Reaper recording conundrum

[rggillespie]

Just having a problem recording with Reaper, I'm hoping a wise reaper user may be able to help. It's appeared out of nowhere last week and I cant seem to fix it. When I record a track, vocal or guitar with a mic. It records as usual, I can see the track there but when i save it the track goes completely blank? I play it back and the recording is there all fine, just nothing showing visually, its blank, so I cant edit it etc. I've updated will the latest download with no success, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to sort this out. It must be in the settings perhaps, but I cant seem to find where. Any help much appreciated as ever!

[Drew Stephenson]

Presumably the waveforms for any other tracks are all correctly visible?

[James Perrett]

I've got a feeling I had this at some point in the past but I can't remember exactly what happened. I think it had something to do with the reapeaks files which are the files that Reaper generates containing a picture of the waveforms. Have you accidentally told Reaper to not generate these files?

[rggillespie]

I'm very wary of making any changes in reaper so its been unchanged for a couple of years. I hoped downloading the latest update would do the trick but to no avail. The ezdrummer drummer tracks show up as usual and the original guitar track is fine but after that all the other tracks are blank. I must have pressed something accidentally.
If i close down the song, leave reaper and re-open it. The song loads and very briefly a little window pops up saying 'building peaks' and there are items 1/18 that quickly load. It's there for a couple of seconds then goes, that's new but i thought it was related to latest software update. Are these reapeaks perhaps?

[Drew Stephenson]

Have a look in the project directory. For every audio file there should also be a corresponding reapeaks file.
I wonder if these are somehow being saved to a different filepath?
You haven't moved the project at all?

[James Perrett]

Go to Options->Preferences->Appearance->Peaks/Waveforms and see if Display Peaks for Media Items is ticked at the top of the window. Unticking this box will cause the symptoms you describe. Also in the Audio->Recording section of the preferences check the options around Build Peaks for Recorded Files.

[rggillespie]

In the peaks/waveform area I have ticks for display peaks for media items and display while recording. No ticks for only display peaks for selected tracks and only display peaks for tracks and items that are soled or not muted.
In audio recording section I have build peaks for recorded files ticked for on the fly.
I haven’t moved the project.
Perhaps it’s something in the waveform settings area?

[James Perrett]

You can also tell it to store peak files in a different place to the audio which may be a problem if the alternate location doesn't exist. It may be worth using the search function in the Preferences box - try entering peak in there and then stepping through all the options that it finds.

[rggillespie]

Many thanks for your help blinddrew and James Perrett, I got there in the end today. A bit of file clearing and organizing seem to have got it back, the files where being stored in the wrong place for some reason. Not sure how that happened, it coincided with a big windows update, anyway but it's fixed now.

[manwilde]

Since we "upgraded" the project studio PC to Win10 it´s been nothing but headaches. Things get changed by themselves, configurations that were working flawlessly stop working and sometimes they get back to normal on their own... I keep my home computer on Win7, never touching the internet, and it´s staying like that for a loooong time.
I know not everyone has issues with Win10, but it doesn´t seem so unusual either... I feel more confident when I know James Perrett (I believe) still has some machines on XP for certain tasks.

[James Perrett]

I know not everyone has issues with Win10, but it doesn´t seem so unusual either... I feel more confident when I know James Perrett (I believe) still has some machines on XP for certain tasks.

Yes, the machine in the studio is still on XP but the XP laptop in my mobile setup stopped recognising the Firewire interface a couple of weeks ago so I've just replaced it with an RME Digiface USB on the Windows 10 laptop. I'm very cautious about upgrading Windows so I'm currently still on 1909 but I'm tempted to try sometime soon. I still have the old hard disk with a working setup on it from before I installed the SSD if things go wrong.

[Arpangel]

Many thanks for your help blinddrew and James Perrett, I got there in the end today. A bit of file clearing and organizing seem to have got it back, the files where being stored in the wrong place for some reason. Not sure how that happened, it coincided with a big windows update, anyway but it's fixed now.

I’ve had this issue on my Win 10 PC several times, where the destination folder somehow gets changed to another drive, however, it never seems to happen on my Mac.
Maybe as you say, it’s something to do with updates.
Although I find the way Reaaper stores its projects is very messy, my Reaper Media folder is full of all sorts of stuff, back ups of back ups, but that’s the way it works I guess.

[manwilde]

I'm away now, but if you're interested I can check my settings when back home. I feel my Reaper projects folder is tidier than the rest of my house...

