Shortcuts are the macOS defaults. On Windows, Cmd becomes Ctrl and Opt becomes Alt.

1.1Welcome to REALIVE#

REALIVE turns REAPER into a live playback system built for musicians.

Its purpose: spend less time programming, more time performing.

With it you can run backing tracks, navigate a song's structure in real time, change key and tempo mid-song, manage click and guide cues, drive lighting and video, and recover cleanly when a performance doesn't go to plan.

The difference from an ordinary playback rig is that the arrangement isn't fixed. Repeat a chorus because the room is still singing. Hold a vamp while someone changes a string. Skip to the outro because you're out of time. The computer follows the band rather than the other way round — and it does it without dropping a beat.

You don't need any programming knowledge.

1.2Core Concepts#

Five ideas underpin everything else.

Songs are separate projects

Each song is its own REAPER project, rather than one enormous session containing the whole show.

This keeps projects readable and portable, lets you load only what you need, and means a problem in one song can't take the others down. It also makes possible something most playback systems can't do: one song can start while another is still sounding, which is what crossfades, fermata segues and continuous sets are made of.

The Audio Routing project

All those separate songs send their audio through one shared project — the Audio Routing project — on the way to your interface.

Songs make the music. The routing project delivers it. Set your outputs up once and every song follows, whether that's three songs or three hundred.

Playlists

A playlist is your setlist: a file listing the projects to open, in order. It can hold songs, separators to divide sets, and place holders for things that aren't songs at all.

Sections

Songs are divided into sections — intro, verse, chorus, bridge, outro. REALIVE navigates and loops these while playing, which is where the live flexibility comes from.

Clicks and guide cues

REALIVE generates a click track and spoken guide cues for each song automatically, from the markers you place. Counts, section announcements, and cues aimed at the band or the vocalists separately.

1.3The Audio Routing Concept#

Worth understanding properly before you go further, because everything sits on it.

Every song routes its audio through the Audio Routing project. Think of it as the front-of-house mixer for the whole show.

A practical example. Your click needs to move from outputs 3–4 to 5–6. In a per-song setup you'd edit every song. In REALIVE you change it once in the routing project, and every song follows.

The same applies to stem outputs, cue routing, monitoring and timecode. That's what lets the system scale from a two-song club date to a three-hundred-song touring setlist without the setup work growing.

Two rules to remember:

• You must always have an Audio Routing project open. REALIVE won't play without one.
• Its name must contain the word "routing." That's how it's recognised.

Full setup is in Chapter 6. For now, just know that songs make the music and the routing project delivers it.

1.4Opening Your First Playlist#

What a playlist file is

A playlist is an .RPL file — a plain text list of REAPER project files. Opening one tells REAPER to open each project in its own tab, rather like tabs in a browser.

A typical playlist runs:

Routing project → Song → Separator → Song → Song …

Opening one

Three ways:

• Drag an .RPL onto the Playlist window
• Right-click in the Playlist window and choose Open Playlist
• File → Open Playlist

Double-clicking an .RPL in the Finder or Explorer will not open it correctly. Use one of the methods above.

When REALIVE starts, it offers a menu of recent playlists. Press Esc or click away to dismiss it.

Selecting and playing songs

Renaming changes the displayed title only, not the project file on disk.

Saving

CmdS saves the playlist and every open song at once.

Only songs already saved as project files can be written into a playlist, so save new songs first — right-click a song and choose Save As, or use File → Save Only Current Project. Then right-click the playlist title at the top of the window and choose Save Playlist.

Your first song transition

This exercise shows you the thing REALIVE does that ordinary playback doesn't.

1. Make sure your playlist has at least two songs. Double-click the empty area at the bottom to add one if needed.
2. Stop playback and place the edit cursor somewhere in the timeline of the first song.
3. Press K to open the Add Action Markers window.
4. Choose Go To Next Song, with Play Next Song On Beat and Let Current Song Play.
5. An orange marker appears at the cursor.
6. Make sure you're in Live mode (Tab toggles it), and start playback before the marker.

When playback reaches the marker, the next song starts — while the first one is still playing.

That overlap is deliberate, and it's the foundation of every segue, crossfade and medley you'll build later.

1.5Running Your First Song#

Live mode and Edit mode

REALIVE has two modes.

Edit mode is the normal DAW view, for building and editing songs.

Live mode is performance mode: a large timeline showing the song's sections, readable from a stage, with playback behaviour tuned for live use.

Tab switches between them. Esc returns to the live view and resets it.

Enable Live mode before going further.

Start playback

Select a song and press Space.

The song plays with its click and cues. Let it run through once and get used to how the system sounds.

Stopping

CtrlReturn is the stop worth learning first. It works in three stages:

1. First press — stop where you are
2. Second press — return to where playback last started
3. Third press — stop every other playing song, return to the beginning, reset the view

One key gets you out of any situation, including one where two songs are playing at once.

The transport

Two are available. REAPER's standard transport works as always, and REALIVE has its own with more live-performance information — song time, remaining time, section, tempo, timecode. Turn it on with F2. Either is fine to start with.

1.6Navigating and Looping Sections#

This is where REALIVE stops behaving like a backing-track player.

The central idea

Navigation moves the edit cursor. It does not move playback.

