Reaper Live Show Tutorial: Markers, Smooth Seeking, Regions, and SWS Extensions 

This is an ABSOLUTE GAME CHANGER when it comes to live stuff with Reaper. Thanks infinitely

I think I speak for everyone when I say that you sir are a blessing for posting this video. I too had been looking for how to set this up until I found your video. You just saved me from spending $2000 on a macbook/ableton rig. I am now able to repurpose an older windows laptop and set the tracks on reaper. Thank you!

Man, you're a godsend, I was looking for this and there are not a whole lot of resources in regards to live performance within Reaper.

Best Reaper tutorial .... Im using Reaper for live shows now.... Thank you very very much...

You are a genius! Who needs Ableton to run live tracks? This is so awesome.

Just watched this again. One of my all-time favourite Reaper videos. Ever! Thanks. I have learned SO much from it! Thanks, again.

o, man. this is what i have been lookin for our worship team...finally...may God bless you richly for that

This so great! Very informative video! I plan to use these tips with the worship team at church.

amazing! I knew there had to be a way. I'm surprised there's no other videos explaining this. I was thinking I may need to buy ableton live. Thanks!

How I regret that I did not find and watch this video earlier! 🙉😭 Seriously, I almost want to cry, but now with joy))😂😇 Because I finally found what I had been looking for and puzzled over for a long time!!! Thank God!!!) 🙏 I was looking for information on how I can achieve this effect called 'Smooth seeking' in Reaper, and how I can interactively or automatically switch between parts of a song and even between songs!))🎹↔🎸 And so I found all this, and even more, in this short video, the content of which is a hundred times larger than its timing))🌌 It’s incredible that all these opportunities were already available 8 years ago, and even earlier! ⌛ How amazing it must have been at that time, if even now I am delighted with such opportunities))😍 Just thank you so much for such super useful information! 💯💫🔥🎆 This gives me everything I need to implement set lists with backing tracks, guide and metronome in the worship teams at our church where I play drums!)) ⏯ God bless you, and may God's love, peace, joy, prosperity and His inspiration be with you everywhere and fill you every new day!!! 🙌❤

Been binging live performance reaper videos for a month...this is without a doubt the best I've seen. Bravo.

Thanks David. I have Ableton live 10 Lite version only, restricted to max 8 tracks. Searching for one tut like this in Reaper with a midi controller, couldn't find for a month's time. Now found it. Amazing. Great Relief.

Thanks so much, David. I'm a newbie to Reaper, but your video filled in alot of gaps for my worship band.

You just sold me on Reaper...WOW!!!

This is the best Reaper Video Kenny Gioia or Reaper Blog didn't make. True Fact.

Thank you for this great tutorial! It helped me a lot for triggering beats for a rap performance.

So cool! What I see here is my Maschine workflow with the freedom I miss in Maschine scene grid. Super helpful video!

Great Video! This is exactly the stuff I've been trying to figure out for using Reaper live.

this is really great. Didn't know about the smooth seek preferences. Thank you!

I've been re watching this video with the following goal: I have prerecorded tracks (strings, keys, drums, etc), I have a track for guitar that is blank and which is armed for record. For simplicity - I have a marker at measure x, and another marker at measure x+2 (consider them start and end markers). Smooth seek on and checked progress to next marker before seek. I have set a midi foot controller to issue the command to return to marker 1 (start) when activated. In PLAY mode this works very well - I can continue to loop back to marker 1 with footswitch. The problem is that jump to marker command DOESN'T work in record mode. Now the details - I am using Nabla Looper which is a set of scripts that enable you to record a measure or more, and then loops those segments for as long as you want (using pre-arranged track elements). Sometime, as you might have experienced, the record loop segment is not the best I'm capable of and I want to hit the footswitch and have another go at that loop recording - it is after all going to repeat for most of the song, so I want it to be solid. This scenario seems to fall into the situation of first paragraph - since I am in essence in record mode with Nabla platform, the jump to marker command is ignored. I'm hoping to tease apart whether Nabla platform does something to jump to marker in record mode ... but since REAPER itself doesn't permit me to do this in a simple no Nabla track test, I am first concerned whether there is a way to make REAPER pay attention to jump to track commands in Record mode. Any help is appreciated. Thanks - btw - only worked with Reaper for about 4 months - so if the answer is obvious, please forgive my newbee status.

Brother, you rock! I too have been looking for something like this. It has been downloaded to my phone. Thank you kind sir

amazing. exactly what i've been looking for

Godsend ! For me coming from Metal and Rock thinking songs strictly chronological, it`s the best way for playing live. I have got problems with the philosophy of Ableton esp. in session view with this conception of thinking in circuits and loops. Thanx so much Mister for your tutorial !!

