# OTR 2.3 Update Released (Sept 22, 2022) ! Orchestral Template For Reaper Release Thread



## storyteller (Jan 23, 2017)

*OTR2 has been released. This thread has been tracking along since the initial release of OTR v1 in 2017, so I've updated this initial post to reflect the latest v2 release on September 22, 2022.*







What's New in OTRv2?


OTR's script and actions count has increased from ~300 scripts to ~1000
No more track prefixes/suffixes... just name the tracks what you want.
32 fully customizable and re-assignable stem categories (up from 23)
8 fully customizable and re-assignable stem groups (up from 6)
New, custom-designed GUI editor for easy stem grouping, routing and renaming
OTRv2 comes pre-configured with full integration with Reaticulate
New and included Reaticulate articulation templates that are tailored for OTR's workflow
OTRv2 includes a custom Reaticulate GUI to manage the articulations within OTR (meaning no text editing for Reaticulate)
Includes a custom JS Helper plugin for Reaticulate that translates CC values into Note-Hold values. This is very helpful when multiple Keyswitches are used in an instrument such as Bohemian Violin and Cello.
Reorganized and simplified Track Template menus
Tons of new Track Templates for various samplers/romplers
Full Kontakt template integration with Flexrouter scripts allowing for up to 128 articulations per track with Reaticulate
Full Flexrouter integration with the Reaticulate GUI
Full consideration given in crafting VEPro templates with Reaticulate, Kontakt, and Flexrouter to optimize performance and track management across slave/satellite computers
OTR v2 includes a completely custom-designed theme that marries the best of Reaper v5 and v6 themes together
Reaper/OTR Custom Menu Buttons now fully conform to your project. For example if you have a project that has specific track groups for stems that are different than another project's stems and groupings the Reaper/OTR Menu buttons can now be updated to reflect the names of the stems and groups specific to each project.
Automatically convert OTR v1 templates to OTR v2 simply by opening the GUI for OTR2
And more!
A new OTR2 Youtube channel has been setup that will be solely focused on bringing OTR content to users.
November 1, 2021
- OTR 2.1 update is released. See post #190 for the full update release information.
January 19, 2022
- OTR 2.2 update is release. Check out the list of the latest updates and change log at www.orchestraltemplateforreaper.com/downloadotr.php
September 22, 2022
- OTR 2.3 update is release. Check out the list of the latest updates and change log at www.orchestraltemplateforreaper.com/downloadotr.php

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*I'm really excited to announce that OTR v2.3 is now available. *

Here are some highlights:


OTR has partnered with Orchestral Tools to now include project templates, track templates, articulation maps, and Vienna Ensemble Pro Server projects for their flagship libraries. All of these configurations are mapped logically in OTR for a one-track-per-instrument approach... including mapping mic faders to CCs in VEPro, etc. Be sure to check out the full manual for the included OT Extras.


OTR comes with an OTR-specific factory Reaticulate reabank library out of the box. This includes all of the Orchestral Tools flagship libraries mapped in an intuitive way. SINE presets are included to quickly sync up your libraries. Track templates require no configuration at all. They just work out of the box.


OTR includes a suite of custom scripts for visually-impaired users. These scripts make it possible for assistant-free composing through the use of Visual Feedback Screen Prompts (VISP scripts in Reaper actions menu) for screen reading software in Reaper. Initial setup of the visually-impaired composer's template is required... but afterwards, making music should be very close to assistant-free as possible.


New filtering with DYNAMIC Find/Search functions make it super easy to tailor your views for large templates.


Vastly improved Global Visibility Toggles menu toolbar and functions.


Vastly improved Midi usability, including incorporation of the latest Midi Tool plugin.


Vastly improved mouse and arrow navigation in the track view and midi view.


Fully compatible with Reaticulate 0.5.x.


New and updated VSTi2 and VSTi3 track templates of most samplers available today


Reapack scripts can now be updated without breaking OTR compatibility.


Now includes ~1400+ custom scripts/actions!

*installation of OTR v2.3:*


*What's New in OTR v2.3*








New Features in OTR v2.3


Let's take a look at the new features in OTR v2.3




youtu.be





*Download Link:*
www.orchestraltemplateforreaper.com

_*OTR is a free to use and download. OTR uses a donation model to support development. Thank you for your continued support!*_


----------



## erica-grace (Jan 23, 2017)

Ok, what exactly am I pre-ordering? The video told me absolutely nothing.


----------



## Gabriel Oliveira (Jan 23, 2017)

erica-grace said:


> Ok, what exactly am I pre-ordering? The video told me absolutely nothing.



more here: 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwlanIt8LsbNbYE5tr9za8g/videos


----------



## storyteller (Jan 23, 2017)

erica-grace said:


> Ok, what exactly am I pre-ordering? The video told me absolutely nothing.



Thanks @Gabriel Oliveira for posting that.

Erica, the first video I posted here is just a promo teaser. The website http://otr.storyteller.im discusses the whole product in depth with 11 walkthrough videos as well as a feature list of everything it includes. But essentially, OTR is an enhancement to the Reaper DAW (free to try at Reaper.fm) that makes it the perfect tool it for composers. It contains over 250 custom scripts and actions behind the scenes, and 11 menus that you will see in the user interface that are full of composer-friendly functionality.

In short, it could be seen as simply a project template, but the long story is that it adds functionality to the entire Reaper DAW in a way that is tailored to and enhanced for composers. Just to put it into perspective, there are nearly 200 tracks already setup in the DAW before you add your first instrument... but those are mostly hidden from view until needed. They are what allow the magic to happen with the template.

Also, OTR is built around a concept called TrackPacks. Imagine loading a library like Berlin Woodwinds where it is already pre-routed and pre-configured for the DAWs workflow. Now imagine you pick a keyswitched version, or an articulation per track version. Want to send it to a virtual hall rather than use all of the mics? Maybe you decide to audition all of the mics blended with your other orchestral section versus sending the close mics only to the virtual hall. Whatever your choice, it is a simple right click away. That is what makes it wonderful.

Also, VCAs are a breeze which makes template balancing a much, much, much more simplified process than it is presently.

I hope this helps a little. The OTR website breaks down much of the functionality. The walkthrough videos also touch on many of the key features too. The "Overview Video" is a 45 minute walkthrough by itself.

Let me know what questions you have though. I'm really excited about it and am very happy to address any questions that may arise.


----------



## Joe_D (Jan 23, 2017)

Hi Jonathan,

I can only imagine the amount of work that this project has taken, and applaud your motivation to provide composers with a "better mousetrap." Best of luck with your venture. There are definitely some very good ideas on display. It's challenging (IMO) to tease them out of the videos you have posted, though. You understand them so well, that it is easy to forget that we don't know them yet. I think that happens a bit in the videos I've looked at, where lots of details are discussed without the benefit of the bigger picture.

I suggest that, for now, you should replace or augment the linked trailer with this video:



And then, make a eight to ten minute a carefully scripted and tightly edited video walk-through that first explains the rationale for and benefits of OTR in less than a minute, followed by showing all phases of a project (in-progress, with tracks and VI's loading and then being used and mixed and bounced) with a brief demonstration of how OTR facilitates that phase. The format for each step should be "here's the step, here's what makes it hard in many DAWs, here's how easy and pre-configured it is in OTR, and here are the time-saving and organizational aids and benefits for this step." It really needs such a concise introduction, IMO, in order to show composers why they should consider it and invest the time into figuring out whether or not it is right for them.

Joe


----------



## storyteller (Jan 23, 2017)

Joe_D said:


> Hi Jonathan,
> 
> I can only imagine the amount of work that this project has taken, and applaud your motivation to provide composers with a "better mousetrap." Best of luck with your venture. There are definitely some good ideas on display. It's challenging (IMO) to tease them out of the videos you have posted, though. You understand them so well, that it is easy to forget that we don't know them yet, and I think that happens a bit in the videos I've looked at.
> 
> ...



Thanks Joe - for both the kind words and for the suggestion. I will defintely put together something more concise as you've mentioned. You are indeed correct that describing everything is a tall order when you've come to know it so well... especially with the depth of features included.

There is a video that I am finishing up that presents the 22 primary features of OTR that should help. I also think the website has a great amount of bullet-point content regarding these 22 features too. Over the next week, I plan on doing a "starting your first session" video, so there is much more to come!


----------



## Udo (Jan 24, 2017)

Have you mentioned this on the Reaper/cockos forum?


----------



## storyteller (Jan 24, 2017)

Udo said:


> Have you mentioned this on the Reaper/cockos forum?


Not yet. I plan on doing that today though. I wanted to make the announcement on VIC first. 

*EDIT:* It has now been posted on the Reaper/cockos forum.


----------



## Quasar (Jan 25, 2017)

Interesting and impressive. It's clear that you've put a lot of thought and work into this, and since I am a Reaper user who is currently scuffling about with the creation of orchestral templates, I will be following its development from the peanut gallery. But if I were to dive in, I have some concerns:

1) The cost, even at the intro price, is twice as much as a (home user) licence for Reaper, and to avail ourselves of this price we have to preorder it on faith, sans any independent feedback or review, or else it is unclear what this will cost, since you have a "full" price (that I think was changed yesterday from $139 to $239) for a bundle that will not exist after the preorder period, as the OTR and the Track Packs will then be sold separately. So the $239 appears to be little more than a tag for what market economists call an "expectation anchor" or something, and confusing for anyone not buying this now.

But I am NOT suggesting that this is overpriced, only that it is expensive as a leap into the unknown. Were this $119 (or whatever) a street price for a product already established in the wild, with many end users reporting how the workflow suits them, then the decision-making process would be quite different.

2) OTR seems to be sort of a cross between a series of templates and a mod that essentially creates a whole new DAW (a massive undertaking!). You use the word "easy" quite a bit in the walkthough videos (which are quite detailed, thank you) and I am sure it is for you, because as OTR's creator you're experiencing it from the inside-out. You already automatically know what, where, how and why all of the features exist, and the workflow (always subjective) is already customized exactly for you. How well will this translate to those of us who did not build it, but have to learn it from the outside-in? For now this remains an unknown. My own little orchestral templates for Reaper are extremely limited & crude in comparison to OTR, but at least I understand them because I'm the one who made them, and as I improve them my knowledge of how to use them improves as an intrinsic part of the process. And your honest FAQ answer to the question of how OTR will impact our own customizations and scripts (it's complicated) sounds exactly that.

3) As you obviously know, Reaper updates quite frequently, and the changes/improvements are often significant. Do you have a working relationship with the Cockos team? How would we know how stable this is likely to be as Reaper continues to evolve? At any price, I am apprehensive about modding my DAW of choice in such a way as to become reliant on TWO independent developers and taking on all of the complexity that this potentially entails.

But with those caveats, OTR looks really well-thought out and cool, and I wish you much success with this venture.


----------



## storyteller (Jan 25, 2017)

Tugboat said:


> But with those caveats, OTR looks really well-thought out and cool, and I wish you much success with this venture.


Thanks @Tugboat. That means a lot because I know how much you have invested with Reaper based off of all of your posts here. So let me see if I can break down your questions.

I want to begin by openly saying that I am figuring the marketing side out as I go along and I am wholly open to any suggestions to bring this product into the hands of those that need it most - because it really will be a game-changer for many people's way they make music. Ultimately, I want to help others through that which has helped me.

But first - yesterday, I did change the "bundle retail price" based on questions I was receiving on why the price did not reflect a 50% discount as is mentioned in the marketing. Originally, I was going to launch OTR preorder as the software alone, as well as take preorders for TrackPacks. But since there is so much "newness" with OTR and with little real-world experience for how TrackPacks could bring benefits to orchestral workflows, I thought it would be best to just include these in the bundle at no cost so that those that preordered would see what a benefit TrackPacks really are. Where they will really shine is once custom libraries are introduced, like Berlin Woodwinds already preconfigured...or, for example, offering a solo brass library with the option of turning it into an Ensemble (similar to the design of Berlin Brass) by having all of the detuning/pitch shifting already done for the user. But those are coming... and will be marketed as additional TrackPacks.

The intention is for OTR to have a retail price of $129 and TrackPacks for "The Collection" series to be offered at $9.99 a piece - with neither being offered with any discounts in the future. Kind of like the Orchestral Tools pricing model. So overall, with 11 TrackPacks, the retail price of OTR + the Collection is $239. OTR itself will be priced at $129. Other TrackPacks will fluctuate a little in price based on the complexities of the libraries themselves...but will still be very reasonable compared to setting up a shiny new VI library yourself. I've considered offering just an OTR software pre-order as well, but have so far resisted that concept so that others can experience the benefit of the TrackPacks.

Of course, I welcome any and all suggestions. After all, this software isn't about creating another hill for composers to climb. Rather, it is about building something the community can use and adore. 

*(cont'd)*


----------



## storyteller (Jan 25, 2017)

@Tugboat 
Regarding your second and third questions, let me see if I can explain OTRs architecture. As you know, Reaper installs the application and then installs a separate set of folders for User Customization. This folder travels with the user as upgrades with Reaper occur. The User Folder is where all of your custom scripts get added and where any modifications to the GUI and preferences are saved. When Reaper is upgraded, it adds what is needed to this folder. The API is rarely deprecated, so user scripts will almost always function as expected when coded with ReaScript. If changes to the API are made, then the scripts will be updated respectively.

You probably know much (if not all) of the above already, but it is important to know that to understand OTR - because it is essentially a port of my User Folder. It contains all of the scripts and modifications I've made in building out my workflow. It is not a separate application, but rather a hot-rodded User Folder. 

When I decided to release it for the public, I thought it would be great to write an application that could auto-switch user profiles for Reaper (using sudos etc) so that a user could choose between the OTR user folder and their own folder. So I began developing it. I also looked at ways to update OTR if a user decided to modify the OTR User Folder. But, alas, I realized that without working directly with the Reaper Devs, an add-on user profiler wouldn't work due to the sandbox-style restrictions Apple places on developers (and rightly so). And since the Reaper devs are busy adding all of the scoring and notation features now, I chose the path of least resistance.

So in the future, I do know that Reaper has plans of introducing user profiles, which will more easily allow things like user modification to OTR. As it stands now, when OTR is installed, you will save a backup of your Reaper User Folder and use the OTR folder instead. This means any personal customizations travel with your personal User Folder. Any modifications once OTR is installed would travel with the new User Folder (which is essentially OTR). When it comes to future upgrades of OTR, it will currently require a full replacement of the User Folder - which will cause any modifications to be lost.

BUT - with all of that said, it is important to view OTR as a solution to not having to mod Reaper ever again. And while the modder-mind is who Reaper most easily attracts, the goal is to make OTR somewhat of a super-user folder with any and all mods needed for improvements to workflow. In that way, OTR could be viewed similar to how other software developers release updates over time. Reaper will make updates which will improve the user experience of the audio engine itself, while OTR will make updates that will be focused on workflow improvements for the people actually using the brilliant software the Reaper devs have created.

In that, OTR could be seen as a baseline piece of software for the composer community here with any and all suggestions being added to it over time. Think of it as a community-led software development process. I certainly have plans to add additional features, so this is just the beginning


----------



## Phillip (Jan 25, 2017)

Very impressive work. You've taken Reaper ( a great DAW already) to a completely new level. OTR is a gift to a composer who is using Reaper. All the best with future development.


----------



## Mars (Jan 26, 2017)

It's seems impressive !!
From a marketing point of view, as a beginner (both in Reaper and music composition), I don't feel like I'm the "target customer" with this offer. 

That's not a big issue (lots of functionnalities seem to be way beyond my needs/understanding), but I feel like I could really use a beginner template at a reasonable price (say, 49$). 

I searched for Reaper orchestral template and found nothing (maybe it's deeply buried in the Cockos forum, that's a possibility  ), so maybe there's a niche for that.


----------



## Maximvs (Jan 26, 2017)

Mars said:


> It's seems impressive !!
> From a marketing point of view, as a beginner (both in Reaper and music composition), I don't feel like I'm the "target customer" with this offer.
> 
> That's not a big issue (lots of functionnalities seem to be way beyond my needs/understanding), but I feel like I could really use a beginner template at a reasonable price (say, 49$).
> ...



More or less in the same situation as Mars.... I do not need a huge template for my productions but your work looks excellent... consider a smaller template for Reaper newbies and people who don't need lots of tracks...

Cheers, Max T.


----------



## storyteller (Jan 26, 2017)

Thanks @Mars and @Massimo for the well wishes.

If neither of you mind, could you elaborate on "smaller template?" I certainly want to understand more and see if I can accommodate that idea. I'm definitely more than willing to explore that concept - I just don't know what you mean exactly. It is entirely possible to reduce the template down to, say, 5 categories versus 22, and subsequently remove the same number of VCA channels, but even then, all of the menus and everything else involved is still the same. It is part of the fundamental problem with DAWs and the composer's workflow. The idea I'm hoping to convey with OTR is it is not just a solution for professionals, but a solution for newcomers to just plug-and-play with all of the complexities tucked out of the way. Also in OTR, you only have to bring out the portions of the template you think you may use. Otherwise, normal workflows work just the same here too with everything else hidden from view. Maybe that is something I could demonstrate in a new video. 

In the coming week, I plan on putting together a "getting started" video and a more concise marketing video as @Joe_D suggested. Maybe I haven't managed to illustrate what all OTR does well enough (or concisely enough), and if you haven't hit those struggling points yet, then maybe it does seem overwhelming. I'm just thinking aloud as I ultimately hope that this is well received by beginners, professionals, and those somewhere in-between, alike. So any further thoughts as to what it is you would hope a smaller template would do for you would be greatly appreciated. I'd love to see where OTR might be missing from your workflow and how a smaller solution may help.


----------



## Tysmall (Jan 27, 2017)

Really inspiring work. After digging into an insane rabbit hole of research these past two days I've decided Reaper is exactly what I was looking for in a daw and just how much b.s. I had become accustomed to dealing with in FL studio. Thank you so much, I will be looking into getting your project when it releases. Would you be willing to sell certain scripts separately as I find I need them? 
I am a giant nerd and will take a ton of pleasure in scripting my own template ... But it's always nice to have a good foundation.


----------



## storyteller (Jan 27, 2017)

Tysmall said:


> Really inspiring work. After digging into an insane rabbit hole of research these past two days I've decided Reaper is exactly what I was looking for in a daw and just how much b.s. I had become accustomed to dealing with in FL studio. Thank you so much, I will be looking into getting your project when it releases. Would you be willing to sell certain scripts separately as I find I need them?
> I am a giant nerd and will take a ton of pleasure in scripting my own template ... But it's always nice to have a good foundation.


Thanks @Tysmall. I think you will be quite happy with Reaper (and OTR - but I'm a bit partial on this one ). The scripts are all written to work with the template, so it would not do much good in breaking them out separately. Everything about OTR is a built-from-the-ground-up template design for a Composer & VI Artist's workflow. The scripts are all written modularly to fit this template design and workflow. But that's part of the beauty in Reaper. Everything you do can be customized just for you! The idea behind OTR is to have a solution for all of the problems people face without having to create it themselves. 

Hope that answers your question. I look forward to hearing how your journey with Reaper (and OTR) goes.


----------



## robgb (Jan 28, 2017)

This looks pretty amazing, but I have to say that since Reaper is a poor man's DAW (and I mean this in terms of price, not functionality), I think the price of the template is far out of reach of the average Reaper using composer. My unsolicited two cents.


----------



## just2high (Jan 28, 2017)

Wow really amazing work, I can't imagine how long this took. Being a Reaper user as well I am very impressed with how well thought out and clean everything is. I didn't have time right at this moment to go through the entire overview video, I might suggest making a shorter one that just speeds through the functionality so people can see what your template can do. 

My other question is how this fits into a workflow that uses VE Pro? 




robgb said:


> This looks pretty amazing, but I have to say that since Reaper is a poor man's DAW (and I mean this in terms of price, not functionality), I think the price of the template is far out of reach of the average Reaper using composer. My unsolicited two cents.



robgb, Just because the price of Reaper itself is so low doesn't mean that the tools made for it can't be of very high quality. A lot of people using Reaper will have very high level plugins and instruments as well, and this tool is definitely not in the low level category, and even the price of the template + reaper is still cheaper than a lot of other DAWs, especially at the intro pricing.


----------



## robgb (Jan 28, 2017)

just2high said:


> robgb, Just because the price of Reaper itself is so low doesn't mean that the tools made for it can't be of very high quality. A lot of people using Reaper will have very high level plugins and instruments as well, and this tool is definitely not in the low level category, and even the price of the template + reaper is still cheaper than a lot of other DAWs, especially at the intro pricing.


I don't find a template—as terrific as it looks—to be worth $119, let alone over $200. Just my personal opinion. Others are obviously free to disagree.


----------



## airflamesred (Jan 28, 2017)

robgb said:


> I don't find a template—as terrific as it looks—to be worth $119, let alone over $200. Just my personal opinion. Others are obviously free to disagree.


Maybe I'm missing something but that seems a ridiculous price for a template. It can't have taken 15 men, 4 years to put this together. The best of luck to you but Duncan Bannatyne would see right through that.


----------



## tack (Jan 28, 2017)

My Reaper license is a rounding error next to all the other investments I've made. The last reverb I bought cost me more than three times what Reaper did.

Given the target audience -- those who are likely to buy very expensive VIs -- I don't think the price is crazy. If it saves a working composer a single day on a project, then it just paid for itself.

I actually think the reason this might be mismarketed isn't due to Reaper's cost, but due to Reaper's philosophy. Reaper requires a significant time investment to develop a useful workflow. I think the vast majority on this forum who use Reaper aren't doing so because we're starving artists on a shoestring budget, but rather we because don't mind the technical challenge and prefer to have a highly customized workflow, and there is no DAW better suited for this than Reaper, AFAICT. Working composers on tight deadlines are likely already using Cubase or Logic or something that isn't completely maddening out-of-the-box.

I wish storyteller good luck with his commercial endeavors. He may not win over any existing users, but he might succeed in attracting disgruntled users of other DAWs looking to make some changes but have been put off by Reaper's abhorrent out-of-the-box experience† for serious MIDI work.

† Slight hyperbole.


----------



## jemu999 (Jan 28, 2017)

Hey Storyteller,

Congrats on the product. A few questions, are all of the tracks "Disabled", in other words, removed from RAM and such? Also, do you include all of the custom midi editor scripts missing from basic reaper, like the ones from here:
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=176878

Thnx


----------



## calebfaith (Jan 28, 2017)

Hey,

Do you support VEP with the track templates?


----------



## pmcrockett (Jan 28, 2017)

tack said:


> Given the target audience -- those who are likely to buy very expensive VIs -- I don't think the price is crazy. If it saves a working composer a single day on a project, then it just paid for itself.
> 
> I actually think the reason this might be mismarketed isn't due to Reaper's cost, but due to Reaper's philosophy. Reaper requires a significant time investment to develop a useful workflow. I think the vast majority on this forum who use Reaper aren't doing so because we're starving artists on a shoestring budget, but rather we because don't mind the technical challenge and prefer to have a highly customized workflow, and there is no DAW better suited for this than Reaper, AFAICT. Working composers on tight deadlines are likely already using Cubase or Logic or something that isn't completely maddening out-of-the-box.


As a Reaper user, this is how I read the situation, too. I switched from Sonar because of Reaper's flexibility, but I'm too far down the rabbit hole of scripting and customization on my own to be able to fit additional prebuilt scripts and templates into my workflow. The price doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but the very thing that drew me to Reaper (the ability to rewrite how the program works myself) is also the thing that makes me not really a part of the target demographic for OTR.

It's a shame that there's no way to do a time-limited demo for OTR -- combined with Reaper's own generous demo terms, it would be a great way to catch the interest of people using other DAWs and looking to switch to something else.


----------



## Kent (Jan 28, 2017)

As a Logic user who is looking to explore other DAWs (not to "desert" Logic, but just to broaden my knowledge and see if the grass is really greener), I think this may blow the door wide open for Reaper for me. I consider myself pretty tech-minded, but starting a new DAW completely from scratch - especially one like Reaper - is not what I'm looking for. I want stupidly simple when I need it and the ability to customize things to my needs when I need it. Logic does a pretty good job at both of these, thanks in no small part to some ingenious third party vendors filling scripting holes, but I've always been jealous of how beautiful some of the skins are for Reaper and how even the most esoteric needs can still be met per user. If this does what I think it will do, it will allow me to explore the Reaper world on a stupidly simple level - something it's been missing - and allow me to delve deeper if and when I need to. Can't ask for much more than that!


----------



## storyteller (Jan 28, 2017)

Hey guys. Today I've been busy putting together a new (and much shorter! ) Primer video for OTR as a few people here have requested. It's edited as concisely as possible to illustrate all of the main features from starting up with a blank project all the way through to mixing stems. Obviously there is much, much more that can be explored through the walkthrough videos, but I think this particular video gives a much better 10,000 foot view of what OTR is and how it can benefit composers & vi artists... as well as presenting a cost analysis at the end. Hope you enjoy it!



I'm also about to follow up with all of the questions asked in the thread. So if you've asked a question, your answer is coming as quickly as I can get through the various posts from today. And also - thank you to everyone that's shared compliments about OTR. It really is something I am very proud of.


----------



## storyteller (Jan 28, 2017)

just2high said:


> My other question is how this fits into a workflow that uses VE Pro?



Good question! This question also came up on the KVR and Cockos forums. At its heart, a VEP instance is just another Virtual Instrument when initiated on the track with a user-defined output configuration. So, for a user who already has templates setup in VEP, starting a track is as simple as adding a blank TrackTemplate of your choice based on how the instance is configured and then inserting the VEP plugin onto the instrument track. Even for VEP, the TrackTemplate choices use the same prebuilt OTR configurations, which have the option of having a single VI lane, or 16 additional midi lanes for the instance. They also allow the selection of routing output options. So if you are using 16 mono outputs, that is a selectable option. 8 stereo outputs is also a selectable option. If you choose to have these routed to a virtual orchestral or choir hall, that is also an option. So it actually works very, very seamlessly - with zero need to mess with track routing. Just plug and play with all of the flexibility you need.


----------



## storyteller (Jan 28, 2017)

robgb said:


> I don't find a template—as terrific as it looks—to be worth $119, let alone over $200. Just my personal opinion. Others are obviously free to disagree.


Just to clarify on the word "template" as I think that word is possibly causing a great deal of misunderstanding...

Just as @tack shared, Reaper alone is not the ideal solution for a composers workflow unless you are wanting to test your programming chops. But really, nor is any other DAW at this point in their development stages. The composer workflow is just more intense and intricate than they can seamlessly accommodate - and represents a smaller demographic than those companies care to intimately address. Believe me. I've used all of the other DAWs to their limits. So people work with what is available. 

But that is what makes the Reaper + OTR combination so wonderful - because it is unique in solving the problems composers and VI Artists face. OTR is - at its heart - yes, a template. But, to make the heart function, there are 250 personally developed scripts and 11 custom menus that have been developed to make the heart work. None of this is available "out of the box" in Reaper or in any other DAW. While it is possible for Reaper users to create their own "OTR-like workflow," it simply isn't available as a commercial or community product for anyone today... which is a pain point for many composers looking at Reaper longingly as a potential solution. Where OTR excels is in how it really is architected with the most streamlined routing possible with a startup-and-make music all the way through to the rendering stem stage philosophy. From creation to bouncing stems. It is all in one package. And with TrackPacks (which will really shine once I'm able to add the bigger libraries), a composer will never ever have to setup a new library again. Just load up the TrackPack. That last part makes me smile the most.

Hope that better helps define the use of the word "template." By all means, I'm not attempting to sway your opinion. We're all entitled to those. I'm just really excited to be able to share this product and I do appreciate the encouragement you shared as well. When something you've made can help others and remove the mystery out of the process... well, that's kinda what its all about. Musicians helping musicians.


----------



## storyteller (Jan 28, 2017)

jemu999 said:


> Hey Storyteller,
> 
> Congrats on the product. A few questions, are all of the tracks "Disabled", in other words, removed from RAM and such?


Thank you! To answer your first question... Yes. Disabled means "removed from RAM and such." The Reaper engine does many things very efficiently - but this is one that it is very good at. When a VI is disabled, it unloads the pool from ram. When it activates it, it will have to reload that memory pool. If you are seeking a solution for ram-heavy VIs on a modest system, this would certainly fit the bill. Keep in mind though, that even disabled tracks will have at least a small footprint based on the what the configuration is. For example, while most track templates are kilobytes in size, a large string library may be 200-300mb for the entire TrackTemplate. That is a combination of all of the routing and script code held within the disabled Kontakt instances. So that part can't be dumped from ram as it is part of the footprint of the tracks within Reaper.

Secondly, the audio engine is extremely efficient... as in thousands (yes, that's plural) of tracks in a session at a usable buffer when configured properly on a good system... and OTR is. If for some reason you did decide to push those boundaries, Reaper has a really awesome (relatively unknown) design feature. By muting a track, it causes that track's resources to be bypassed from the audio engine buffer. It doesn't dump the ram like disabling a track does, but it does slightly lessen the load on the CPU. With high track counts, the CPU will be taxed first. So muting unused tracks (even disabled tracks) will free up some additional mojo.



jemu999 said:


> Also, do you include all of the custom midi editor scripts missing from basic reaper, like the ones from here:
> http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=176878


Those scripts will be included but are not part of the marketing of OTR because I want people to be able to distinguish the OTR product as what has actually been created rather than trying to decide if OTR "is just a collection of the best freely available scripts of Reaper"...which it is not. Any scripts that have been added for convenience such as the midi scripts are not counted in the marketing numbers at all, nor are they included in the walkthrough videos as I consider those part of Reaper's core functionality - much like SWS. They are not part of the "250 custom scripts or 11 menus" etc.