You position where you want to go while the current section keeps playing, then commit. That separation is what makes live navigation musical rather than abrupt.

, and . are the < and > keys without Shift.

Committing the move

Press Return.

REALIVE waits for the right musical moment and then jumps — no dropped beat. It works within a song or across to a different one.

That's the whole gesture: arrow keys to choose, Return to go.

Looping a section

Press L to loop the section you're in.

While looping, the section zooms, the ruler turns orange, and the guide cues mute so a repeated vamp doesn't announce itself every pass. Press L again to release; playback continues out of the section on the next pass.

Use it to rehearse a passage, extend a moment live, cover a problem on stage, or hold while you set up the next song.

Recovering

If the band ends up somewhere you didn't expect:

Put the edit cursor where they actually are, and press Return.

Most of the time nobody notices. If they've lost the beat entirely, ` solos the click so they can find it again.

Practise these four

Before rehearsing with anyone else, spend ten minutes on:

• Section jumps — Left / Right, then Return
• Looping — L
• Recovery — cursor, then Return
• Solo click — `

They're the moves you'll reach for under pressure, and they need to be in your hands rather than in your head.

1.7Preparing for Your First Rehearsal#

Check your routing

Open the Audio Routing view with Ctrl1 and confirm your outputs are assigned. See Chapter 6.

Run a line check

CtrlK plays a spoken identification through each output in turn, so you can walk the stage and confirm every line lands where it should. OptCtrlK checks click and cues only.

Do this before every show, not just the first.

Make rehearsal material

OptB opens the render window. Bounce a mixdown or stems so the band can practise with the same tracks you'll be running.

Rehearse the recovery moves

Five minutes practising section jumps, loops and solo click will do more for your confidence on stage than an hour of anything else.

Before the doors open

• [ ] Audio Routing project open and enabled
• [ ] Correct audio device selected
• [ ] Line check run
• [ ] Cue language correct
• [ ] Original tracks muted in Live mode
• [ ] Setlist order correct
• [ ] Everything saved

1.8Where to Go Next#

You can now open a playlist, run a song, navigate and loop its sections, recover when things move, and get through a rehearsal.

Chapter 2 is the natural next step: it takes you from an audio file to a song you can perform.

Back to contents

Chapter 1 covered running a show that already exists. This chapter covers making one: importing material, setting tempo, building the conductor track, and assembling songs into a setlist.

Shortcuts in this chapter are the macOS defaults. All REALIVE actions appear in REAPER's Action List prefixed with REALIVE_.

Windows users: shortcuts below are shown with macOS keys. On Windows, Cmd becomes Ctrl and Opt becomes Alt. Everything in REALIVE works on Windows except automatic audio device detection and switching, which is macOS only.

2.1Structure of a REALIVE Project#

Every REALIVE song opens from a template that is already laid out to work with the Audio Routing project. Double-click the empty area at the bottom of the Playlist window to create one.

The track order matters. REALIVE looks for these tracks by name and position, so keep them in place.

2.1.1Structure Track#

The first track. It holds the large text items you see in Live Play view — the section names that let you read a song's structure from across a stage.

It contains no audio. Never put audio in it.

Structure items are generated automatically when you build the conductor track. To add your own text to one, right-click the item and choose Item notes. Text entered there displays at a readable size from a distance.

2.1.2Original Track#

The second track. This is where you keep a full reference mix of the song — the original recording, a rough mix, whatever you're working from.

It exists so you always have the reference available while building. Because playing it accidentally in front of an audience would be embarrassing, REALIVE can mute it automatically whenever you enter Live mode. That's Mute Original track in Live mode in REALIVE Preferences, and it's worth leaving on.

Two actions control it during a show:

The solo action is useful in rehearsal when the band wants to hear the record rather than the stems.

2.1.3Guide Cues Track#

The third track. REALIVE generates spoken cues here automatically when you build the conductor track — "verse," "chorus," "bridge," count-ins, and so on.

There are two cue destinations: band and vocals. Some cues are sent only to one or the other, and REALIVE decides which automatically based on the cue type. Singers who don't want count-ins can be given a different cue mix from the band.

Cue tracks are muted automatically while you loop a section, so a repeated vamp doesn't announce "chorus" every four bars.

Cue language is set in Options → Realive Cues Language. See 2.5.5.

2.1.4Click Track#

Generated and maintained automatically. Use this rather than REAPER's built-in metronome — the built-in metronome knows nothing about your song structure, count-ins, or running clicks.

The click track is rebuilt whenever you build the conductor track, and it follows your time signature changes, stopping at the end of the song or at a fermata or end marker.

Click sounds are chosen in Options → Realive Click. You are not limited to the sounds that ship with REALIVE: drop an audio file into the click sounds folder and it appears in the menu automatically the next time the list is read.

2.1.5SEQ Folders and Stem Organization#

Everything below the click track is for your song's stems, organized into folders by instrument type.

Getting stems into the right folder matters more than it might seem. Tempo and pitch operations behave differently depending on folder type — a percussion stem and a vocal stem are not treated the same way when you transpose a song — so a misfiled track will misbehave later.

The Import Audio function sorts stems into folders automatically by filename. REALIVE carries over 200 instrument name rules, so a file called shakers.wav lands in the percussion folder without being asked, and so do kick, kik, bd, 808, cajon and a great many others. Anything it doesn't recognise is left at the bottom of the track list for you to place manually.

