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Cubase vs Reaper for composing. Is the grass greener?

It may be worth pointing out that there's no intrinsic "track disabled" state in Reaper as such. It's done through a series of actions on a track. You can drop this script in (needs SWS) and bind it to a key to toggle track disabling in a way that's maximally CPU efficient.

FWIW, for me, Reaper shits the bed on 4000 empty tracks (i.e. crashes). Even with a fresh profile. But nobody else seems to be complaining about that, so take it with a grain of salt. However like David, the idea of a 4000 track template is mind-breaking for me, so this problem isn't one for me in practice.

I'm not sure where I got this from, but what I use as action for disabling a track is a custom action, consisting of these two actions:

SWS: Bypass FX on selected track(s)
Track: Set all FX offline for selected tracks

Works like a charm. :)
 
Works like a charm. :)
In terms of CPU efficiency, another important part of the recipe is to mute the track. There are other benefits to the script I shared. Notably that it will also lock/unlock the track to give a nice visual indication as to whether the track is disabled, and there is also a workaround with what looks to be an intermittent Reaper bug when onlining FX on a track that has automatic record arming on selection.

So it gets sophisticated enough beyond what a simple SWS cycle action can do.

Any chance to include it in Reapack?
Yes, not a bad idea. :)
 
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Just tried your Disabling script with my orchestral template. I've got around 65 disabled tracks in my template. It seems strange, but if it changed anything then I'm now having a higher CPU load than before using the old way. Not sure why that is. It's kinda hard to say though, as the load level fluctuates constantly by 10-15%. The lowest though I got with the old way is 24% load, with your script lowest is around 29%. Strange as yours indeed should lower the load.
 
@tack: Have you in the meantime successfully moved to Reaper now?
I've always been on Reaper, save for a brief flirtation with Cubase about 15 years ago. :) But my needs are fairly modest. A ~200 track orchestral template with tracks disabled until needed works nicely for me.

The lowest though I got with the old way is 24% load, with your script lowest is around 29%. Strange as yours indeed should lower the load.
The core recipe of my script is just the 2 things you mentioned (offline FX, bypass FX) plus muting and locking track controls. The other logic bits are applicable only during the execution of the short-lived script.

It's hard to imagine those things would increase CPU utilization. One thing to add is that in order to benefit from the track muting, you need to ensure the "Do not process muted tracks" option is enabled.
 
tack said:
The core recipe of my script is just the 2 things you mentioned (offline FX, bypass FX) plus muting and locking track controls. The other logic bits are applicable only during the execution of the short-lived script.

It's hard to imagine those things would increase CPU utilization. One thing to add is that in order to benefit from the track muting, you need to ensure the "Do not process muted tracks" option is enabled.

Yes sir, that's enabled. Maybe in the end it's just measuring inconsistencies due to the constant load up and down, but at least the muting doesn't seem to lower the load.
 
Another thing I’ve noticed is that loading a saved Track Template that is pre-disabled will almost always result in lower ram usage than loading the track then disabling it. And also, frequent enabling/disabling can cause ram fluctuations. Not much mind you, but the fluctuations exist which tells me there is a small ram leak somewhere still that has yet to be fixed.
 
That might be related to this option:

Preferences->Plugins->VST->[x] Allow complete unload of VST plugins (reduces memory use, but may not be compatible)


Not exactly sure it's a memory leak, it could simply be some differences in how memory is allocated in chunks of particular sizes. Or something.
 
In terms of CPU efficiency, another important part of the recipe is to mute the track. There are other benefits to the script I shared. Notably that it will also lock/unlock the track to give a nice visual indication as to whether the track is disabled, and there is also a workaround with what looks to be an intermittent Reaper bug when onlining FX on a track that has automatic record arming on selection.

So it gets sophisticated enough beyond what a simple SWS cycle action can do.

Yes, not a bad idea. :)
A thought here: would it make a difference to also mute the sends of deactivated tracks?
 
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A thought here: would it make a difference to also mute the sends of deactivated tracks?
It can't hurt but when I tested it it didn't help all that much. The reason I didn't include it in my script is that sometimes you actually want a send muted even when the track is enabled, but a naive mute/unmute sends would force them all back on when you enable the track. The script would need to be cleverer to remember the prior state of the send before disabling the track. Since I didn't see any compelling cpu benefit I didn't bother with the complexity.

But if you have a project where muting sends makes a big difference I'd be interested to know.
 
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I am seriously considering a switch from malfunctioning Cubase to Reaper. I long for stability.

I saw someone mention that Midi CC in Reaper is lacking / very bad but when I look at the demos I see it well supported if not better than Cubase. What excactly in Midi composing / Midi CC is lacking in Reaper when compared to Cubase?

This one looks very good to me:
 
I am seriously considering a switch from malfunctioning Cubase to Reaper. I long for stability.

I saw someone mention that Midi CC in Reaper is lacking / very bad but when I look at the demos I see it well supported if not better than Cubase. What excactly in Midi composing / Midi CC is lacking in Reaper when compared to Cubase?

This one looks very good to me:


Thanks for linking my video haha
Let me know if you have any more questions?

I don't find Reapers MIDI functionality limiting at all. You can find a lot of scripts to help extend functionality as well. (I can't remember what the best one is off the top of my head sorry)
 
Nice to see you here :) My composing is mostly of Midi and thats why I am interested in that side of the story. Does reaper have any arpeggio scrips / plugins?
 
Nice to see you here :) My composing is mostly of Midi and thats why I am interested in that side of the story. Does reaper have any arpeggio scrips / plugins?
yep - also the free randarp from codeFN42, or bluearp are worth using too
 
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