Scripting in REAPER isn’t a new thing.
But some enhancements for the v5 allowed scripters to make more powerful scripts than ever, and to share them more easily.

During the 8 months or pre-releases, scripters have proposed, developped and share new features for REAPER, pushing back the limits of ReaScript.

What are these new features ?

There is hundreds of them. For all kind of workflows : sound editing, sound design, music mixing, video post-production, subtitling…
That’s why I will not show you all of them, but only those I think can be a real game changer for most advanced users.

Here, for you, the more noticeable “unoffcial” REAPER 5 new Features.

And as a bonus, the forum threads links to discuss about them, to have more infos, to follow their updates and to see more screenshots !

(Note : it was hard to make a scripts selection, every scripts has its touch of creativity in it, I try to choose features that may interest the most users, according to what I use often – that’s why there is a lot of personnal scripts – or what I know people really like. I really hope I didn’t forget any hidden gems !)

Loudness Graph by Heda

Imagine a way to track RMS of multiple tracks in a single graph, synced to the project (timing and colors), entirely interactive (click on the interface, it places the edit cursor at the corresponding position in the project), customizable, and with regions display ?

Without any doubt, this is the most advanced ReaScript ever made, and no VST analysing plugin can have this degree of integration with the host.

It is very convenient way to mix, especially dialogs against music in a narrative type of work, but also in music productions !

Link: HeDa Scripts for REAPER
Forum Thread: Lua Script: Loudness Meters MCP

Regions & Markers from Items by Heda

Ever wanted to be able to select multiple regions, to do some complex transformations on them, to edit them as easily as items ? Or more, to have several sets of regions, with on & off toggle ?

Well, don’t look further, this script is for you !

Link: HeDa Scripts for REAPER
Forum: EEL script: Notes Reader

Notes Reader by Heda

Displaying items notes in a window, with multi tracks supports, progress bar for showing how far is the next items, support of SRT formatting markup…

This Reader can be very useful for subtitlers, ADR, dubbing, giving synced infos to a composer or any other ideas you have in mind.

It is even usable for karaoke !

Link: HeDa Scripts for REAPER
Forum: EEL script: Notes Reader

Subtitles Import/Export from Test Items by Heda and X-Raym

Previous SRT management involves region. Next gen management ? Text items !

With this two scripts, you can import and export text items as SRT subtitles. The Exporter is capable of selective exportation, offset from cursor position, and multitracks support ! Yes, subtitling in multitracks has been made possible in REAPER, thanks to scripting !

There is a lot of advantages of using text items rather than Regions subtitles for subtitling, especially timing operations and the fact that we can see all subtitles in the arrangement view (no need to have the edit cursor on it like with regions subtitles).

Link 1 (importer): HeDa Scripts for REAPER
Link 2 (exporter): X-Raym Scripts PackForum: Lua Script: Export/Import subtitles SubRip SRT format

Text Items Creations and Formating by X-Raym

Can we go further with text items ? Oh yes !

This is a set of almost 40 scripts to allow more ways to create text items and to manage items notes. A must have set for subtitlers !

Link: X-Raym Scripts Pack
Forum 1: Scripts (LUA): Create Text Items Actions (various)
Forum 2: Scripts (LUA): Text Items Formatting Actions (various)

HTML Exports by X-Raym

These are not publicly released but is a great demonstration of concept.

The idea is to export certain projects objects parameters as an HTML table. Tracks list, FX lists, Parameters FX, Items Notes List…

There is a great potential for exchanging infos about a project, for collaboration with other person who use different softwares. It can be especially useful for people who builds sounds databases and sounds packs.

I personally use this mostly to send time coded music intentions to the music composer, using text items.

Link: X-Raym Scripts Pack
Forum:  Script: HTML Exporter

Swing Items by mpl

Quantizing is fun, but the result is often a bit mechanic.

With this script, you will be able to more subtle operation, and to quantize on a swing grid ! You can even choose between quantize the items or the stretch markers !

Without any doubt the more powerful quantize tool for items.

Link: MichaelPilyavskiy/ReaScripts
Forum: Lua: Swing items (beta)

Color Swatch Tool by Airon

Color palette in REAPER is a bit limited.

Should I say “was” ?

Forum: Lua: Colour Swatch tool

Tracks Inspector by spk77

Need a way to groups certain often-used mixer knobs at the same place ? This script is for you !

Forum: Lua script idea: Track inspector

Glue Tools by Breeder

Glueing is a destructive process that create a new file from an item.

But maybe sometimes… it is too much destructive. We loose item color, muted notes, item notes, it merged separated items together…

Imagine you could choose some parameters to not include in the render ? Don’t look further, Breeder did it for you ! And spk77 also made a nice UI for it !

Forum: Lua: Advanced glue (glue items separately, preserve names, colors, muted notes etc..)

Sound Layering Scripts by X-Raym

This is a set of about 10 scripts for sound designers who need a lot of snap offset related actions to use sound layering/ sound stacking for creating powerful sounds designs.

Here are some examples :

Link: X-Raym Scripts Pack
Forum: Scripts for Layering

Multiple Envelope Actions Scripts by X-Raym

There is a huge set of scripts, with almost 60 new envelope operations.

The key idea behind these is that they can work on several envelopes and on several tracks at the same time, and they can work only in time selection if any.

To do that, they consider selected envelope first. If there is non, they consider visible armed envelope of selected tracks (a way to be sure that there is no non-visible modifications), and tada, you can edit multiple envelopes at once !

Here some of these scripts :

Link: X-Raym Scripts Pack
Forum 1: Multiple Tracks and Multiple Envelope Operations
Forum 2: Across Tracks Envelopes Operations

Envelope Generator by Xenakios

There is already some envelope generators in REAPER, thanks to parameter modulations and SWS extension.

But this one has the ability to display the result in real time. A must have for advanced envelope experiences !

Link: xenakios / Reaper Lua Stuff — Bitbucket
Forum: Lua and automation envelopes generation

Others

I choose these scripts so you have an overview of what could be and has been made possible with ReaScript in REAPER v5.

There is a lot of other powerful scripts, but they didn’t require v5 especially.

We could speak about other useful scripts the Source Time Position by Planetnine, the Randomize Take Properties by spk77, copy paste items attributes by spk77 and planetnine, compress/expand envelopes by spk77, Tag Lib support by X-Raym…

I invite you to leave a positive comment or/and to make a donation to these beautiful scripts authors. It will be very appreciated !

A key to not be lost in all the scripts avaibles out there : only look for what you actually need. 😛

Did I miss some of the ground breaking scripts out there ? Feel free to leave a link as comment ! 🙂