If you regularly work with a stem name REALIVE doesn't recognise, send it in and it can be added to the list.

2.1.6Additional Track Types#

Three other track types can be added to a song as needed. None of them are present in the default template.

SMPTE track — carries timecode out to lighting, video, or any other system that needs to follow the song. Right-click the timeline and choose Insert → SMPTE Track. Covered in 6.6.

Production MIDI tracks — send program changes, CC, lyrics, lighting or video cues to external gear. Covered in Chapter 7.

Lyrics track — drives REALIVE's own lyrics display and the Web Remote's lyrics page. Covered in 2.7.

Not to be confused with the Lyrics production MIDI track in 7.2, which sends MIDI to external presentation software such as ProPresenter. Same word, different job.

2.2Importing Material#

All import functions live under the Import Audio button in the main toolbar (ImportAudio_Menu).

2.2.1Import Audio Stems#

Import_AudioFiles — CmdOptI

Choose your audio files and REALIVE will:

1. Look for a tempo in the filenames or the containing folder name. If it finds one, it offers to set the song to that tempo.
2. Match each filename against its instrument list and file it into the matching SEQ folder.
3. Leave anything unrecognised at the end of the track list.

Files dragged in from REAPER's Media Explorer are sorted automatically as well.

If you imported tracks by some other route and want them sorted afterwards, run Sort imported from the same menu.

Vocal stems are forced to mono on import.

2.2.2Import an Ableton Live Project#

ImportAbletonProject — CmdOptShiftCtrlU

REALIVE can open an Ableton Live set directly and convert it to a REAPER project. Choose the compressed Live set file and it is converted and imported into the current project.

Supported: audio and MIDI items, volume and pan information, 6/8 project conversion, and the option to ignore non-audio/MIDI tracks. Guide and click tracks from the Live set are muted on import so they don't fight REALIVE's own click.

The importer is supported rather than experimental. That said, results depend on the Ableton version and how the set was built — straightforward projects come across well, elaborate ones may need tidying afterwards. Check the result before relying on it.

2.2.3Import Audio from a URL#

Import Audio → Audio from URL downloads audio from a link and places it on the Original track as an MP3 — exactly where a reference recording belongs.

YouTube is supported. Other sites may work, with mixed results.

This is the fastest way to get a reference version of a song into a new project when you're building from scratch.

2.2.4Sorting and Organizing Imported Tracks#

ImportTracks_Sort_Reasampler — ShiftCtrlO

Sorting places tracks into folders alphabetically within each folder, cleans up temporary tracks created during import, and removes leftover placeholder tracks from folders that have been filled.

Some tracks are deliberately excluded from sorting — production MIDI tracks and the lyrics track stay where they are.

2.2.5Consolidating Audio to the Project Folder#

Copies every audio file the project uses into the project's own folder, so the song is self-contained and portable.

Related, and worth knowing about: Smart clean project directory removes unused files from a project folder but will not delete a file that is still used by another project inside the same folder. That distinction matters when several songs share one folder.

2.3Tempo and Time Management#

Open the Tempo view with ShiftT (Tempo_ShowToolbar). Close it with Esc or Tab.

In REALIVE, tempo is always expressed in quarter notes. This matters for compound meters — see 2.3.6.

2.3.1Time, Beat and Warp Modes#

When you change a song's tempo, REALIVE has to decide what happens to the audio already on the timeline.

Warp mode stretches the audio to follow the new tempo. This is what you want when changing the key or speed of a song that's already built.

Keep time position sets the project timebase to time, so items hold their absolute position instead of following the tempo grid. Use this when you're establishing the tempo of freshly imported audio and don't want the audio moving underneath you.

Two modifiers change the behaviour while you work:

• Cmd bypasses warp mode for a single change
• Opt toggles auto-apply, so the change takes effect immediately rather than waiting for confirmation

2.3.2Setting Initial Song Tempo#

For a song you have just imported:

1. Open the Tempo view (ShiftT).
2. Turn off auto-warping so the audio doesn't stretch while you're searching for the right tempo.
3. Enter the tempo — hover the tempo field and scroll, or double-click and type a value. You can type an offset such as 2 or -3 instead of an absolute number.
4. Check it against the audio and adjust.

If you don't know the tempo, make a time selection of exactly one bar (or any known length) and use Find Tempo. You'll be asked whether to interpret the selection as dotted or straight notes.

For a song with a single tempo throughout, Tempo_Tap_Native taps the master tempo directly and everything follows. It has no default shortcut — assign one if you use it often.

2.3.3Using the Tempo List#

Window_Tempo — CmdOptShiftCtrlT

The Tempo List shows every tempo and time signature change in the song as an editable list. It is the fastest way to work on a song with many tempo changes, where hunting for markers on the timeline is slow.

From the list you can:

• Select, edit and delete tempo changes
• Toggle linear (ramped) versus immediate changes
• Copy and paste timeline data between points
• Scroll a tempo value while keeping the arrange view and edit cursor where they are

Cmd-click and drag is supported for range operations.

2.3.4Editing Tempo from the Transport Bar#

If the REALIVE transport bar is enabled, tempo is editable directly from it — including during a show.

