100 Reaper Tips and Shortcuts (for Beginners)

hey what's up everyone i'm evan with pod peak and in today's video i'm going to show you a hundred reaper tips and shortcuts mostly aimed at beginners let's dive in [Music] welcome to podpeek where i talk about recording editing and sound design for music production podcasts and film if you're new to this channel please give this video a like make sure and subscribe to the channel and make sure and turn on notifications so you get updates every time i put out a new video okay before we get started this video is primarily aimed at beginners you might be a budding podcaster who wants the power and freedom to do your own recording editing in production you might be a musician who's looking to set up a home studio to record and produce songs for yourself or in the future clients whatever the case may be this video is going to help you get up and running taking some of the mystery and heartache at a learning reaper to help set you up from the ground up to be doing this the right way moving forward a few notes before we get started although this video is primarily aimed at beginners it could also be helpful for intermediate reaper users as well and that's why i've included time stamps down below so you can pick and choose which sections you'd like to check out and finally this video will be demonstrated on my mac computer but wherever i'm showing keyboard shortcuts i'll do my best to show you the equivalent commands for pc users as well so with that let's jump right in so the first thing i want to cover are some essential file management tips one of the biggest criticisms i think for people getting started in reaper is the file management is a little bit of a mess and i actually think this one issue is a huge deterrent to new reaper users so let's figure out how to clean this up a bit so i've just installed reaper and i'm opening it up for the first time the first thing i'm going to do is go to file and open up the project settings once here i'll choose the media tab and under path to save media files i'm going to type in audio files this is going to ensure that any audio files that we record or media files that we import into our projects are going to be saved into an audio files folder once i've done that i'm going to click save as default setting so the next thing i'm going to do is save this project i'm going to name the session 100 reaper tips and shortcuts and go ahead and save it to my desktop for now but the important steps are down below i'm going to check these two boxes create subdirectory for project which will ensure that all my projects will be contained in their own organized folders and move all media items into project directory which means that every time i drag or import audio or media files into my project those files will automatically be moved to the audio files folder in my projects folder okay so our folder structure is almost sorted but let's go ahead and record something to make sure that the audio files are going where they need to go hey what's up everyone i'm evan with podpeek and this is a hundred reaper tips and shortcuts okay so notice this window select files to save or delete just popped up by default this box will pop up every time i do a recording which is honestly pretty annoying so to get rid of it now and in the future i'm going to go ahead and uncheck this box okay so now i'm going to head over to the folder where my project is saved if i look inside the audio files folder you can see the file i just recorded is right where it should be but there's also an additional file this is called a repeats file and this is the file that creates the actual waveform on the items in our session for every audio file in your project there will be a coinciding repeats file which essentially will double the amount of files and clutter in your folders but there's a way to clean that up as well so this next tip is something that i learned from john tidy over at the reaper blog it's a great way to create an alternative path to store your repeats files as well as your backup files thereby reducing clutter in your project folder i'm going to go through this tip quickly but if you want to go more in depth i would highly recommend checking out john's video which i'm going to leave in the notes below it's been really helpful to me this last year so on my mac i'm going to go to home and there just like john suggests i'm going to create a folder called temp inside this folder i'll create two subfolders one called repeats and another called backups these are the folders where my repeats and backup files will be stored once created i'll go back to reaper under options i'll choose preferences under general i'll choose paths i'm going to check this box store all peaks caches in alternative paths and then browse for an alternative location which is the repeats folder i just created now all my project's repeats will be stored here next i'm going to select projects here's where i'll determine how often i want my projects to automatically back up i'm fine with every five minutes but you can choose whatever you're comfortable with just below there i'm going to check this box save to timestamped file to additional directory this is going to ensure that all my backups will be saved in the backups file i just created and finally i'm going to move my temp folder over to my favorites so anytime i want to access this folder it'll be easily accessible so i know that's a lot of details to cover right out of the gate but having a clean and organized file structure is the bedrock of learning reaper or any daw for that matter and it will save you a lot of headaches in the future okay so now that we've organized our reaper file structure let's go ahead and look at some essential file management tips so we've already looked at the project settings when we created our path to save our audio files project settings can be defined to meet the requirements of individual projects like setting the sample rate and beats per minute or making project specific notes you can also save changes to set up your own default project settings for example i like to start my projects with a bpm of 80 with the metronome enabled i also like to have a track setup and record enabled if i do this then save as default setting the next time i open up a project it will be set up just