Reaper et Harmony Navigator

SCENARIO 1 (having RC control two separate VSTi instruments)

In this first scenario, let’s say we want RC to control the sound of two of our favorite VST instruments, hosted inside Reaper. RC’s Track 1 will have Chord Generators on it, and RC Track 2 will have Melody Generators on it. We want these Phrases to control the following freeware VST instruments on Reaper tracks: LazySnake (for the Chords), and Organized Trio (for the Melody). You may want to use your own VST instruments, and that’s fine!

1. First, make sure the RapidComposer.dll file is copied to your favorite VST folder, so Reaper knows where to find it, and so that it will show up in the available VSTis in Reaper.

2. Second, start a completely blank Reaper project. Insert one single track (CTRL+T is the Reaper command for adding a track to your project). This will have the RC VST on it.

3. Click the “FX” icon on the track we just inserted, browse to the VSTi section and find “RapidComposer (MusicDevelopments).” Double-click to insert RC on the track.

4. Rename the track to “RC Output” or “RapidComposerOut” or something similar. Open the RC window or GUI, and click “A” to add a second track to the Composition.

5. Create two new tracks in Reaper, above our RapidComposer track.

-5a. Click FX on the first track, and insert the LazySnake VSTi on it, and name the track “1 LazySnake”.

-5b. On the second track, click FX and insert Organized Trio on it, and name the track “2 Organ”.

-5c. Now, change the input of the 1 Lazysnake track from whatever your soundcard says (probably Input 1 or Input L or something like that), and set the input to “Input: MIDI”, then “All MIDI Inputs”, then “All Channels”. Then, click it again, and after you click “Input: MIDI”, you’ll see a “Map Input To Channel” near the bottom. Change this to 1.

-5d. Repeat the same steps from 5c, and change the “2 Organ” track to 2, in the “Map Input To Channel” section. (On all of these steps (including the track names): the numbers represent our MIDI channels)

6. Now, click the “I/O” button on the “1 Lazysnake” track. Go to the “Receive” section and select “RC Output” (or whatever you named the track that has the RapidComposer VSTi on it). Then, below that, you’ll see two buttons that say MIDI: ALL.
Change them both to MIDI: 1 (this is important, as it tells RC to play its Track 1/Channel 1 track, to the matching one in Reaper.

7. Similar to Step 6, click the “I/O” button on the “2 Organ” track. Go to the “Receive” section and select “RC Output” (or whatever the name is). You’ll see the same two buttons... MIDI: ALL. Change them both to MIDI: 2 (this is equally important).

Before we go any further, we should save this layout as a Reaper ProjectTemplate. Go to File / Project Templates, and save it whatever filename you like, for example, “RC Scenario 1”


8. Add some chords in the RC VST window... and throw the Generators on the tracks (remember, track 1 is for Chord Generators, and track 2 will be for Melody Generators).

9. Press play in Reaper and you will hear the phrases being sent to the Reaper tracks that have the VSTis on them.

10. With the way we set Reaper up, we’re also able to play the VSTs live (depending on what track we have selected, and whether or not it is armed for recording, and also has record monitoring enabled), and record our own MIDI clips in addition to hearing MIDI being sent from RapidComposer’s VSTi track. This scenario can be worked with further, using Scenario 3 (below). All of this already is pretty involved, and is mainly for people greatly familiar with the MIDI routing capabilities of their favorite DAW. Although Reaper seems complicated, we find its routing pretty easy to grasp.