Change it by double-clicking the value, dragging it, or rolling the mouse wheel over it. The and - buttons step by 1 BPM.

A pending tempo blinks until you commit it. Applied during playback, the change takes effect at the top of the next bar, on the beat.

Clicking the BPM: label cycles the project timebase between Time, Warp and Beat. See 3.2.

2.3.5Copying and Pasting Tempo/Timeline Data#

Tempo maps can be copied from one point (or one song) and pasted at another. Use this when several songs share an arrangement, or when rebuilding a song from a reference.

ConductorTrack_Copy (CmdOptC) and ConductorTrack_Paste (CmdOptV) do the same for conductor track data.

2.3.6Time Signatures and Compound Meter#

Insert a time signature change with CmdOptCtrlB (Tempo_Insert Time Signature Marker), or from the tempo toolbar.

Adding a time signature will not add a tempo change unless one is needed, and it preserves the linear setting of the surrounding tempo.

Below 70 BPM, REALIVE offers to set up a triplet feel — the tempo at which a compound meter usually makes more sense read as dotted notes.

Compound meters. Because REALIVE computes tempo in quarter notes, a 90 BPM 6/8 song is read as 60 BPM in dotted quarters — that is, a 2/4 bar at 60 BPM with a triplet feel in the click division. Menu → Timeline → Toggle Triplet Feel does the arithmetic and sets up the time signature and click division for you.

Toggling triplet feel can be applied to the whole song, or to a section only: make a time selection or place the edit cursor first, and only that part is converted. Razor edits are supported.

Compound meters are supported natively as well, but the triplet-feel approach above remains the recommended workflow — it keeps the click division and the tempo arithmetic consistent with everything else in REALIVE.

2.3.7Tap Tempo and Live Tempo Changes#

Two tap methods:

Both the tempo display and the tap window blink at the tempo they're showing, which makes it easy to check against the band before committing.

Confirming a tap during playback applies the change at the next bar, on the beat.

Conductor tap tempo mode lets a conductor drive tempo live. It is enabled per project.

2.4Building the Conductor Track#

This is the step that turns imported audio into a REALIVE song. It takes about a second.

2.4.1Entering Song Markers#

Markers define your song's structure. Add them at the edit cursor with CtrlM (Window_AddProjectMarkers_ImGUI), or from the Markers toolbar in the main toolbar.

Markers snap to the grid.

The distinction that matters: a marker is a single point; a region has a start and an end. REALIVE navigates and loops regions, not markers. Building the conductor track converts your markers into regions automatically, so you only ever place markers.

A marker placed inside an existing region splits that region.

Naming markers

Marker names are what the cue generator reads, so use REALIVE's section names and the spoken cues follow automatically.

You don't have to type them in full. Each has an abbreviation:

Also available: Musical, Rap, Theme, Reprise, Acapella, Instrumental, Ambiance, Segue, Prayer, Exhortation and Vocal Worship.

Counts are decided by the section type. Sections a band needs counting into — verse, chorus, bridge, pre and post — get a count automatically. Repeats such as Vrs Again and Chrs Again don't, because the band is already playing. This is why naming markers properly matters more than it might seem: the names carry the arrangement's logic, not just its labels.

Two markers have special meaning:

• !-->STOP<-- (blue) marks where the song stops. Every project has one. Move it where you want it.
• Fermata and end markers cut the click track at that point rather than at the project end.

2.4.2Running Build Conductor Track#

Press Conductor Track Build in the main toolbar, or use the Conductor Track menu (ConductorTrack_Menu, CmdOptCtrl^).

Before you run it, you need: the correct tempo, your audio imported, and markers matching the song's structure.

2.4.3What Build Conductor Creates Automatically#

1. Converts markers to regions so they can be looped and navigated.
2. Builds the Structure track text items from the marker names.
3. Rebuilds the click track, following time signature changes and cutting at the fermata or end marker.
4. Generates the Guide Cues track to match your markers.

2.4.4Understanding Generated Clicks and Guide Cues#

Count-ins. REALIVE can place a count before a section. Length is cycled with CmdOpt0 (CountIn_Cycle), or set directly:

In triplet feel, typing 34 produces a one-bar count and 1234 a two-bar count. Odd time signatures are supported, and band and vocal counts can be set independently.

Running click. A running click is a single beat placed before the song so the band can find the tempo before the first downbeat. Toggle it with OptCtrl~ (CountIn_RunningClick_Toggle), or from the metronome menu on the transport bar.

Seeking into a section that has a running click simply exits the running click rather than fighting it.

Rebuilding cues. Cue generation does not destroy cues you added by hand. By default the cue track refreshes whenever you insert a section marker; if you're placing markers manually and don't want that, turn off When inserting a marker, refresh the cue track in Preferences.

2.4.5Rebuilding After Song Edits#

Use the erase-everything variant sparingly — it is the only one that discards custom cues.

Moving the end marker updates the project end time automatically.

2.4.6Performance Automation with Action Markers#

Action markers are markers that execute an action when playback reaches them. They are how a REALIVE show runs itself: song changes, loops, stops and drone triggers all happen from markers on the timeline.

Open the Add Action Markers window with K (Window_AddActionMarkers_ImGUI).

Entering an action marker on top of an existing one replaces it; entering one nearby adds it alongside.