the way i saved it pretty convenient again project settings can be accessed under file project settings or in the main toolbar right here you can also use the keyboard shortcut option enter other file management shortcuts include opening a new project which is command n opening an existing project which is command o saving a project which is command s save as which is option command s rendering a project to disk or exporting a project which is option command r and finally quitting a reaper project which is command q the next thing i want to show you are some commonly used display windows for various settings and options the first window and probably the one you're going to be using the most is the preferences the preferences can almost be described as the central nervous system of reaper and it's where you'll make most of the changes to its default settings we're not going to go too far into the preferences in this video but if you want to dive deep into reaper's preferences i would highly recommend this five part video series by kenny joya which i'll leave a link to in the notes below to access the preferences you can go to options then choose preferences you can also use the keyboard shortcut command comma another integral setting in options window is the actions list every function in reaper whether it's a toolbar button a drop down menu or keyboard shortcut is executing a function from the actions list there's literally thousands of actions in reaper and you can even combine multiple actions to create macros or custom actions as they're referred to in reaper we'll get more onto those topics later but for now you can access the actions list by going to actions and choosing actions list you can also use the keyboard shortcut question mark other useful settings in options keyboard shortcuts are the snap grid settings which is option l the metronome and pre-roll settings which by default aren't assigned a keyboard shortcut you can find these in the actions list or by right-clicking the metronome button in the main toolbar and finally the keyboard shortcuts list which lists every keyboard shortcut in your reaper projects the keyboard shortcut to access this list is shift f1 and since we're on the topic of keyboard shortcuts now is a great time to show you how to create your own custom keyboard shortcuts i've already made a video about this which you can find right here so i'm not going to spend too much time going through it but i am going to show you really quickly so let's get into it i just showed you the metronome and pre-roll settings which by default they don't come with a keyboard shortcut but let's go ahead and assign one to it to assign a keyboard shortcut open the actions list in the filter search metronome we'll choose metronome and pre-roll settings and then choose add i'm going to assign the keyboard shortcut to be command shift e and then hit ok now when i hit the shortcut the metronome and pre-roll settings pop up it's really as simple as that so if you want to practice more just keep following along in the video as i'll be creating a lot more custom keyboard shortcuts throughout this video let's move on to the next section essential default tips and tweaks similar to reaper's default file management structure which we just covered at the beginning of the video there's a bunch of other reaper default settings that are honestly downright counter-intuitive that could leave a lot of new reaper users scratching their heads for example most recording or linear based editing programs go back to the beginning of the project when you hit the return key not so with reaper by default the return key in reaper pauses the playhead to go back to the beginning of the project the default reaper shortcut is w but by creating a custom reaper shortcut we can fix that just like before let's open the actions list in the filter search transport start and select the action transport go to start a project you can see there's two default shortcuts available home and w let's go ahead and delete both of these now let's choose add hit the return key then hit ok now the playhead cursor goes back to the start of the project when we hit return let's look at some other essential default tips and tweaks besides recording in reaper one of the most common things you'll be doing is importing existing media or audio files there's a few ways to import media files you can go to insert then choose media files you can drag and drop a file from a hard drive or your desktop you can make use of the media explorer which is accessed by going to view and selecting media explorer or you can create a custom keyboard shortcut let's open the actions list and in the filter search insert media select insert media files then choose add i'm going to choose the keyboard shortcut option q but you can choose whichever key works best for you then hit ok now when i hit the keyboard shortcut option q it prompts me to insert a media file i'm going to search my hard drive and import some dialogue for a podcast i need to edit i'm going to choose the file and the audio is now imported into my project and this brings us to our next default setting that we might want to tweak notice if i double-click the item it brings up the media item properties box trust me this is going to get annoying really quick to change this we need to adjust what's called a mouse modifier a quick note mouse modifiers are a deep subject and they're really really important as you start getting more competent with reaper if you're interested in learning more about mass modifiers i would highly recommend this series of videos by kenny joya which i'm going to leave links to in the show notes below the mouse modifiers can be accessed in the preferences open up the preferences and scroll down to editing behavior and choose mouse modifiers under context choose media item and double-click next double-click the default modifier behavior and choose no action hit apply then okay now when i double click the item nothing happens which is exactly what i want and the great thing is that if you need to open the media item properties box in the future you can access it by selecting the item go to item and select item properties you can also use the default keyboard shortcut which is f2 and finally you can right-click the item and select item properties and speaking of right-clicks