Hope this helps!


----------



## storyteller (Jan 28, 2017)

calebfaith said:


> Do you support VEP with the track templates?



While I just discussed this topic in a reply to a previous question in the queue, I did want to elaborate on one more part... TrackPacks. If for some reason you are using VEP and want to use a specific TrackPack (which are pre-configured Track Templates for specific sample libraries such as Berlin Woodwinds, etc), then you will have one more step to use the TrackPack. Since the template will reference a particular NKM held within a Kontakt multi, you will have to replace the Kontakt plugin with a VEP instance and load the NKM (which will be included separately in the TrackPacks for just this very reason) in your VEP instance. If it is something like a synth VST, you will have to load that within VEP too. There really isn't a way around that additional step since VEP is - in its own way - a system designed to alter/compliment the workflow within a DAW. But I think it is a good compromise for those that don't want to use the TrackPacks as designed.


----------



## storyteller (Jan 28, 2017)

pmcrockett said:


> It's a shame that there's no way to do a time-limited demo for OTR -- combined with Reaper's own generous demo terms, it would be a great way to catch the interest of people using other DAWs and looking to switch to something else.


I've thought about some very creative ways to do this (even though it would seem like it shouldn't be possible), but either way, a demo version would not be able to be made available by the scheduled release date. But stay tuned. That's on my radar at least.


----------



## Daniel Petras (Jan 28, 2017)

It would be nice to see some attention to the midi editing functionality as sometimes it feels a bit lacking.


----------



## jemu999 (Jan 28, 2017)

Sonorityscape said:


> It would be nice to see some attention to the midi editing functionality as sometimes it feels a bit lacking.


This. There is not a single video on youtube on how to use those custom midi scripts I mentioned in my post above. It boggles my mind why reaper does not include them natively. 



storyteller said:


> Those scripts will be included but are not part of the marketing of OTR because I want people to be able to distinguish the OTR product as what has actually been created rather than trying to decide if OTR "is just a collection of the best freely available scripts of Reaper"


I understand. But.... 

Also, do any of the visibility tabs have a feature to "Show only tracks with midi information"? Also, can we choose our own colors for tracks/stems/fx/etc?

BTW, I like the new overview video you just put up. I think more detailed, and longer videos like that would be great. As someone mentioned previously, you know the custom setup so well, but it's quite a lot to take in for new viewers.
As you say, its very custom. Really great, actually. Im interested... but I want to see/learn more.


----------



## Tysmall (Jan 28, 2017)

I'm unfamiliar with how the template tracks are presented in terms of file type. Is the lua (or whatever you used) viewable? or is it like a compressed filetype that runs when reaper is opened?

I'm looking at some of the free extensions on github right now trying to make sense of some stuff for ideas I have (I know no lua or python atm so this will be interesting), and it would be an invaluable resource to be able to analyze your scripts and see exactly what is happening.

I understand it being a paid product and all this could be detrimental to business, but pm me if anything could be worked out. I plan on using your template as a base (with a lot of bases covered).

Also will you be updating the template / and if so will you charge for major updates?

Questions questions questions. I'm getting to the deep part of the manual so I'll probably just pm you with some nitty gritty stuff if that is alright with you. I'd rather not clutter up the thread with overly specific technical stuff.


----------



## pmcrockett (Jan 28, 2017)

Sonorityscape said:


> It would be nice to see some attention to the midi editing functionality as sometimes it feels a bit lacking.


I agree. The bulk of the scripting I've done on my own has been MIDI editing hacks, because I don't like the way editing works by default in any DAW. I have some notion of making my editing scripts publicly available at some point in the future after they're all working properly, but they're idiosyncratic enough that they'd either need a lot of user configuration/scripting or a lot of work on my end to make them generally usable (I run them from a Lemur-based touchscreen frontend which involves some bizarre measures to get the two programs to talk to each other properly, and I'd really need a Reaper-based GUI before I'd give the scripts to other users without caveat).

Thinking about what would be involved in making my scripts presentable is one of the things that impresses me about OTR, actually. Props to storyteller for making it work as a viable commercial project.


----------



## Kent (Jan 28, 2017)

Ok, a few questions:

1. Would we be able to script/create our own TrackPacks (or perhaps modify a stock dummy into what we need)? It would be unfortunate to have to wait for a new one just to use a new library, especially if we need to use that sound immediately.

As a sub-question, I see how integral they are to the single-click ethos, but is OTR possible to use without them at all?

2. I am a little lost on the articulation switching. I understand the single-track-per-articulation paradigm, which you've shown clearly, but I use an articulation switching automation script in Logic, sort of akin to Cubase's Expression Maps. Would this be compatible with something like this and, if so, would we be able to customize our OSC/touchpad control to lay out articulations in a way best-suited to our workflow? (I know this question is a little confusingly-worded; I can elaborate if need be with examples from how I have things set up in Logic.)

3. Is OTR compatible with, say, something like White Tie Imperial? http://www.houseofwhitetie.com/reaper/imperial/wt_imperial.html

4. For those of us who don't know Reaper's MIDI workflow, but have heard people complain about it, what things does OTR include (original to OTR or not) to increase its capabilities?

I can see you've thought very thoroughly about most of the issues that have been bothering me about the technological side of composing for media and have come up with some really neat answers. Thanks!


----------



## EvilDragon (Jan 29, 2017)

1. I see no reason why not. OTR template can't really forbid you to overwrite/update track templates ("TrackPacks") yourself.

3. From what I can tell, OTR is theme-independent, so yes.


----------



## Maximvs (Jan 29, 2017)

I have been considering Reaper for quite sometimes but what I have read so far on this thread has created some serious doubts... It sounds like Reaper's learning curve is quite steep with so many options and configurations to set up. I am prepare to spend some time to learn how to operate Reaper but not interested at all in going down the route of scripting and the whole shebang...

OTR certainly looks like a great solution especially for people like myself that are brand new to Reaper and with little programming skills. I have to say that in my particular situation I don't need hundreds of per-configured tracks. I am not the typical media composer that requires a large template and this is why I did ask if a reduced version of OTR may be a possibility.

Cheers, Max


----------



## Daniel Petras (Jan 29, 2017)

Massimo said:


> I have been considering Reaper for quite sometimes but what I have read so far on this thread has created some serious doubts... It sounds like Reaper's learning curve is quite steep with so many options and configurations to set up. I am prepare to spend some time to learn how to operate Reaper but not interested at all in going down the route of scripting and the whole shebang...
> 
> OTR certainly looks like a great solution especially for people like myself that are brand new to Reaper and with little programming skills. I have to say that in my particular situation I don't need hundreds of per-configured tracks. I am not the typical media composer that requires a large template and this is why I did ask if a reduced version of OTR may be a possibility.
> 
> Cheers, Max


I don't think you necessarily need to know scripting in Reaper (I could be wrong as I know very little about it and therefore don't know what I'm missing) to benefit from the flexibility of the program. The are still ways to create your own custom actions that can function with your template without having to delve into scripting. For example I created my own orchestral template similar to the one in the video, albeit less in-depth, that allows me to hide, navigate and locate a couple hundred tracks with ease through creating some custom actions that did not require any scripting knowledge. It sped up my workflow considerably. Now I just need a machine that doesn't freeze under the strain from the size of the template every 10 seconds..


----------



## Quasar (Jan 29, 2017)

ED mentions something that already occurred to me as well, that the TrackPacks seem to be essentially the same as the native track templates (correct me if I'm wrong), already one of Reaper's most useful features, and already extremely easy (and free) to set up. With a track template, no matter how large or complex you want a track group to be, you only have to set it up once, save in the directory of your choice, and you're forever (or for however long forever is in this short life) good to go. So I'm not sure what the TrackPacks per se would do for me...


----------



## Maximvs (Jan 29, 2017)

Sonorityscape said:


> I don't think you necessarily need to know scripting in Reaper (I could be wrong as I know very little about it and therefore don't know what I'm missing) to benefit from the flexibility of the program. The are still ways to create your own custom actions that can function with your template without having to delve into scripting. For example I created my own orchestral template similar to the one in the video, albeit less in-depth, that allows me to hide, navigate and locate a couple hundred tracks with ease through creating some custom actions that did not require any scripting knowledge. It sped up my workflow considerably. Now I just need a machine that doesn't freeze under the strain from the size of the template every 10 seconds..



Thanks Daniel for your kind reply and feedback...


----------



## Ashermusic (Jan 29, 2017)

kmaster said:


> As a Logic user who is looking to explore other DAWs (not to "desert" Logic, but just to broaden my knowledge and see if the grass is really greener), I think this may blow the door wide open for Reaper for me. I consider myself pretty tech-minded, but starting a new DAW completely from scratch - especially one like Reaper - is not what I'm looking for. I want stupidly simple when I need it and the ability to customize things to my needs when I need it. Logic does a pretty good job at both of these, thanks in no small part to some ingenious third party vendors filling scripting holes, but I've always been jealous of how beautiful some of the skins are for Reaper and how even the most esoteric needs can still be met per user. If this does what I think it will do, it will allow me to explore the Reaper world on a stupidly simple level - something it's been missing - and allow me to delve deeper if and when I need to. Can't ask for much more than that!




I tried it for three days. Made me want to end my life


----------



## tack (Jan 29, 2017)

Jay, we get it. You don't like Reaper.


----------



## Ashermusic (Jan 29, 2017)

I only responded to the specific post because he is a Logic guy, so it could be that it is particularly a tough transition for those of us used to the admittedly unusual way it approaches many things.


----------



## Kent (Jan 29, 2017)

Ashermusic said:


> I only responded to the specific post because he is a Logic guy, so it could be that it is particularly a tough transition for those of us used to the admittedly unusual way it approaches many things.


I just wanna be good at everything... is that too much to ask?


----------



## storyteller (Jan 29, 2017)

Sonorityscape said:


> It would be nice to see some attention to the midi editing functionality as sometimes it feels a bit lacking.


Challenge accepted. I'll add a midi video!


----------



## storyteller (Jan 29, 2017)

jemu999 said:


> This. There is not a single video on youtube on how to use those custom midi scripts I mentioned in my post above. It boggles my mind why reaper does not include them natively.


I'll highlight those prominently in the midi video


jemu999 said:


> Also, do any of the visibility tabs have a feature to "Show only tracks with midi information"? Also, can we choose our own colors for tracks/stems/fx/etc?


Yep! There are 2 midi show/hide toggle buttons. One button toggles all of the midi channels on and off. The other one (called "Toggle VI-MIDI V2" in the menu) toggles the active midi channels on and off only (hiding what is not in use).

As for colors, Reaper allows you to colorize any track. The included SWS extensions add to that functionality. You won't need to know anything about the extension so much as it just exists and as a menu option and adds additional color options like gradients etc. By default, all of OTR's tracks within the template are pre-colored. So, to recolor the sections you could either just change them manually, or (if you want to get a little knee-deep in the code), there is a file that is very similar to how a webpage uses CSS to define elements. You can just change the hex values for each of the types of tracks. To make it apply to all of the tracks, you will have to press the "Reset All" or "Reset Selected" buttons on the color menu which will apply that color file to the tracks. So, you certainly could get into that type of customization if you desired.



.


----------



## storyteller (Jan 29, 2017)

Tysmall said:


> I'm unfamiliar with how the template tracks are presented in terms of file type. Is the lua (or whatever you used) viewable? or is it like a compressed filetype that runs when reaper is opened?
> 
> I'm looking at some of the free extensions on github right now trying to make sense of some stuff for ideas I have (I know no lua or python atm so this will be interesting), and it would be an invaluable resource to be able to analyze your scripts and see exactly what is happening.
> 
> ...


Updates will definitely occur over time and should remain free unless there is a significant change to Reaper itself that required a major code overhaul in OTR. As far as I can tell, it seems very unlikely that would be the case in relation to how OTR is architected... but again, I don't want to speak in absolutes in case something does change.

Also, PM sent.


----------



## Daniel Petras (Jan 29, 2017)

storyteller said:


> Challenge accepted. I'll add a midi video!


I await with anticipation!


----------



## storyteller (Jan 29, 2017)

kmaster said:


> 1. Would we be able to script/create our own TrackPacks (or perhaps modify a stock dummy into what we need)? It would be unfortunate to have to wait for a new one just to use a new library, especially if we need to use that sound immediately.
> 
> As a sub-question, I see how integral they are to the single-click ethos, but is OTR possible to use without them at all?


Yes. There is a really awesome feature called Library Builder in OTR that will allow you to construct your own "TrackPack" for your libraries. The idea behind the TrackPacks is that it will take the workload off of the user if that particular library has been made available as a TrackPack. But I would expect most will make their own. Rest assured you can use OTR right away and set it up with your VIs the way that you would like. There are numerous blank Track Templates (and Track Templates preloaded with Kontakt) to make it extremely easy to just right-click and go.

TrackPacks should be seen as a luxury and convenience rather than integral to the workflow. They will speed it up! But it is not anything you could not do yourself. To be perfectly transparent about TrackPacks, the larger libraries will roll out when I have access to them and the time to get them done. The first ones will be libraries I personally own. This will mean some additional collaboration with those developers if the TrackPacks are to launch at the same time as a new library's launch.


kmaster said:


> 2. I am a little lost on the articulation switching. I understand the single-track-per-articulation paradigm, which you've shown clearly, but I use an articulation switching automation script in Logic, sort of akin to Cubase's Expression Maps. Would this be compatible with something like this and, if so, would we be able to customize our OSC/touchpad control to lay out articulations in a way best-suited to our workflow? (I know this question is a little confusingly-worded; I can elaborate if need be with examples from how I have things set up in Logic.)


Reaper does not *yet* have a native solution for expression maps. However, there is a solution within Reaper. I've included a plugin developed by Blake Robinson that does something very similar to expression maps. Again, this is similar to the midi scripts question you asked in that I don't particularly count this as a "feature" of OTR, but it is a "feature" that would have to be added and configured manually if OTR did not exist. You can read more about it here: http://www.syntheticorchestra.com/articulatereaper/ . Also, @tack is working on something in this area (I don't know much about where he is with it, though). But it sounds like he may be building out a more fully-featured solution compared to Blake's plugin (which should meet most people's needs).


kmaster said:


> 3. Is OTR compatible with, say, something like White Tie Imperial? http://www.houseofwhitetie.com/reaper/imperial/wt_imperial.html


You can certainly change themes as OTR is not "theme dependent." However, one aspect of OTR is that it uses various track lane skins in the default theme (such as having a fader on a track, no fader and a lot of text, some combination of the two). Some themes have all of those same track lane skin options. Some have various other options. Some may be limited and give only one or two track lane skin options. So, all that is to say that changing themes may result in an augmented workflow from the default way OTR is setup, or require a touch of fenagling - but that it part of the beauty in Reaper! That may be exactly what you want! 


kmaster said:


> 4. For those of us who don't know Reaper's MIDI workflow, but have heard people complain about it, what things does OTR include (original to OTR or not) to increase its capabilities?


The scripts by "juliansader" are generally the ones people reference when they talk about the missing midi functionality scripts. Those are all included, setup, and configured. I'm going to do a video on it since this seems to be a hot topic. Also, as mentioned above, the Blake Robinson plugin is included for a pseudo articulation map solution.


kmaster said:


> I can see you've thought very thoroughly about most of the issues that have been bothering me about the technological side of composing for media and have come up with some really neat answers. Thanks!


I can read minds


----------



## storyteller (Jan 29, 2017)

Tugboat said:


> ED mentions something that already occurred to me as well, that the TrackPacks seem to be essentially the same as the native track templates (correct me if I'm wrong), already one of Reaper's most useful features, and already extremely easy (and free) to set up. With a track template, no matter how large or complex you want a track group to be, you only have to set it up once, save in the directory of your choice, and you're forever (or for however long forever is in this short life) good to go. So I'm not sure what the TrackPacks per se would do for me...


You are correct. TrackPacks should be seen more as a luxury item. The idea is that once everything settles in with OTR's launch and I'm able to expand my way through creating the TrackPacks, that when a person decides to purchase a library, they can then jet on over to the Storyteller Store and pick up the TrackPack with everything pre-configured. Plug and play same day. That part is pretty darn cool. But if you are a do-it-yourselfer all of the tools are there to make it very easy. I'm going to post a "library builder" video to demonstrate how simple it is in the days to come. But over all, yes, it is essentially the native feature of Reaper (and one of Reaper's best), just hot-rodded with pre-configured routing.


----------



## tack (Jan 29, 2017)

storyteller said:


> Also, @tack is working on something in this area (I don't know much about where he is with it, though).


I'm kind of in a holding pattern until I can see where Reaper is going with its articulation mapping. I still intend to develop something to preserve the workflow I want with a nice UI, but at this point it only makes sense to integrate with the native articulation maps, which are still being fleshed out (and in the process of being revamped it seems).


----------



## storyteller (Jan 29, 2017)

Ashermusic said:


> I tried it for three days. Made me want to end my life


Haha.  I hear ya brother! That made me laugh . Jay every time I tried Reaper I initially felt the same way...attracted by its promises, confounded by how it natively uses the mouse scrolling, lost that I had to add things to it just to do what I wanted to do. So I kept returning to my main DAW. Then the crashes, the frustration. I spent more time setting up templates and trying to figure out _how to be_ efficient instead of_ actually being_ efficient. Eventually I decided that Reaper and I had to try out our relationship one more time - after all there was always this indescribable connection. So when I returned the last time (I think it was like the fourth or fifth time), I decided to learn what it was I _could do_ to make it work like it _should have _from the start. Then out popped OTR. It is kinda like crossing paths with that person you are strongly attracted to, but when you first meet, it goes horribly wrong because both people's guards are way up. But the attraction is there, so you keep returning. Then one day, you realize you were always in Love and always intended for each other. You just had to see each other. As James Cameron likes to use in movies, "I see you." Then suddenly, you find yourself married and with a child...aka OTR. It was like that.

*EDIT: *And to further the analogy...and now that child is of age and is seeking potential suitors. ha.


----------



## just2high (Jan 29, 2017)

storyteller said:


> Challenge accepted. I'll add a midi video!



So there's midi editing customization in the OTR as well? Very cool. As far as working with VE Pro it looks like applying the Kontakt routing customization within VE Pro should work? 

The new overview video is very helpful and shows off some of the features much better. A video on midi functions would be really cool, or even just a list of the 250 scripts would probably help people decide as well.

I can see how the term "template" may put some people off with the price, and while technically it is a "template" I think it should really be called a "workflow solution". 



Tugboat said:


> ED mentions something that already occurred to me as well, that the TrackPacks seem to be essentially the same as the native track templates (correct me if I'm wrong), already one of Reaper's most useful features, and already extremely easy (and free) to set up. With a track template, no matter how large or complex you want a track group to be, you only have to set it up once, save in the directory of your choice, and you're forever (or for however long forever is in this short life) good to go. So I'm not sure what the TrackPacks per se would do for me...



TrackPacks do make sense to me, from a business standpoint and also a consumer standpoint. For anyone who's set up a template you know how long it can take, and given all the routing and customization in OTR it probably takes quite a while to make sure there's no mistakes (with all the custom naming and handles you have to add). Paying someone $10 to save myself a day of work makes a lot of sense. So with TrackPacks you can give people the option of buying the base and then addons for only the libraries you have, which will save time out of the box, and also cut down the price of the product -- you only buy what you need. Caveat being the only TrackPacks possible will be the ones that storyteller owns.



tack said:


> I'm kind of in a holding pattern until I can see where Reaper is going with its articulation mapping. I still intend to develop something to preserve the workflow I want with a nice UI, but at this point it only makes sense to integrate with the native articulation maps, which are still being fleshed out (and in the process of being revamped it seems).



I've tried almost every DAW and they all have their annoyances, or a moment where you feel "I just wish it had this from X". And while REAPER may not have it out of the box, there is at least the possibility of recreating what you want or finding someone who is working on it. Someone just recently was working on an articulation switching function here:
http://sfer.online.free.fr/

I've yet to try it myself but it looks promising.


----------



## EvilDragon (Jan 29, 2017)

I'm thinking native articulation management will be the way to go. What was there in the prerelease was already pretty darn flexible... It just needs a more accessible UI. We'll see what happens. I'm thinking all of these scripted solutions for artic switching won't be necessary after the native method surfaces.


----------



## just2high (Jan 29, 2017)

EvilDragon said:


> I'm thinking native articulation management will be the way to go. What was there in the prerelease was already pretty darn flexible... It just needs a more accessible UI. We'll see what happens. I'm thinking all of these scripted solutions for artic switching won't be necessary after the native method surfaces.



Oh I didn't even realize one was being worked on, I figured they would get to it eventually but I'm not very patient. Also too busy to keep up with pre-releases, but that is very good to hear.


----------



## tack (Jan 29, 2017)

EvilDragon said:


> I'm thinking all of these scripted solutions for artic switching won't be necessary after the native method surfaces.


It really depends on how flexible it is. For example, if they don't provide a way to assign a MIDI channel to track notation events, or "conditional articulations" (for lack of a better term), these will be significant gaps that I'll be looking to fill with customization (assuming the relevant APIs are available).


----------



## storyteller (Jan 29, 2017)

just2high said:


> So there's midi editing customization in the OTR as well? Very cool. As far as working with VE Pro it looks like applying the Kontakt routing customization within VE Pro should work?



The midi functionality has the scripts that people seem to want to add almost instantly to vanilla Reaper. And like some have said here (and experienced), getting them installed and setup isn't an easy process for someone just stepping into Reaper for the first time, or someone who isn't very familiar with coding. Heck, even using them isn't really obvious at first. I admit I had to read through what was going on in the script notes several times before I had my "Roger that. I see what you've got going on" moment. But once they are setup properly, they work beautifully. And a quick walkthrough video and clear instructions in the manual will make it very easy to use. I also put a Quick Help button on the MIDI menu that provides instructions on those scripts.  It is actually very easy and simple to use - and explained very simply as well. The scripts streamline the process a ton and actually add ways of editing CC data that isn't possible in other DAWs. Very cool stuff. I'll show it in the next video.

Just for peace of mind, know that any person stepping into OTR and using these midi features for the first time, should be able to just click the midi button and say, "Cool! I like what this button does!!" Everything is clearly labeled and noted.



just2high said:


> The new overview video is very helpful and shows off some of the features much better. A video on midi functions would be really cool, or even just a list of the 250 scripts would probably help people decide as well.


Thanks! I had the same question come up on KVR and I'll provide the same answer. That is, I don't think listing out the script functions would be very relevant since they are built in a modular way that power all of the functionality you see happening. For example, a script may be as simple as "hide this and show that" and is called when you push a menu button, or it could be really complex for different push-button functionality features in OTR. And then there are actions that may call several scripts or several other actions that have multiple scripts within them. Its one of those things that _the whole is greater than the sum of all of its parts_. Listing out the number of scripts and actions is largely intended to help those that use Reaper understand the volume of work that is underlying the engine. The marketing numbers do not count the 3rd party scripts like the midi scripts either. Just in the midi menu, there are about 20 scripts that power this additional midi functionality. So, suffice to say, there's a lot going on beneath the hood. 

Consider OTR as a heart or an engine requiring those 250+ scripts & actions to function. I hope that better illustrates it for ya.


----------



## peter5992 (Jan 29, 2017)

Hi Jonathan:

I've been watching your youtube videos this afternoon - very impressive. I have been using Reaper for nearly 10 years now, I love the program ... very easy to use, very reliable. I use it pretty much straight out of the box.

Questions:

1. Can I modify your theme? For example, I would prefer the following order of instruments (similar to the traditional layout in orchestral scores): woodwinds / brass / percussion / (keyboards and synths) / strings. Note: I'm a real idiot when it comes to scripting and programming.

2. Can I use separate reverbs for front and rear? I have a 5.1 setup - quadrophonic for music, with separate front and rear reverbs (I love Eastwest's Spaces - they have these beautiful reverbs with impulses recorded individually for front and rear).

3. I love the custom made user themes for Reaper - in particular White Tie's Imperial Theme, Albert's Pro Tools 2.0.5 theme (which is my default theme). Can I use those with OTR?

4. In Reaper you can toggle FX / VSTs online / offline - does that work with OTR? I have well over 2 TB of virtual instrument samples, can't load all of them into memory at the same time or my computer will die. 24 GB of memory is not the latest or greatest but it's been plenty so far.

5. I created a custom "template" last year but it's so huge, I really don't use it. Is there a feature that I can hide / select only those tracks I am actually using in a cue? Frankly looking at 1,200 tracks at once drives me nuts.

Thanks!


----------



## EvilDragon (Jan 30, 2017)

3. already answered above. You can use any theme you want.

4. Yes.


----------



## Mars (Jan 30, 2017)

@EvilDragon , toggling FX/Vst off is not freeing up my RAM in reaper. Is there some specific script for that ? (sorry for the stupid question, I've searched about it before, but never found a satisfying answer)



storyteller said:


> If neither of you mind, could you elaborate on "smaller template?" I certainly want to understand more and see if I can accommodate that idea.



Many beginners like me (in composition/mixing/DAW etc) are starting with Reaper because it is cheap and promise a lot of things. And if they’re beginner, the chances they already have a simple template are pretty low. For us, your solution seems appealing but brings pretty advanced mixing concepts AND is expensive (being a beginner means I’d prefer to spend 150$ in new sounds or plugin rather than in DAW improvement). You’ll probably find it funny, but I’ve got one Kontakt instance per track, one reverb per track, and so on. My tracks are messy but for now, I’m happy with it because I’m able to create music (and even score short films). If I got one free hour in my life, I prefer compose rather than organize a fancy template (which is not the easiest thing to do with a « naked » reaper). 

All in all, if a cheap solution can help me with a simple routing template (3/4 verb instance, One kontakt instance per Instrument « family », existing scripts improving midi workflow), I’d be happy with that. And maybe this would convince me to « crossgrade » to the complete solution in the future. My 2 cents


----------



## EvilDragon (Jan 30, 2017)

Offlining FX does offload from memory, especially if Preferences->Plugins-VST->"Allow complete unload of VST plugins" is enabled.


----------



## utopia (Jan 30, 2017)

While I absolutely acknowledge and respect the work that's been put into this product I can't seem to find any real reason why this would be "faster,quicker and more organised" than my current disabled tracks template in Cubase. Everything is pre-routed into groups/fx sends and stems. Enabling a track to compose with is a matter of just selecting it and hitting a button on the keyboard (no right mouse clicks and sub menus). Visibility is perfectly managed through lemur on ipad - show all tracks, show tracks with data etc. Of course, batch exporting has been with cubase for a long time, so rendering multiple stems is also not a problem. I may have missed some important feature of OTR - would be grateful to anyone who could point me to it. 
Once again, I have big respect for this work and I sincerely wish the best of luck to the dev.


----------



## EvilDragon (Jan 30, 2017)

It's faster, quicker and more organized _for Reaper users_.


----------



## utopia (Jan 30, 2017)

EvilDragon said:


> It's faster, quicker and more organized _for Reaper users_.


yes, no problem with that. It's just that in the video he says it's "faster,quicker and more organised than any other DAW" so I was trying to figure out in which ways it would be better than what I currently have.


----------



## storyteller (Jan 30, 2017)

Thank you for the compliments! Now on to answering your questions...


peter5992 said:


> 1. Can I modify your theme? For example, I would prefer the following order of instruments (similar to the traditional layout in orchestral scores): woodwinds / brass / percussion / (keyboards and synths) / strings. Note: I'm a real idiot when it comes to scripting and programming.


Yep! It is as simple as dragging around the categories into the order you wish. If you wanted to dive into changing the button order on the menus to correspond with your new order, you can right click on the menu, click customize, then drag the buttons around too. Trying to rename the category tracks (the VI-C tracks) everywhere is not recommended though because each track contains attached configuration information that makes the template work.


peter5992 said:


> 2. Can I use separate reverbs for front and rear? I have a 5.1 setup - quadrophonic for music, with separate front and rear reverbs (I love Eastwest's Spaces - they have these beautiful reverbs with impulses recorded individually for front and rear).


Yep! I haven't spotlighted this feature yet, but I plan on adding a video for it. In addition to the standard stereo routing that all of the videos have demonstrated, there is also a "classic quad" mode that allows you to do just that, including rendering to quad stems. Full 5.1 and up will be added at a later point though.


peter5992 said:


> 3. I love the custom made user themes for Reaper - in particular White Tie's Imperial Theme, Albert's Pro Tools 2.0.5 theme (which is my default theme). Can I use those with OTR?