Loops. CtrlL adds a loop-current-region marker with a count. From the Add Loop menu (AddLoop_Menu, E) you can add an infinite loop, a loop with a fixed repeat count, or remove an existing loop. Leaving the count blank makes the loop indefinite.

Next song. Each next-song action combines three choices:

Because a song can start while another is still playing, these are what make crossfades, fermata segues and medleys possible.

Go To. Targets either a measure or a region number, with options to seek at the end of the bar, stop first, or play a running click one beat before arriving.

Stop stops and does nothing else.

Edit cursor to play cursor moves the edit cursor without affecting playback.

Drone. A drone action marker triggers the drone pad and can set its sound and pitch. See 4.12.

2.5Clicks and Guide Cues#

2.5.1Understanding Clicks and Guide Cues#

The click keeps the band with the tracks. The guide cues tell them what's coming. Both are generated when you build the conductor track, and both can be added to manually afterwards.

REALIVE carries just under 300 cues, organised into eight groups:

Every cue is directed at the band, the vocalists, or both, automatically.

Cues can be routed two ways. Traditionally each project carries its own cue and click audio. With global click and cues enabled, they live in the Audio Routing project instead and are triggered by MIDI. Global mode gives you smaller projects, faster language changes, consistent levels, independent band and vocal cueing, and colour-coded cues. See 6.5.

2.5.2Click Types and Divisions#

Choose a click sound from Options → Realive Click or the click menu (Click_Menu).

To add your own: drop an audio file into the click sounds folder. It appears in the list automatically — no configuration needed.

Other click controls:

• The division click can be assigned the same sound as the beat click
• Accent notes can be selected independently
• The click bar can be muted from the click menu
• Click volume can be varied rather than fixed
• Control_Click_Toggle turns the click on and off

2.5.3Band and Vocal Cueing#

REALIVE maintains separate cue buses for band and vocals, and assigns generated cues to the appropriate one automatically. Counts, for example, go to the band; singers can be given a mix without them.

In global cue mode the two are fully independent, so vocalists can decide whether they want counts at all.

2.5.4Adding Manual Cues and Reference Piano Notes#

Press Q (Window_AddCues_ImGUI) to open the Add Cues window. It opens with the filter focused and favourites shown, so the fastest way to add a cue is to type a few letters and press CmdEnter.

CtrlQ (AddCueAtCursor_ObeySnapping) adds a cue at the cursor directly. OptQ opens Quick Cue Search.

Cues are inserted at the edit cursor and snapped to the grid.

Reference piano. CmdP (Window_Piano) opens the piano window, which plays reference tones and chords through the cues bus — so only people with cues in their monitors hear them. Chords are buttons rather than a dropdown.

Guide tones are also available from the Pitch view when you're finding a song's key.

2.5.5Cue Languages and Voice Packs#

Cues ship in English, French and Spanish, with multiple voices. Change language from Options → Realive Cues Language, or cycle it with OptShiftCtrlQ.

Lock guide cues language prevents the language changing when you move between songs — use it when a setlist mixes languages.

Additional voice packs can be installed as language packs. Changing the cue language forces sample paths back to the main REALIVE data library, so a project that was built elsewhere still finds its cues.

2.6Building a Setlist#

2.6.1Understanding Playlists and Setlists#

A playlist is an .RPL file: a plain text list of REAPER projects in order. Opening one tells REAPER to open each project in its own tab.

A playlist normally contains the Audio Routing project, your songs, and any separators or place holders, in performance order.

2.6.2Adding and Ordering Songs#

In the Playlist window:

Renaming in the list changes the displayed title only, not the project filename. Clearing the title resets it to the filename.

Songs are ranked with automatic zero-padding, so a setlist of more than nine songs sorts correctly.

2.6.3Separators and Place Holders#

Separators divide a setlist into blocks — sets, services, segments. Any project whose name begins with = is treated as a separator. The = is used for categorisation but isn't displayed; an unnamed separator shows as [SEPARATOR].

A separator contains nothing and is skipped when moving between songs. Starting playback on one starts the next real song instead.

Right-click a song and choose the separator option to convert it.

Songs can optionally be tinted according to the separator above them, which makes blocks visible at a glance.

Place holders behave like separators but differ in two ways: they don't start a new colour category, and they are counted in the list. Use one where you need a slot in the running order that isn't a song — a speech, a video, a set break.

2.6.4Searching and Managing Large Setlists#

Setlists of several hundred songs are routine, and the window is built for it.

• Find locates and selects a project by name
• ProjectTabList_SelectTab_Search (Ctrlù) opens tab search
• Categories can be enabled and disabled from the menu
• Tooltips can be turned on or off in the window's config menu
• Cmd-click a project to reveal the .RPL in the Finder

REALIVE supports up to 1000 open projects. In practice, around 500 is comfortable on a decent computer — well beyond any setlist you're likely to build. There are 127 tab-recall actions, assignable to any key or controller.

2.6.5Set Timing and Duration Tools#

Right-click in the Playlist window for timing information:

• Length of the highlighted song
• Time elapsed since the set started
• Time remaining until the end of the set
• Full set duration

Separators, routing and loop projects are excluded from these totals.

The same figures can be shown on the transport bar — see Show playlist's elapsed/remaining time on transport bar in Preferences.