you can right-click pretty much anywhere to access various menus in reaper and i highly suggest you take some time to experiment look around and see how right-clicking can save you time and increase the speed and efficiency of your workflow the next default tweak i'd recommend taking a look at is reaper's default mouse zooming functions let's assume you're using an apple mouse or a mouse that has a scroll wheel by default reaper is going to zoom in horizontally wherever the playhead cursor is for example if you place the playhead here scroll up on your mouse it zooms out horizontally if you scroll the mouse down it zooms in horizontally this is fine and it's actually something that i really like about reaper because i don't have to touch my keyboard i can just do everything with the mouse but in my preference i would like it to work in reverse to fix this let's create a keyboard shortcut open up the actions list choose find shortcut and scroll with your mouse this shows us that our mouse wheel is assigned to zoom horizontally just below this action is the option to reverse the mouse wheel select it choose add and then scroll the mouse wheel this brings up a window that gives the option to override the current shortcut choose ok now when you scroll the mouse wheel up it zooms in horizontally if you scroll the mouse wheel down it zooms out horizontally the reverse of reaper's default setting remember this is just my personal preference to me it feels like a more intuitive way of zooming but if you like the way reaper's default settings are set up for zooming you don't need to change it now there's one more tweak i would recommend making when it comes to zooming with your mouse and reaper like i stated before by default reaper will zoom to where your playhead cursor is but i find it more expedient and efficient to zoom to where i place my mouse cursor to do this open up preferences and select editing behavior here you'll want to adjust this checkbox and change it to mouse cursor hit apply then ok now when i zoom in with my mouse it zooms right where my mouse cursor is ignoring the play cursor position i find this to be a much more natural way to work and finally the last default tweak i like to make is undocking my mixer by default reaper docks the mixer at the bottom of the screen and this is fine for a lot of folks but i prefer to have a less cluttered work environment to do this right click in this area of the mixer window and uncheck dock mixer in docker now you have more screen real estate to bring up the mixer you can also use the keyboard shortcut command m now we're ready to move on to the next section transport control shortcuts to play or stop simply hit the space bar to go to the beginning of a project which we covered earlier in this video use the custom keyboard shortcut we created which is the return key or reaper's default shortcut w to navigate to the end of your project hit the n key if you don't have a numeric keyboard you can do this by pressing the function key and hitting the right arrow to record audio first record enable the track you want to record audio on and use the keyboard shortcut command r in a side note if you want to learn about all things recording i'd again highly recommend this series of videos by kenny joya which of course i'll leave in the notes below and finally you might want to occasionally loop a section of audio to do this create a time selection make sure looping is enabled and hit play and the keyboard shortcut to toggle looping on and off is r okay so the next section that we're going to go over is some important screen appearance shortcuts to toggle reaper's full screen view go to view and choose full screen you can also use the keyboard shortcut command f11 to toggle grid lines on and off in the arrange window you can go to the main toolbar and click the toolbar button or you can use the keyboard shortcut option g reaper's default setting is to have grid lines on top of items but if you prefer to have the grid lines under your items you can change it open the preferences choose appearance and under gridline z order change it to under items and here's some more screen appearance shortcuts to display the effects browser window go to view and choose effects browser you can also use the keyboard shortcut shift f to toggle the master track in track view go to view and choose master track you can also use the keyboard shortcut option command m to toggle the media explorer go to view and choose media explorer you can also use the keyboard shortcut option command x we already demonstrated how to toggle the mixer but for review the keyboard shortcut is command m a useful tool for navigating larger projects is the navigator window which can be used to scroll quickly through large projects to access the navigator window go to view and choose navigator window or use the keyboard shortcut option command v and finally to bring up the video window which is used if you're working with video in your project go to view and choose video or use the keyboard shortcut shift command v next up are some more tips and shortcuts for navigating and zooming in your reaper projects when navigating through tracks you can go to the next track by holding option command and the down arrow and you can go to the previous track by holding down option command with the up arrow to toggle a selected track's height to maximum height use the keyboard shortcut shift while holding the tilde key and to minimize all tracks just press the tilde key to zoom in horizontally using the keyboard press the equals key to zoom out horizontally using the keyboard press the minus key to zoom in vertically or make all the tracks bigger using the keyboard press the page up key or hold down the function key while pressing the up arrow to zoom out vertically or make all the tracks smaller using your keyboard press the page down key or hold the function key while pressing the down arrow conversely to zoom in vertically or make all the tracks bigger using the mouse wheel hold down the command key while scrolling down on the mouse wheel to zoom out vertically or make all the tracks smaller using the mouse wheel hold down command while scrolling up on the mouse wheel and finally if you want to zoom in or out of a selected track hold down shift command while scrolling up or down on the mouse wheel