Yes - with a caveat. I answered this more in depth in an earlier post. But if the template supports all of the custom track lane skins that the standard Reaper theme used, then it will be seamless. If the template does not have all of the different track lane skins (such as faders on the track, or long text boxes, etc), then it will still work, but the template might have a slightly different workflow due to those changes. That might be what you want though! That's the beauty of Reaper.


peter5992 said:


> 4. In Reaper you can toggle FX / VSTs online / offline - does that work with OTR? I have well over 2 TB of virtual instrument samples, can't load all of them into memory at the same time or my computer will die. 24 GB of memory is not the latest or greatest but it's been plenty so far.


Yep! It does this very well. But, when you become comfortable with Track Templates and using (or creating your own) TrackPacks, then you won't even load them into the session until needed. Its quick. Simple. And really easy. It seems like they are in the session due to the right-click load process, but they are stored outside of it until you want to use them.


peter5992 said:


> 5. I created a custom "template" last year but it's so huge, I really don't use it. Is there a feature that I can hide / select only those tracks I am actually using in a cue? Frankly looking at 1,200 tracks at once drives me nuts.
> Thanks!


Yep! Reaper has a built in Track Manager that makes this easy. You can choose what is visible in the main tracking view as well as in the mixer view. But, also see my reply to number 4 above.


----------



## storyteller (Jan 30, 2017)

utopia said:


> While I absolutely acknowledge and respect the work that's been put into this product I can't seem to find any real reason why this would be "faster,quicker and more organised" than my current disabled tracks template in Cubase. Everything is pre-routed into groups/fx sends and stems. Enabling a track to compose with is a matter of just selecting it and hitting a button on the keyboard (no right mouse clicks and sub menus). Visibility is perfectly managed through lemur on ipad - show all tracks, show tracks with data etc. Of course, batch exporting has been with cubase for a long time, so rendering multiple stems is also not a problem. I may have missed some important feature of OTR - would be grateful to anyone who could point me to it.
> Once again, I have big respect for this work and I sincerely wish the best of luck to the dev.


Hey no worries! Its new and something to digest. And, it's a great question. I do stand by the comment that it is faster, quicker, and more efficient than every other DAW for a number of reasons that I'll try to touch on here.

Users transitioning from some DAWs will see a much greater swing in productivity than others. For Reaper users, there is nothing else like it. For Logic users, they will likely first see that with OTR, there is no better way to deal with high track counts and the folder struggles within that particular DAW and then start to see all of the push button functionality that is absent from Logic. Not to mention all of the routing is already setup. And while Cubase does have some work-arounds to the hurdles composers face, they are still work-around solutions that are not inherently baked into the workflow. You mentioned rendering stems. Zero configuration in OTR. It just works. But it sounds like you are settled in with Cubase and are very comfortable with your present workflow - and have probably put in a great deal of work to get there. That's great because it takes most people a really long time to get where you are. So you'd really have to compare your workflow with how _your workflow could be_ with OTR+Reaper. And honestly, only you will be able to assess that. No marketing will be able to speak to you like your own successes and potential struggles can. Maybe it is even as simple as, "I wish I could get rid of some of this clutter." Only you will know what pushes your buttons.

So really, the marketing is not to try to lure you away from something you are presently happy with. It is to provide each person with an opportunity to self-assess where their current workflows may face bottlenecks and see if OTR could be that solution. I've always believed that a person's work speaks for itself. in this case, the OTR product will do that for those that use it.

Also, a closing thought if I may add - it is very easy for a person to be comfortable with their existing workflow in the present moment because it either works or it doesn't. But what happens when a person adds the next big library? Perhaps they have a methodology down that they can work through quickly. But OTR does make this part very very simple in configuring and adding it to the template. That part is IMHO untouchable at the speed possible compared to other DAWs. And for those saying, "I'm struggling with my present situation. I need a different solution", there isn't a more comprehensive and easier solution than OTR+Reaper.

Hope this helps clarify a bit!


----------



## Kent (Jan 30, 2017)

@storyteller, Re: TrackPacks/track templates, will you release a guide on how to create/update them such that they integrate best with OTR?


----------



## storyteller (Jan 30, 2017)

kmaster said:


> @storyteller, Re: TrackPacks/track templates, will you release a guide on how to create/update them such that they integrate best with OTR?


Absolutely! The manual will cover this and this topic is also planned for another video I'll be putting out soon. It is definitely something important to cover.


----------



## peter5992 (Feb 1, 2017)

storyteller said:


> Thank you for the compliments! Now on to answering your questions...
> 
> Yep! It is as simple as dragging around the categories into the order you wish. If you wanted to dive into changing the button order on the menus to correspond with your new order, you can right click on the menu, click customize, then drag the buttons around too. Trying to rename the category tracks (the VI-C tracks) everywhere is not recommended though because each track contains attached configuration information that makes the template work.
> 
> ...



Thanks Jonathan.

Follow up questions:

1. Will there be a user manual?
2. What about user support? I'm probably going to have a LOT of questions .. 

By the way, your full name isn't Jonathan Loving, is it? He was the guru who wrote many soundsets for Sibelius, for integration with third party VSTs.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 1, 2017)

peter5992 said:


> Thanks Jonathan.
> 
> Follow up questions:
> 
> ...


Not the same Jonathan  But thank you for the compliment. Regarding the user manual - yes, there will be a comprehensive, yet very easy to read manual. It won't deep dive into everything that Reaper does independently of OTR, but it will certainly cover the basic Reaper functions one would need to know to navigate the template - and of course an in-depth look at OTR's functionality and how-to's. There will also be a Quick Start guide for those who just need the 1 to 2 page highlights on using OTR. 

As for support - absolutely! As you can probably tell, I'm fairly active here on VI-C and respond pretty quickly to any posts or PMs. I also want to ensure most of the how-to's are covered in videos posted to the Storyteller Youtube Channel. In addition to that, I'm easily accessible through email (found on the website). And, if the need arises, I'll be happy to setup a voice or Skype video call as well.

And just for an update on OTR's march toward it's release date, today I completed the screen recordings for 9 more videos (in addition to the 12 currently available). Those should begin to be made available over the next few days. There are also a few more videos planned before the release date that I'm really excited about.


----------



## peter5992 (Feb 2, 2017)

storyteller said:


> Not the same Jonathan  But thank you for the compliment. Regarding the user manual - yes, there will be a comprehensive, yet very easy to read manual. It won't deep dive into everything that Reaper does independently of OTR, but it will certainly cover the basic Reaper functions one would need to know to navigate the template - and of course an in-depth look at OTR's functionality and how-to's. There will also be a Quick Start guide for those who just need the 1 to 2 page highlights on using OTR.
> 
> As for support - absolutely! As you can probably tell, I'm fairly active here on VI-C and respond pretty quickly to any posts or PMs. I also want to ensure most of the how-to's are covered in videos posted to the Storyteller Youtube Channel. In addition to that, I'm easily accessible through email (found on the website). And, if the need arises, I'll be happy to setup a voice or Skype video call as well.
> 
> And just for an update on OTR's march toward it's release date, today I completed the screen recordings for 9 more videos (in addition to the 12 currently available). Those should begin to be made available over the next few days. There are also a few more videos planned before the release date that I'm really excited about.



Very cool --- thanks Jonathan. Yes, I watched the YouTube videos, but there's so much stuff to digest ... can't take it all in at once. 

As you know, I am on board --- can't wait for the release. 

I hope that I am not the only one, and that is going to be very successful for you. 

You obviously put a lot of time and effort into this. I really hope it will pay off.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 3, 2017)

As promised, here is a look into OTR's extended midi functionality. It is a three part series. Part 2 specifically takes a "how to approach" when using the extended functionality provided for by OTR. I know it was mentioned that many people stepping into Reaper for the first time often have trouble "demystifying," installing, configuring, and using the scripts Julian Sader provided to the Reaper community that turn Reaper into the DAW MIDI Heavyweight Champion. With OTR, you don't have to worry about setting them up. They are already included and ready to use. Everything is mapped, setup and ready to go.

In tradition with OTR's "ready-to-go-out-of-the-box" design philosophy, this extended midi functionality will just appear as if it was always supposed to be there. Shout out to Julian though for providing such incredible functionality to the Reaper community!

Part 3 highlights the included expression map functionality that utilizes Blake Robinson's incredible plugin. Native functionality is coming to Reaper soon though, so treat Blake's plugin as an "in-between solution" until the native solution is released.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 3, 2017)

jemu999 said:


> Also, can we choose our own colors for tracks/stems/fx/etc?



In addition to the midi videos I just uploaded, I also put up a new how-to video that demonstrates this functionality. Here ya go! Lot's of creative coloring freedom!


----------



## Tysmall (Feb 3, 2017)

The lfo automation has feeling all tingly inside. I'm really impressed Storyteller.


----------



## jemu999 (Feb 3, 2017)

storyteller said:


> As promised, here is a look into OTR's extended midi functionality. It is a three part series. Part 2 specifically takes a "how to approach" when using the extended functionality provided for by OTR. I know it was mentioned that many people stepping into Reaper for the first time often have trouble "demystifying," installing, configuring, and using the scripts Julian Sader provided to the Reaper community that turn Reaper into the DAW MIDI Heavyweight Champion. With OTR, you don't have to worry about setting them up. They are already included and ready to use. Everything is mapped, setup and ready to go.
> 
> In tradition with OTR's "ready-to-go-out-of-the-box" design philosophy, this extended midi functionality will just appear as if it was always supposed to be there. Shout out to Julian though for providing such incredible functionality to the Reaper community!
> 
> Part 3 highlights the included expression map functionality that utilizes Blake Robinson's incredible plugin. Native functionality is coming to Reaper soon though, so treat Blake's plugin as an "in-between solution" until the native solution is released.




Awesome work Storyteller. Not only are u doing a service for OTR, you are doing a great service to the Reaper application with these videos. These should have been made available by reaper a long time ago.

Thank you!

A few more questions though... 
1. I like seeing the envelope icon on each track. Is that possible?

2. Also, we can still add custom tool bars if we want, right?


----------



## storyteller (Feb 4, 2017)

Tysmall said:


> The lfo automation has feeling all tingly inside. I'm really impressed Storyteller.



Thanks! I've gotta say, your initial reply before you ghost-edited your post made me laugh. I initially saw it in my email where I guess you typed "Storymaker" instead of "Storyteller." I assume it was an accident since you changed it back in your post, but at the time I read it, I thought it was an intentional name change for "creating" OTR instead of "talking about" creating OTR. Haha. Freudian slip? Who knows. Kinda funny though! I liked it!

But, I'm with ya on with the LFO stuff! It really is as cool and useful as it looks. Thanks for the compliments!


----------



## Kent (Feb 4, 2017)

Thanks for posting those videos! What incredible functionality! As always, though, a few more questions:

1. Will OTR be optimized for Retina displays? I find I can't look at things that aren't for long periods of time.

2. Re: the "temporary placeholder" expression maps, in OTR, are you still limited to 16 articulations per track or can you load up to however many you need?


----------



## storyteller (Feb 4, 2017)

jemu999 said:


> Awesome work Storyteller. Not only are u doing a service for OTR, you are doing a great service to the Reaper application with these videos. These should have been made available by reaper a long time ago.
> 
> Thank you!



Thank you! I really hope they help demystify much of the confusion new users have with Reaper! As I mentioned in the Reaper forum, its just building bridges... so we can all just go make music and quit figuring out "how" to make the music we want to make. Now on to your questions.



jemu999 said:


> A few more questions though...
> 1. I like seeing the envelope icon on each track. Is that possible?



When you say "icon on each track" can you explain a bit more what it is you mean? I will say that, for example, the Volume and Pan envelope lanes are initially hidden from view, but by pressing "V" or "P" respectively, the envelope lanes reveal themselves right beneath each track. Not sure if this is what you mean.... but hopefully with a little more clarity I can answer your question a little better.



jemu999 said:


> 2. Also, we can still add custom tool bars if we want, right?



Short answer - Yep! Longer answer - Reaper provides a limited number of toolbar slots (sixteen I believe, off the top of my head). OTR uses *most* but not all of them (yet) with the various custom toolbars. So you can certainly use one of the empty lanes, or if you wanted to replace, say, one of the color menus, then you could do that with a custom menu toolbar. I have not touched the extra midi toolbar slots...yet. But at some point, OTR will likely expand into that area as well.


----------



## EvilDragon (Feb 4, 2017)

kmaster said:


> 1. Will OTR be optimized for Retina displays?



This depends on Reaper development, not OTR per se. There has been some movement on this front in the pre-releases, but it has some ways to go.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 4, 2017)

kmaster said:


> Thanks for posting those videos! What incredible functionality! As always, though, a few more questions:


Thanks!  Of course! Ask as many as you need! 


kmaster said:


> 1. Will OTR be optimized for Retina displays? I find I can't look at things that aren't for long periods of time.



I'm the same way! Kinda strange how we become spoiled by things like a retina display. I certainly believe that's one leap in technology that will go down as one of Apple's greatest accomplishments over the years. 

But to answer your question, all of the videos have been captured on a 27" 5k iMac screen running at the "normal 2x" resolution...and it looks very clean to my eyes. So essentially, the layouts shown have been displayed at 2.5k equivalent, but in retina form. As a whole, I don't think Reaper has fully implemented high-dpi support. Most notably, text isn't retina-crisp. However, it also isn't non-retina-optimized bad either when used at higher resolutions .. so it falls somewhere in-between as the Reaper devs march toward implementing scalable vector graphics and text. It is somewhat based on what resolution you choose to run Reaper in compared to your native resolution. But also note that Reaper does have a built in "scaler" that can scale graphics up and down to accommodate for this. So complicated answer, but in short it looks good on a 27" 5k iMac, with the exception that text could be sharper.

For those that may wonder about their current resolution and use with Reaper... obviously the more screen real estate you have, the better it will look. Thus far in the development process, OTR has been fully optimized for use with displays of 1920x1080 and up (I use a retina iMac 5k running at 2.5k effectively). Anything below this can certainly be used, but you may wish to toggle things like the master output on the right side off, or toggle the track lane on the left off. These "frame" the tracking area and will free up space when not needed. They are both a keyboard shortcut toggle away. On much smaller display resolutions (e.g. 1280 x 720), the number of menu items on the top toolbars might roll into two rows (depending on which menu). If this is the case for you, you may be okay with the two rows, or you can easily customize the toolbar by shortening the text labels, turning the buttons into half-size, removing the spaces between the sections, or by placing smaller icons on them instead of text, etc. That will be covered in the manual and at some point in the future, I plan to include low-resolution optimized menu configurations.



kmaster said:


> 2. Re: the "temporary placeholder" expression maps, in OTR, are you still limited to 16 articulations per track or can you load up to however many you need?


Blake's plugin that was showcased in video 3 is still limited to 16 articulations I believe. I think the native expression map functionality that the Reaper team is putting together is not limited.


----------



## jemu999 (Feb 4, 2017)

storyteller said:


> Thank you! I really hope they help demystify much of the confusion new users have with Reaper! As I mentioned in the Reaper forum, its just building bridges... so we can all just go make music and quit figuring out "how" to make the music we want to make. Now on to your questions.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


1. On Cubase I like that I'm able to see if a given track is on Read or Write for any automation I add, without having to expand the track. Is this possible?

2. My whole goal with OTR is to get rid of my slave computers, and create a large template within Reaper using the disable feature. Have all tracks loaded but disabled. Unfortunately with the Cubase audio engine on Mac, I was running into issues when enabling more than 50 tracks. Based on your experience with Reaper, what are your thoughts? I'm either going to upgrade to an iMac 5k 4.0ghz or upgrade my Mac Pro 5,1 to a 12 core 3.46? Any idea based on your own experience which might be better?

Thanks for all your help! I'm sold on OTR and will take advantage of the preorder!


----------



## AxEbel (Feb 4, 2017)

In the midi video you mentioned a TouchOsc template. Could you elaborate on this? ^^


----------



## storyteller (Feb 4, 2017)

jemu999 said:


> Thanks for all your help! I'm sold on OTR and will take advantage of the preorder!



No problem! Now I see what you are saying. So let's get to the answers...



jemu999 said:


> 1. On Cubase I like that I'm able to see if a given track is on Read or Write for any automation I add, without having to expand the track. Is this possible?


In the default theme that is used (and you can change themes very easily in Reaper), you have two ways to see the envelope mode. If the track is selected, it will display the envelope mode in the vertical track bar on the left side of the screen. In the videos, look just beneath the green play button looking icon along the right side of the meter on the the track. That is an icon indicating the envelope mode.

If you want to see it on the horizontal track lane itself, you will have to increase the track height to show the second row of information. When you enlarge the track, it auto fills in that information. Some themes may have that included on the minimized version.

As for which envelopes are in an armed state, Reaper does this very simply. If it is visible, its armed. If it is hidden, it is in read mode. If the envelope is visible and you want to disarm it but keep it showing, you can do that to. You just click the green arm/disarm button on the left side and it will toggle the state.



jemu999 said:


> 2. My whole goal with OTR is to get rid of my slave computers, and create a large template within Reaper using the disable feature. Have all tracks loaded but disabled. Unfortunately with the Cubase audio engine on Mac, I was running into issues when enabling more than 50 tracks. Based on your experience with Reaper, what are your thoughts? I'm either going to upgrade to an iMac 5k 4.0ghz or upgrade my Mac Pro 5,1 to a 12 core 3.46? Any idea based on your own experience which might be better?



This is where I personally believe OTR shines. I have been running it on a 4.0ghz maxed out iMac 5k and it works very very well. Tough call on the vader helmet vs the iMac, but for me, the display won me over. If the new mac pros come out, I'll have to reconsider. But with OTR using a freeze/disable concept, it will perform better than many host/slave setups because of one simple thing. The bottleneck isn't ram. Assume for a moment, that RAM is unlimited (even though it isn't). The bottleneck is voices in Kontakt. It will be every time. Run a complex library, you will hit that limit before anything else breaks a sweat. 

As an example, NI Symphony Series Strings has auto-divisi. The way the library plays a SINGLE note, is that it combines each divisi sample. So with a single key press on a single mic position, you consume four divisi streams of audio for the main sample, four for the attack, four for the release. That's 12 samples that will likely be overlapping at some point. Now, turn on 3 mic positions. That is 36 notes. And there is something I'm missing because the actual count in Kontakt is 48 notes. So, now play two notes. Doubled. Essentially a run could hit 1000 voices in the blink of an eye. Now that's just for Violins. Ensemble? Forget about it. Toast. Kontakt croaks. Mac pro or iMac? It wouldn't matter. The mac pro would survive longer, but still not make the cut.

Take the incredible Evolution Series World Percussion. Play a flam on the Dun ensemble. With four mic positions it consumes something like 1000 notes if you allow it.

You may be saying Kontakt can cycle off notes and you can cap the number of voices. True. You can, but it doesn't sound right in many cases. It can be very unnatural. That said, it _can_ be a solution for the scenario above. But it is a bandaid. 

But with the freeze/disable concept you can enable the violins in OTR, record. Freeze. Enable Violas, record, freeze. And so on, you get the equivalent of thousands and thousands of voices in complex orchestral passages. The best slave system would not pull that off. It is the same concept you could do in other DAWs that have freeze functionality, but building the templates is another story. It just doesn't work well.

So all that said, I'm not sure which one to recommend. If you have a great display, maybe go with more horsepower. But the 5k iMac screen is something that you don't realize how incredible it is until you look at any lesser monitor. And to me, the screen real estate is just as important as any other cpu/ram metric when choosing a new computer. So, that's kinda my two cents on the subject. Either will work well.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 4, 2017)

AxEbel said:


> In the midi video you mentioned a TouchOsc template. Could you elaborate on this? ^^



Haha. I almost edited that out of the video since I was thinking out loud when I said that. But yes, OTR includes a TouchOSC template. It is intended to be used with some of the more advanced library TrackPacks that will be released in the future but will be included with the initial release.

Think of it as the universal way OTR will treat CC control for many of the track packs that don't have preconfigured CCs. For example, NI's Symphony Series has no CC mapping by default. So the TrackPacks will include CC mapping out of the box and can be used with the TouchOSC template. But, you will still probably find it is really a nice template to use as a potential "everyday" TouchOSC template regardless. It was designed with consideration of the other Major developers CC mapping philosophies. So even though every developer is different, the template should handle what it can similarly regardless of developer.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 5, 2017)

Today I've added five new videos that showcase how to use Track Templates and how to use the Library Builder feature which will allow you to design your own TrackPacks. Hope you enjoy!  In particular, I think you just may be pleasantly surprised on the "OTR Mapped" version of the track templates. Not to spoil anything or spill the beans on new surprises upcoming, but you will see this feature used in some really amazing things to come (that I haven't yet shared)... More videos upcoming! 

OTR - Using Track Templates & Creating TrackPacks - Part 1 of 5


OTR - Using Track Templates & Creating TrackPacks - Part 2 of 5


OTR - Using Track Templates & Creating TrackPacks - Part 3 of 5


OTR - Using Track Templates & Creating TrackPacks - Part 4 of 5


OTR - Using Track Templates & Creating TrackPacks - Part 5 of 5


----------



## gregh (Feb 6, 2017)

Massimo said:


> I have been considering Reaper for quite sometimes but what I have read so far on this thread has created some serious doubts... It sounds like Reaper's learning curve is quite steep with so many options and configurations to set up. I am prepare to spend some time to learn how to operate Reaper but not interested at all in going down the route of scripting and the whole shebang...
> 
> OTR certainly looks like a great solution especially for people like myself that are brand new to Reaper and with little programming skills. I have to say that in my particular situation I don't need hundreds of per-configured tracks. I am not the typical media composer that requires a large template and this is why I did ask if a reduced version of OTR may be a possibility.
> 
> Cheers, Max



I've been using Reaper since pre v1 days and it has grown increasingly difficult to use through the addition of hundreds of functions, some of which can have unanticipated effects. The devs have shown no interest in usability at all which is a shame but ... I have thought for quite a while that the devs have been turning Reaper into more of a platform for others to put together rather than a DAW in and of its own. OTR is the first product I've seen that takes the Reaper-as-a-platform idea and makes a genuine product. I know a lot of composers and people who develop sample libraries and so on have built their own workflows - but OTR seems to be the first to make that available publicly in a robust and comprehensive form. I actually think OTR will make Reaper easier to learn for composers (not so much for people just strumming a guitar or in a grunge band / whatever for which Reaper is fine out of the box)

re not being a typical media composer - I know how you feel and sympathise. Most of my work is for artist videos / installations or for myself. Small scale and quite different in requirements one to the other. Out of the box Reaper is hopeless for that because you basically have to restructure the workspace each time and seldom get to memorise shortcuts etc


BUT - I have just found out on the Reaper forum that you can install multiple Reapers by installing as a portable install on different folders on your hard-drive. Then you can have a different Reaper for each type of practice you are engaged in at the time. And each one of those Reapers can be open at the same time and you can copy and paste between them! 

So I will have a REAPER_OTR folder with Reaper set up for OTR and another folder REAPER_GENERAL with Reaper set up for my work that doesn't need so many tracks and uses completely different customisations. When OTR updates I just have to update in the REAPER_OTR folder.


----------



## Maximvs (Feb 6, 2017)

gregh said:


> I've been using Reaper since pre v1 days and it has grown increasingly difficult to use through the addition of hundreds of functions, some of which can have unanticipated effects. The devs have shown no interest in usability at all which is a shame but ... I have thought for quite a while that the devs have been turning Reaper into more of a platform for others to put together rather than a DAW in and of its own. OTR is the first product I've seen that takes the Reaper-as-a-platform idea and makes a genuine product. I know a lot of composers and people who develop sample libraries and so on have built their own workflows - but OTR seems to be the first to make that available publicly in a robust and comprehensive form. I actually think OTR will make Reaper easier to learn for composers (not so much for people just strumming a guitar or in a grunge band / whatever for which Reaper is fine out of the box)
> 
> re not being a typical media composer - I know how you feel and sympathise. Most of my work is for artist videos / installations or for myself. Small scale and quite different in requirements one to the other. Out of the box Reaper is hopeless for that because you basically have to restructure the workspace each time and seldom get to memorise shortcuts etc
> 
> ...



Thanks Gregh for your kind reply and feedback on Reaper and how you use it... More I watch the OTR videos and more I realize how much it helps new people like myself coming to Reaper for the first time... Cheers, Max


----------



## juliansader (Feb 6, 2017)

storyteller said:


> scripts Julian Sader provided to the Reaper community that turn Reaper into the DAW MIDI Heavyweight Champion. With OTR, you don't have to worry about setting them up. They are already included and ready to use. Everything is mapped, setup and ready to go.





I am delighted that someone has made a video about my MIDI scripts!

Anyone who is curious about these MIDI functions is welcome to visit the discussion/support threads in the REAPER forums:
MIDI editor tools: warp, stretch, deselect etc
LFO tool for MIDI editor and envelopes


----------



## devonmyles (Feb 7, 2017)

So, at present, what Vendor libraries are in the 'TrackPacks' ?
Is this info on the website and I have missed it?
Is so, my apologies.

Not a Reaper user, but this sure looks interesting.


----------



## Sekkle (Feb 7, 2017)

Hi Storyteller,

I have read through the the website and I am working my way through the videos and must say OTR looks very interesting. I have attempted using Reaper a number of times over the years but have never managed to get very far with it.

I am particularly interested in using Reaper for the sub-project function for separate cues in film scoring as demonstrated by Caleb Faith in another thread. This is one thing I find is a workflow killer in Cubase as I really like having all cues in the one project. This becomes a nightmare with recuts and cue versions as the tempo track becomes un-manageable. I have tried DP for it's chunks function but it was very buggy on my PC. Would the sub-project Reaper workflow work with OTR?

Another thing I need is 5.1 as most scores I do have to be delivered in 5.1 stems. I had a go trying to setup Nugen Halo in Reaper last night to test basic stereo to 5.1 up-mixing but couldn't figure it out. I also found Rea-surround panner to be quite confusing. You mentioned you would be looking into a 5.1 version of OTR and I was wondering when this might be and if there are better surround panning options than Rea-surround? I would also miss Cubase's control room for quickly checking fold-downs but I might be able to use my AIO Totalmix for that.

Finally, I don't really compose in a traditional orchestral setup and if I were to change the stem categories and effects to suite my specific workflow would this mess up everything that's going on under the hood, or could I easily just customise the OTR base as needed?

Ideally if I could customise OTR for my own categories/fx, have it running in 5.1 (including fx), use sub projects per cue, synch Videoslave 3 seamlessly and use Totalmix as a control room it could be the solution I've been wanting for years...


----------



## storyteller (Feb 7, 2017)

Thanks for all of the replies.  I'm going to get to the answers after this post. But first.... I want to unveil a new video demonstrating what is quite possibly _my favorite _feature of OTR (at least in what's been unveiled thus far ). This video focuses on QUAD Mixing and I'll also be adding this video to the primary post of this thread as well.

But here's what you need to know. OTR comes preconfigured for QUAD mixing - including bouncing to QUAD stems. No additional setup required. Make sure your 1/2 outputs are connected to your fronts and your 3/4 outputs to your rears. It is really that easy. Reverb/FX channels are preconfigured. No sloppy routing to make it happen either.

*But the BIG feature - *_though please try to stick through the whole video (I know it is long)_* - is unveiled at around 19 minutes.* Skip there if you are short on time. I am most, most proud of this. And I'm sure you may figure out when you see what is unveiled with the ways OTR can handle quad mixing, there will be even more to be revealed along the journey with OTR.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 7, 2017)

devonmyles said:


> So, at present, what Vendor libraries are in the 'TrackPacks' ?
> Is this info on the website and I have missed it?
> Is so, my apologies.
> 
> Not a Reaper user, but this sure looks interesting.


Thank you! You haven't missed it  The TrackPacks are still in the final stages of being completed so it will be closer to release date before I can provide a full list. But - also know - that if for some reason your favorite VI is not there at launch, the Collection Series will be constantly expanded and updated as more developers come on board. That's one of the great benefits of getting in early with the promo bundle. So, right now I'm working on getting as many VIs as I can get in there by the launch. That's my primary focus right now on the march to the 14th


----------



## storyteller (Feb 7, 2017)

Sekkleman said:


> Hi Storyteller,


Hello!


Sekkleman said:


> I am particularly interested in using Reaper for the sub-project function for separate cues in film scoring as demonstrated by Caleb Faith in another thread. This is one thing I find is a workflow killer in Cubase as I really like having all cues in the one project. This becomes a nightmare with recuts and cue versions as the tempo track becomes un-manageable. I have tried DP for it's chunks function but it was very buggy on my PC. Would the sub-project Reaper workflow work with OTR?


I would think so. I can't see any reason why it would not work in the same way as Caleb demonstrated. But I'll see if I can test that out more extensively in the days to come.... and maybe post a video on it too.


Sekkleman said:


> Another thing I need is 5.1 as most scores I do have to be delivered in 5.1 stems. I had a go trying to setup Nugen Halo in Reaper last night to test basic stereo to 5.1 up-mixing but couldn't figure it out. I also found Rea-surround panner to be quite confusing. You mentioned you would be looking into a 5.1 version of OTR and I was wondering when this might be and if there are better surround panning options than Rea-surround? I would also miss Cubase's control room for quickly checking fold-downs but I might be able to use my AIO Totalmix for that.