2.6.6Saving and Consolidating Setlists#

CmdS (ProjectTabsList_SaveAllTabs) saves the playlist and every open project.

The consolidate function copies only the files actually needed, shows a progress bar while it works, and can be cancelled part way through.

Only songs already saved as project files are written into an .RPL, so save new songs before saving the playlist.

2.6.7Importing Projects from Other Playlists#

Import projects to current list merges another playlist into this one — useful when assembling a show from existing sets. The second playlist's Audio Routing project is ignored, since you only ever want one.

2.6.8Exporting a Setlist as Text#

Copy playlist to clipboard puts the running order on the clipboard as text, including each song's key and tempo. There's also an export-to-text-file function.

Useful for stage plots, run sheets, and sending the set to people who don't have REALIVE.

Project structure can be copied to the clipboard the same way.

2.7Lyrics#

REALIVE can display a song's lyrics as it plays — on screen, or on any phone or tablet as a prompter. You paste the words in once, and REALIVE places them against the song's sections for you.

This is REALIVE's own display, for you and the band. If instead you need the house screens to follow the song, that's the Lyrics production MIDI track in 7.2, which drives presentation software like ProPresenter. The two are independent — use either, both, or neither.

Two windows are involved:

2.7.1Creating the Lyrics Track#

Run Generate Lyrics Track. It creates an empty lyrics track in the song, ready to receive the words.

The track is excluded from track sorting and from bounces, so it stays where it is and never ends up in an audio render.

2.7.2Entering the Words#

Open the Add Lyrics window with Y. It has two panes: you type or paste on the left, and the right pane shows a live preview of the finished result. Drag the divider to resize them.

Three ways to get the words in:

• Type them directly
• Paste from the clipboard — the usual route
• Import an RTF file

RTF keeps text colours, italics and underlining. Other document formats import as plain text, and REALIVE will tell you when formatting has been dropped rather than losing it silently.

2.7.3Laying Out the Lyrics#

This is the part worth understanding, because getting the layout right is what lets REALIVE place everything automatically.

Three rules:

Name your sections using the same names you use for markers — Vrs, Vrs 2, Chrs, Bridge, Intro, Outro, Bridge (X2). Enter the section name on its own.

Section numbers are optional. You don't need to repeat a section that's the same every time — put one chorus in, and REALIVE orders repeated sections according to how they appear in the song.

Lyrics pasted from the internet usually need a little tidying: delete the title header and the credits footer, and check that sentences sit one per line. All of that can be done right in the left pane.

2.7.4Formatting#

Formatting applies to whatever text you've selected:

Buttons for each are in the window's toolbar, along with text size and a case-change tool for lyrics pasted in all capitals.

Formatting carries through to the Web Remote's lyrics view, so a colour used to mark one singer's lines shows on their tablet too.

2.7.5Configuration#

Two settings, in the Add Lyrics window and repeated in the display:

Delay (lyric anticipation) — how early lyrics appear before they're sung. Three levels: Just in time, Ahead, and Well ahead. A prompter usually wants to run ahead; an on-screen reference for the band may not.

Max lines — the maximum number of lyric lines shown at once.

2.7.6Building the Track#

Press Build Lyrics Track. This saves the lyrics and regenerates the items on the lyrics track, spacing them across the song automatically.

Do it again whenever you change the words or the song's structure.

2.8Preparing for Rehearsal#

2.8.1Checking Routing#

Before any rehearsal, confirm that what you built is actually reaching the room. Open the Audio Routing view (Ctrl1) and check output assignments. Full detail in Chapter 6.

2.8.2Run a Line Check#

Before any rehearsal or show, run a line check to confirm every output is landing where it should. It plays a spoken identification through each bus in turn, so one person can walk the stage and verify the whole rig.

Full detail in 6.3.

2.8.3REALIVE Render: Mixes, Stems and Practice Tracks#

Bounce_ImGui — OptB

Open the render window and choose what to include. WAV and MP3 are supported.

Points worth knowing:

• The bounce respects the routing project's bus mute states and volumes — what you hear is what you get
• Normalisation is available
• SMPTE is included in stems, busses and click modes, and excluded from mixdowns
• Production MIDI tracks are ignored
• The render folder is shown when the bounce finishes

2.8.4Multi-Project Bouncing and Reassembly#

Select several projects in the Playlist window and bounce them in one operation. Files are named with the song's index prefix in setlist order, with zero-padding, so they sort correctly.

Bounce_Reassemble (OptShiftCtrlB) reassembles a multi-bounce back into a project.

2.8.5Exporting Rehearsal Materials#

Beyond audio:

2.8.6Final Pre-Show Checklist#

Before the room fills:

• [ ] Audio Routing project open and enabled
• [ ] Correct audio device selected and available
• [ ] Line check run on stems, click and cues (Chapter 6.3)
• [ ] SMPTE frame rate correct, if you're sending timecode
• [ ] Control surface connected and responding
• [ ] Cue language correct for this show
• [ ] Original tracks muted in Live mode
• [ ] Setlist order and separators correct
• [ ] Everything saved

Back to contents

This chapter covers performance: playing, navigating, looping, seeking, and recovering when the arrangement changes underneath you.

