How to Edit Drums in Reaper (Automated)

[@Keayes]

16:02 for anyone else watching, you can hold shift and mouse over the middle of the fade and click. It will let you drag both sides of the fade. For the Hihat sections you *might* be able to change to spectral edit view for the detection step... I haven't tried this yet but I'll open up some drum multitracks when I get the chance and see if it works. Amazing vid, thanks for making it!

[@JayMaasRecording]

@@Keayes dope thanks for the extra info!!

[@philipdubnick7776]

Hey Jay - nice work! You may have covered this in the video and I just somehow spaced it out, but if not, this might be helpful to your viewers: The SWS Extensions, which are free (the Reaper site links to it and it is highly recommended to install with Reaper) and it adds an absolute ton of useful features to reaper, includes a "Fill Gaps Between Selected Items (advanced)" action (which includes Beat Detective features like trigger pad and crossfade settings and some other bonuses). This means that in the Quantize Item Positions menu you don't have to bother with the overlaps, you can set things in a way where artifacts are far less likely and an additional bonus to that SWS extension is that it has an option to 'mark possible artifacts' which is an additional time saver. When you select that item there will be marker/memory locations placed anywhere the extension things there will be artifacts you might still have to adjust. Essentially, using the Dynamic Split, Quantize Item Positions and Fill Gaps Between Selected items (advanced) you gives you all the tools available as Beat Detective in PT and I believe same tools available in the Cubase equivalent. Kind of a bummer that they aren't all combined into one interface but as someone who has done a video on how to achieve the same ends using Logic, I can tell you this is much, much more convenient of a process than that. Couple other things worth noting and my apologies if they are in the video and I missed them: - When not quantizing drums in an automated way, I tend to leave auto-crossfades on but when I am using the methods covered in your video, I have that off and just use the Fill Gaps Between Selected Items in it's place. - I generally leave the Trim Content Behind Media Items When Editing option on. There is also a "Always Trim Content Behind Razor Items" option for those that enjoy the Razor editing. - As of Reaper 7 there is finally the ability to include editing as part of the track groups options. The old method (which you can still use) of grouping items as opposed to having track 'edit' groups was cool for some stuff but could turn into a mess with drums at points. - Reaper is very inexpensive and has a very generous trial period policy but I think it's worth noting that it's not free. That said, it's an excellent option for either a primary or secondary DAW. One of the things I love about it is the ease of customizing it so that the actions (keyboard commands/shortcuts) are almost completely identical to my other daily driver (Pro Tools). It takes some setting up but it pays off in being able to switch seamlessly between DAWs and not having to constantly recall the differing shortcuts. Anyhow, hope all is well and that this is helpful to some of your viewers!

[@JayMaasRecording]

@@philipdubnick7776 thanks Phil much appreciated! Miss you buddy, I hope you’re well!

[@LetsTalkAboutReaper]

I can definitely appreciate the speed of the mostly automated workflow, but i still prefer manual slip editing. I find i get better results that way, but more to the point, perhaps i am a glutton for punishment but i just enjoy the workflow. yes, it takes longer, but for some reason, its relaxing to me. Excellent video, by the way!

[@Kyle_Noonan]

Learning game audio now, and Reaper is basically the standard. Really need to dig in and learn it, but Cubase will always be home.

[@marrowsband]

The accessibility to information about reaper is incredible. Reaper Mania, Reaper Blog, Reaper Tips, Let’s Talk about Reaper… there’s more but those guys, especially Reaper Mania, have so many answers to so many questions

[@Kyle_Noonan]

@@marrowsband I think for me, the scripts aspect is the most daunting. Programming languages are super lost on me (despite how hard I try to learn it) and it seems like Reaper is really popular with development teams. I've been working with Cubase for... god nearly 20 years at this point lol so there's a lot of muscle memory. I will definitely check these channels out though, thank you!!

[@mitchdeathblossom]

My ADHD couldnt cope with this style of drum editing, I had to learn slip editing to manage 😂

[@voodoochili12]

You can easily slip edit the waveforms underneath any of these splits. Best of both worlds

[@CantAffordToRecord]

Great video my friend!

[@voodoochili12]

Great tutorial, thanks. I'm not an expert, but my understanding of the grouping process you used is that it is somewhat deprecated. I believe at some point in Version 6 they introduced the ability to manage Media/Razor Edit Lead & follow in the Track Grouping Matrix. If you select the desired tracks and go to Track > Track grouping > "track grouping parameters" (or hotkey Shift+G), you can create a dedicated track group to achieve the same thing. As long as it works, that's all that matters, but for me that Track Grouping Matrix makes it easier in a full production with multiple instrument groups.

[@UncleRandyy]

Is there a way to quantize items in varying percentages? Such as quantizing audio 75% closer to the grid instead of 100% to keep some feel in the performance?

[@zacharydwight7380]

I wanna say you could do a different quantize like 1/64th. But I’m super new to this too

[@rafaelsolorioRSAUDIO]

Awesome tutorial Jay! I'm a Studio One user and was thinking that if Reaper is better than SO maybe I could use it just for drum editing but from what I've seen in this video it's really similar(almost the same). It seems like Pro Tools and Cubase are still the best for drum editing 😅

[@rasbill]

reaper just has that threshold line so you can more accurately see where its going to split, but studio one is damn good at it even without the visual indicator. for the amount of manual work needed splitting drums, the switch to reaper to do it would probably so minimal as it wouldnt matter. as in you might need to do a couple more manual splits and nudges in studio one, but thats not slower than switching to a whole different daw to deal with it, then reimporting to studio one to continue working imo. i think this is aimed more at someone who uses say the reason daw, which has no good option for doing drum splitting at all, and reaper is free (kinda)

[@rafaelsolorioRSAUDIO]

@@rasbill yeah, you're right but I'm still jealous of cubase for having the priority function and pro tools for the trigger pad. I thought maybe Reaper had those and then it would have made sense for me to make the switch for drum editing but yeah, I'll stick to studio one, hope they revamp the slice/quantize tab with more options but I looks like it's not their priority lol

[@Nikkohh]

Thanks Jay! In Cubase do you normally do this with slicing out do you use phase coherent audio warp? Cheers!

[@JayMaasRecording]

As much as I’ve wanted the PCAW to work for me, I can still hear some artifacts that now I just can’t unhear so I typically stick with a “cut and drag” method. However Cubase is FAST at doing most of the work for me

[@fakedad916]

​@@JayMaasRecording would love to see your process in Cubase, I've gotten pretty quick but compared to some of my friends in reaper/pro tools I'm nowhere close

[@JayMaasRecording]

@@fakedad916 I’ll see what I can do!

[@Nikkohh]

@@JayMaasRecording +1 would love to see your method for this in Cubase

[@FraserBrowneMusic]

Did my man edit everything without listening once?