Before I got a chance to reply to this, I posted a video on the extensive QUAD features in OTR. Check that out. I think you may be exceedingly happy with the way OTR handles QUAD mixing. As for 5.1 and up, those features will be fully released (as a free upgrade of course) shortly after the initial OTR launch... hopefully within the 30 days following (subject to final testing). But the 5.1+ support is going to be quite remarkable. I'm really excited about those features. If you watch the QUAD video, I'm sure you can gather why I'm so excited about the 5.1 and up features.


Sekkleman said:


> Finally, I don't really compose in a traditional orchestral setup and if I were to change the stem categories and effects to suite my specific workflow would this mess up everything that's going on under the hood, or could I easily just customise the OTR base as needed?


In OTR, any track name that has a lock icon beside it is not supposed to have the track name changed - which is the case with the category names. You can certainly change the FX names though. For supporting OTR with a lot of users, I thought this was the best middle-ground solution (e.g. touch this, don't touch that). However, I do have plans to open up the ability to officially rename categories in a subsequent update (likely the first update which should include 5.1+ support).


Sekkleman said:


> Ideally if I could customise OTR for my own categories/fx, have it running in 5.1 (including fx), use sub projects per cue, synch Videoslave 3 seamlessly and use Totalmix as a control room it could be the solution I've been wanting for years...


That last part is great to hear! I honestly think this will be that very solution you've been waiting for. You just might have to wait on that first update to find your Complete Composer's Nirvana with 5.1.  As soon as I can get the surround features fully vetted for commercial use, and open up the category names, I will. On an unsupported side note, if you were to change the category names after the dash (VI-C: 1 - XXXXXX), you'd be okay for visual organization before any update arrives.


----------



## Sekkle (Feb 7, 2017)

Thanks for the reply, that all sounds really promising!

I watched through the quad vid and the single button routing looks great. I quite often use in-between positioning in surround like sending the outriggers halfway between the front and rear speakers, and to allow for this is there a possibility of a surround panner for the 16 outputs in the future? This could allow for extreme flexibility which would be pretty amazing.

For 5.1 I generally derive my centre channel from stereo sources using Nugen Halo as it folds back perfectly to stereo when in exact mode. Something I have been trying to figure out how to do in Cubase is say for example, if I had Spitfire Chamber Strings V1, send the ambience mics to the rear left/right, outriggers halfway between the front and rear and the tree to the front left/right. Once this is routed, create an LCR from the left/right using Halo to diverge into the centre channel. To do this in Cubase is a mess as you can imagine.

Other than diverging the centre via Halo, I also use some discrete centre positioning of sounds and sometimes just the centre reverb from a 5.0 reverb send. I also use dynamic panning in the 5.1 field so a good automated surround panner is pretty important (this is one area where Cubase excels)

The way you set up the loopback function to demonstrate the video got me thinking that the 5.1 template could allow for a fold-down option to represent the coefficients -3db centre and -3db surrounds. The would essentially recreate what I use Cubase control room for. It could also be cool to offer an option to create a stereo fold down from 5.1 in the stem rendering section set to these same coefficients as I need to output stereo versions for the director etc.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 7, 2017)

Sekkleman said:


> Thanks for the reply, that all sounds really promising!
> 
> I watched through the quad vid and the single button routing looks great. I quite often use in-between positioning in surround like sending the outriggers halfway between the front and rear speakers, and to allow for this is there a possibility of a surround panner for the 16 outputs in the future? This could allow for extreme flexibility which would be pretty amazing.
> 
> ...



The fold down option is a great idea. I'll certainly look into that. 

As for the blending of mics between the F/R channels, as well as surround panners and such with the push-button functionality, the plan is to have that all addressed in the surround update. As you can imagine, there's quite a bit of routing that's going on behind the scenes already - so I want to make sure I do it right and efficiently, and in a manner that is easy for anyone to pick up and push a button to produce the desired results. I'm obviously exceedingly happy about the QUAD push-button functionality and I think where your mind is heading with the thoughts on surround is along the same path the surround update will demonstrate


----------



## Sekkle (Feb 7, 2017)

That sounds awesome and I am very excited to see how everything develops!


----------



## Sekkle (Feb 8, 2017)

After getting through most of the videos I decided to jump in and purchase the preorder. I look forward to integrating OTR into my workflow!


----------



## jemu999 (Feb 8, 2017)

storyteller said:


> In the default theme that is used (and you can change themes very easily in Reaper), you have two ways to see the envelope mode. If the track is selected, it will display the envelope mode in the vertical track bar on the left side of the screen. In the videos, look just beneath the green play button looking icon along the right side of the meter on the the track. That is an icon indicating the envelope mode.
> 
> If you want to see it on the horizontal track lane itself, you will have to increase the track height to show the second row of information. When you enlarge the track, it auto fills in that information. Some themes may have that included on the minimized version.



Personally, I think it is much more helpful seeing the envelope icon on the horizontal track. Its easy to not realize a track, out of hundreds, is on _write _and you start messing with things. Its odd, because on the default reaper theme, you are able to see the envelope mode in horizontal tracks without having to "increase the track height" as you say:







BTW: I just pre-ordered!


----------



## storyteller (Feb 8, 2017)

jemu999 said:


> Personally, I think it is much more helpful seeing the envelope icon on the horizontal track. Its easy to not realize a track, out of hundreds, is on _write _and you start messing with things. Its odd, because on the default reaper theme, you are able to see the envelope mode in horizontal tracks without having to "increase the track height" as you say:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh. Hang on.  Let me clarify. In the default OTR theme (which is based off of the Reaper 4.0 default theme), the tracks use the "global layout default" track type. Since OTR uses up a lot of text space, I chose a greater text area layout as the default versus something with more buttons. Those are all easily changeable though. So, you can certainly change the OTR theme to another one that has that icon on the narrow view of the track.

I assumed you meant the default layout with OTR. Sorry about the misunderstanding. Also, other themes may have different buttons and such in places you might find useful. For some reason, the default Reaper 5.0 theme removed the large text areas, or I would have based the theme off of that one actually. All of the color and such should be retained when you change themes.


----------



## jemu999 (Feb 8, 2017)

storyteller said:


> Oh. Hang on.  Let me clarify. In the default OTR theme (which is based off of the Reaper 4.0 default theme), the tracks use the "global layout default" track type. Since OTR uses up a lot of text space, I chose a greater text area layout as the default versus something with more buttons. Those are all easily changeable though. So, you can certainly change the OTR theme to another one that has that icon on the narrow view of the track.
> 
> I assumed you meant the default layout with OTR. Sorry about the misunderstanding. Also, other themes may have different buttons and such in places you might find useful. For some reason, the default Reaper 5.0 theme removed the large text areas, or I would have based the theme off of that one actually. All of the color and such should be retained when you change themes.



Ok, I see. So yes, my picture is based off of Reaper 5.0 default theme, where as OTR is based off of 4.0. Crap. 

So... Storyteller... with all of your Reaper wisdom... is there absolutely no way to modify the "global layout default" by adding the envelope icon there???  I understand the need for longer text space, which we definitely need. However, there is still space to add the envelope icon... 
?
?


----------



## storyteller (Feb 8, 2017)

jemu999 said:


> Ok, I see. So yes, my picture is based off of Reaper 5.0 default theme, where as OTR is based off of 4.0. Crap.
> 
> So... Storyteller... with all of your Reaper wisdom... is there absolutely no way to modify the "global layout default" by adding the envelope icon there???  I understand the need for longer text space, which we definitely need. However, there is still space to add the envelope icon...
> ?
> ?


Pretty much everything is able to be modded theme-wise in Reaper but I haven't dug deeply into theme editing. It is kind of its own separate animal. But with that said, I'll be happy to look into it as soon as I get the opportunity. If there is something that can benefit everyone's workflow, then of course it is something I want to explore. 

As for the extra space, all of the images and videos thus far have been captured on an iMac 5k display (effectively 2.5k with twice the pixel count). So you have to consider lower resolutions are going to lose some of that extra text space too. Adding buttons may not be the answer (but maybe..not sure yet), so possibly a separate theme that substitutes something out on the default layout may be a better approach. Just thinking out loud. I'll have to look into it and see the lay of the land first.


----------



## Rasmus Hartvig (Feb 9, 2017)

This is all very intriguing, and coming at the exact moment when I'm in the process of ditching Cubase for Reaper.

Here's my most pressing question: I've been using Reaper for years doing sound design, and over time I've built custom scripts and actions, and have come to be very dependent on SWS contextual toolbars (and ReaPack).
Will OTR work nicely alongside my own customizations, or will I have to surrender - so to speak - to it's specific paradigm?


----------



## gregh (Feb 9, 2017)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> This is all very intriguing, and coming at the exact moment when I'm in the process of ditching Cubase for Reaper.
> 
> Here's my most pressing question: I've been using Reaper for years doing sound design, and over time I've built custom scripts and actions, and have come to be very dependent on SWS contextual toolbars (and ReaPack).
> Will OTR work nicely alongside my own customizations, or will I have to surrender - so to speak - to it's specific paradigm?



I can't respond as if storyteller but I have recently discovered the power of the Reaper portable install. This means you can have multiple independent versions of Reaper all running at the same time but with utterly different configurations. You could have a stock OTR version and your current customised version and another version where you test out your favourite customisations with OTR until it works as you want (or maybe doesn't). You can cut and paste between these versions.
I was going to leave Reaper because I was sick of having to reconfigure and adjust according to updates or project demand and was worried about scripts getting broken and so on. But now I can get a Reaper version for particular tasks and just keep it as is, never update anything. Plus have other versions that do get updated etc etc.
May be irrelevant to you but thought I would mention this in case it was useful


----------



## Rasmus Hartvig (Feb 9, 2017)

gregh said:


> I have recently discovered the power of the Reaper portable install. This means you can have multiple independent versions of Reaper all running at the same time but with utterly different configurations.


Yeah, portable install is great and it's how I'm using Reaper now. It would however be cumbersome to maintain multiple Reaper installs, not to mention vastly different workflows and hotkeys. But I guess there would be some way to share some settings across installs (junctions / symlinks). Hopefully @storyteller can shed some light on how deep the OTR "take over" goes.


----------



## gregh (Feb 9, 2017)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> Yeah, portable install is great and it's how I'm using Reaper now. It would however be cumbersome to maintain multiple Reaper installs, not to mention vastly different workflows and hotkeys. But I guess there would be some way to share some settings across installs (junctions / symlinks). Hopefully @storyteller can shed some light on how deep the OTR "take over" goes.


yeah I can see that - for me I have many different types of project (working with artists on various installations / video art / develop Kontakt instrument etc) and it is not possible to have a single Reaper version that doesn't end up falling apart - in my own mind if nowhere else


----------



## storyteller (Feb 9, 2017)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> This is all very intriguing, and coming at the exact moment when I'm in the process of ditching Cubase for Reaper.
> 
> Here's my most pressing question: I've been using Reaper for years doing sound design, and over time I've built custom scripts and actions, and have come to be very dependent on SWS contextual toolbars (and ReaPack).
> Will OTR work nicely alongside my own customizations, or will I have to surrender - so to speak - to it's specific paradigm?


OTR will arrive preconfigured on install. All you have to do (on OS X), is drag the folder from the DMG installer to Applications. On Windows, one it is unzipped, you just move the folder where-ever you would like. Essentially OTR is a self-contained portable install of Reaper + all of the OTR customizations. It is already setup and preconfigured to work with SWS & Reapack.

So what that means is that OTR will operate independently of any current Reaper installs. If you want to add your mods to OTR, then all you would do is add them to the OTR install in the same way you added them to your current Reaper install. Depending on what you've added, everything should work as expected.

Hope that helps! OTR won't march in and have a hostile takeover of your pre-existing setup


----------



## storyteller (Feb 9, 2017)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> Yeah, portable install is great and it's how I'm using Reaper now. It would however be cumbersome to maintain multiple Reaper installs, not to mention vastly different workflows and hotkeys. But I guess there would be some way to share some settings across installs (junctions / symlinks). Hopefully @storyteller can shed some light on how deep the OTR "take over" goes.


I explored using symlinks/etc, but Reaper does not play well with those. If the file is not physically located where it expects it, Reaper becomes somewhat split-personality in how it reacts. For example, aliases are ignored. Symlinks can cause half of Reaper's brain to think certain files are there, and half of it to see a symlink as a tiny blob of data that doesn't mean anything to Reaper. So what you end up with in the various ways of trying to ghost files between locations is Reaper behaving erratically and potentially even not recognizing the entire user configuration. Strange, I know. But, that is what it does. I really, really wanted to create a solution for multi-install management with the launch of OTR (to be able to give to the entire Reaper community) - I spent a long time down that rabbit hole - but it just wasn't feasible within the launch period. I'm guessing that is why it hasn't natively been added by the Reaper devs either yet. 

_If someone wanted to create the solution...(this get's a little technical in explanation) _
For all portable installs to work harmoniously together (as it stands today), there would have to be a separate app that would copy each Reaper install's user data, compile them all into a unified version, then copy the unified version to a "master" Reaper install that would reflect all of the versions together. At that point, it would also have to have some sort of a user interface so the user could pick which appearance would be the default, which menus to use, which buttons to have on custom menus, etc. Then it would have to manage conflicts with third parties, like SWS. For example, if one version used "auto color" in SWS and another used "auto icon," you'd have to pick between the two since, chances are, they would not play well together. But the biggest hurdle after that solution is created (which would already be A LOT of work) is that Apple requires apps to be "sandboxed" so things like what I just described are impossible to do programmatically without making the user copy/paste from all of the Reaper install locations...especially the Library/App Support folder that Reaper uses on default installs (not portable installs). 

I know that explanation is long winded, but for the technically minded, I hope it sheds some light on why this could or (would not) be possible. If it were just script management, then that is a lot easier to duplicate between projects programmatically (like ReaPack, but with your individual scripts loaded to Github). But that is still not a full solution.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 10, 2017)

New video posted demonstrating *OTR's "Cue Manager" *which is how OTR natively handles sub-projects within its workflow. I think you'll find it as a great method to begin sketches on a feature film, but also as a great way to manage all of the cues as they get completed along the way.

Hope you enjoy.



Also - just a side note, I should be posting the TrackPack listings this weekend. I'll probably make a video on those as well when I get a chance. The final tally for the 11 TrackPacks consists of *over 1600 total tracks* (some articulation based, but most are single lane VIs with drum kits being pre-setup with the outputs mapped for multichannel mixing within OTR). All of these can be added to a session at the push of a button. HOWEVER - I want to stress this... It may sound exciting to build a 1000+ track template because ... well, with OTR+Reaper, it is easy to do. _But, the best way - and most efficient way_ - to handle your workflow is not to load in everything and try to save a monster template. That's why TrackPacks exist  The way to handle your template creation for your sessions is to create the basic instrumentations you use regularly and then use the pre-made TrackPacks or create your own TrackPacks to load in the extra stuff with only a right click. It is an entirely different concept to how other DAWs handle this problem. Take advantage of the simplicity of a Template, knowing that it can be as complex as you want it to be when the time comes.


----------



## jemu999 (Feb 10, 2017)

storyteller said:


> New video posted demonstrating *OTR's "Cue Manager" *which is how OTR natively handles sub-projects within its workflow. I think you'll find it as a great method to begin sketches on a feature film, but also as a great way to manage all of the cues as they get completed along the way.
> 
> Hope you enjoy.



Very good video, thanks! Subprojects are definitely something very useful in film scoring, which, at least for my needs, is very important. I do have a question though. Does OTR include any useful scripts or custom elements as it pertains to Reaper's tempo mapping??

In anticipation of OTR's release, I have been experimenting with Reaper, and I must say, that the way Reaper uses tempo mapping leaves a lot to be desired, IMO.  Very frustrating in fact. _(I don't want to go into details here and derail this OTR thread)_ But obviously, tempo mapping is critical in aligning music to film when scoring. Curious if OTR addresses this in anyway?

*Edit: Does OTR include these???? http://wiki.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/Tempo_manipulation_with_SWS

Thanks storyteller!


----------



## just2high (Feb 10, 2017)

Interesting way of incorporating subprojects into the workflow, I'm curious though, why go through the trouble of creating a separate project from the sketch? What's different from the main OTR template that keeps you from just saving the entire base OTR stack as a track template and inserting it below the sketch tracks?


----------



## Sekkle (Feb 11, 2017)

Thanks for the video on sub projects Storyteller!

As just2high mentioned rather than using sketches could we just jump straight in with the full OTR template for each cue and sketch in them directly? It would save time as I tend to sketch with different instruments and sounds depending on whats needed. I tend to mix as I sketch/compose too so it would make sense to just go direct to OTR.

The one other thing I have been looking into is the way Reaper handles tempo mapping, grid warping etc. Similarly to tojemu999 this is one function that's really going to determine if I can use Reaper for scoring to picture. I think SWS has what I need (from what I could read online) and from my understanding this will be included in OTR. The time warp function in Cubase is pretty essential and if Reaper can manage something like this along with sub projects and everything you have created in OTR it could well be the ultimate system.

I've been imagining of the possibilities of sub projects over the last few days as I have been juggling multiple cues in a Cubase project..


----------



## storyteller (Feb 11, 2017)

jemu999 said:


> Does OTR include these???? http://wiki.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/Tempo_manipulation_with_SWS
> 
> Thanks storyteller!



You're welcome! Making videos to show off OTR is fun. It is all about shortcuts and that is what sets OTR apart from other DAW workflows. So, in the spirit of that, I made a video to answer your question.  The short answer, though, is *YES*.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 11, 2017)

just2high said:


> Interesting way of incorporating subprojects into the workflow, I'm curious though, why go through the trouble of creating a separate project from the sketch? What's different from the main OTR template that keeps you from just saving the entire base OTR stack as a track template and inserting it below the sketch tracks?





Sekkleman said:


> Thanks for the video on sub projects Storyteller!
> 
> As just2high mentioned rather than using sketches could we just jump straight in with the full OTR template for each cue and sketch in them directly? It would save time as I tend to sketch with different instruments and sounds depending on whats needed. I tend to mix as I sketch/compose too so it would make sense to just go direct to OTR.



So these are both good questions and I think addressing them together is the best way to answer it.... because honestly, I wanted to make it one step as well (and perhaps in the future there will be a way). However, there are a number of reasons that OTR can not insert the stack of tracks that make up each template.

The first reason is just out of precaution for user-error. Assuming everything _could_ technically work, the templated "TrackPack" version of OTR would always need to be inserted into a blank template only. This is because OTR uses the index of certain "controller tracks" to perform some functions. _Could it have been programmed differently to accommodate uses like the one described with subprojects and use logic other than required track indexes? _ Yep. That was the first thing I did actually. However, it could potentially negatively affect the performance on large templates if the user got "drag happy" with some of the "controller" tracks when certain OTR processes are run. So instead, of allowing the potential for it to cause performance issues, I chose a "don't move or re-name the tracks with a lock icon on the track and it won't break" method. It is part of the one single golden rule of OTR to make sure everything works while allowing the user the freedom to do nearly anything they desire. BUT...all of that said... there are technically other reasons it cannot be implemented... _yet_. 

The second reason is actually the real reason why it cannot be done. OTR uses a pre-configured set of tracks that are initially hidden from view. Some of these tracks (like the FX and VCA sections) are hidden by default. To save a "Track Template" each parent track in a project must be visible. And while having the FX and VCA sections visible by default may be a great compromise with this option, there are also required "hidden" tracks that would have to be made visible which would make inserting the project for the first time more work with trying to hide everything appropriately than it is worth......_But there is still a solution available at OTR's launch that is an even better approach and will not have the potential for user error...._

If you want to use OTR projects from the start (instead of creating a Cue Sketcher from within the Cue Manager), all you have to do is go ahead and create a blank project folder that will serve as your cue template for all future projects. Inside of this folder, add X# of blank OTR Cue projects and a blank Cue Manager project. This will serve as your Master project template. Now, when you receive your film/video from your client, simply copy this template folder to a new location, add your video into the folder. Click on the Cue Manager project and choose* Insert->Media->[Your Subproject Cue Here]* instead of choosing* Insert->Create New Subproject*. This would actually shortcut the whole process start-to-finish.


----------



## just2high (Feb 11, 2017)

storyteller said:


> So these are both good questions and I think addressing them together is the best way to answer it.... because honestly, I wanted to make it one step as well (and perhaps in the future there will be a way). However, there are a number of reasons that OTR can not insert the stack of tracks that make up each template.
> 
> The first reason is just out of precaution for user-error. Assuming everything _could_ technically work, the templated "TrackPack" version of OTR would always need to be inserted into a blank template only. This is because OTR uses the index of certain "controller tracks" to perform some functions. _Could it have been programmed differently to accommodate uses like the one described with subprojects and use logic other than required track indexes? _ Yep. That was the first thing I did actually. However, it could potentially negatively affect the performance on large templates if the user got "drag happy" with some of the "controller" tracks when certain OTR processes are run. So instead, of allowing the potential for it to cause performance issues, I chose a "don't move or re-name the tracks with a lock icon on the track and it won't break" method. It is part of the one single golden rule of OTR to make sure everything works while allowing the user the freedom to do nearly anything they desire. BUT...all of that said... there are technically other reasons it cannot be implemented... _yet_.
> 
> ...



Yeah this method 2 makes more sense to me. I generally spot then write in a notation program and just import midi. Even if I do a sketch in reaper its part of a full template so I can just transfer stuff over directly.


----------



## Sekkle (Feb 11, 2017)

Thanks Storyteller. That's a great method for using the subprojects and also the time warp video was a good help in explaining how it works too.


----------



## gregh (Feb 12, 2017)

Hi Jonathan / Storyteller - have you thought about how you are going to go about support? You are running multiple forums at the moment, do you think you will continue that or focus in on one forum in particular? I am loving your videos so I imagine most support will be - hey have a look at this video - but other stuff might be more along the lines of - sorry that is not possible - or, great idea I will see if I can do that etc etc


----------



## storyteller (Feb 13, 2017)

gregh said:


> Hi Johnathan / Storyteller - have you thought about how you are going to go about support? You are running multiple forums at the moment, do you think you will continue that or focus in on one forum in particular? I am loving your videos so I imagine most support will be - hey have a look at this video - but other stuff might be more along the lines of - sorry that is not possible - or, great idea I will see if I can do that etc etc


Thanks for the feedback on the videos! I think seeing things in action is often the easiest way to demonstrate "how to" topics - especially in something like software. As for support, the best way would be to contact me through [email protected] With that said, I will continue to be active both here and on the Cockos/Reaper board. I'm certainly more active here than on the Reaper board. I imagine users will be sharing their experiences in both places though. I'm also just a PM away here on VIC. You can check my history and see I've been consistently active over the last year since I joined. And you can always tag me in a thread if a discussion could benefit from my attention.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 13, 2017)

Just a kind reminder to everyone. *There are under 24hrs left* to take advantage of the pre-order bundle and sale price for OTR.  After the official release tomorrow, prices will be set at normal, retail pricing and the bonus 11 TrackPacks included the preorder bundle with OTR will only be available as separate purchases to OTR.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 14, 2017)

Downloads are now available  All preorder customers should now have received an email letting them know.

Thanks to everyone for making this launch an amazing success! I look forward to hearing the many success stories and workflow improvement stories sure to be shared as we all journey down this path together.

-Jonathan


----------



## calebfaith (Feb 14, 2017)

I'm in the process of reviewing OTR with an advance copy from Jonathan and I have to say so far I'm amazed at the depth this template goes into but at the same time it is so easy to use. Im only just scratching the surface after reading the manual, playing around with it and watching the walkthrough videos but already I'm seeing how this will simplify my life as a composer. With one click you can automatically render all the stems of each instrument section. 

The template is constructed in a way that it guides you to mix professionally and the signal chain has been taken care of and requires minimal to no editing allowing you to focus on the important things like actually writing music! I have no complaints so far


----------



## gregh (Feb 14, 2017)

calebfaith said:


> I'm in the process of reviewing OTR with an advance copy from Jonathan and I have to say so far I'm amazed at the depth this template goes into but at the same time it is so easy to use. Im only just scratching the surface after reading the manual, playing around with it and watching the walkthrough videos but already I'm seeing how this will simplify my life as a composer. With one click you can automatically render all the stems of each instrument section.
> 
> The template is constructed in a way that it guides you to mix professionally and the signal chain has been taken care of and requires minimal to no editing allowing you to focus on the important things like actually writing music! I have no complaints so far




what I also like/hope is that this product encourages other people to commercialise other types of Reaper. For example, a Reaper that is set up to make sample libraries would be very handy for me and I imagine others. I do not really want to make it and doubt I could do as good a job as someone who is working professionally as a sample library developer. There must be other professional applications as well.


----------



## calebfaith (Feb 15, 2017)

gregh said:


> what I also like/hope is that this product encourages other people to commercialise other types of Reaper. For example, a Reaper that is set up to make sample libraries would be very handy for me and I imagine others. I do not really want to make it and doubt I could do as good a job as someone who is working professionally as a sample library developer. There must be other professional applications as well.



Yeah I totally agree and I could see myself using that as well. I love how customisable Reaper is and that it allows things like this to be created


----------



## Mundano (Feb 22, 2017)

(From my smartphone, cant copy links) Jonathan are you aware of this thread? There are ppl switching to reaper...
*Who is using Reaper for Film Scoring?*


----------



## storyteller (Feb 22, 2017)

Mundano said:


> (From my smartphone, cant copy links) Jonathan are you aware of this thread? There are ppl switching to reaper...
> *Who is using Reaper for Film Scoring?*


Thanks for the heads up! I'll check it out!


----------



## Sekkle (Feb 22, 2017)

Hey Jonathan,

I've been digging into OTR and it's awesome. I'm also loving Reaper as it's audio manipulation functions are incredible and most of the small workflow tweaks are pretty easy to implement, so it's getting close to how I usually work in Cubase.

I have read the manual and been playing around with the template and there's several things I'm trying to work out the best way to do in OTR. I just wanted to see if these methods are the best way to do these specific functions within OTR and apologies if it's a bit long winded!

Basically I use a lot of audio recording and resampling in my work alongside VI's. Many times for example I'll have say two recorded vocal takes hard panned Left-Right, sent to reverb/delay, which I then run into a group for filtering of the entire chain. Kind of like a self contained minimix that allows for really quick control and resampling. (I use this method alongside the type of mixing approach you have setup in OTR with more general send FX and VCA's etc.) To do this in OTR would best practice be to create two 'IMPORTED TRACK' s for the vocal recordings in the 'Vocal Category' import the audio and hard pan L/R - add another IMPORTED TRACK and insert the reverb/delay on this - send the vocals tracks to this - create a VI GROUP WITH FADER and nest all of the tracks within this - and finally insert the filter on the group. From my understading as long as I use these OTR specific tracks and keep them within the VI-C's then everything should flow correctly. I was thinking it would be cool to have specific AUDIO TRACKS that are recognised by OTR visibility to differentiate them from guide tracks and temp music on the IMPORTED TRACKS. (edit - actually maybe just using VI-LIVE tracks for this purpose is the way to go here?)

I also render-in-place a lot when resampling sounds for further manipulation in the audio domain. Just a side note -after messing around with audio for a couple of hours I have realised that Reaper is way ahead in manipulating audio than any other DAW I have used, which is really exciting! Anyway - I tried simply rendering a VI via the file menu and importing to a new track, however I wasn't sure if this would work correctly in OTR as the track looked different and didn't contain an OT prefix. Another way I tried was to freeze the VI and then copy the frozen audio to a new IMPORTED TRACK for further manipulation. After which I could unfreeze the VI. For the pre-mapped outs on a VI-M it was cool as it renders the individual outs depending on what VI-OUT is selected (If freezing the actual midi clip/VI-M it creates a multitrack file which isn't as much use for this). Another idea was to render a stem and then copy this back to a new IMPORTED TRACK as it would contain the full signal chain. Pretty much all the options I want are here but I wanted to see if you thought it was the best way to do it especially in terms of keeping OTR happy.

When mixing with the intention of supplying stems I tend to not really use master buss processing. This is due to the fact that when each stem is rendered through the master fx separately and recombined, the mix isn't the same as the dynamic processors react differently to the individual stems. I have read there is a possible way around this by using sidechaining (so the processor reacts to the full mix sidechained when processing the stems) however I haven't explored this yet. So far I always end up applying buss fx to the individual stems and generally leave the master buss clear other than a brickwall limiter just in case there's the odd over on the combined mix. I have experimented with trying to do this in OTR but I am unclear on the best way to do it. If I apply buss effects on the VI-C's I understand they are effected after any send effects from the individual instruments. I need to apply buss fx on the entire stem including all fx sends, so would it be best to apply these on the BOUNCE-STEM tracks? I experimented and found that these did in fact render the effects on the stems although in the manual it's says to not insert fx's on these tracks. I was thinking that by unmuting the stem BOUNCE-STEM tracks sections that I will be using (probably the advanced stems in most cases) and muting the Full Mix and ALL (basic stems tracks) tracks, it should achieve what I'm after. The only thing I'd need is to somehow create the FULL MIX after the fact with the mastered stems and the brickwall limiter (maybe in a sub project..)

