7.2 Editing Media Items in REAPER
This topic is a big one!
Kind: concept (user-guide-section) Chapter: 7 Managing and Editing Media Items Source: REAPER User Guide v7.70
This topic is a big one! REAPER features a comprehensive range of editing techniques for use with your media items and more. These techniques include (but are not limited to):
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Basic editing of media items.
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Time selection and item editing.
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Razor selection and razor editing.
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Spectral editing (covered at the end of this chapter). Before exploring these, there are some basic concepts which you will need to understand about how REAPER’ behaves when editing items: we can then go on to learn the different editing techniques. For example:
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All editing in REAPER is non-destructive. Edits made to items are unique to the in project item and do not in any way modify the source file. You can experiment knowing that your original recorded files are safe.
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Item editing in REAPER basically consists of selecting an item, or a portion of an item (range), then doing something to it – such as splitting it, deleting it, copying it or moving it.
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REAPER offers you two basic ways of editing media items – Simple editing, using shortcut key combinations only, and smart editing, using your mouse in conjunction with various modifier keys (Alt/Opt, Ctrl/Cmd, etc). Some functions are common to both methods, but, as a general rule, smart editing offers more sophisticated options than does simple editing. This chapter will explore and explain both methods.
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Razor editing offers a greater range of options and flexibility than do the other methods.
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Sometimes a number of steps might be required to achieve an editing task. If so, you can assign a single keyboard shortcut to the entire sequence. Just how to do this is covered in Chapter 15.
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To a large extent, you can customize REAPER’s editing behavior thru the editing settings and mouse modifiers within your Options, Preferences window. We'll get to this later in this section. Remember that when editing you have available both the Edit, Undo command and the Undo History window (covered in Chapter 2). This Undo History window can be used to restore a project file to any earlier state.
Important note: automation envelopes: Automation envelopes are covered in detail in Chapter 18. For now note that the option Move envelope points with media items (toggled on/off by clicking on the toolbar envelope tool) will determine whether envelopes and their points are moved/copied with their media items.