The Steel Guitar Forum

Anybody on here use Reaper? I just started using it and am having a hard time finding a decent explanation of how to get rid of the dead space at the beginning of a recording. I have a couple tracks that have about 13 secs before the music starts and I'd like to get rid of it. Seems simple enough but the users manual is way too complicated. Any help or a link to some help would be appreciated.

Thanks!!

I think forumite Greg Cutshaw uses Reaper, and is very good at it. He produces some good music.

On the other hand, if you want a user friendly professional DAW, I'd recommended you take a look at Presonus Studio One. I think they have a free version, or at least a free demo. I've been using it for a out 10 years and I love it. There's a ton of plugin effects included with it.

RC

This video will show you several ways to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbYwgs55fcs

Hope this helps

regards,

Reaper is great. I know of a couple full on production studios that have dumped Pro Tools and use Reaper as the main DAW. I might migrate to it at some point. I currently use Pro Tools.

If you have that much dead space before the music starts, try selecting all tracks, then go up to the time line at the top and highlight the beginning and end of the space you’d like to remove. After you’ve done that, just delete. You can scale it down visually by using the little (-) sign in the lower right corner so you can grab it all without scrolling

Bob Hoffnar wrote:Reaper is great. I know of a couple full on production studios that have dumped Pro Tools and use Reaper as the main DAW. I might migrate to it at some point. I currently use Pro Tools.

Don't dump Pro Tools.

Pleeze don't turn this into yet another internet Reaper vs Pro Tools thread !

Pleeze don't turn this into yet another internet Reaper vs Pro Tools thread !

... vs Studio One vs Logic vs [your DAW here]

Skip were you able to figure it out? If not I can post screenshots. I've used almost every daw out there and am a huge fan of reaper. They can all get the job done......reaper just does it at a much better price.

Ben Michaels wrote:Skip were you able to figure it out? If not I can post screenshots. I've used almost every daw out there and am a huge fan of reaper. They can all get the job done......reaper just does it at a much better price.

Thanks, Ben! Sorry, I just saw this. I really haven't had a chance to mess with it but if you can do some screen shots, it would be greatly appreciated. I have a new Godin nylon string coming so plan to do a bunch more recording.

Ben Michaels wrote:Skip were you able to figure it out? If not I can post screenshots. I've used almost every daw out there and am a huge fan of reaper. They can all get the job done......reaper just does it at a much better price.

Thanks, Ben! Sorry, I just saw this. I really haven't had a chance to mess with it but if you can do some screen shots, it would be greatly appreciated. I have a new Godin nylon string coming so plan to do a bunch more recording.

Skip,

I'm not going to suggest a different DAW. But I am suggesting a free, audio wave file editor called Audacity. It's available here: https://www.audacityteam.org/

Audacity works great for trimming the front or rear edges of an audio file because it uses Windows standard commands. You highlight by pressing the shift key and drag. Control + C is copy, Control + V is paste, Control + X is cut, Control + Z is undo, the Delete key deletes. If you don't remember the keyboard commands, the editing icons also are Windows standard.



In the screen shot above I imported a 3 minute 48 second wave file that begins with about 3 minutes 9 seconds of silence. I highlighted 3 minutes 8 seconds 640 milliseconds, press Delete and the truncated audio file is ready for export.



It takes longer to type this post than to perform the task. Audacity is capable of more things but even if that's all you use it for it's faster than firing up most DAWs, loading a project, selecting tracks, highlighting, trimming and exporting.

this is typically a very easy operation for all DAW's including Reaper of which I do not have . Trimming the front or back or anywhere in between is a mandatory function or at least should be.

Highlight the area needed to be moved ( all tracks together) and drag them over, leave a couple of seconds of space.

Most DAW's, (I use Pro Tools) allows for linking all tracks together with a single operation for any type of editing, I suspect Reaper does as well.

One thing to consider going forward, if we are importing a music file into the DAW , the DAW should ask before the import , where you want it to start. I always select "session start".

Another consideration is understanding, or knowing why our tracks are so far away from the session start timeline. IF MUSIC is showing up somewhere else most likely one of the track markers is already set in a location other than the beginning. This is easy to overlook.

Skip here are a couple different ways to do it:

First way is the easiest. Move your cursor to the beginning of the track until this icon appears and then hold down you left mouse button and drag left/right till you are where you want it to start. You can select multiple tracks doing this to trim them to the appropriate start point:

Another way would be to select the area on the track (or tracks) you want to cut then right click and click cut selected areas of items

last way I can think of is to highlight the part of the track or tracks that you want then right click again and this time select trim items to selected area....this is a good one for trimming both the beginning and end of a track at once.

in many DAWS , probably ALL of them, its also probable that you can just highlight the entire track and just drag ( slide) it to the left ! The furthest left you can drag it will be the ZERO line.

Way too many options, find the one that is easiest for you !

This DRAG ( slide) function is also used to create a delay.

Copy Track A to track B. Drag or Slide Track B a very slight amount or more to the right. ( your preference)
Pan track A Left Pan Track B right , hit the play button ! Creates BIG vocals or whatever ! The further right you drag track B creates a wider delay.

OPTIONS

I’ve been a REAPER user for a while and I love it!
So far as the manual is concerned, you’re right. It’s A LOT to wade through. There is a pretty good user group out there (you’ll find it through the Cockos site) and also look on YouTube for Kenny Gioia (sp?) REAPER tutorials. There is a lot of support out there and this is a great product at a great price. There will be a learning curve to be sure, but worth the barge. Good luck.

In Reaper, the way I get rid of dead space at the beginning is to select the tracks you want to edit and then set the cursor about where you want the tracks to start. Hit s to split them and click on the tracks to the left to select them. Go to the options menu and select "ripple edit" (per track or all, depending) and hit delete. Your tracks will all shift to the left. It sounds like a lot, but it's quick and accurate once you've done it a couple of times.