Everything here assumes Live mode. Shortcuts are the macOS defaults, and all actions appear in REAPER's Action List prefixed with REALIVE_.

Windows users: shortcuts below are shown with macOS keys. On Windows, Cmd becomes Ctrl and Opt becomes Alt. Everything in REALIVE works on Windows except automatic audio device detection and switching, which is macOS only.

3.1Live Playback Workflow#

Before you start

Two things must be true before REALIVE will play anything:

1. An Audio Routing project is open. Every song sends its audio through it. Try to play without one and you'll get a warning telling you to open one.
2. The Audio Routing project is enabled. A disabled routing project shows red in the Playlist window and passes no audio.

Live mode and Edit mode

Tab (SwitchCurrentView) toggles between them. Esc (ResetLivePlayingView) returns to the live playing view and resets it.

Live mode changes more than the display. Playback behaviour, snapping, scrolling and zoom are all managed automatically for performance. Recording is disabled — attempting to record in Live mode switches you to Edit mode instead.

Starting and stopping

The three-stage stop is the one to learn:

1. First press — stops where you are.
2. Second press — returns to where playback last started.
3. Third press — stops every other playing project, returns to the beginning, and resets the view.

It means one key gets you out of any situation, including one where two songs are playing at once.

You can also start a song by double-clicking it in the Playlist window, or Cmd-clicking its name.

Where a song ends

Every project has a blue !-->STOP<-- marker showing where the song stops. Move it wherever you want. The Project Ending menu manages this, and moving the end marker updates the project end time automatically.

Playback responsiveness

Two settings affect how quickly playback starts, both in the Audio Device menu:

Audio device buffer is your latency setting. For playback it has little impact — 512 is the default, and a larger buffer is easier on the computer.

Playback drive buffering controls how much audio is read ahead from disk, and it's the main influence on how fast playback starts. The default is 1200 ms; shorter settings start faster but lean harder on the drive. There's also Fast response when hitting play, which minimises buffering while everything is stopped for the quickest possible start, at the cost of some CPU. If you hear dropouts, turn that off and increase the buffering.

When playback is triggered by an action marker, REALIVE starts it a fraction early so the first beat lands on time rather than a hair behind.

Playing more than one song at once

Because each song is its own project, one can start while another is still sounding. This is deliberate, and it's what makes crossfades, fermata segues and continuous sets possible. It also means you can have two songs playing without intending to — the third press of the stop action clears everything.

3.2The REALIVE Transport Bar#

REALIVE can use REAPER's standard transport, or its own.

Standard REAPER transport with REALIVE behaviour

Even on the stock transport, the buttons can be given REALIVE behaviour in Live mode. Enable Transport button special features in REALIVE Preferences.

With it on:

• Rewind / forward and region rewind / forward move the edit cursor only during playback, rather than force-seeking the playhead. That lets you line up a destination and then trigger the seek separately.
• Stop becomes the three-stage stop described above.
• Play becomes play/seek: it starts playback if nothing is playing, seeks from another playing song to this one, or seeks to the edit cursor within the current song.
• The loop button triggers REALIVE's looping rather than REAPER's, and the metronome button opens the click menu.

Transport buttons reflect play and loop state.

Outside Live mode the buttons behave normally.

The REALIVE transport bar

REALIVE also provides its own transport bar, enabled with Prefs_RealiveCustomTransportBar (F2) or from REALIVE Preferences.

Buttons

Having the three seek modes as their own buttons is worth knowing about: you can arm the one you want with a click rather than cycling through modes.

Tempo

Change it by double-clicking, dragging, or rolling the mouse wheel over the value. The and - buttons step by 1 BPM.

Modifiers, which work on both the value and the steppers:

A pending tempo blinks until you commit it.

Timebase

Click the BPM: label to cycle the project timebase:

Other fields

• Time and position displays — click and drag, or use the mouse wheel, to edit. Right-click to change what each line shows: time, position, sample, or timecode.
• MARKERS — click to pick a marker from a list.
• Time signature — double-click to edit.
• PAD — the song's pitch, with and - steppers.
• AWAKE — indicates that REALIVE is preventing the screen and computer from sleeping.

Fonts scale with the bar and the layout adapts to small screens.

Times display

The transport can show:

• Time left in the current song versus its full length
• Position in the current song versus the full setlist length
• Time remaining in the setlist

Enable it with Show playlist's elapsed/remaining time on transport bar in Preferences. Separators, routing and loop projects are excluded from setlist totals.

3.3Navigating in Real Time#

Navigation moves the edit cursor. It does not move playback. That separation is the heart of how REALIVE works live: you position where you want to go while the current section keeps playing, then commit with a seek.

Moving the cursor

, and . are the < and > keys without Shift.

Moving the playhead directly

These force a seek rather than just moving the cursor:

Force seek moves the loop points in Preferences determines whether loop points follow.

Seeing what's coming

The Next Section window appears when the upcoming section isn't visible on screen, so you always know what's next even when zoomed into the current section.

The Transport Info window (TransportInfoWindow_Toggle, J) shows what REALIVE is about to do, colour-coded:

Green, turquoise and orange can all be cancelled by moving the cursor or engaging looping. Red cannot.