[Arpangel]

I'm away now, but if you're interested I can check my settings when back home. I feel my Reaper projects folder is tidier than the rest of my house...

I know you can change where certain types of files are stored relating to a particular project, I have two Reaper Media files, one is the default one it creates when you install it, and the other is one I made myself, my music folder. Sometimes I forget which one is which, and I may choose one for a particular project, and forget, that can cause problems sometimes.

[Sam Spoons]

You probably know this already but don't you have Reaper create subdirectories for each project and tick the "copy all media into project directory" box? You can also have it save 'reapeaks' files into a sub folder within the project folder to reduce clutter.

[Arpangel]

You probably know this already but don't you have Reaper create subdirectories for each project and tick the "copy all media into project directory" box? You can also have it save 'reapeaks' files into a sub folder within the project folder to reduce clutter.

Yeah, I have copy all media, but I didn’t know about the sub folder.

[Sam Spoons]

I can't remember offhand where the reapeaks sub folder option is but I'm sure I haven't made it up I'll have another look later.

You still get a certain amount of clutter if you have multiple takes or several redundant tracks but hiding the reapeak files definitely helps.

[manwilde]

What Sam just said is one of the keys for a clean organisation of your projects. I´ll try to briefly summarize what my setup is:
- First of all, if you haven´t done it already, create a folder called "Reaper projects" on your hard drive of choice. Open your Reaper Preferences (CTRL+P), and on "Paths" (Under "General" on the left-side column) insert the path for this folder on the first field ("Default paths to save new projects")
- Second: go to your "Project Settings" window (ALT+ENTER), second tab "Media" and go to the first field ("Path to save media files") and type "\AUDIO" (no quotation marks) or whatever you want to call the subfolder in which all your audio will be for each project. Instead of clicking "OK" click on "Save as default project settings".
- Now let´s go with the peak settings: open your Preferences again (CTRL+P). Just for the sake of clarity, click first on the topmost category on you left column, "General". Now, on the "Find" field at the bottom left type "peaks". Every time you click on "Find" Reaper will take you to the next preference containing that word.
First one, "Store all peak caches in alternate path: untick that.
Now click several times until you reach this Preference: "Put new peak files in peaks/subfolder relative to media". This has to be ticked.

This should be it.

Of course, every time you save a new project you have to tick the option for "Create new directory for project" and "Copy all media into project directory". You should also do this to save new versions of your scattered projects, and once you´ve done for all of them you can get rid of the old ones.
Besides, make regular backups of your projects in a different hard drive (I guess you already do this).
Hope this hepls.

[manwilde]

Sorry, long post and I didn´t see your new ones making some of mine a bit redundant...

[shufflebeat]

Sorry, long post and I didn´t see your new ones making some of mine a bit redundant...

Good to have a systematic summary.

I have distributed my pathways in such a way as to keep everything to do with a project within a discreet folder but many will want to keep things centralised.

For every project I start, sometimes with multiple tabs, I have a project folder and within that separate "audio" (with Reapeaks), "mixes", "video" (just in case) and a "text" file for emergency notes, lyrics, PDFs, etc.

[manwilde]

I do that too. One thing worth mentioning for those unaware of it: when using external samples, reverb impulses or anything from an external library, it´s important to "Copy all media into project directory" when saving the project. That will create a subdirectory on the "Audio" folder for the project containing the relevant files...

[James Perrett]

I always use "Move all media into project directory" rather than copy as I don't see any point in leaving the original files in the default directory.

At the end of a session I will copy everything to a backup drive (although if I was really organised I'd use Syncback).

[manwilde]

Yes, normally it´s more practical to move rather than copy, but only if it´s your own recordings, surely you wouldn´t want to move your samples or IR files from its original location... In that case it´s copy rather than move (when saving for the first time since you included the sample or IR in your session, that is!).

Thanks for the Syncback link, I´ll check it out!.

[James Perrett]

If you are using samples or IR's in a plug-in then the plug-in should take care of where those samples go. In the case of Reaverb, it creates its own IR folder automatically under the project directory where it saves copies of the IR's that it is using.

[manwilde]

Yes, sorry for not explaining myself properly. All that is true as long as you keep the project in the same computer. If you want to take it to a different location, the IR won't no longer be avilalable unless you do the "copy all media" thing.
I discovered this when I first took a project on an usb stick from home to the project studio, and Reaverb could not find the IR file. As I have the same impulses on both computers, but differently allocated, I had to reload the IR pointing to the proper folder.
Now I always take care of doing the "Save as/copy all media" routine whenever I take a project to a different computer.