another useful trick is to use time selections for zooming to zoom in horizontally to a time selection hold down command page up or if you don't have a numerical keypad hold down the function key while pressing command in the up arrow to zoom out of this time selection do the same thing but press the down arrow so this is just a brief overview of some of the zooming functions in reaper but if you're looking for a more in-depth tutorial check out kenny joya's video on zooming which i will leave again in the notes below okay so the next section we're going to cover is working with media items the first thing i'm going to show you is how to toggle snapping snapping controls whether your item snaps to the grid like this or slips around freely like this to enable snapping you can go to the main toolbar and click the snap toolbar button or use the keyboard shortcut option s if snapping is enabled but you want to temporarily override it you can use a mouse modifier holding shift while left dragging the item to split an item at the play cursor select the item you want to split place the play or edit cursor where you want to make the split and do one of the following go to item and choose split itemic cursor or you can right click and choose split itemic cursor or you can use the simplest option which is the keyboard shortcut s if you don't select any items and initiate the split action it will split all the items to split items at a time selection select the item or items you want to split create a time selection and go to items then choose split items at time selection like before you can also right click and choose the same action and of course you can use the quickest and easiest option which is the keyboard shortcut shift s the next few shortcuts revolve around selecting items if you want to select a number of items in a row select the first item and then hold down the shift key then select the last item in the row you want to select if you want to select specific items that aren't in a row select your first item then hold down the command key and click the items you want to select you can also select items using the marquee tool which can be visualized almost like a lasso to marquee select items simply right-click and drag over the items you want to select and finally if you want to select all the items in your project at once go to items and choose select all or you can use the keyboard shortcut command a to copy an item select it go to edit and choose copy you can also right click the item and copy as well and of course the simplest way to copy an item is to use the keyboard shortcut command c to paste the item place your edit cursor and under edit choose paste you can also right click and of course the keyboard shortcut is command v and finally a very clever and fast way to copy and reaper is to use a mouse modifier select the item you want to copy hold down command and left drag with your mouse here's some more shortcuts for working with media items to delete or remove an item simply hit the delete key to undo a previous action click the undo button in the main toolbar or use the keyboard shortcut command z to group items together so they work in unison make sure item grouping is enabled you can do this by making sure item grouping is enabled in the main toolbar from there you can select the items you want to group together and of course the simplest way to group items is by hitting the keyboard shortcut g to ungroup the items use the keyboard shortcut u if you want to lock an item so it can't be moved or edited select the item or items go to items choose item settings and select lock additionally you can right-click to initiate the same results to unlock the items click the lock icon on each item to toggle mute items select the item go to item choose item settings and select mute you can also right click and choose the same options and finally you can use the keyboard shortcut option m which will toggle mute on and off one of the most important components of working with items is using crossfading this ensures a smooth transition void of annoying pops and clicks when splicing items together before you can crossfade items make sure that crossfading is enabled you can achieve this by clicking the toolbar icon in the main toolbar or executing the keyboard shortcut option x to crossfade two items simply drag one item over the other you can extend the crossfade on either side by grabbing the edge and left dragging with your mouse to move the crossfade you can use the mouse modifier holding shift while left dragging with the mouse and finally you can create a crossraid with a time selection by selecting two items creating a time selection and hitting the keyboard shortcut x and finally i want to demonstrate some keyboard shortcuts for using ripple editing ripple editing is an essential editing tool most commonly used for podcasters editing dialog with ripple editing enabled you can select an area that you want to delete and it automatically moves everything over to the left this can be a real time saving technique ripple editing in reaper has three modes ripple editing off ripple editing on per track and ripple editing all with ripple editing off if i delete this section of audio nothing happens i have to manually drag the items to the left with ripple editing per track enabled it will only move the track that i'm working with with ripple editing all enabled every track will move over you can cycle through each repel editing mode by clicking the ripple editing icon in the main toolbar or you can use the keyboard shortcut option p which cycles through the modes quickly to learn more about ripple editing and other editing basics make sure and check out these videos by kenny joya which i'll leave linked in the show notes below in this next short section i'm going to show you some other tools for navigating in your project using mouse modifiers earlier in the video i showed you how to zoom horizontally using the mouse wheel we can also change this setting in our preferences to make sure zooming occurs where your mouse cursor is rather than the play cursor for this next demonstration let's also check this box so we can zoom vertically under the mouse cursor as well to zoom in vertically or make your tracks and items bigger using the mouse wheel hold down the command key and scroll down on the mouse