On the VI-C tracks there are a number of pre-routed sends and I was wondering if it's safe to add more send's to FX like reverb directly from these tracks? (in the slots after the pre-routed sends) I use reverb for 'feathering' the tails of sounds and usually from the full stems themselves.

Another thing I would be very interested in is being able to split up the categories into further sub stems, particularly for strings. After reading Henson's string tutorial on the Spitfire site (How to program realistic strings 2), I'm interested in implementing his method and separating the strings into -

Longs & Legatos

Shorts

Pizzicatos & Col Legno

Trems, Harmonics and FX
I'm thinking maybe a workaround would be to split these out into separate VI-C's and maybe rename them after the prefix? I won't use all of the VI-C categories and will probably adapt them per cue.

One final thing - on P49 manual where it outlines how fx can be applied, many of them say to use 'the 16 channel track workflow for inserting a plugin'. I have become a little confused with this as I couldn't find this 16 track workflow in the manual and am not sure if I have simply missed it? Does it mean that FX can be applied on the individual outs as well as the submixes? I played around with inserting FX on the submixe's and typical stereo fx's seem to work in all cases.

OTR is quite amazing and I applaud you for making Reaper accessible for composers as I think it's going to be a game changer!

Thanks

Erin


----------



## storyteller (Feb 22, 2017)

Sekkleman said:


> Hey Jonathan,
> 
> I've been digging into OTR and it's awesome. I'm also loving Reaper as it's audio manipulation functions are incredible and most of the small workflow tweaks are pretty easy to implement, so it's getting close to how I usually work in Cubase.


Thank you so much! This is honestly one of the best compliments I could hope to receive.


Sekkleman said:


> I have read the manual and been playing around with the template and there's several things I'm trying to work out the best way to do in OTR. I just wanted to see if these methods are the best way to do these specific functions within OTR and apologies if it's a bit long winded!


No problem! These are the good questions that everyone benefits from 


Sekkleman said:


> Basically I use a lot of audio recording and resampling in my work alongside VI's. Many times for example I'll have say two recorded vocal takes hard panned Left-Right, sent to reverb/delay, which I then run into a group for filtering of the entire chain. Kind of like a self contained minimix that allows for really quick control and resampling. (I use this method alongside the type of mixing approach you have setup in OTR with more general send FX and VCA's etc.) To do this in OTR would best practice be to create two 'IMPORTED TRACK' s for the vocal recordings in the 'Vocal Category' import the audio and hard pan L/R - add another IMPORTED TRACK and insert the reverb/delay on this - send the vocals tracks to this - create a VI GROUP WITH FADER and nest all of the tracks within this - and finally insert the filter on the group. From my understading as long as I use these OTR specific tracks and keep them within the VI-C's then everything should flow correctly. I was thinking it would be cool to have specific AUDIO TRACKS that are recognised by OTR visibility to differentiate them from guide tracks and temp music on the IMPORTED TRACKS. (edit - actually maybe just using VI-LIVE tracks for this purpose is the way to go here?)


As I was about to reply, I just saw your edit. Yep! VI-LIVE tracks are what you are looking for. Either way works, but I'd use VI-LIVE since it also gives you the option of selecting if they go the orchestral hall and choir hall too and adds further differentiation to imported tracks. The way you are using the VI GROUP WITH FADER track is just as it was intended! Great to hear! 


Sekkleman said:


> I also render-in-place a lot when resampling sounds for further manipulation in the audio domain. Just a side note -after messing around with audio for a couple of hours I have realised that Reaper is way ahead in manipulating audio than any other DAW I have used, which is really exciting! Anyway - I tried simply rendering a VI via the file menu and importing to a new track, however I wasn't sure if this would work correctly in OTR as the track looked different and didn't contain an OT prefix. Another way I tried was to freeze the VI and then copy the frozen audio to a new IMPORTED TRACK for further manipulation. After which I could unfreeze the VI. For the pre-mapped outs on a VI-M it was cool as it renders the individual outs depending on what VI-OUT is selected (If freezing the actual midi clip/VI-M it creates a multitrack file which isn't as much use for this). Another idea was to render a stem and then copy this back to a new IMPORTED TRACK as it would contain the full signal chain. Pretty much all the options I want are here but I wanted to see if you thought it was the best way to do it especially in terms of keeping OTR happy.


Probably the easiest is to right click on the track and click "Render track to mono/stereo/multichannel and mute original." This will create a stem track with all of the naming conventions in place. I think this is likely exactly what you are looking for. It will retain a gray color though instead of the original blueish shade. If there is a chain of FX you want to use repeatedly, you could save the chain in your original track as an "FX Chain" and just reinsert the FX chain on the new track. FX Chains are a really cool feature of Reaper. As for freezing, Reaper allows up to 6 levels of freeze depth you can roll back through. Not sure if that is what you are looking for, but I thought I'd throw that out there too. I think the first thing I mentioned might be the winner though.


Sekkleman said:


> When mixing with the intention of supplying stems I tend to not really use master buss processing. This is due to the fact that when each stem is rendered through the master fx separately and recombined, the mix isn't the same as the dynamic processors react differently to the individual stems. I have read there is a possible way around this by using sidechaining (so the processor reacts to the full mix sidechained when processing the stems) however I haven't explored this yet. So far I always end up applying buss fx to the individual stems and generally leave the master buss clear other than a brickwall limiter just in case there's the odd over on the combined mix. I have experimented with trying to do this in OTR but I am unclear on the best way to do it. If I apply buss effects on the VI-C's I understand they are effected after any send effects from the individual instruments. I need to apply buss fx on the entire stem including all fx sends, so would it be best to apply these on the BOUNCE-STEM tracks? I experimented and found that these did in fact render the effects on the stems although in the manual it's says to not insert fx's on these tracks. I was thinking that by unmuting the stem BOUNCE-STEM tracks sections that I will be using (probably the advanced stems in most cases) and muting the Full Mix and ALL (basic stems tracks) tracks, it should achieve what I'm after. The only thing I'd need is to somehow create the FULL MIX after the fact with the mastered stems and the brickwall limiter (maybe in a sub project..)


The intention with OTR is to do it through placing your FX chain on the master FX bus (edited for clarity. I didn't mean the overall master bus) and allowing OTR to render through them with each pass. I would definitely suggest trying the method you described first if you are planning to render master chain of FX on stems. I'd suggest rendering the Full Mix, then using that STEM as the playback source sidechain on the FX Chain of Plugins you are using. You will need to move the rendered audio to an imported track before using it as a sidechain since the Bounce process systematically mutes everything within the BOUNCE-STEMS folder which would defeat the purpose of using it as a sidechain. _This_ _was_ _a_ _great_ _question_ and one I think many people will find valuable. I might should add a video on this too.

With the other options you mentioned, you are correct that buss effects on a VI-C would not include the sends on each VI-TRACK. Also, adding inserts to the Bounce Stems should technically not work due to circular routing though it is my understanding that Reaper allows this in some cases. I haven't actually tried it in the way you have mentioned While I wouldn't recommend it, you could add in-line FX like compression and such to the Bounce Stems though you are also correct that it would leave you without a full-mix option.


Sekkleman said:


> On the VI-C tracks there are a number of pre-routed sends and I was wondering if it's safe to add more send's to FX like reverb directly from these tracks? (in the slots after the pre-routed sends) I use reverb for 'feathering' the tails of sounds and usually from the full stems themselves.


Yep. It is safe. It is however a 16 channel track so you would need to make sure you had sends on the appropriate channels....which gets to your later question about the reference on page 49 in the manual. It is referencing Page 34.

*(cont'd)*


----------



## storyteller (Feb 22, 2017)

*(cont'd)
*


Sekkleman said:


> Another thing I would be very interested in is being able to split up the categories into further sub stems, particularly for strings. After reading Henson's string tutorial on the Spitfire site (How to program realistic strings 2), I'm interested in implementing his method and separating the strings into -
> 
> Longs & Legatos
> 
> ...



I had not seen that particular video. Great video btw!

Renaming categories probably wouldn't be a great option since some of the categories are grouped together for the basic stems. If you are only using the advanced stems, you could however re-name the VI-C and the corresponding BOUNCE-STEM tracks. Also, you'd have to change the names on the advanced render buttons too unless you wanted to remember which button went to which VI-C. In a future update I will be including a "generic advanced render" menu tab for people that choose to rename the tracks. The buttons will just read "VI-C 1", "VI-C 2", etc. I've already completed that, but it will likely be part of a larger incremental update rather than the v1.0x patches.

If it were me and I was going down this path, I would probably place each of the 4 stacks of track articulations in a VI-GROUP and then manually mute the ones not needed before punching the render button. It would add 4 extra passes on the stems, but it would be a pretty easy solution. I've also been considering adding a feature that might be able to augment the render process to include this feature. I'll certainly explore it further.


Sekkleman said:


> One final thing - on P49 manual where it outlines how fx can be applied, many of them say to use 'the 16 channel track workflow for inserting a plugin'. I have become a little confused with this as I couldn't find this 16 track workflow in the manual and am not sure if I have simply missed it? Does it mean that FX can be applied on the individual outs as well as the submixes? I played around with inserting FX on the submixe's and typical stereo fx's seem to work in all cases.


Check out pages 33 and 34 in the manual for further clarity on this topic. If you are using just main mix tracks, it should work like a standard stereo track since they are routed through the 1/2 channels. It is when you get into the OTR mapped tracks that you will need to make additional considerations when placing FX on the VI-C tracks.


Sekkleman said:


> OTR is quite amazing and I applaud you for making Reaper accessible for composers as I think it's going to be a game changer!


Thanks so much!! I genuinely hope it does! I also hope I didn't miss any of your questions above. But if I did, or if you need further clarity, let me know. I'm happy to help! Also - for the record - these questions are phenomenal and I think many people will gain a lot of perspective and the sheer amount of capacity OTR has already preconfigured just by reading through these.


----------



## Sekkle (Feb 22, 2017)

Hey Jonathan,

Thank you for such a fast response! 

Some great ideas and especially in terms of using the main mix stem as a sidechain for the stems. That will actually make me nut out how to do it properly which I have been putting off 

Also muting the separate string parts for printing stems is a great solution as it means they will be together rather than in different VI-C's which makes more sense when composing.

I think I now understand the considerations for placing FX on the VI-C tracks. Where I became a little confused was the difference between - 

Kontakt5 - MultiOut 16 (8 Stereo) Submixed To Main Mix + 16 Midi
and a
Kontakt5 - MultiOut 16 (8 Stereo) Submixed To OTR Mapped Outs + Master Midi

I loaded up both of these, inserted a Metropolis Ark String patch on both and routed the separate mics to the mapped outputs in Kontakt. On both track templates I am able to process and send to FX via the separate VI-OUT's individually. The main difference I see is that I would use the 'Submixed To OTR Mapped Outs' version if I wanted to send the mics to the Orchestra/Choir Halls as well. If I'm just using the sample patch's mics I could in theory use either 'Submixed To Main Mix' or 'Submixed To OTR Mapped Outs' as I think in both cases the mics are summed to the Main Mix? Would using 'Submixed To Main Mix' in this case would allow stereo inserts/sends to process the summed mix of sampled mics on the VI-MC and/or VI-C without having to worry about routing all 8 stereo channels individually?

Just an idea I had - is there a potential to have all mapped outputs - say for example 'MIXED' 'CLOSE' 'MID' etc for _all_ instruments landing into a dedicated FX (Buss) channel much like how the Orchestral/Choir Hall's are setup? This could be very cool as it could allow a kind of macro control over these mics like the two virtual Hall's. I'm going to start experimenting with sending just the room mics for all instruments to a reverb to extend the size and depth of space much like how https://film-mixing.com/2016/07/28/film-score-mixing-with-alan-meyerson/ (Alan Meyerson) talks about, and this could make it very easy to do.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 23, 2017)

Sekkleman said:


> Hey Jonathan,
> 
> Thank you for such a fast response!
> 
> ...



You're welcome! I could only smile as I read through your post because I could see the idea wheel churning on the possibilities as you wrote! But your closing thought is one of the reasons the OTR Mapped tracks exist  So let me walk you through this...

First, to address your question regarding "Submitted to Main Mix versus Submitted to OTR Mapped Outs" - The difference here is the number of track lanes taken up. As with any audio application, the higher the number of streams of audio, the more demand it will place on the CPU. So while these two types of tracks appear the same when using the standard template, the difference is that the "Submix to Main Mix" track reduces the footprint to a stereo channel _before_ it reaches the VI-C group track (which in turn is sent to the FX Master Bus). While the VI-C group track is 16 channels, reducing audio streams beforehand can be useful when managing CPU. Also - the possibilities will really open up when you begin exploring the QUAD template and will really shine when the full surround template is released. So understanding the difference now will really blossom when you begin using the more advanced templates.

In the QUAD template, for example, reducing the tracks to a stereo pair before they reach the VI-C group track will cause it to only be sent to the front speakers whereas having all of the mic positions streaming simultaneously will allow for the "twist and pivot" options discussed in the QUAD video. Even greater possibilities exist with the yet-unreleased surround template.

But the good news is that your final suggestion about having ways to send just room mics to a reverb does presently exist. OTR was crafted for this specifically!  But it is performed by sending mic positions from each VI-C versus a global option. To do this, you would insert a reverb send on the VI-C for the mic position you are using for room mics (example: if using FAR, the send would need to be placed on channels 9/10). You would also have to use OTR Mapped tracks to make sure your audio is flowing horizontally in up to 16 lanes upstream before it hits the VI-C track group. I'm ecstatic that you've considered this as it is part of where I personally think OTR really shines.

As for your suggestion on having each mic position routed in the FX section individually, I highly considered putting separate receive tracks in the FX Master section but ultimately sided against it in the initial release due to end users potentially not understanding the purpose. For example, if I had those tracks split out individually, someone would inevitably try to adjust the fader levels on each one which would cause the reverb send levels on the individual tracks within the VI-Cs to have to be individually re-adjusted since these receive channels would not control the primary channels like VCAs would. The VCAs compensate and allow for the flexibility of routing individual mic positions within a VI-C to individual reverbs, but you could not architect this feature globally without opening the potential for user-error when using that portion of the template. This is the single feature I have bounced back and forth between the most. In the 1.1 update, I have seriously considered just opening this feature up to everyone but placing full meters on the tracks so people aren't tempted to adjust the volume levels of each track. It is why the full meter exists on the FX 1 channel presently. As I type this, I am leaning more toward including this in the 1.1 update for the basic template. The surround template and updated QUAD template will have them split out for sure, and I want to maintain as much continuity in the templates as possible.

Hope that helps clarify a bit. I'm really excited to hear how the advanced flexibility in OTR is being discovered and applied. I also hope both present and future OTR users manage to read these particular posts because they do reveal some of the tremendous pre-routed flexibility in the template that is beyond the basic approaches to audio routing.


----------



## Sekkle (Feb 23, 2017)

Thanks for walking me through this as it makes perfect sense now! 

As I delve further into it I am realising just how deep and considered OTR is. I was also thinking more about the Alan Meyerson technique and he does say he applies reverb fx to the individual mics rather than a global receive track which allows more control. Where he brings in global fx is with the 3 Bricasti's on the 5.1 orchestral stems which I can't wait to try and replicate using Slate Verbsuite M7 Mechanic's Hall IR  I can also see how the extra receive tracks in the FX section for the OTR mapped outs could potentially cause confusion if the end user doesn't fully understand the signal flow.

I have tried Reaper on and off for many years now and always found there were some crucial functions missing for my workflow. However I honestly must say that I think it has finally come to age as it does everything now plus more! Here's just a few things in no particular order that I have discovered which blow me away..

*Stretch Markers* - better than audio warp in Cubase, elastic audio in Pro Tools and warp in Ableton as it actually allows you to ramp the speed between points. Visually I think it's the best too and it's on the actual track like Pro Tools which is cool.

*Item based fx and envelopes* - the one function I always wanted from Samplitude - object based fx and mixing. Coming from a film sound design background this is awesome and insanely powerful.

*Volume/PreFX Volume and Volume/Trim* - The amount of control when mixing and the interaction between Volume/Trim automation is excellent. Add VCAs to this and it's got everything.

*Inserts/sends* - I don''t know how many there are per track but there are a lot! This means no more routing to extra group channels just for more plugins in Cubase... finally.

*Video FX* - The fact you can apply and automate visual FX on the video just like with audio means I can finally create my own Streamers and Punches for live players in Reaper itself! Something I always wanted from Digital Performer and I was also considering VideoSlave for this (and still might to offload resources on bigger projects)

*Varispeed* - One of the most fundamental audio manipulation tools which has been overlooked since the days of samplers imo. Sure, Cubase and Pro Tools can do it but not musically.. Finally I can literally highlight an audio clip and speed/slow it by a semitone with a click on the numpad. It's like having a visual classic sampler. I have wanted this function since I was using a tracker in DOS.. Ableton came the closest but it wasn't great as it seemed messy especially with multiple clips. The most amazing thing is that if you add Stretch Markers it's possible to ramp the speed dynamically!

*Subprojects* - I have experimented with this by importing OTR templates per cue and it's working really well. The chunk feature of DP essentially in Reaper which I think will make my life a lot easier on bigger multi-cue projects.

*Freeze *- Multiple levels of freeze and the ability to actually use the frozen material as audio - awesome. The way you have configured this with OTR (the snowflake visual cue and the history) makes it extremely powerful.

There is no doubt more to discover and I'm finding the video tutorials on the Reaper site to be very easy to understand.

Thanks again for everything and I will check back in with more discoveries as I work through OTR!

Erin


----------



## EvilDragon (Feb 23, 2017)

Sekkleman said:


> I don''t know how many there are per track but there are a lot!



In a word: unlimited. Or better said - whatever your CPU can take.



Sekkleman said:


> *Freeze *- Multiple levels of freeze and the ability to actually use the frozen material as audio - awesome.



And not just that - you can freeze only up to a certain FX on the track, too.


----------



## Sekkle (Feb 23, 2017)

Reaper is quite a revelation to be honest. I am nearly through mapping all my Cubase shortcuts and have added some powerful new ones too..


----------



## storyteller (Mar 27, 2017)

I've seen a lot of people on VIC recently discussing how to implement touch navigation to large templates from a tablet rather than scrolling through hundreds of tracks within their template in order to move between sections/libraries/instruments. I believe much of this discussion has stemmed from the Hans Zimmer Masterclass videos that showcase his touch interface. It is a wonderful way to work, and today I'm very proud to say that with the latest update to OTR (v1.03), users now have access to a similar touch-navigation workflow as seen in HZ's custom interface. OTR users can now "jump to" different parts of their template via the newly updated TouchOSC template included with OTR. This update to the TouchOSC interface also brings native Orchestral Tools and Spitfire-specific MIDI CC screens for each of these developer's specific mappings. More information on the template is available here: http://otr.storyteller.im/touch-osc-template/


----------



## jadedsean (Mar 28, 2017)

storyteller said:


> I've seen a lot of people on VIC recently discussing how to implement touch navigation to large templates from a tablet rather than scrolling through hundreds of tracks within their template in order to move between sections/libraries/instruments. I believe much of this discussion has stemmed from the Hans Zimmer Masterclass videos that showcase his touch interface. It is a wonderful way to work, and today I'm very proud to say that with the latest update to OTR (v1.03), users now have access to a similar touch-navigation workflow as seen in HZ's custom interface. OTR users can now "jump to" different parts of their template via the newly updated TouchOSC template included with OTR. This update to the TouchOSC interface also brings native Orchestral Tools and Spitfire-specific MIDI CC screens for each of these developer's specific mappings. More information on the template is available here: http://otr.storyteller.im/touch-osc-template/


Hi Johnathon,

just wondering will there be a video showcasing this new feature? I'd imagine It would greatly appreciated to for the newbies coming to Reaper.


----------



## storyteller (Mar 28, 2017)

jadedsean said:


> Hi Johnathon,
> 
> just wondering will there be a video showcasing this new feature? I'd imagine It would greatly appreciated to for the newbies coming to Reaper.


I will at some point soon. All of the other videos have been screen captures so far, but to do one with the TouchOSC tablet and OTR template simultaneously, I have to record it a little bit differently to capture everything on and off screen. But I definitely plan to.


----------



## jadedsean (Mar 28, 2017)

storyteller said:


> I will at some point soon. All of the other videos have been screen captures so far, but to do one with the TouchOSC tablet and OTR template simultaneously, I have to record it a little bit differently to capture everything on and off screen. But I definitely plan to.


Great can't wait for this, i was super jealous when i saw Han's Zimmer set up and now it's longer a dream.


----------



## samphony (Mar 29, 2017)

storyteller said:


> I've seen a lot of people on VIC recently discussing how to implement touch navigation to large templates from a tablet rather than scrolling through hundreds of tracks within their template in order to move between sections/libraries/instruments. I believe much of this discussion has stemmed from the Hans Zimmer Masterclass videos that showcase his touch interface. It is a wonderful way to work, and today I'm very proud to say that with the latest update to OTR (v1.03), users now have access to a similar touch-navigation workflow as seen in HZ's custom interface. OTR users can now "jump to" different parts of their template via the newly updated TouchOSC template included with OTR. This update to the TouchOSC interface also brings native Orchestral Tools and Spitfire-specific MIDI CC screens for each of these developer's specific mappings. More information on the template is available here: http://otr.storyteller.im/touch-osc-template/



Hi Jonathan. 

Does OTR and its touch OSC template cover visibility actions like

- show only tracks with content at play cursor/edit cursor incl routing
- show only tracks with content at play cursor/edit cursor exclude routing
- Hide all tracks
- Show all tracks

?


----------



## storyteller (Mar 29, 2017)

samphony said:


> Hi Jonathan.
> 
> Does OTR and its touch OSC template cover visibility actions like
> 
> ...


Hey @samphony. There are 5 menu tabs in OTR devoted to different visibility toggles. So you can pretty much slice-and-dice the screen view very quickly in a way that makes since to your workflow. Many of these buttons/functions also have pre-assigned keyboard shortcuts as well. And of course, you can always assign your own keyboard shortcuts with Reaper too. 

The portion of the OTR TouchOSC interface devoted to template navigation is presently focused on "jumping to" specific sections in the template and also allowing you to toggle on/off the 22 different categories (Strings, Brass, Winds, etc). So effectively, you have a show all/hide all on the OSC template (it is just category-based and not in a single button). If that is something specific that is needed for your workflow, those functions can easily have a keyboard shortcut assigned to them in Reaper. I can also look into adding that in the next OTR update as well. There have been three updates so far in the first 45 days of release.

As for the "content at play cursor" functionality, that is not presently a feature in OTR but I could add that quite easily and could look at having that available in the next update. There is presently a visibility toggle in OTR that allows you to "show only midi tracks with content." So, I'd just have to adapt a version of it to account for the play cursor.

Hope that helps!  Let me know if you have any other questions.


----------



## Sami (Jun 12, 2018)

Is there ongoing development in this project and/or a changelog? Would be interested in trying it out; hearing good things about how efficiently programmed Reaper is and considering trying it out for a single machine template.


----------



## storyteller (Jun 13, 2018)

Sami said:


> Is there ongoing development in this project and/or a changelog? Would be interested in trying it out; hearing good things about how efficiently programmed Reaper is and considering trying it out for a single machine template.



Hey Sami,

OTR has received consistent updates over the past year+ it has been out. I'd say, on average, there has been an update about every 2-3 months. Presently, OTR is at version 1.6 (so 6 updates during its current availability). Each update has brought incremental changes such as bug fixes, expanded TouchOSC functionality, new Project Templates, expanded shortcuts, etc. Version 1.6 was the biggest update though (released in the Spring of 2018). It added new shortcuts, actions, and scripts as well as a new theme that was crafted to fully integrate with OTRs functionality. So now there are 2 official themes available within OTR (and of course you can add additional themes made available through the Reaper community - BUT there will be some trial and error to see which ones work with the features of OTR you value most). As for a changelog, I typically provide users of each update's changes via email and also in a PDF within the updater package. Also, the manual is updated with each release.

The latest update happened yesterday actually  - but it was not specific to OTR itself. Rather, the update is part of OTR's expanded functionality. This update added 16 new TrackPacks to the Storyteller Store for purchase as well as introduced a new "All TrackPacks (Everything) Bundle" which reflects a 40% savings on the TrackPacks themselves and, aside from the intro bundle pricing, is the only discount or sale that has been offered to date. 

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any additional questions. 

-Jonathan


----------



## Sami (Jun 13, 2018)

storyteller said:


> Hey Sami,
> 
> OTR has received consistent updates over the past year+ it has been out. I'd say, on average, there has been an update about every 2-3 months. Presently, OTR is at version 1.6 (so 6 updates during its current availability). Each update has brought incremental changes such as bug fixes, expanded TouchOSC functionality, new Project Templates, expanded shortcuts, etc. Version 1.6 was the biggest update though (released in the Spring of 2018). It added new shortcuts, actions, and scripts as well as a new theme that was crafted to fully integrate with OTRs functionality. So now there are 2 official themes available within OTR (and of course you can add additional themes made available through the Reaper community - BUT there will be some trial and error to see which ones work with the features of OTR you value most). As for a changelog, I typically provide users of each update's changes via email and also in a PDF within the updater package. Also, the manual is updated with each release.
> 
> ...


Thank you very much for the detailed informations! Is some sort of articulation management implemented in OTR at present?


----------



## storyteller (Jun 13, 2018)

Sami said:


> Thank you very much for the detailed informations! Is some sort of articulation management implemented in OTR at present?


There is! The one included in OTR is Blake Robinson's BRSO Articulate plugin. However, I will say this decision was made prior to @tack's development of Reaticulate - which I _*highly recommend*_. He has been doing a great job with it and it has been well received by the Reaper & VI-Control community. Perhaps it will be included and pre-configured in an updated release of OTR as well. He is very active in these early stages of development of it.


----------



## Sami (Jun 13, 2018)

storyteller said:


> There is! The one included in OTR is Blake Robinson's BRSO Articulate plugin. However, I will say this decision was made prior to @tack's development of Reaticulate - which I _*highly recommend*_. He has been doing a great job with it and it has been well received by the Reaper & VI-Control community. Perhaps it will be included and pre-configured in an updated release of OTR as well. He is very active in these early stages of development of it.


Thanks again!


----------



## tack (Jun 13, 2018)

storyteller said:


> Perhaps it will be included and pre-configured in an updated release of OTR as well.


Thanks for the kind words. And if there's anything Reaticulate could do to improve a potential future integration into OTR, if you do decide to go that route, I'm at your disposal.


----------



## storyteller (Apr 6, 2020)

*OTR v1.7 Update*











*Great news! OTR has been updated to v1.7. Among the maintenance updates, OTR now includes support for Reaper 6 and Kontakt 6 templates.*
Please log into your account to download the latest installer. Due to the high volume of users and finite server resources, if you are experiencing any issues with your download, please be patient and try again at a later time.

Keep in mind the Storyteller Store operates on a donation-only model. Since shifting to this model, the number of users has grown exponentially, so limitations with download capacity is a very real possibility. So please be patient. And of course, you can always support the Storyteller Store by donating through my PayPal link or by donating upon download of the products on the site. 







*Version 1.7 Features*
Here are the most important details:

Includes Reaper 6.08 with full Reaper 6 support
Includes the latest SWS version 2.10.0.1
Includes Kontakt 6 Track Templates
Includes new 32-out templates for Kontakt 5/6 Track Templates
Includes new 32-out templates for Vepro 6
Includes updated scripting that will now DIM disabled tracks.
Includes a new Pop/Rock Project Template (stems will not work in this particular project template)
Kontakt Factory Library TrackPack has been updated for Kontakt 6 (with legacy support for Kontakt 5)
Thanks again for your support!


----------



## storyteller (Jun 28, 2021)

*OTR v2 is almost here! *

The long-awaited overhaul and update to OTR will be launched soon (as in hopefully this week). OTRv2 has been through 5 betas and has now been fully prepped for release. A newly designed website and YouTube channel have been completed and will be launched soon. I'm in the process of finishing up videos for it - which should be done this week. It is a pretty dramatic overhaul to OTR v1. Here are the highlights:


OTR's script and actions count has increased from ~300 scripts to ~1000
No more track prefixes/suffixes... just name the tracks what you want.
32 fully customizable and re-assignable stem categories (up from 23)
8 fully customizable and re-assignable stem groups (up from 6)
New, custom-designed GUI editor for easy stem grouping, routing and renaming
OTRv2 comes pre-configured with full integration with Reaticulate
New and included Reaticulate articulation templates that are tailored for OTR's workflow
OTRv2 includes a custom Reaticulate GUI to manage the articulations within OTR (meaning no text editing for Reaticulate)
Reorganized and simplified Track Template menus
Tons of new Track Templates for various samplers/romplers
Full Kontakt template integration with Flexrouter scripts allowing for up to 128 articulations per track with Reaticulate
Full Flexrouter integration with the Reaticulate GUI
Full consideration given in crafting VEPro templates with Reaticulate, Kontakt, and Flexrouter to optimize performance and track management across slave/satellite computers
OTR v2 includes a completely custom-designed theme that marries the best of Reaper v5 and v6 themes together
Reaper/OTR Custom Menu Buttons now fully conform to your project. For example if you have a project that has specific track groups for stems that are different than another project's stems and groupings the Reaper/OTR Menu buttons can now be updated to reflect the names of the stems and groups specific to each project.
Automatically convert OTR v1 templates to OTR v2 simply by opening the GUI for OTR2
And more!
*Full consideration of user's privacy moving forward by:*

OTR v2 will continue to utilize a DONATION only model and will no longer utilize the Storyteller Store for check-out nor require any information to be entered to download the software. It is basically just a download link now with optional patron links for those that wish to financially support this free-to-download model. Additionally, all OTR and Storyteller sites will have been updated with SSL... though not required since the checkout process has always utilized Paypal's encrypted SSL process, it was still long overdue for the main OTR and Storyteller sites.