Thank you so much! Super useful. We've been looking for something else than Abelton Live to run worship sets. I'm a new Reaper user and didn't know about this functionality.

Many thanks bro, I'm an avid Ableton user and was looking for an alternative. I produce tracks for bands to be used live and i also program setlists for the not so tech savy. I;ve always aimed to simplify and therefore consolidate to 2 or 3 tracks at a time. But for some bands i would like to give them control over the 6 or so tracks playing back. This is perfect and you very well may have just sold me on reaper. I have been evaluating the software for a while now but after this i believe my mind is made up. Cheers

Raper is so versatile, at times I almost (!) forget my musical creativity. That´s when the templates becomes useful. Always remember to save a template whenever you do something worth saving for later on (on disc, sky, whatever..). Which is most of the time (for me, at least).

Thanks so much for this. Keep up

Bless you man! Literally everything i was searching for!

Thank youuuuu!!!!! I’ve been trying to figure out if this was possible!

Thanks David. This is great information. Really helpful and very clearly presented.

Thanks, I've learned a lot!

Ahhh thank you so much ! Very helpful (and rare) information. Cheers !

Exactly what I want to be able to do!

Thanks for this. Really useful.

Very useful video. Thanks!

Gold mine!

Man seeking is awesome! You save me from buying ableton live!

Oh god man, you´re helping me a lot there! I play live with REAPER but I use one big project with subprojects in it. This approach is much much more flexible! The only thing I need to find out now is how to mix on track with the next one, like a djset, do you have any thoughts on that?

great video, thanks man

This is an amazingly useful and sorely uncommon tutorial of a very important capability of Reaper. Is there any chance you could do a refresh of this with high quality video ? At 320p it is very difficult to read anything, especially for someone new to Reaper.

This is a wonderful video. I have bookmarked this video as I think it is excellent. But can you recommend a cheap foot controller to toggle these and also would you recommend a audio interface so that I can hear the click in my in-ears and the backing tracks would then go to the house input?

I've been looking for months for something that would allow me to improvise more with backing tracks in Reaper. Thank you. This would also make it easier to DJ with Reaper. Would you know how to set up an autoloop function where you could hit a command and it would loop for a predetermined amount of bars?

Thanks for this David! I'm trying to do this right now, and cannot find the Midi controlled marker jumps in SWS. Were they removed?

This is awesome Advice. About as good as Playtime. I just wish that Regions could can be connected (Ghost).

Hi! Thanks! Very helpful. I would like to know one more thing if it is possible. In my project I would like to move (hitting a pad) from A section to a B section whenever I want and this I understood how to do it. But when I move to section B I would like to put it in a loop and then go back to section A whenever I want (hitting another pad). Do I have to make a list of more action lists to put the loop section to different sections? Hope you understand the problem! Thanks!!!

can you loop a section? I mean You queue a new section, right?, then when it starts, can you keep looping that section until you select a different one (?)

Hello and thanks for your tutorial ! I searched a lot about seeking in reaper, but can't find any way to help with zero crossing when I jump from one place to another. If the sample hasn't a zero-crossing where I'm jumping, going from one marker to another will inevitably produce a click or pop (whereas in Ableton it's always smooth). Do you know any solution to that ?

Awesome. Been looking for this for ages. Can't wait to try it out tonight. Can you have it loop a region until you tell it to go to another region and then have it loop that section until you tell it to change?

Is it typical to not render/freeze the midi stuff to audio?? I want to start using this live and figured it would save cpu power to render the midi to audio EDIT: got to the part where you answered it!!

bro just amazing . my songs have alot of tempo changes and we program d clicks to change tempo aswell . lotsa cool tips thanks man . im currently trying to learn to program lights in reaper as well while running click n backig tracks . do u know how?

Hello! What symbol you wrote before command ID what you paste to marker to stop playing? Sorry, I can't see in this quality, but.. Your video is very helpful ale thank you so much!

Can you explain how to set up the vocal cues from a-z. where to find them, how to set em, and lock them. You explained very briefly on this. Thanks Much Awesome video, as i have reaper and was going to purchase ABLETON because for some reason i did not think Reaper had this capability for Live backing Tracks.

Why does the Pause Marker (!1008) stop MILLISECOND AFTER the next marker? Super annoying. Also, if I select a marer, hit bar, it pauses, and I have to hit spacebar another time. WHY?:/

I love, love Reaper, but I seem to miss dynamic cues, which I am not not hearing about. So I wonder, how does the band know which part is coming next when the arrangement changes?

..anybody knows how to lock certain track so that while you move the region with all the stuff underneath the content of the locked track stays where it is?

go into system sounds and disable all system sounds, makes you sound more professional

Why do you pronounce the H before the W?