wheel to zoom out vertically or make your track smaller hold down the command key and scroll the mouse up in addition to using the mouse wheel to zoom in and out we can also use it to scroll horizontally and vertically to scroll horizontally using a mouse hold down the option key and scroll up or down to scroll vertically using a mouse hold down option command and scroll up and down so now let's move on to some tips and shortcuts for track controls and track management first of all there's a number of different ways you can create tracks in reaper you can double-click you can go to track and choose insert new track and finally you can use the keyboard shortcut command-t you can also insert multiple tracks at once by right-clicking in the track area if this is chosen a window appears giving you the option to choose how many tracks you want to create what you want to name them and whether or not you want to place them after the last touch track or at the end of the project to color your tracks select the track or tracks you want to color go to track track color and select which option you'd like to use to color your tracks you can also right click on a track and make the same selection to duplicate a track select the track you'd like to duplicate and right click there you can choose duplicate tracks to delete a track or selected tracks simply choose the tracks and click delete to go to the next track use the keyboard shortcut option command down arrow to go to the previous track use the keyboard shortcut option command up arrow to select all tracks hover your mouse in the tracks area and use the keyboard shortcut command a to show your master track in the track view use the keyboard shortcut option command m there's multiple ways to bring up a volume envelope in your tracks but the quickest way is to use the keyboard shortcut v to bring up a pan envelope use the keyboard shortcut p if you prefer to have your envelope in the same lane as your track click the gear icon and choose move to media lane to add envelope points for adjusting and automating envelopes hold down shift and left click where you want your points adjust from there to draw automation using a pencil tool hold down the command key and left drag to toggle the maximum height for a selected track hold down shift and hit the tilde key to zoom to minimum track height simply hit the tilde key and finally one of my favorite organization tools in reaper is the track manager where you can hide mute and lock tracks as well as a number of other options to toggle the track manager window use the keyboard shortcut shift command m while we're talking about tracks and track control shortcuts let's take a look at some handy mouse modifiers to select a range of tracks hold down shift left click and left click at the bottom of the range you'd like to select to select a non-contiguous range of tracks hold down command while clicking the tracks you want to select let's bring up our mixer window to move a fader more precisely hold down the command key while dragging if you have a number of tracks muted holding down the command key while clicking one will disable them all and the same goes for solo all these commands will work in the track view as well all right we're almost getting to the end of this list of shortcuts and if you've stuck around so far thank you i know it's a lot of information and just a reminder if you want to double check or review something every tip and shortcut is time stamped down below okay so the next quick series of tips and shortcuts we're going to look at is working with time selections loops markers and regions so obviously the easiest way to create a time selection is by putting your mouse cursor in this region and just dragging you can also set up a start point by using the keyboard shortcut shift left bracket you can also set up an endpoint by hitting shift right bracket to clear a time and loop selection hit the escape key to insert a marker place your edit cursor go to insert and choose marker you can also right click and choose the same option but by far the simplest option is to use the keyboard shortcut m to insert a marker and prompt for a name as well as some other edit options use the keyboard shortcut shift m and finally to add a region create a time selection and use the keyboard shortcut shift r you can edit the region by right-clicking all right so here we are uh the final short set of tips and shortcuts i want to show you revolve around using effects mouse modifiers in the mixer view let me show you what i mean to add an effect simply click here where you can choose from effects installed in reverb to bypass that effect use the mouse modifier shift left-click to remove an effect use the mouse modifier option left-click to float your effect configuration simply click on the effect if you have multiple effects on the channel you can bring up the whole effects chain by using the mouse modifier command left-click so there you have it that's a hundred reaper tips and shortcuts actually there was a little more than a hundred but who's counting right if you're just starting out in reaper i sincerely hope this video has been helpful to you i hope that it's gonna save you some time some heartache maybe just some energy so you can just start getting to creating faster and not feel so frustrated you can just start working and be moving forward in a seamless way if you found value from this video please give it a like and please subscribe to the channel and make sure and turn on notifications so you get updates every time i put out a new video all right well that's it for today take care of yourselves peace out we'll see you next time

Channel: Pod Peak

Views: 2,209

Keywords: 100 Reaper tips and shortcuts, Reaper tips and shortcuts, reaper tutorial, reaper daw, reaper daw tutorial, reaper tips, the reaper blog, reaper blog, cockos reaper, reaper guide, reaper tutorial for beginners, reaper daw tips, reaper tutorial 2021, reaper tutorial for beginners 2021, how to use reaper, how to use reaper for beginners, reaper tutorial kenny gioia, reaper tutorial podcast, reaper tutorial for beginners mac, reaper daw review, reaper daw 101

Id: 3AToV1uoqqY

Length: 39min 16sec (2356 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/smallbrownman]

Excellent resource, man, and love the overall production. Well done!