*Branding now separate from "Storyteller"*

While OTR v2 is the heart of my personal workflow in my studio, this year I am renovating the marketing of my various ventures and community contributions to keep them separate from my work as a composer/artist/producer. I don't want there to be any confusion about my intentions and goals in the music-world - I always want to help the community in any way possible - but I do want to make sure to separate my composer/artist/producer path from the the various ventures I've made on my journey through the creative-world. Hey, we're all artists and know how the creative space can be for each of us. I've enjoyed so many aspects of it, but want to make sure the front-facing, marketing side for me is true to my heart as a composer/artist/producer.

-Jonathan


----------



## storyteller (Jul 26, 2021)

I am happy to announce that Orchestral Template for Reaper v2 is now available! A new website has been setup (orchestraltemplateforreaper.com). New videos have been made. You no longer have to download OTR through the Storyteller Store. It is simply a download link.

*What's New in OTRv2?*

OTR's script and actions count has increased from ~300 scripts to ~1000
No more track prefixes/suffixes... just name the tracks what you want.
32 fully customizable and re-assignable stem categories (up from 23)
8 fully customizable and re-assignable stem groups (up from 6)
New, custom-designed GUI editor for easy stem grouping, routing and renaming
OTRv2 comes pre-configured with full integration with Reaticulate
New and included Reaticulate articulation templates that are tailored for OTR's workflow
OTRv2 includes a custom Reaticulate GUI to manage the articulations within OTR (meaning no text editing for Reaticulate)
Includes a custom JS Helper plugin for Reaticulate that translates CC values into Note-Hold values. This is very helpful when multiple Keyswitches are used in an instrument such as Bohemian Violin and Cello.
Reorganized and simplified Track Template menus
Tons of new Track Templates for various samplers/romplers
Full Kontakt template integration with Flexrouter scripts allowing for up to 128 articulations per track with Reaticulate
Full Flexrouter integration with the Reaticulate GUI
Full consideration given in crafting VEPro templates with Reaticulate, Kontakt, and Flexrouter to optimize performance and track management across slave/satellite computers
OTR v2 includes a completely custom-designed theme that marries the best of Reaper v5 and v6 themes together
Reaper/OTR Custom Menu Buttons now fully conform to your project. For example if you have a project that has specific track groups for stems that are different than another project's stems and groupings the Reaper/OTR Menu buttons can now be updated to reflect the names of the stems and groups specific to each project.
Automatically convert OTR v1 templates to OTR v2 simply by opening the GUI for OTR2
And more!
A new OTR2 Youtube channel has been setup that will be solely focused on bringing OTR content to users.

OTRv2 continues to be offered for free to the community. Donations/Contributions can be made via PayPal from the OTR website and are greatly appreciated. I want to reiterate there is no paywall to download or use OTR2. Nor am I requiring any accounts to be setup to download the software. It is just a simple download link.

Stay tuned for new videos and walkthroughs. In an effort to get the software released, I went ahead and put together the most important how-to videos. The rest will come at a near point in the future. I hope you enjoy using OTR2 as much as I do. The Reaticulate GUI is a HUGE timesaver... be sure to check it out!

www.orchestraltemplateforreaper.com


----------



## storyteller (Jul 26, 2021)




----------



## storyteller (Jul 26, 2021)




----------



## sostenuto (Jul 26, 2021)

Marvelous Reaper tool !! 🙏🏻 
Here is my current Win11 Pro / Reaper v6.33 _nitty gritty_ versus Install directions:

C:\OTR\Extras\Kontakt Output Presets\Kontakt Output Presets for 6.5.3\Storyteller 16OutsDrumMapV1-k6.cfg
-----------
C:\OTR\Extras\Kontakt Output Presets\Kontakt Output Preset for 6.5.3\Storyteller 16OutsV2-k653.dg

Just minor differences and checking to validate with @ storyteller if needed. 🤷🏻‍♂️


----------



## storyteller (Jul 26, 2021)

sostenuto said:


> Marvelous Reaper tool !! 🙏🏻
> Here is my current Win11 Pro _nitty gritty_ versus Install directions:
> 
> C:\OTR\Extras\Kontakt Output Presets\Kontakt Output Presets for 6.5.3\Storyteller 16OutsDrumMapV1-k6.cfg
> ...


Noted


----------



## Joel Wilkinson (Aug 10, 2021)

Loving version 2! @storyteller The Reaticulate features are fantastic and you've opened up so much flexibility in the way the template operates!

Just wondering if you could give some more information about how the OTR Version 2 theme is necessary for the operation of the template? I'll be completely honest, the new theme leaves a lot to be desired visually in my opinion and removes features that I've found really useful. For instance level markings/numbers on track meters are really useful and aren't there in this theme. It feels really inconsistent across the board with a lot of different visual styles that make it quite fatiguing to use.

In V1 I used a mod of the excellent White Tie Imperial theme that had the best visual style and functionality IMHO of any Reaper theme I've used so far and worked really flawlessly with V1 once I saved my own templates with track layouts modified for the new theme. I would love to continue using this or perhaps modifying it to work with OTR V2, or modify the new OTR theme to be more consistent and functional.

Is there any advice you can give me about what's needed for the template to function correctly with a theme?

P.S - Perhaps in the future there could be an opportunity to work with a dedicated theme developer such as White Tie or Blankfiles to create a nice consistent UI experience for OTR? Aesthetics are quite important to the usability of software in my opinion so it would be cool to see OTR improve in this area.


----------



## storyteller (Aug 10, 2021)

hojo9595 said:


> Loving version 2! @storyteller The Reaticulate features are fantastic and you've opened up so much flexibility in the way the template operates!
> 
> Just wondering if you could give some more information about how the OTR Version 2 theme is necessary for the operation of the template? I'll be completely honest, the new theme leaves a lot to be desired visually in my opinion and removes features that I've found really useful. For instance level markings/numbers on track meters are really useful and aren't there in this theme. It feels really inconsistent across the board with a lot of different visual styles that make it quite fatiguing to use.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the feedback! Glad you are enjoying OTR2!

I’d love to work with White Tie or Blankfiles. That would definitely be a great collaboration. I have been receiving updates from one user working on a really cool mod to the OTR2 theme. I hope that gets released soon. It might be exactly what you are looking for 

As for why OTR requires the current OTR2 theme... Basically almost all of the scripting relies upon track types defined in the theme rather than with prefixes, suffixes, and such. It was the only way I could get the messy operational stuff out of the way for users and hide it behind the scenes. The price to pay, however, was heavily modifying a theme. It sort of even broke Reaper‘s menu system for changing theme track types. apparently there is an internal limit programmed in reaper for the number of items a theme can contain. That is why the OTR developer menu exists when you right click in the track panel. i had to build a way to test out changing track types. So if you go theming OTR2, you will need to use the OTR2 developer menu to test it out In a blank project.

Now, it is possible to modify OTRs theme and for it to still function. There are just hundreds of track types identified in the theme that would need to be adjusted. Most are just copy/paste with the code. You’d just need to make sure you touch all of the code in the Walter file. That is assuming you want to add/change GUI elements in the theme.

Or alternatively, you could change the pngs in the theme package. That’s what most themers would do to just re-skin the existing layouts.

Hope this helps. Ask away if you run into anything. I’d love to see more custom themes with OTR2 begin to come out.

_*edit: when I say track type, I’m referring to track layouts...*_


----------



## Joel Wilkinson (Aug 10, 2021)

Thanks so much for your detailed reply!



> I have been receiving updates from one user working on a really cool mod to the OTR2 theme.


I'm really keen to see this!

In the interests of not just complaining but throwing my hat in the ring, here is the theme that I modified to get it to where I would be happy using it for extended periods of time. I'm very light sensitive so the changes are mostly darkening the theme to make it easier on my broken eyes. Essentially a dark theme for OTR V2, the brightness can be adjusted to suit your monitor or personal taste using the gamma slider in the Theme Colour Controls action. I personally use it with a gamma of 1.15.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19p4p5G9Qiyhul5EuwTmF4MmwlyKKQRVj/view?usp=sharing (OTR V2 Dark Mod)


----------



## Chris Richter (Aug 10, 2021)

storyteller said:


> I have been receiving updates from one user working on a really cool mod to the OTR2 theme.


That _might _be me.

@hojo9595 That was a smart move! I dived into the color settings and changed everything around to get a darker look.
Also I did some quality of life tweaks like reducing the minimum track hight (now I can display 65 tracks at once) or optically rounding the corners of items. Initially I just liked the visuals of round corners but I recently found them to really help distinguish items from one another.
Edit: I also changed the font for better readability with smallest track hight.

Here's what it looks like right now:





I am also using Rodilabs Color Palette in the top right. OTRs colors are super bright in this iteration which doesn't work well with the white font I chose for the items.

Here's a view of a "real" project (from the Spitfire Stargirl Competition):





I find it to work quite well for my taste. Also I think the medium colors work best on the items. I am not sure I should hard code them into this theme as color preferences are so individually different.

One thing I really want to try is to have midi notes also display with rounded corners but I had yet to find time for it.


----------



## Joel Wilkinson (Aug 10, 2021)

That's looking fantastic, I'm a big fan of the more rounded items! They make it so much easier to see where cuts and joins are between close together items


----------



## storyteller (Aug 10, 2021)

hojo9595 said:


> Thanks so much for your detailed reply!
> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/19p4p5G9Qiyhul5EuwTmF4MmwlyKKQRVj/view?usp=sharing (OTR V2 Dark Mod)


This is looking great! Thanks for sharing! And, btw, I didn't take anything negatively or complaining. I know we all have different workflows and visual preferences. I think it is a really awesome contribution.



Chris Richter said:


> That _might _be me.



Yep! That'd be you! I've had some other questions come through on theming but yours is the only one I have seen pics of yet. It looks really great too. I actually like the condensed track sizes a lot. I'm looking forward to the final product! I'm liking the rounded items too.


----------



## chris massa (Aug 13, 2021)

I seem to be having a plugin scanning issue. after setting up fresh and using 6.34 reaper, reaper crashes on different plugins vst3 or just VST3. seems random. I have cancelled and cleared the cache and tried re scanning but still has errors saying it is waiting then moves forward. I tried older version of reaper 6 still having issues. thoughts?


----------



## storyteller (Aug 13, 2021)

chris massa said:


> I seem to be having a plugin scanning issue. after setting up fresh and using 6.34 reaper, reaper crashes on different plugins vst3 or just VST3. seems random. I have cancelled and cleared the cache and tried re scanning but still has errors saying it is waiting then moves forward. I tried older version of reaper 6 still having issues. thoughts?


Hey Chris - It wouldn't be OTR related since that is a core Reaper function. But a lot of times, fresh installs of Reaper will highlight plugins that are incompatible with the latest OS or potentially other coding standards. I've had that happen numerous times. A good example were Waves v9 plugins. They worked inside Reaper for years ever since they were released. Updates to Reaper wouldn't have to "rescan" those plugins... rather, they would just check that they were there. Later, a fresh install of an OS, a fresh install of the plugins and I come to realize that after crashes in the plugin scanning process - not only were v9 plugins incompatible, but even some v10 and v11 plugins were incompatible as well. That is when I had to update them all to v12. Even though they appeared to work, they had coding issues that would fail the scanner.

I don't want to turn this into a Waves thread at all... but it is an example. Numerous other vendors have issues. Output Movement is having issues with the scanner presently and I just recently purchased it. NI's Super8 has issues from time to time as well while scanning...


----------



## robgb (Aug 13, 2021)

The ability to build Reaticulate files is stupendous. I hope you and @tack have gotten together to integrate this into Reaticulate itself.


----------



## storyteller (Aug 14, 2021)

robgb said:


> The ability to build Reaticulate files is stupendous. I hope you and @tack have gotten together to integrate this into Reaticulate itself.


Thanks Rob. Jason (@tack ) and I did chat a lot while I was working on the GUI. I’d definitely be open to it. Jason hasn't asked me specifically about integrating the OTR Editor into Reaticulate, but it is my impression through our convos that he has a specific vision on how he wants to finish out a GUI for Reaticulate. I know he was hard at work with building the foundation for his GUI with the recent release of RTK and has chatted about his plans with Reaticulate with me, but I will let him make those announcements. There are some great things coming!

But it is also why I haven’t posted specifically in any Reaticulate thread announcing the OTR Editor just out of respect for his plans and vision... while not stealing any of his future thunder.

I will say that OTR’s Editor is designed for speed rather than exploiting all capabilities of Reaticulate whereas it is my guess that any official GUI for Reaticulate released by Jason will likely take advantage of all capabilities of Reaticulate, but I’d imagine would also have to come at some sort of a sacrifice to speed. OTR was built on speed for my own composer career and for converting my workflow over to using articulation maps, so the OTR Reaticulate Editor will definitely be relevant for the foreseeable future. Have no worries there. ☺️ I have some ideas on how to improve on it as well. Sorting your lists and applying that sort order in the New From Existing template is probably the next major priority for me.

Hopefully he will chime in here or in his Reaticulate thread about it.


----------



## chris massa (Aug 14, 2021)

storyteller said:


> Hey Chris - It wouldn't be OTR related since that is a core Reaper function. But a lot of times, fresh installs of Reaper will highlight plugins that are incompatible with the latest OS or potentially other coding standards. I've had that happen numerous times. A good example were Waves v9 plugins. They worked inside Reaper for years ever since they were released. Updates to Reaper wouldn't have to "rescan" those plugins... rather, they would just check that they were there. Later, a fresh install of an OS, a fresh install of the plugins and I come to realize that after crashes in the plugin scanning process - not only were v9 plugins incompatible, but even some v10 and v11 plugins were incompatible as well. That is when I had to update them all to v12. Even though they appeared to work, they had coding issues that would fail the scanner.
> 
> I don't want to turn this into a Waves thread at all... but it is an example. Numerous other vendors have issues. Output Movement is having issues with the scanner presently and I just recently purchased it. NI's Super8 has issues from time to time as well while scanning...


Thanks for your reply. Seems several people are having this issue on Windows. Can’t find any Mac examples. I am v12 for waves but it is totally random. Seems to have started on v6 of Reaper On Windows units. Luckily I still have v1.8 to fall back on.


----------



## storyteller (Aug 14, 2021)

chris massa said:


> Thanks for your reply. Seems several people are having this issue on Windows. Can’t find any Mac examples. I am v12 for waves but it is totally random. Seems to have started on v6 of Reaper On Windows units. Luckily I still have v1.8 to fall back on.


No problem! . You could try copying into the OTR2 directory the scanned plugin files from an existing version of Reaper you know has worked in the past. Those are:

reaper-auplugins64-bc.ini
reaper-auplugins64.ini
reaper-vstplugins64.ini
reaper-vstshells64.ini

and just to be safe these as well...

reaper-fxoptions.ini
reaper-fxtags.ini

See if that works? If it is an issue with Reaper's scanner, maybe this will sort of trick it into thinking it already scanned your plugin directory.


----------



## Ricgus3 (Aug 15, 2021)

Amazing job! Started lurking around and rebuilding my track packs for my libaries! 

One question: I made a a track templat from scratched with Reacticulate -> Kontakt -> 16 midi to OTR mapped. When i for example run Anthology strings and set the Close mic to the "close mic output" I get no sound? Only get sound from the "mixed output". What am i doing wrong to get the close mic send to "close output"?


----------



## storyteller (Aug 15, 2021)

Ricgus3 said:


> Amazing job! Started lurking around and rebuilding my track packs for my libaries!
> 
> One question: I made a a track templat from scratched with Reacticulate -> Kontakt -> 16 midi to OTR mapped. When i for example run Anthology strings and set the Close mic to the "close mic output" I get no sound? Only get sound from the "mixed output". What am i doing wrong to get the close mic send to "close output"


Thanks! Are you using a project template, or just trying a completely blank project? The OTR Mapped templates require them to be used in a project template, so that could potentially be the problem. If not, I’ll need a little more detail to help.


----------



## Ricgus3 (Aug 15, 2021)

storyteller said:


> Thanks! Are you using a project template, or just trying a completely blank project? The OTR Mapped templates require them to be used in a project template, so that could potentially be the problem. If not, I’ll need a little more detail to help.


I used the standard template . I made a track template like I wrote above:16 midi mapped. And then I assigned the mic positions to different outputs but only the mixed output makes audio when I play


----------



## Ricgus3 (Aug 15, 2021)

Also! Will there be a document or a video explaining how your reaticulate gui works?


----------



## storyteller (Aug 15, 2021)

Ricgus3 said:


> I used the standard template . I made a track template like I wrote above:16 midi mapped. And then I assigned the mic positions to different outputs but only the mixed output makes audio when I play


Hey! You are right. I see the issue now. It looks like the project templates that got included in the zip had some sends muted. Click on each of the Track Groups (VI-C Tracks... e.g. Strings, Solo Strings, etc), click on the routing button (bottom left on the track, then unmute all of the muted sends. That should solve it. You can resave the project as a new project template. I will get that corrected in the downloadable zip file. Sorry about that!

I think I was originally going to include a Standard Template and an OTR-Mapped Template with those sends unmuted... but I must have gotten distracted. Whoops!


----------



## storyteller (Aug 15, 2021)

Ricgus3 said:


> Also! Will there be a document or a video explaining how your reaticulate gui works?


There will be. In the interim, there is a thread on the Reaper forums where I added a list of things to know about the Reaticulate Editor GUI. That thread is here: It is located in Post#24


----------



## Ricgus3 (Aug 15, 2021)

storyteller said:


> Hey! You are right. I see the issue now. It looks like the project templates that got included in the zip had some sends muted. Click on each of the Track Groups (VI-C Tracks... e.g. Strings, Solo Strings, etc), click on the routing button (bottom left on the track, then unmute all of the muted sends. That should solve it. You can resave the project as a new project template. I will get that corrected in the downloadable zip file. Sorry about that!
> 
> I think I was originally going to include a Standard Template and an OTR-Mapped Template with those sends unmuted... but I must have gotten distracted. Whoops!


Found it! Thank you so much for the help!


----------



## storyteller (Aug 15, 2021)

Ricgus3 said:


> Found it! Thank you so much for the help!


No problem. I updated the zip file for the OTR2 download as well. Thanks for catching this!


----------



## storyteller (Aug 17, 2021)

Hey guys and gals -

The bug that was noted earlier in the thread with the icons and colors not populating correctly in the Reaticulate Editor has been fixed. You can download a new OTR2 zip from the website, or if you are handy with a text editor, you can change the code in your existing installation yourself. Basically a block of code in each of four files needs replaced. Here is the solution:

In the following files, you will need to change the block of code that mirrors the code structure below from approximately lines 660 - 683 with the following:

Files: 
Storyteller_GUI_Reaticulate Delete Existing.lua
Storyteller_GUI_Reaticulate New From Existing.lua
Storyteller_GUI_Reaticulate New Blank.lua
Storyteller_GUI_Reaticulate Edit Existing.lua

Replacement Code:

```
--get icon index
            for j=1, #selectlist_ReaDefaultIcons do
                if ART_i == selectlist_ReaDefaultIcons[j] then
                    --set variable
                    OTR_Art_Icon = j
                    --override to display "Default" for list
                    if ART_i == "list" then
                        OTR_Art_Icon = 1
                    end
                end
            end
           
            --get color index
            for j=1, #selectlist_ReaDefaultColors do
                if ART_c == selectlist_ReaDefaultColors[j] then
                    --set variable
                    OTR_Art_Color = j
                    --override to display "Default" for list  selectlist_ReaDefaultColorsDesc
                    if ART_i == "default" then
                        OTR_Art_Color = 1
                    end
                end
            end
```

The download now also includes the freely available MMC Locate JS plugin for Midi Machine Control as well as an updated page in the manual which includes the Reaticulate Editor quick tips section I included earlier in this thread.


----------



## tack (Aug 17, 2021)

storyteller said:


> it is my impression through our convos that he has a specific vision on how he wants to finish out a GUI for Reaticulate


Indeed, I'm pretty unreasonably opinionated about the UX -- which admittedly is maybe a bit ironic considering how damn long I've been having users sling banks around their text editors. But I do want the look and feel to match Reaticulate and follow the rest of its UI idioms, which isn't really possible with the Lokasenna GUI library.



storyteller said:


> my guess that any official GUI for Reaticulate released by Jason will likely take advantage of all capabilities of Reaticulate, but I’d imagine would also have to come at some sort of a sacrifice to speed.


And of course there's that, yes, it will fully implement all of Reaticulate's feature set (some of which can get a bit obscure). My hope certainly is that it won't sacrifice much on speed -- you'll be able to copy/paste articulations between banks, drag and drop to reposition articulations, do certain types of bulk edits, etc. -- but it's true that I would err on the side of discoverability and ease of use ahead of cranking out banks. Because relative to actually using the articulations, creating or updating banks is a much less common operation.

But @robgb to be sure I fully support what Jonathan is doing with OTR, and if OTR users run into any issues with Reaticulate I'm committed to working with Jonathan to address them. (But that surely won't be necessary, Reaticulate the most stable "alpha" software on the planet. )


----------



## Ricgus3 (Aug 18, 2021)

storyteller said:


> Hey guys and gals -
> 
> The bug that was noted earlier in the thread with the icons and colors not populating correctly in the Reaticulate Editor has been fixed. You can download a new OTR2 zip from the website, or if you are handy with a text editor, you can change the code in your existing installation yourself. Basically a block of code in each of four files needs replaced. Here is the solution:
> 
> ...


How do i update the OTR? I already did some trackpacks. Is it just to drop the entire folder into the old OTR folder and merge it all? Or should i try to backup my Trackpacks and just delete the old OTR folder?


----------



## storyteller (Aug 18, 2021)

Do you mean update from OTRv1 to OTRv2, or how to update reaper to the latest version in OTR? For the latter, there is a video on the orchestraltemplateforreaper.com website. If you are just talking about trackpacks, you can copy those over from your original location into the OTRv2 location, but you will still need to convert them and save them as OTRv2 instead of the OTRv1 format. You can do That by opening all of them in a blank project, running the converter, then re-saving each one.
If you are trying to do something not covered here, ask away and I will assist as best as I can.


----------



## chris massa (Aug 24, 2021)

storyteller said:


> No problem! . You could try copying into the OTR2 directory the scanned plugin files from an existing version of Reaper you know has worked in the past. Those are:
> 
> reaper-auplugins64-bc.ini
> reaper-auplugins64.ini
> ...


UPDATE.. I just kept hitting reopen and waited it said it was waiting on an instrument I waited. everything loaded. Including Kontakt 6. Go figure.


----------



## robgb (Sep 28, 2021)

@storyteller, I'm curious to know if it's possible to run the Reaticulate GUI script outside of OTR? I've tried running the scripts in my non-OTR version of Reaper, but keep getting errors.


----------



## storyteller (Sep 29, 2021)

robgb said:


> @storyteller, I'm curious to know if it's possible to run the Reaticulate GUI script outside of OTR? I've tried running the scripts in my non-OTR version of Reaper, but keep getting errors.


Hey Rob. It’s possible, but it is a little more complex than just moving the main Editor scripts. There are 4 main Reaticulate GUI scripts, but they are dependant on a modified scythe 3 framework and a slightly modified Reaticulate framework that are included in OTR, as well as a few other OTR specific preference files. And, of course, the Reaticulate GUI menu bar reference those 4 main scripts… The slightly modified Reaticulate framework shouldn’t matter outside an OTR workflow though… so you could use a normal Reaticulate installation for that part.


----------



## jadedsean (Oct 18, 2021)

Chris Richter said:


> That _might _be me.
> 
> @hojo9595 That was a smart move! I dived into the color settings and changed everything around to get a darker look.
> Also I did some quality of life tweaks like reducing the minimum track hight (now I can display 65 tracks at once) or optically rounding the corners of items. Initially I just liked the visuals of round corners but I recently found them to really help distinguish items from one another.
> ...


----------



## jadedsean (Oct 18, 2021)

Chris Richter said:


> That _might _be me.
> 
> @hojo9595 That was a smart move! I dived into the color settings and changed everything around to get a darker look.
> Also I did some quality of life tweaks like reducing the minimum track hight (now I can display 65 tracks at once) or optically rounding the corners of items. Initially I just liked the visuals of round corners but I recently found them to really help distinguish items from one another.
> ...


Could you share this theme please?


----------



## storyteller (Oct 18, 2021)

jadedsean said:


> Could you share this theme please?


OTR 2.1 will include this theme and one additional one. It is around the corner. The update will also have much more advanced VEPro functionality. Working through the last of the scripting as I type this. My guess is about a week out from that release.


----------



## jadedsean (Oct 18, 2021)

storyteller said:


> OTR 2.1 will include this theme and one additional one. It is around the corner. The update will also have much more advanced VEPro functionality. Working through the last of the scripting as I type this. My guess is about a week out from that release.


Great look forward to it.


----------



## Markrs (Oct 23, 2021)

Great work on OTR2. Thank you for all the videos you have done so far. Do you plan to do more? It would be good to see one of setting up from a blank reaper, as I am keen to better understand the routing options to VCA busses, especially with multi-midi out as that is not something I have really used before.

Thank you for creating an interface for Reaticulate, the only negative is that if you have pre-existing reaticulate banks that you paste into reaticulate.reabank they don't seem to appear in the Reaticulate management pop-up. 

Might be good to have a Blank Reaticulate option when adding inserting a track from template for individual VIs like BBCSO or Ujam that don't load into an existing engine.


----------



## Markrs (Oct 23, 2021)

This might be more of a general Reaper routing question, but it might be something you can do in OTR.

I would like to use articulation maps for each instrument like Violins 1, but I would like the shorts and longs to route to different busses with different reverb settings, then to route back into the main Section Bus (i.e. Strings).

This way, the entire midi for an instrument is in one place, which is ideal for output and notation output, but you can still apply different reverbs to the articulation types.

Something I'm sure OTR can do after watching the videos, but not sure how to do it is route mic positions in BBCSO or Opus to VCAs so individual effects such as EQ can be applied to particular mic positions, rather than to all the mics.


----------



## storyteller (Oct 23, 2021)

Markrs said:


> Great work on OTR2. Thank you for all the videos you have done so far. Do you plan to do more? It would be good to see one of setting up from a blank reaper, as I am keen to better understand the routing options to VCA busses, especially with multi-midi out as that is not something I have really used before.


Thanks Markrs! There should be new videos next week. I just finished up all of the additional coding for OTR v2.1 yesterday. I am going through my personal template to see if I have any issues with the new changes. I hope to have that checked out this weekend. That leaves next week for making the videos and posting them along with the OTR v2.1 release. There are lots of great updates I am excited to share... largely focused on VEPro integration along with a tightly integrated BOME fabric for those that use that piece of software.


Markrs said:


> Thank you for creating an interface for Reaticulate, the only negative is that if you have pre-existing reaticulate banks that you paste into reaticulate.reabank they don't seem to appear in the Reaticulate management pop-up.


That is actually by design. Reaticulate has such a huge amount of configuration options that it wasn't possible for me (with my current composing life) to create an interface that accommodated for all of those options and keep the Editor simple and quick for bulk creation of templates. So that meant only allowing the Editor to view articulations created within the Editor. That was the only way to manage the chaos of all of the manual configurations people have created to date with Reaticulate. It also allowed for me to create an interface that was FAST for bulk creation... my main intention since I was converting my entire articulation-per-track workflow over to a single instrument-per-track-with-mapped-articulations workflow. However, I know @tack is creating an official interface that will accommodate for all of the possible configurations. 


Markrs said:


> Might be good to have a Blank Reaticulate option when adding inserting a track from template for individual VIs like BBCSO or Ujam that don't load into an existing engine.


Saw this request. Noted. Done! Already added to the v2.1 release before I posted this reply.

(cont'd)


----------



## storyteller (Oct 23, 2021)

Markrs said:


> This might be more of a general Reaper routing question, but it might be something you can do in OTR.
> 
> I would like to use articulation maps for each instrument like Violins 1, but I would like the shorts and longs to route to different busses with different reverb settings, then to route back into the main Section Bus (i.e. Strings).
> 
> ...


You could approach it a number of ways, but in most methods without VEPro, you would lose the single track per instrument approach.


For your example, you could have a track with the long articulations + articulation map, and a track with short articulations + articulation map. This isn't ideal since you would now have two tracks in a folder for your violins group. You'd then add sends to each track for your reverbs/EQ.


Alternatively, you could set the instrument up inside a Kontakt multi where longs are in one NKI... let's say on channel 1, and shorts on channel 2. You could then route each Kontakt instance to a separate set of outputs in Kontakt. This keeps your main instrument on one track... but the track would now need corresponding output tracks to merge them back to stereo in the DAW. This would now mean you have at least 3 tracks in your folder... one instrument track, and two output tracks.


