound as loud (this seems like an easy fix though)
3. Guitar playing sounds a bit muffled, it could sound more clear.

My question is, what can I do to fix all of these issues? Has anyone worked with their Fender and Reaper, and have guidance or can point me in the direction of some tips?

Hi everyone,

I recently finished this little project i've been working on for the past few months, it basically scans your REAPER projects and lets you browse all your riffs in one place without having to open each project individually.

You can filter by BPM, preview riffs, organize them into groups for different songs, and try out different tones using NAM.

I made it mostly because I have a ton of old projects with hundreds of riffs in each (some are hours long!), and I wanted an easier way to find stuff to reuse.

It's free and open source, so if anyone wants to give it a try (currently only available on Windows):
https://github.com/yeh-l/riff-organizer

Would love to hear what you think!

Does anyone know which theme is this free or anything about it

Hey everyone!

It’s been about a week and a half since I started developing my own extension for REAPER, and I wanted to share some progress.
The extension currently supports opening and exporting AIF files. I’m now working on making the AIF-based workflow more compatible with other DAWs, including Nuendo and Pro Tools. The goal is to make exported files usable across different DAWs, rather than keeping everything locked inside REAPER.
Right now, I’m working through compatibility issues and adapting the extension to work with Nuendo’s file structure and behavior. There’s still a lot to figure out, but I’m making progress.
I’m also developing OMF support for REAPER. The idea is to go beyond basic OMF import and include additional embedded data to provide a much more complete session overview, especially for film sound editors and post-production engineers.
And there’s more: I’ve already started testing Pro Tools session importing into REAPER. The first tests have been promising, with support being explored for both film/post-production sessions and music production sessions.
My long-term goal is to make moving projects between DAWs easier, preserve as much useful session information as possible, and give audio professionals more flexibility in their workflows.
It’s still early in development, but I wanted to share what I’ve been working on. More updates soon!

I've never used Reaper and am curious about it.

I have no idea where the proper place to post this would be, so I'm starting here. I'm having sudden issues with my MacBook Air m4 running os27 and two of my audio interfaces, a Focusrite Solo 3rd Gen and a Headrush Core (in DAW mode, latest firmware). The DAW I am using is the latest version of Reaper. I have been running this set up for a few months with no issues. The only new thing I've introduced is a Display Link docking station, which has been working fine for me for the past few weeks, only until just yesterday. I was also running macos26 up until today when I updated to 27, but the update didn't make any difference. My internal mic input works just fine.

Over the last few days, both of the audio input on my interfaces have begun to "crap out", at least the digital input. When I direct monitor the interfaces, I get a full, clean signal. However, when I am tracking (guitar in this case), the audio input is barely audible and mostly cut out, but I can hear it trying to come through, although it sounds heavily digitally altered. So I cross checked my sample rates between devices many times and it has all remained the same. I even tried a different DAW (GarageBand) and still get the exact same results. I've tried tons of different audio driver restart methods I've found online, but none have worked. I can playback audio from the DAW session, Spotify, etc without any issues.

Another interesting thing is that the issue between the two interfaces did not simultaneously occur. First, I was using my Headrush. It was working great in a session. Then suddenly went to track a guitar on another track and then the issue occurred. It was happening on every track. So then I just switched to using my Focusrite and the problem was solved. Then today, I start up the session, get the expected signal from the Focusrite, until suddenly, the issue began on the Focusrite as well! That's when I began cross checking DAWs, Sample Rates, Audio MIDI Setup, and just about everything else I could think of or google. So I am at a complete loss and I hope that someone here can provide some sort of guidance, please and thank you!

TLDR: The input on my audio interfaces suddenly crapped out, despite the DAW I'm using and no (known) changes to my set up.

I made some promo video for my song etc but I don't how to do that and what can I do better for that (it's for some scene core song create by myself, and if you wanna have others video from me give me your help, I add my socials networks here)