For a single track... the only way I can imagine that this is done on one track without VEPro, would be for you to approach it as stated in the previous point... multiple NKIs in a multi rack on separate midi channels... but use the reverb INSIDE of Kontakt for each instrument. Then have all of the outputs mix back down to stereo output. From your DAW, it would appear to be one track with articulation maps changing the MIDI channel and Keyswitch for each articulation. Inside Kontakt, you'd handle the reverbs, then you'd receive back the stereo channel.


Lastly, your example could definitely be done in VEPro with a single track in the DAW. The VEPro instance would look more wild and crazy since you are basically recreating example 2 above in VEPro with the output tracks, but you'd allow the VEPro submix to route back to the DAW with a stereo channel. So, in this case, you'd have one track in a DAW with articulation maps connected to a single VEPro Instance. Inside that instance, you'd have Kontakt routing each group of articulations (longs and shorts) to different outputs, then submixing them back to stereo. You would place your reverbs inside of VEPro for this example.
Hope this helps. I know I kind of flew through those examples. I am happy to explain them more in depth and in simpler terms. I am just trying to provide an overview of approaches in this response.


----------



## Markrs (Oct 23, 2021)

storyteller said:


> You could approach it a number of ways, but in most methods without VEPro, you would lose the single track per instrument approach.
> 
> 
> For your example, you could have a track with the long articulations + articulation map, and a track with short articulations + articulation map. This isn't ideal since you would now have two tracks in a folder for your violins group. You'd then add sends to each track for your reverbs/EQ.
> ...


Thank you so much for the response. It sounds like VEPro would be the best option. The situation I described is a nice to have so I might wait until I need VEPro and then look to setup this up.


----------



## storyteller (Nov 1, 2021)

The BIG update for OTR v2.1 is finally here... and it is MASSIVE. There are nearly 200 new scripts and actions. OTR 2.1 includes new icons, new themes, new track templates, new workflow tools, new menubar items, new BOME integration, VEPro integration, new keyboard shortcuts, and more. You get the idea. 

I went ahead and put the updated zip file on www.orchestraltemplateforreaper.com. Videos are coming this week! I promise. Working on them as we speak. There are a number of new features that will definitely benefit from video tutorials.

In the meantime, take a look at the updated manual. It is much more robust, coming in at 70 pages now - almost triple what it was.

So here is a rundown of the updates for those that want to dive into it before the videos are posted:

========================================
=====Minor Updates for OTRv2 since release=====
===(these were stealth updates to the download)===
========================================
- bug fixes with the color palette
- bug fixes with Reaticulate Editor Track Icons and Color Boxes populating correctly
- included the MMC Locate JS plugin
- updated VEPRO/UVI non-reaticulate templates
- added OPUS templates

============================
===Update Log for OTRv2_1===
============================'
- The OTR 2 manual has grown tremendously! Lots of new stuff added.
- OTR Preferences Button will run an updated for version 2.1 (required for full BOME and VEPro functionality)
--All v2.1 Project Templates now default to 23.976 FPS for project video settings rather than 30 FPS. If you use another format in your region, please change this option under Project Settings for each project/project template and resave accordingly.
- adjusted the Midi CC Default for Middle C to C3 instead of C4. This does not affect anything other than how the keyboard is represented in the MIDI view editor.
- toggled the "MIDI reset CC" options off in Preferences>Audio>Playback to better accomodate for Reaticulate
- 160 new core scripts + New Actions largely focused on VEPro and BOME inegration
- adjusted the default chase CCs for Reaticulate in reabank.lua to: "1,2,3,9,11-31,64-69,85-90,102-117,119"
- Added a Default MIDI View Designer in the Midi Editor (see the updated MIDI toolbar)
- In the Midi Editor, keys 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 are now shortcuts for Midi Views 1-10.
- Up to ten MIDI views can be saved from within the Midi Editor
- The MIDI Editor comes with Ten Preconfigured Views
- All New VEPro Assignment Menu (Right click in the track view. Note: This does not physically change the actual VEPRO server, but serves as a way to visually change the track icon)
- VEPRO Icons added...Generic and Per Servers 1-16 
- VEPro Bome Midi Integration
- Two Bome Midi Projects included (a basic version and an advanced version)
- Two New Themes
- Updated OTR Preferences Script so that hybrid OTR1/OTR2 templates are handled better
- Pre-configured VEPro Enabled/Disabled CC Blocks, as well as a preconfigured CC Reset Block and markers
- Updated Project Templates for OTR v2.1
- updated VEPro Track Templates now have new VEPro Track Icons
- Included Vepro Project file (.vep64) to demonstrate how OTR can interact with disabling/enabling a VEPro instance with CC118
- The Activate shortcut (option+a) has been modified to UNMUTE the track and UNMUTE ALL SENDS on the track. Be aware of this change. 
- Added New Toggle Script: Toggle VI-C All Tracks & Children Visibility (In Uniformity). This toggles the visibility of all VI-C and children tracks together, rather than on a case-by-case basis per VI-C
- Added New Visibility Toggle Scripts: 
- Toggle VI-C Tracks & Children Visibility For Stem Group 01 
- Toggle VI-C Tracks & Children Visibility For Stem Group 02 
- Toggle VI-C Tracks & Children Visibility For Stem Group 03 
- Toggle VI-C Tracks & Children Visibility For Stem Group 04 
- Toggle VI-C Tracks & Children Visibility For Stem Group 05 
- Toggle VI-C Tracks & Children Visibility For Stem Group 06 
- Toggle VI-C Tracks & Children Visibility For Stem Group 07 
- Toggle VI-C Tracks & Children Visibility For Stem Group 08
- added keyboard shortcuts for all VI-C Visibility Toggles. These are intended to triggered from a midi translator such as BOME, but will function as expected. The toggles are:
- Command+Option+Control+1 = Toggle VI-C 01
- Command+Option+Control+2 = Toggle VI-C 02
- Command+Option+Control+3 = Toggle VI-C 03
- Command+Option+Control+4 = Toggle VI-C 04
- Command+Option+Control+5 = Toggle VI-C 05
- Command+Option+Control+6 = Toggle VI-C 06
- Command+Option+Control+7 = Toggle VI-C 07
- Command+Option+Control+8 = Toggle VI-C 08
- Command+Option+Control+9 = Toggle VI-C 09
- Command+Option+Control+0 = Toggle VI-C 10
- Command+Option+Control+q = Toggle VI-C 11
- Command+Option+Control+w = Toggle VI-C 12
- Command+Option+Control+e = Toggle VI-C 13
- Command+Option+Control+r = Toggle VI-C 14
- Command+Option+Control+t = Toggle VI-C 15
- Command+Option+Control+y = Toggle VI-C 16
- Command+Option+Control+u = Toggle VI-C 17
- Command+Option+Control+i = Toggle VI-C 18
- Command+Option+Control+o = Toggle VI-C 19
- Command+Option+Control+p = Toggle VI-C 20
- Command+Option+Control+a = Toggle VI-C 21
- Command+Option+Control+s = Toggle VI-C 22
- Command+Option+Control+d = Toggle VI-C 23
- Command+Option+Control+f = Toggle VI-C 24
- Command+Option+Control+g = Toggle VI-C 25
- Command+Option+Control+h = Toggle VI-C 26
- Command+Option+Control+j = Toggle VI-C 27
- Command+Option+Control+k = Toggle VI-C 28
- Command+Option+Control+l = Toggle VI-C 29
- Command+Option+Control+z = Toggle VI-C 30
- Command+Option+Control+x = Toggle VI-C 31
- Command+Option+Control+c = Toggle VI-C 32
- Command+Option+Control+` = Toggle ALL VI-Cs and Children Tracks
- Command+Option+Control+Shift+1 = Toggle Stem Group 01 Visibility
- Command+Option+Control+Shift+2 = Toggle Stem Group 02 Visibility
- Command+Option+Control+Shift+3 = Toggle Stem Group 03 Visibility
- Command+Option+Control+Shift+4 = Toggle Stem Group 04 Visibility
- Command+Option+Control+Shift+5 = Toggle Stem Group 05 Visibility
- Command+Option+Control+Shift+6 = Toggle Stem Group 06 Visibility
- Command+Option+Control+Shift+7 = Toggle Stem Group 07 Visibility
- Command+Option+Control+Shift+8 = Toggle Stem Group 08 Visibility
- New scripts with New shortcuts
- Option-Shift+A = Special Activate Track.... This takes the VEPro Status into consideration and does not Force the track to activate a disabled VEPro instance via BOME
- Option-Shift+D = Special Deactivate Track.... This takes the VEPro Status into consideration and does not Force the track to disable a VEPro instance via BOME
- Option+X = Super Deactivate: Similar to normal Deactivate Track, but also mutes the track and mutes the sends. This helps decrease CPU usage.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++BOME INTEGRATION SHORTCUTS (and how they work)++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A Modifier key has been added to existing shortcuts to toggle the VEPro Instance into a Disabled state.
-----------------------
Normal Shortcut:
Option+D = Deactivate track. This will currently deactivate the plugins ONLY.

With Bome Integration:
Option+Control+D = Deactivate Track AND DISABLE INSTANCE ON VEPro Server
-----------------------
Normal Shortcut:
Option+A = Activate track. This will currently activate the plugins ONLY.

With Bome Integration:
Option+Control+A = Activate Track WITH VEPRO INSTANCE DISABLED
-----------------------
Normal Shortcut:
Option+F = Freeze Instrument on Track. This will currently activate the plugins ONLY.

With Bome Integration:
Option+Control+F = Freeze Instrument on Track WITH VEPRO INSTANCE DISABLED
-----------------------
Normal Shortcut:
Option+Shift+F = Freeze All Plugins on Track. This will currently activate the plugins ONLY.

 With Bome Integration:
Option+Control+Shift+F = Freeze All Plugins on Track WITH VEPRO INSTANCE DISABLED
-----------------------
Option+X = Super Deactivate: Similar to normal Deactivate Track, but also mutes the track and mutes the sends. This helps decrease CPU usage. This will currently activate the plugins ONLY.

With Bome Integration:
Option+Control+X = Super Deactivate Track WITH VEPRO INSTANCE DISABLED
-----------------------

Notes: If Bome is activated with the OTR Project file that is properly set up with your devices, then OTR shortcuts should operate as discussed above. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++Revised Shortcuts:++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- Option+X is no longer used to toggle Reaper Auto Crossfades. It is now used for Super Deactivate
- Option+C is no longer used to toggle the Big Clock View. It now is used to Toggle Reaper Auto Crossfades
- C is no longer used to toggle on/off the SWS Console. C is used to toggle ON/OFF the Big Clock.
- Removed Marker keyboard shortcuts to not interfere with new Midi Editor View shortcuts


----------



## Chris Richter (Nov 1, 2021)

Wohoo, thank you so much for doing this. I use OTR all the time and can’t wait to dig into the update. 

This must have been a massive undertaking. I am sure it will give everyone who is thinking about working in Reaper a headstart.
And it’s great that the manual now is back as there’s a lot to take in with OTR 
Well done and thanks again!


----------



## Markrs (Nov 1, 2021)

Wow, that is a huge update and OTR 2 was already amazing. Great work @storyteller


----------



## Ricgus3 (Nov 1, 2021)

Amazing work! How do I update otr? jsut put the folder on the existing one and merge them=?


----------



## storyteller (Nov 1, 2021)

Ricgus3 said:


> Amazing work! How do I update otr? jsut put the folder on the existing one and merge them=?


Thanks!

For the update, you can treat OTR v2.1 as a new portable install in the same way you installed OTRv2. I'd personally suggest keeping your old OTR2 folder just incase you forgot about some modifications you made that you want to transfer over in the future.


----------



## Ricgus3 (Nov 1, 2021)

storyteller said:


> Thanks!
> 
> For the update, you can treat OTR v2.1 as a new portable install in the same way you installed OTRv2. I'd personally suggest keeping your old OTR2 folder just incase you forgot about some modifications you made that you want to transfer over in the future.


Thanks  Excited to try out the new update!


----------



## Joel Wilkinson (Nov 1, 2021)

Thanks so much for this new update @storyteller and I feel honoured to have my theme included! OTR V2 has been so good for my own workflow and I can't wait to get up and running with this!


----------



## Joel Wilkinson (Nov 1, 2021)

Also @Chris Richter your theme is fantastic and has become my new default


----------



## Chris Richter (Nov 2, 2021)

@Joel Wilkinson Glad you like it 
If you have any ideas for improvements, feel free to hook me up. 
I already have one or two things I would like to change.


----------



## Kitosch (Nov 2, 2021)

If anyone has this running in the native Linux Reaper, may I ask for your assistance? I couldn't work it out.


----------



## storyteller (Nov 2, 2021)

Kitosch said:


> If anyone has this running in the native Linux Reaper, may I ask for your assistance? I couldn't work it out.


Hey Kitosch

While I haven't tested OTR on Linux, I would assume it should function like the MacOS version. It is dependent on SWS... so you will need to make sure you have the latest SWS scripts for linux downloaded. I would suggest the following steps:


Complete a fresh install of Reaper on linux.
Launch it once
Copy the contents of the OTR folder into the Reaper user directory in Linux. This will overwrite the default Reaper install, but keep the main application. To be honest, I do not know where it would be located... but it is the same directory where you have your scripts and such for your Reaper install
Download the SWS extensions for your version of Linux at sos-extension.org
Install those
Launch Reaper...
It should now function with the OTR scripts and such... *hopefully*


----------



## storyteller (Nov 2, 2021)

Also - I wanted to keep an update in this thread regarding the upcoming videos. I have recorded 10 new videos ranging from a couple of minutes each to more than an hour. I have to go through and edit them and get them posted. I won't be able to get to the editing until Thursday or Friday. They should be posted shortly after. My goal is for them to be posted this week as previously mentioned. So stay tuned!

(I am toying with the idea of live-stream uploads in the future to keep the editing to a minimum)


----------



## jadedsean (Nov 3, 2021)

Amazing work Storyteller, this is OTR on steroids. Great update.


----------



## storyteller (Nov 8, 2021)

*The New Midi Lane View Customizer*
Explore OTR's new Midi Lane View Customizer in Reaper's MIDI Editor window.



*A Look At OTR 2.1 Themes and Customization*
Check out the new themes included in OTR 2.1 and learn how custom theming works for use in OTR.



*A Deep Dive Into The Reaticulate Editor*
In this video, we take a deep dive into the Reaticulate Editor and learn how to setup custom articulation banks for use within OTR.


----------



## storyteller (Nov 8, 2021)

*Updating OTR Projects to Version 2.1*
This video demonstrates how to quickly update your OTR 1.x and 2.0 projects and templates to make full use of the new features within OTR 2.1.



*Setting Up Bome With OTR*
In this video we explore how to set up Bome MIDI Translator Pro (www.bome.com) for use with OTR.



*Preparing Existing VEPro Projectes For Use With OTR and Bome*
In this video we explore how to prepare your exitings Vienna Ensemble Pro (www.vsl.co.at) projects for use with OTR and Bome MIDI Translator Pro.


----------



## storyteller (Nov 8, 2021)

*Understanding How VEPro Is Integrated With OTR*
Take a deep dive in learning how Vienna Ensemble Pro (www.vsl.co.at) is setup and integrates with the OTR workflow.



*Understanding The New VEPro Change Server Menu & Features*
Take a look at OTR's new visual icons and Change Server Menu for Vienna Ensemble Pro (www.vsl.co.at).



*How To Setup VEPro To Work Best With OTR And Bome*
In this video, explore how to best setup your Vienna Ensemble Pro (www.vsl.co.at) projects and instances from scratch to work best with OTR and Bome MIDI Translator Pro (www.bome.com).



*How VEPro + Bome + OTR Are Tied Together*
This video specifically looks at how Vienna Ensemble Pro, OTR, and Bome MIDI Translator work together once properly setup and integrated.


----------



## Chris Richter (Nov 8, 2021)

Awesome, thank you 

Edit: Just watched the first video. I never knew I could change the CC layout in all items at once. What a great tip! 🤯


----------



## Markrs (Nov 8, 2021)

Thanks you @storyteller! Looks like i will be spending sometime this evening going through the videos 👍🙂


----------



## storyteller (Nov 8, 2021)

Chris Richter said:


> Awesome, thank you
> 
> Edit: Just watched the first video. I never knew I could change the CC layout in all items at once. What a great tip! 🤯


 I had the same reaction when I first realized that too. Ha. But it really makes a big difference with midi editing.


----------



## storyteller (Jan 19, 2022)

OTR v2.2 has been released. The update/change log is pretty extensive on this one. Be sure to read about all of the additions. This update focuses on additional VEPro workflow improvements, bug fixes, and minor convenience improvements. There are over a hundred new scripts and actions!

I also have updated the OTR website (orchestraltemplateforreaper.com) to now show a full change log on the download page. Hope this helps everyone stay up to date on all of the latest changes.

Please check out the latest changes at www.orchestraltemplateforreaper.com/downloadotr.php

As always, let me know if you have any additional questions.


----------



## Ricgus3 (Jan 19, 2022)

storyteller said:


> OTR v2.2 has been released. The update/change log is pretty extensive on this one. Be sure to read about all of the additions. This update focuses on additional VEPro workflow improvements, bug fixes, and minor convenience improvements. There are over a hundred new scripts and actions!
> 
> I also have updated the OTR website (orchestraltemplateforreaper.com) to now show a full change log on the download page. Hope this helps everyone stay up to date on all of the latest changes.
> 
> ...


Can I update and still use my current projects without errors? Or should I wait with the update until I am about to start new projects?


----------



## storyteller (Jan 19, 2022)

Ricgus3 said:


> Can I update and still use my current projects without errors? Or should I wait with the update until I am about to start new projects?


There shouldn't be any errors and your existing projects should function the same as OTR 2.1. Some new functions (and/or updated functions) require the project template to be updated to version 2.2 to ensure compatibility. If you encounter this, all you do is click on the OTR prefs button. It will automatically update the project. Basically, it checks for and standardizes a few internal midi naming conventions for compatibility with new scripts, and renames the info track to reflect it is has been verified and is now an OTR 2.2 project. 

Just for perspective, OTR is used in my personal workflow with minor differences from the release version (such as added Reabanks, track templates, etc). But functionally, it is exactly the same. I continue working on projects in my OTR Project folder which is basically a constant evolution from the initial OTR launch. But as I update it for further workflow enhancements, I make a note of those for the Change Log, then include the complete set of those changes/updates with each OTR release. The jump from OTR 1 to OTR 2 was big since it was overhauled at its foundation, but incremental updates will almost always be added enhancements that will not affect usability.

Of course, if you run into anything, let me know. If you want to test the waters, just set OTR 2.2 up as its own portable install and try opening your project in it. That way you can go back to OTR 2.1 if you really need to.


----------



## Pougrivioure (Sep 5, 2022)

I just got OTR, it feels really powerful and handy, thought quite complex to handle at first.

One feature that got me is the ability to manage the microphones positions within reaper, though i really don't understand how to get there. I don't really understand how OTR manage routing, where do i put my inserts, etc.
Can somebody help me on this ?


----------



## storyteller (Sep 5, 2022)

Pougrivioure said:


> I just got OTR, it feels really powerful and handy, thought quite complex to handle at first.
> 
> One feature that got me is the ability to manage the microphones positions within reaper, though i really don't understand how to get there. I don't really understand how OTR manage routing, where do i put my inserts, etc.
> Can somebody help me on this ?


hey! Glad you are enjoying OTR.

Regarding mic positions, I think the first thing we need to address is what is your desired goal? (E.g. what do you want your project to look like from a mic control perspective?)

There are a number of ways OTR is built to handle this, but it really depends on what you want. For example, my preference these days is just assigning Midi controllers to the mic position faders inside each instrument and just routing the outputs back through a stereo track. But if you want to route the outputs back through OTR, you can do that as well by using the track templates and changing the output channels within your virtual instrument. The track templates are built to receive a properly routed virtual instrument.

But really, you need to decide how you want to handle your instruments first. Then we can best share how to approach it within OTR. 👍🏻


----------



## Pougrivioure (Sep 5, 2022)

What i would like is to have control on mic position for each sections of the orchestra. For instance, bringing the close mics on shorts strings to have more bite. In the end i'll have something like "String" as a master bus, "shorts" and "long" as child and the microphones as grand childs. In the meantime, i'll still have control on each tracks if i want to add a specific EQ or insert, without having to put them on all microphones. ( i don't know if i'm really clear).
I kinda know how to do this normally, but i don't know how it would work with OTR, since the routing is a little bit confusing to me so far.

The thing is, it's a bit hard to know what OTR is doing for me, and what do i have to do myself.


----------



## storyteller (Sep 5, 2022)

I wouldn’t view OTR as a product that “does it for you“ regarding mic positions and such. Instead, I would view it as a tool that streamlines all of the complex routing, track templates, and project template design In a way that is properly setup for stem rendering and building out massive or orchestral project templates in reaper.

In your example, if you are starting out using one of the included project templates, then simply name one of the categories as Strings. Then, in child tracks to that Strings category track already in your template, you would place your instruments with a right click > insert tracks from template > OTR virtual instruments > (choose the one that fits your needs)… this sets up the basic track structure based on built in templates.

It sounds like you would probably want to use separate track templates for shorts and longs with the strings.

Depending on how you intend to mix these down, you could simply add your instrument to the track, then move the mics to the positions you want on each track… or assign midi faders to them and control each one that way.

If, instead, you’d rather route the mic positions back into your template and control it from there, you can use one of the larger track templates with VI-OUTS and then make sure your instrument is sending each mic position to the proper mic position channels as defined in the manual.

There are pros/cons to each track template approach. That’s why all of the options are there. OTR is setup for speed and having the most flexibility when setting up complex orchestral templates.

if you need personal assistance, you can also email me at [email protected]


----------



## storyteller (Sep 22, 2022)

*I'm really excited to announce that OTR v2.3 is now available. *

Here are some highlights:


OTR has partnered with Orchestral Tools to now include project templates, track templates, articulation maps, and Vienna Ensemble Pro Server projects for their flagship libraries. All of these configurations are mapped logically in OTR for a one-track-per-instrument approach... including mapping mic faders to CCs in VEPro, etc. Be sure to check out the full manual for the included OT Extras.


OTR comes with an OTR-specific factory Reaticulate reabank library out of the box. This includes all of the Orchestral Tools flagship libraries mapped in an intuitive way. SINE presets are included to quickly sync up your libraries. Track templates require no configuration at all. They just work out of the box.


OTR includes a suite of custom scripts for visually-impaired users. These scripts make it possible for assistant-free composing through the use of Visual Feedback Screen Prompts (VISP scripts in Reaper actions menu) for screen reading software in Reaper. Initial setup of the visually-impaired composer's template is required... but afterwards, making music should be very close to assistant-free as possible.


New filtering with DYNAMIC Find/Search functions make it super easy to tailor your views for large templates.


Vastly improved Global Visibility Toggles menu toolbar and functions.


Vastly improved Midi usability, including incorporation of the latest Midi Tool plugin.


Vastly improved mouse and arrow navigation in the track view and midi view.


Fully compatible with Reaticulate 0.5.x.


New and updated VSTi2 and VSTi3 track templates of most samplers available today


Reapack scripts can now be updated without breaking OTR compatibility.


Now includes ~1400+ custom scripts/actions!

*installation of OTR v2.3:*


*What's New in OTR v2.3*


*Download Link:*
www.orchestraltemplateforreaper.com

*Changelog with a full list of updates:*





Download OTR | Orchestral Template for Reaper


The only industry standard workflow template for composers using Reaper. It is kind of a composer's nirvana. 1000 Custom Scripts and Actions for Reaper, Pre-built Project Templates with Track Routing, Pre-configured Track Templates, Custom-designed Reaticulate GUI, Included Articulation Map...




www.orchestraltemplateforreaper.com





_*OTR is a free to use and download. OTR uses a donation model to support development. Thank you for your continued support!*_


----------



## Pougrivioure (Sep 22, 2022)

Shame i don't have time to set it up properly and create my own template with this. Amazing work !

Being able to show only actives tracks is a great improvement, i'm looking forward to discover more about this update


----------



## Markrs (Sep 22, 2022)

Fantastic work @storyteller !


----------



## Chris Richter (Sep 22, 2022)

Wow, what a great update! Congratulations on the partnership with Orchestral Tools. 
Thank you very much for your dedication and investment into this project.


----------



## storyteller (Sep 22, 2022)

Thanks @Chris Richter, @Markrs, and @Pougrivioure! This release feels really good - a huge amount of workflow improvements from the previous version. I have been really excited to get it out there for everyone.

Even little things like the command+f dynamic search seem to make a huge difference in workflow.

*NOTE:*_ I re-uploaded the "What's New in OTR v2.3" video... the audio had a strange echo in the original render. That's now been resolved. _


----------



## Chris Richter (Sep 22, 2022)

These updates are sooo cool! Love the filter and arrow navigation. Also the find and replace script - that's _great_. 

A little workflow tip: I personally have "toggle folders under mouse cursor open/closed" mapped to the f key. That improved working with folders a lot for me as there is no clicking involved.

Thanks again


----------



## Chris Hurst (Sep 22, 2022)

Great update!


----------



## Grymt (Oct 8, 2022)

Hi Storyteller, I'm trying to download 2.3 for the third time, but the download speed is <90 Kb/s, and when it's ready after a long time the file is damaged...


----------



## storyteller (Oct 8, 2022)

Grymt said:


> Hi Storyteller, I'm trying to download 2.3 for the third time, but the download speed is <90 Kb/s, and when it's ready after a long time the file is damaged...


I’ll look into it. Sorry about the download challenges. Are you in Europe by chance? I’ve noticed that European download speeds have been slow for some reason lately. In the interim, i can send you a different download link. Send me your email so I can get you that link. [email protected]


----------



## Grymt (Oct 8, 2022)

Yes, I'm in Europe. Thank you, you've got mail!


----------



## storyteller (Oct 8, 2022)

Grymt said:


> Yes, I'm in Europe. Thank you, you've got mail!


Got it. I’ll get an alternative link setup and sent to you when I get back to the house.


----------



## inthevoid (Oct 20, 2022)

Just came across OTR the other day and have been blown away by it so far. Amazing work, thank you @storyteller. You might just have single handedly sold me on Reaper going forward!


----------



## storyteller (Oct 20, 2022)

inthevoid said:


> Just came across OTR the other day and have been blown away by it so far. Amazing work, thank you @storyteller. You might just have single handedly sold me on Reaper going forward!


Thanks! Let me know if you have any questions as you get started with it.


----------



## vegasck421 (Oct 24, 2022)

Hello @storyteller ,

I've been trying to download the OTR installer this morning to no avail. Is the website down by any chance? Thank you for all that you do.

[email protected]


----------



## storyteller (Oct 24, 2022)

vegasck421 said:


> Hello @storyteller ,
> 
> I've been trying to download the OTR installer this morning to no avail. Is the website down by any chance? Thank you for all that you do.
> 
> [email protected]


Hey. I just sent you an alternative download link. I’m looking into the server issues. Apologies for any challenges you are experiencing with the download.


----------



## Markrs (Nov 7, 2022)

Hi @storyteller I have been watching all the videos on OTR to improve how I use the template. I haven't really been using articulations due to set up time, but I just watched the video on OTR and reaticulate and realised that you have a lot of the same libraries as me, from the ones I could see. Would you be okay with sharing your reaticulate files, which saves me having to create them myself?


----------



## Roland-Music (Nov 8, 2022)

I think alot of reaticulate User Bank files are here: 








reaticulate/userbanks at master · jtackaberry/reaticulate


An articulation management system for REAPER. Contribute to jtackaberry/reaticulate development by creating an account on GitHub.




github.com





I haven't checked if they work with the latest version....


----------



## storyteller (Nov 8, 2022)

Markrs said:


> Hi @storyteller I have been watching all the videos on OTR to improve how I use the template. I haven't really been using articulations due to set up time, but I just watched the video on OTR and reaticulate and realised that you have a lot of the same libraries as me, from the ones I could see. Would you be okay with sharing your reaticulate files, which saves me having to create them myself?


Hey Markrs -

I know what you mean! They take a lot of time to get configured correctly. I spent hundreds of hours setting all of those up alongside the vepro projects and track templates. 

The good news is that the Orchestral Tools SINE libraries are included in OTR currently with Track Templates. I am also about to add a small update with the remaining OT libraries. SINE works really well with sharing presets and track templates since they are basically JSON files and don’t take up a lot of space when saving track templates.

As for the others you saw in the video with my personal template… the challenge is that I customize multis and remap the CCs inside of each instrument to conform to a standard workflow in OTR. This means you’d also have to have my saved Kontakt multis alongside the Reaticulate files, or be able to recreate them on your own. I’ve never found the standard NKIs and such to work on their own well enough to have a standard reabank for each one since I try to build them as one instrument track with all articulations loaded. Smaller instruments work out okay and sometimes just need cc mapping, but more complex instruments almost certainly need customization. My track template folder is several GB, and there is a bit of a gray area with developers regarding sharing NKIs.

But if you have a few libraries you are wanting, let me know and I will see if what I have might work.


----------



## Markrs (Nov 8, 2022)

storyteller said:


> Hey Markrs -
> 
> I know what you mean! They take a lot of time to get configured correctly. I spent hundreds of hours setting all of those up alongside the vepro projects and track templates.
> 
> ...


Thank you for the reply @storyteller and the offer to help, it is really appreciated. Given the custom nature of your reaticulate files I might be better to recreate them, as often working with someone else customisations can be tricky. 

Also as I am not a professional composer my reaticulate files are likely to be pretty basic, so if I build them, they will probably be fine to share with the community.

Thank you for all the work you do on these templates, though at this point they feel less like templates than a fully customised DAW!


----------



## storyteller (Nov 8, 2022)

Markrs said:


> Thank you for the reply @storyteller and the offer to help, it is really appreciated. Given the custom nature of your reaticulate files I might be better to recreate them, as often working with someone else customisations can be tricky.
> 
> Also as I am not a professional composer my reaticulate files are likely to be pretty basic, so if I build them, they will probably be fine to share with the community.
> 
> Thank you for all the work you do on these templates, though at this point they feel less like templates than a fully customised DAW!


Anytime.  Let me know if you have any questions as you march along with creating them.


----------



## Ivan Duch (Nov 8, 2022)

@storyteller, I've been looking a lot into OTR as I try to migrate from my own Reaper template to it. What you did with it and the amount of custom scripts is amazing.

I see you use VEP, I can't make a template that uses VEP as a host and gets the same performance as hosting VIs inside Reaper. I'm using VEP locally in a one-machine setup. I'm wondering if VEP would work better in OTR. 

The difference between Reaper and VEP in CPU usage is quite notorious and escalates quite quickly 
I had to give up on using VEP with Reaper. Have you experienced the same thing? Any tips?


----------



## storyteller (Nov 8, 2022)

Ivan Duch said:


> @storyteller, I've been looking a lot into OTR as I try to migrate from my own Reaper template to it. What you did with it and the amount of custom scripts is amazing.
> 
> I see you use VEP, I can't make a template that uses VEP as a host and gets the same performance as hosting VIs inside Reaper. I'm using VEP locally in a one-machine setup. I'm wondering if VEP would work better in OTR.
> 
> ...


Hey Ivan. I’m fully VEP unless it is something like a synth or drum plugin (like Addictive Drums, etc). I find the performance to work similarly to if were hosted locally inside of Reaper… perhaps better, but there are a variety of scenarios to make sure it runs efficiently.

I cannot speak to all system specs, but I will say that while I run multiple VEP machines, I also run a server on the same machine as my DAW. My DAW is a 2020 iMac i9 10 core 3.6Ghz with 128GB of ram. Samples are streaming from an OWC mini (non raided). It has four 2TB Samsung 870s in it connected via Thunderbolt 3. On my local VEP server, I have somewhere between 350-400 stereo instances hosted as PRESERVED, DECOUPLED, where one instance = 1 instrument with all articulations loaded. That means if a sample library has multiple instruments (such as a string library), then that Library is spread across multiple instances… e.g. Violins I = 1 instance, Violins II in a separate instance, etc. My local VEP server consumes every bit of ram possible. That is my stopping point at when I quit loading instances into VEP.

VEP is setup in preferences as 2 audio channels per instance and all cores allocated per instance. With this setup, you probably won’t get more than 400ish instances before there starts to be some issues with VEP. But that is a lot of instances! I have between 200 and 400 instances per server running across four servers… that covers around 1400 instruments in each master template I have. Each server probaby has no more than 20 active connections at a given time though due to the way I have the libraries distributed.

In reality, I could probably double my server count for all of the libraries I own… Currently, I have my servers running in 1 of 2 configurations depending on which libraries/template I want to use. But I try to stay in one setup as long as possible.

In Reaper, I use a single stereo VI-S instrument track per instrument. No additional midi channels. Articulation switching is managed through Reaticulate. i have all mics enabled… no purging at all. Each mic position is assigned a common midi cc. I dedicate CCs 22 to 31 for mics. All tracks in my master template have been connected to their respective VEP instance and disabled inside of the template. This means they will only consume memory in VEP and no cpu until activated in Reaper, but are available instantly upon activating the track in Reaper.

With this setup, VEP consumes minimal cpu at idle and only begins to use cpu when a track is activated in Reaper. Also, muting unused tracks in reaper (including disabled tracks) will reduce cpu overhead. Now, the way I have my servers setup, my orchestral sections are distributed across multiple servers, but the basic rule of thumb remains with VEP as when hosted locally: that rule is that you can still run out of cpu or disk I/O, so freezing tracks as you go is good practice if you become concerned about CPU. With my multi-server setup, I don’t require any freezing when writing, but I do freeze before mixdown on heavy cpu hitters… which tends to be locally hosted synths. I don’t freeze a VEP instance unless it is for archiving a finished project.

*Tips:*

Dont track with anything on the master bus or mix busses. Bypass any active fx on tracks when tracking. With my template, I have 1600 tracks and can compose using a buffer of 384. Adding fx will require A higher buffer for tracking which isn’t good. 


If you are going to be disabling/enabling vep instances to manage ram or plan on doing something other than preserved, decoupled… then you are probably better off hosting locally.


Alternatively, if you do need to manage ram but can create a palette of instruments for a large project with multiple cues, then VEP can be a great option since you can load them decoupled and preserved, but choose your palette and save the VEP server project. This would be beneficial if the instrument palette is always active and live across a whole project (like a tv episode or movie).


VEP shines as a way to distribute CPU processing, distribute ram requirements, and distribute disk I/O. Think of it in that manner and it will help you know when/how to use it most effectively.


The fastest SSD is still limited by CPU and internal bus architecture for streaming samples. It is always just a simple math problem. But the idea is that if you plan on having a full tutti orchestral moment and are running all instruments on one server with multiple mic positions, you can still get garbly-gook and stutters in the playback. This is just a math problem that basically tells you that you need to distribute your resources or freeze tracks along the way.


With decoupled, preserved VEP projects, you will need to make sure to use midi CC warmup blocks in your template so that each project will reset mic positions and cc values in each VEP instance.
Hope this gets you going with VEP. It is one of the best changes I made to my workflow and highly recommend it. But doing it right is critical, otherwise it can become a cumbersome, unruly situation.


----------



## storyteller (Nov 8, 2022)

I will add that the included Orchesteal Tools VEPro project templates and included reaper track templates are living examples of my workflow and “best practices” if you are designing your own setup. So it would be beneficial to take those for a test drive.


----------



## Ivan Duch (Nov 9, 2022)

@storyteller, thank you so much for the detailed answer. I went for the "as few instances as possible" recommended by VSL, but I also see the main issue is the CPU consumption while idle that that causes. So I'm testing the one instance per instrument approach right now. That should at least avoid CPU consumption of unused instruments.


----------



## Ivan Duch (Nov 9, 2022)

I just tested it in one of my current projects, there's still a significant CPU increase when using VEP, I created a single instance for each track I was using. Might be my system, I don't know. Are there any buffering settings you change in Reaper?


----------



## storyteller (Nov 9, 2022)

Ivan Duch said:


> I just tested it in one of my current projects, there's still a significant CPU increase when using VEP, I created a single instance for each track I was using. Might be my system, I don't know. Are there any buffering settings you change in Reaper?


There are a lot of potential variables, so just to make sure we are comparing apples to apples, what are your system specs? How many instruments in your VEPro project? What VIs?

My recommendation is to start at the most basic level first. Just create a VEP server project with all of the instruments and do not run reaper. Let’s see what that looks like cpu-wise first. If setup correctly, there should be minimal cpu usage at idle once the VEP project is fully loaded.

I use the 2x setting in the plug-in. I use a buffer of 384 in 24/48k projects. Are you on Win Or Mac? What kind of audio device do you use?



Ivan Duch said:


> @storyteller, thank you so much for the detailed answer. I went for the "as few instances as possible" recommended by VSL, but I also see the main issue is the CPU consumption while idle that that causes. So I'm testing the one instance per instrument approach right now. That should at least avoid CPU consumption of unused instruments.


The single instance approach per instrument is going to be much more efficient with enabling/disabling/distributing cpu load, etc. Glad we started there.

I’m not sure if it matters, but I exclusively use VST and not AU plugins in VEP. That way the project can load on Win or Mac. I use the VST3 plugin inside of Reaper.


----------



## Ivan Duch (Nov 9, 2022)

storyteller said:


> There are a lot of potential variables, so just to make sure we are comparing apples to apples, what are your system specs? How many instruments in your VEPro project? What VIs?
> 
> My recommendation is to start at the most basic level first. Just create a VEP server project with all of the instruments and do not run reaper. Let’s see what that looks like cpu-wise first. If setup correctly, there should be minimal cpu usage at idle once the VEP project is fully loaded.
> 
> ...


My computer is an I7 8700k, 64gb Ram, several SSD drives, Windows 10. The audio interface is an Audient ID4. 

The current project I'm using has almost no CPU usage when the instances are all disconnected. I have it online all day because I use it with Dorico (which is waaay worse at handling plugins than Reaper). 

Also 2x in the plugin on this end. 

The VIs I was testing with were Spitfire AROOF and BBCSO. I'll do further testing with other plugins and projects of mine. 

Thanks again @storyteller!


----------



## storyteller (Nov 9, 2022)

Ivan Duch said:


> My computer is an I7 8700k, 64gb Ram, several SSD drives, Windows 10. The audio interface is an Audient ID4.
> 
> The current project I'm using has almost no CPU usage when the instances are all disconnected. I have it online all day because I use it with Dorico (which is waaay worse at handling plugins than Reaper).
> 
> ...


No problem! Seems like your system would be more than adequate. One of my servers is an i7 quad core (much lower specs than your system) and that one runs 300-400 instances on it and performs just fine. But again, probably no more than around 20 instances are active at a given time.

What kind of CPU hit are you seeing when you connect to VEP in Reaper? Are you using ASIO? I‘ve heard that the “ASIO for all” driver does not play nicely with VEPro. But I am on Mac, so I can’t verify that.


----------



## Markrs (Nov 9, 2022)

I did have an issue with Reaper and having a lot of tracks causing CPU issues but this wasn’t related to VEP as I don’t use that. I have posted a link below in case it helps, though it might be a very different issue to this one.



Markrs said:


> A quick update I was able to set Thread Behaviour back to level 4 and it had no impact on CPU still <1% however if I reselected "Run FX when stopped" it goes back to 30-40% so it seems it is that option that was causing the problem.


----------



## Ivan Duch (Nov 9, 2022)

Markrs said:


> I did have an issue with Reaper and having a lot of tracks causing CPU issues but this wasn’t related to VEP as I don’t use that. I have posted a link below in case it helps, though it might be a very different issue to this one.


Reaper by itself has an incredibly efficient performance in my system. It's been a while since I compared it to the competition in that front, but it was the best one in my tests back then.



storyteller said:


> No problem! Seems like your system would be more than adequate. One of my servers is an i7 quad core (much lower specs than your system) and that one runs 300-400 instances on it and performs just fine. But again, probably no more than around 20 instances are active at a given time.
> 
> What kind of CPU hit are you seeing when you connect to VEP in Reaper? Are you using ASIO? I‘ve heard that the “ASIO for all” driver does not play nicely with VEPro. But I am on Mac, so I can’t verify that.


The CPU usage of VEP is about 5% or 10% more but can go beyond that, it's not show-stopping but I have to increase the buffer size because of it. I see situations where it goes up to 70% CPU usage while the same project, entirely hosted in Reaper is at a relaxed 35%. Depends on the libraries as well. For example, I ran some tests with ARO percussion only being hosted on VEP and the CPU hit of that was the same as having them hosted in Reaper, so instruments being used make a difference for sure.

I like the modularity of your approach, the only issue I find with it is that my current workflow revolves around Dorico for the writing part and I'm sending mockups to clients directly from there. So what I did is create submixes in the instances where everything is pretty decent for an initial mockup.

With an instrument per instance approach I don't see a way to create submixes within VEP, is there a way within VEP to send audio between the different instances so I can for example have one instance with reverbs where all the instances outputs are sent to?

From Dorico I go to Reaper for the final production, in an ideal world I'll keep using the plugins hosted in VEP, but the performance hit is kind of a pain. Although with the modularity you suggested I could just freeze the most intensive plugins and be done with it.


----------



## storyteller (Nov 9, 2022)

Ivan Duch said:


> Reaper by itself has an incredibly efficient performance in my system. It's been a while since I compared it to the competition in that front, but it was the best one in my tests back then.
> 
> 
> The CPU usage of VEP is about 5% or 10% more but can go beyond that, it's not show-stopping but I have to increase the buffer size because of it. I see situations where it goes up to 70% CPU usage while the same project, entirely hosted in Reaper is at a relaxed 35%. Depends on the libraries as well. For example, I ran some tests with ARO percussion only being hosted on VEP and the CPU hit of that was the same as having them hosted in Reaper, so instruments being used make a difference for sure.
> ...


Yeah with submixes, you would need to rely on your DAW for FX and submixes rather than VEP... or send VEP outs to a print rig which is what a number of composers do. Many have a separate ProTools print rig for that purpose. I personally think a print rig would muddy the workflow I use, but I certainly understand why some people have adopted that approach.

I think a common approach with Dorico is to use it for composing, but then import the midi into Reaper for fine tuning and rendering with FX. Once in Reaper, then mix it down into appropriate submixes. OTR handles that seamlessly. I know some users try to put all of their plugins into a big VEPro project, but that is only going to increase latency and force a non-modular approach. There is always some give-and-take depending on the workflow approach. Happy to talk through those approaches if needed tho.


----------



## Ivan Duch (Nov 9, 2022)

storyteller said:


> I think a common approach with Dorico is to use it for composing, but then import the midi into Reaper for fine tuning and rendering with FX.


Yes, that's what I usually end up doing. But Dorico has pretty decent midi tools so it's possible to get a decent mockup out of it. So what I've been doing is sending those mockups for approval to clients before moving forward with the actual production in Reaper, for that VEP helps a ton with the submixes I have in place. Basically, I avoid going into Reaper unless I'm committed to an idea. 

I have to further test the VEP and OTR integration, this modularity trick of yours is very promising and I think I might be able to at least balance the orchestra within VEP and use some of the mixing tools within Dorico. 

Thanks again for all the help!


----------



## Pougrivioure (Nov 15, 2022)

Hi Story Teller !
I'm almost done creating my template on OTR. I think i'm starting to be familiar with it.
One thing though : I have a lot of "ensemble" percussions VI, like Damage, Addictive drums, etc.
I'm often asked to deliver high, mid and low stems for my percussions, but in OTR it seems like i have to have multiples instances of the same VI in each groups (in this case high percussions, low etc) in order to achieve this with the automated rendering feature, and therefore adding more and more track to a already quite big template. In other daw i'm used to route everything from kontakt to differents groups, so i just have one instance of an ensemble patch in my project, but i can't manage to make this work on OTR. I know it's a bit "against" the phylosophy of your rendering system, but is there any way to make this work ?

Thanks for your help  !


----------



## storyteller (Nov 15, 2022)

Pougrivioure said:


> Hi Story Teller !
> I'm almost done creating my template on OTR. I think i'm starting to be familiar with it.
> One thing though : I have a lot of "ensemble" percussions VI, like Damage, Addictive drums, etc.
> I'm often asked to deliver high, mid and low stems for my percussions, but in OTR it seems like i have to have multiples instances of the same VI in each groups (in this case high percussions, low etc) in order to achieve this with the automated rendering feature, and therefore adding more and more track to a already quite big template. In other daw i'm used to route everything from kontakt to differents groups, so i just have one instance of an ensemble patch in my project, but i can't manage to make this work on OTR. I know it's a bit "against" the phylosophy of your rendering system, but is there any way to make this work ?
> ...


Hey Pougrivioure - Glad to hear the setup is going well! As for your questions...

Ensemble patches are always a challenge. As great as Damage 2 is, it is also a good example of an instrument that doesn't integrate easily into a heavily templated setup. There are only a few VIs like this, but they are outliers for sure. For example, it is almost impossible to set Damage 2 up fully across VEPro servers and control all of the possibilities with standard CCs vs. using the GUI. You could do this with Damage 1, but with D2, it is built around the GUI controls, ensemble patches with individual mics, and Kontakt snapshots... none of which are great for templates. As excited as I was to buy D2, it has not yet made it into my full main template for those reasons alone. But I digress...

For your scenario, I would have my main tracking instrument in one category and (if I knew I had to render it out to high/med/low stems) I would probably set it up like this:






From there, I would split my midi and just copy/paste the track template into each of the other high/med/low categories for rendering at the end and mute the respective midi channels. If you are being tasked with delivering split stems and are using a single VI, you should try to view the instrument as separate instruments - which will mean duplicating the VI into the other high/med/low sections. Just because the developer grouped it together doesn't mean that it will conform to a proper hierarchical workflow. In this case, the developer built an instrument that is great for a wide customer base, but is much more difficult to integrate in an automated setup since they made decisions about workflow specifically for a single NKI rather than an entire composer workflow. Not knocking Heavyocity... I love their products! It is just a contradicting design philosophy with D2 vs. every other product they have released.

Re: Addictive Drums 2... In the latest OTR release, there is a track template built specifically for AD2. I personally place it in a specific Drum Kit category instead of general Percussion groups. But you could use it in a similar way as mentioned above and just mute out the respective VI-OUTS in each section after copy/pasteing it for render. The included track template in OTR will make it really easy to do this.


----------



## Pougrivioure (Nov 23, 2022)

Thanks for responding !
Ok, i see. I think i'm gonna stick with the "one instance per folder" solution. I have a pretty good new CPU and soon i'll have a slave computer, so i think it won't be a big problem.


----------



## daimebag (Dec 26, 2022)

Hi,

I am currently trying your template (framework?), and I have a question, How can I upgrade to a new version of OTR in the future if I modified some settings?

I am trying to avoid that when possible but for example, I use a Maschine MK3 and link some Reaper Actions to the controller, and modified some global settings (Vsts Paths, Save settings, Custom Templates, Fx Chains...).

Is there a best way to do that? Something to be avoided to prevent losing settings or overloading settings defined by ourselves or the framework itself?

I ask the question because I see many custom actions, many actions linked to keyboard shortcuts, and many scripts.
And I don't know if export of those settings and a merge to a new OTR Version could be possible?

Otherwise thank you for this awesome project.


----------



## storyteller (Dec 26, 2022)

daimebag said:


> Hi,
> 
> I am currently trying your template (framework?), and I have a question, How can I upgrade to a new version of OTR in the future if I modified some settings?
> 
> ...


You are welcome! Glad to be able to provide OTR to the community.

Updating can be done a couple of ways. The short answer is that reaper’s export preferences/actions/etc won’t work as you would expect with OTR since each OTR update includes new scripts, shortcuts, etc. I do hope to build an “autoupdater” in the future. But for now you can do one of the following when migrating from a customized OTR installation:


If you want your modified OTR to be the base installtion (typically the easiest), then you can just copy/merge the new OTR scripts, track templates, and project templates into your version from the latest OTR. Then, you can copy any updated Reaticulate reabanks into your reaticulate.reabank file. Lastly, you will need to make sure to copy any *new* OTR scripts and actions listed in the reaper-kb.ini file into yours. This registers the scripts copied from the scripts folder with Reaper. Just make sure to copy from the top half of the scripts that are new. They usually flow oldest at the top, newest at the bottom. This file is split into two parts… (1) scripts/actions, and then (2) keyboard shortcuts. You just need to copy the newest scr/act list into yours. Not the keyboard shortcuts.
If you want the latest OTR to be the base installation, then you will need to copy your scripts/actions, modified track templates, and reabank file into the latest OTR download. To do this, copy your modified/added scripts from the scripts folder into OTR. Copy/paste your Reaticulate.reabank contents that are new into the OTR Reaticulate.reabank file. Lastly, open reaper-kb.ini and copy/paste your modified scripts/actions list AND keyboard shortcuts into the OTR reaper-kb.ini. Be sure to keep the original OTR scripts/actions list. This will overwrite any new keyboard shortcuts OTR might have added in the update, but will retain your shortcuts from your existing installation. Be sure to fully replace the keybaord shortcuts to make sure they match up 1 to 1 with your existing installation. If you’ve made any mouse modifier changes or added mouse shortcuts, copy your reaper-mouse.ini into the latest OTR installation as well. That whole file can be overwritten with yours. Also - you can copy any FX chains from the folders, etc.
I know this might sound daunting depending on your skill set with Reaper. I can help you update it pretty quickly if needed thouh. We can setup a teamviewer/Skype call and I can walk you through the steps.
Hope this helps! The update process has proven to be the one process with OTR that isn’t as straightforward as I would hope, but I’ve found the vast majority of users tend to just use OTR out-of-the-box and if they make changes, they are usually small and just get reapplied in a newer OTR download. That said, there are definitely a chunk of users who I have helped with this update process or have extensively modified OTR enough to warrant consulting to get the update tailored for their workflows and customizations. But once the users have an understanding of what they are doing in the update process and why, many tend to be able to handle it themselves in the future. However, some do prefer consulting to ensure major OTR updates get smoothly integrated into their modified workflow. You can always email me at [email protected] if you have any questions.

Oh - and always be sure to backup your OTR folder before updating. 

-Jonathan


----------



## rockband (Dec 30, 2022)

Hi, I'm confused about two things. The Template is absolutely great, but I miss 2 things at the most. First, the category tracks aren't showing the fader volume. Is there a properly way to control the volume of each category? ( I know that you can control the volume of the category tracks, but I miss the fader, just to have visual control. In my case, they are the orchestral sections like the Strings, Brass, Woodwinds and on....I don't like using the VCA, this is why I'm asking it. The second is the reverb, the presets of the halls are good, but I can't get an accurate control of the reverb as I usually like to do. When I reduce the volume of an reverb track (close, far, stage...) I'm reducing the overall volume. Supose I want to reduce only the 100% reverb and have the 100% dry sound adressed in another track, so in this way I can control the signal of the reverb completely, without changing the signal of the tracks, basically, sidechain the reverb, I guess (sorry I'm not a expert, actually a begginer in composing for media btw). There's a tool for this in the template or I need to build this manually?

Really thanks for the template, I appreciate your work on it, it's HUGE!!!

Happy New Year! Kind Regards!

Rodrigo.


----------



## storyteller (Dec 30, 2022)

rockband said:


> Hi, I'm confused about two things. The Template is absolutely great, but I miss 2 things at the most. First, the category tracks aren't showing the fader volume. Is there a properly way to control the volume of each category? ( I know that you can control the volume of the category tracks, but I miss the fader, just to have visual control. In my case, they are the orchestral sections like the Strings, Brass, Woodwinds and on....I don't like using the VCA, this is why I'm asking it. The second is the reverb, the presets of the halls are good, but I can't get an accurate control of the reverb as I usually like to do. When I reduce the volume of an reverb track (close, far, stage...) I'm reducing the overall volume. Supose I want to reduce only the 100% reverb and have the 100% dry sound adressed in another track, so in this way I can control the signal of the reverb completely, without changing the signal of the tracks, basically, sidechain the reverb, I guess (sorry I'm not a expert, actually a begginer in composing for media btw). There's a tool for this in the template or I need to build this manually?
> 
> Really thanks for the template, I appreciate your work on it, it's HUGE!!!
> 
> ...


Hey Rodrigo. Glad you are enjoying OTR!

With version 2 of OTR, I wanted to clarify how the Category Tracks act more like divider tracks rather than folder tracks due to the amount of routing that goes on with them. That's why I removed the faders and such. It was a way to guide people away from the tendency of using them like a traditional folder track since they really aren't "standard" stereo tracks. They are actually 16 lanes wide and route throughout the template. 

What I do in my projects is just include a group track within the folder track that serves as my bus track for that group. It might seem like an "extra" track - but if you can view the category tracks more as dividers rather than folder tracks, then it makes total sense with the routing. I rarely/never use the VCAs either. They were included for people that still rely on that type of routing from DAWs/templates that didn't have the use of unlimited track folders like Reaper. I've migrated to a fully foldered Reaper workflow at this point.

I also tend to have individual FX tracks placed within the category tracks (unless I am using the virtual hall routing). If you use a group folder track within the category, then the FX track is placed inside the group folder. This ensures reverbs behave exactly the same when producing stems. While it is still very traditional to use reverb busses for projects at the top level of a project (like in the default OTR templates), the challenge can be that when stemming audio with multiple categories using a singular reverb, then the sum of the stems will not null 100% to a rendered stereo mix through the shared reverb. If you mix using independent reverbs for each category, then you can ensure the stems null 100% with the stereo mix. Depending on your workflow, this may or may not matter to you. So, just explore what your needs are to decide how to choose which reverb workflow you want.

Regarding the virtual hall concept...this should really be used in one of a couple of ways:

When using all dry instruments, you accept that the sound of the hall with you are simulating is like it would be if it were recorded live. In a normal, full orchestral recording context you wouldn't have individual control of hall mics for each section. So the concept here is that what you feed into the virtual hall is designed to emulate a live recording technique.


If you want more individualized instrument control of the virtual hall, let's assume you use fully dry instruments for a moment. You could route every instrument through a reverb with early reflections only while on its way to the virtual hall. The reverb would be placed in line on the instruments. You could add the appropriate amount of early reflections and predelay based on where the instrument would sit virtually in the room. Then, you allow the virtual hall collection of outputs to serve as the "live recording" of instruments feeding into it.


If you are blending libraries that have multiple mic positions, use the virtual hall as a way to blend all of your dry libraries with your wet libraries. An example would be having the majority of your template using an Air Lyndhurst Spitfire setup and routing these instruments normally. For instruments you may want to blend with this setup, route those to the virtual hall outputs and have those outputs configured to control mic positions in a hall similar to Air Lyndhurst. You can do the same thing with an Orchestral Tools template and use the virtual hall routing to add something like Berlin Studio reverb to emulate Teldex multiple mic positions within the virtual hall.


In general, if you plan to control individual "virtual mic positions" for each category, using the virtual hall will not enable this level of control. It was designed as a global hall setting for all instruments to land. This is why I included the additional reverb templates with dual reverbs for each main orchestral section. You might choose to use that path instead to achieve more individualized control of each section. But really, this wouldn't be much different than including multiple reverbs within the actual category tracks themselves. It just provides a more global way to control the settings for the main orchestral groups. When I have used those in my projects, I tend to put an algorithmic ER on one reverb and an impulse response tail on the other reverb.
Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any additional questions. You can always email me at [email protected] as well.


----------



## rockband (Dec 30, 2022)

Ah, now I got the idea about the category tracks. It make sense because I can create a group folder for each category and just hide them in track visibility. Another question, can I delete the VCA tracks without disrupting the template if I will not use them?


----------



## storyteller (Dec 30, 2022)

rockband said:


> Ah, now I got the idea about the category tracks. It make sense because I can create a group folder for each category and just hide them in track visibility. Another question, can I delete the VCA tracks without disrupting the template if I will not use them?


Yep! The only sections that are fully required for the template to function with the scripting are the Category Tracks, the Stems Section, and the FX/Main Bus Section.... And, really, you could delete most of the blank FX tracks in the template as well. Those are just there as a guide. If you don't plan on using the virtual halls ever, you can delete those from the FX section as well to streamline the track count and internal routing.

edit: You also need to keep the first OTR-INFO track as well.


----------



## daimebag (Jan 6, 2023)

storyteller said:


> You are welcome! Glad to be able to provide OTR to the community.
> 
> Updating can be done a couple of ways. The short answer is that reaper’s export preferences/actions/etc won’t work as you would expect with OTR since each OTR update includes new scripts, shortcuts, etc. I do hope to build an “autoupdater” in the future. But for now you can do one of the following when migrating from a customized OTR installation:
> 
> ...


Hi, thanks for this detailed answer!

I think I will use a touchscreen with ReaperWRB instead of custom MIDI Shortcuts (more maintenable for the future I think).


----------



## lokotus (Yesterday at 1:32 PM)

does anyone know if it is possible to update the current download of otr 2.3 manually with the newest reaper 6 version or is this downloadble portable reaper installation (using win10) and the scripts extremely tied to each other, making a manual update to a newer reaper version impossible without heavily understanding the scripting behind all of this OTR work ?
thanks for the project !!!
cheers, lokotus


----------



## storyteller (Yesterday at 2:38 PM)

lokotus said:


> does anyone know if it is possible to update the current download of otr 2.3 manually with the newest reaper 6 version or is this downloadble portable reaper installation (using win10) and the scripts extremely tied to each other, making a manual update to a newer reaper version impossible without heavily understanding the scripting behind all of this OTR work ?
> thanks for the project !!!
> cheers, lokotus


Yep! Just download the latest reaper installer for windows, be sure to click the “portable install” checkbox, then point it at the OTR directory.

On Mac there are a few additional steps due to the security features of running a portable install. But there are videos on the OTR YouTube site for updating and steps are also included in the manual.


----------



## lokotus (Yesterday at 3:14 PM)

thanks for the work so far !!! I will be checking everything out soon and it will be exciting comparing it to my current workflow for nuendo...


----------