Jumping to a specific song

ProjectTabList_PlayTab exists as 127 numbered actions, one per tab, assignable to keys or a controller. Tabs 1–9 are mapped to the number keys by default. This is how you get to any song in a large setlist in one gesture rather than scrolling.

ProjectTabList_SelectTab_Search (Ctrlù) searches by name.

Separators and place holders are skipped automatically when moving between songs.

3.4Looping and Extending Sections#

Looping is the tool you'll reach for most: the guitarist breaks a string, the pastor keeps talking, the crowd is still singing.

Toggling a loop

L (Control_RepeatState_Toggle) loops the region you're currently in.

While looping:

• The region is zoomed
• The ruler turns orange
• Guide cues are muted, so a repeated section doesn't announce itself every pass

Press L again to release the loop. Playback continues out of the section on the next pass.

Reset repeat state when starting playback in Preferences clears loops each time you start. Leave it off if you like to arm loops before starting.

Contextual looping

By default a loop applies to the current section, or the current measure if there's no section.

With Loop: set loop point dynamically on (Options → Playback actions), REALIVE looks for a target in this order:

1. Area selection (green rectangle)
2. Time selection
3. Existing loop points
4. Current region

This lets you loop something other than a whole section without changing tools.

Preset loops on the timeline

Loops can also be placed as action markers, so they happen without anyone touching anything.

From the Add Loop menu: infinite loops, loops with a fixed repeat count, or remove an existing loop. Leaving the count blank gives an indefinite loop.

Section repetition is reported during playback, so you know when a repeated section is on its last pass.

Looping across songs

Loops and song transitions work together. Hold a vamp while you prepare the next song, sustain a section before triggering a segue, then let the next song start while this one resolves.

3.5Seeking Modes#

Seeking is how you move playback without dropping a beat. Position the edit cursor, trigger a seek, and REALIVE waits for the right musical moment before jumping.

The seek actions

Seek with offset

The one worth understanding properly. If you're in bar 3 of verse 1, put the cursor anywhere in verse 2 and trigger seek-with-offset: playback moves to bar 3 of verse 2, not to its start.

It's how you move between parallel sections without the join sounding like an edit.

SeekRegion/Offset is also available as a dual action combining both behaviours.

Cycling seek modes

Cycle seek modes on seek action in Preferences lets a single button reach every mode — next bar, next region, relative to target region. Useful when a controller has fewer buttons than you have seek modes.

Cancelling a seek

A pending seek is cancelled by moving the cursor or engaging looping. The Transport Info window shows the state; once it goes red, it's committed.

A later seek request supersedes an earlier one, so changing your mind mid-decision works. Rewinding past your original position also cancels.

A seek that arrives too late to land musically is ignored rather than played badly.

Seek behaviour options

• When seeking, play a guide cue and count announces the section you're moving to
• Seeking into a running click region simply exits the running click
• Each song remembers its own seek mode, so different songs can behave differently
• Control Seek Immediately forces a seek without waiting, for when musical timing isn't the priority

3.6Solo Click and Recovery Techniques#

When the band comes apart, this is what puts it back together.

Solo click

Solo click mutes everything except the click and loops it, so the band can find the beat again. It's also how you count a section in.

Beat mode is the recovery tool: if the band starts on the wrong beat, it lets you turn the song around underneath them.

Freewheel mode is gentler in front of an audience — the groove continues while the click is exposed.

Solo click: fade out song before initiating solo click in Preferences fades the song before the click is exposed, rather than cutting. It introduces a short delay; triggering solo click again during the fade forces it through immediately.

When you're stopped, beat mode triggers on the bar before, so it doubles as a running click into the section.

Solo click mode is shown in the Project Title window. Click the indicator to exit, right-click it for options.

The solo click action also serves as tap tempo when held or double-triggered.

Count-ins

The fastest recovery of all

Place the edit cursor where the band actually is, and press Return.

Playback moves there at the next musical moment. Most of the time nobody in the room notices.

Other recovery tools

If playback stalls because the audio device disconnected, press the Audio Device button while the transport is still running — REAPER will resume automatically if it can.

3.7Tempo Changes During Playback#

Tempo can be changed mid-song without stopping.

From the Tempo view (ShiftT) or the transport bar:

• Scroll the wheel over the tempo, or double-click and type a value or a /- offset
• Press Enter to confirm

Confirmed during playback, the change lands at the next bar, on the beat.

Modifiers:

• Cmd bypasses warp mode
• Opt applies the tempo immediately instead of waiting

Both the tempo display and the tap tempo window blink at the tempo they show, so you can check against the band before committing.

For a single-tempo song, Y taps the master tempo and everything follows.

Seek to tempo moves playback to a tempo change; it's prevented when the song isn't playing.

Songs with several tempos can be scaled proportionally, and stretch markers are maintained so nothing drifts.

3.8Key Changes During Playback#

Open the Pitch view with ShiftP (Pitch_ShowToolbar), or Ctrl4 for PitchEdit.

The song's original key must be set once, by hand, in the Pitch view. Setting it unlocks:

• Drone pad in the song's key
• The key displayed in the Project Title window
• Key changes by note name rather than semitone offsets
• Reference tones through the cues bus

Changing key

Hover the key and scroll, or double-click and enter a note name or a /- value. With media items selected, the change applies only to them.

Key changes are clamped to ±6 semitones from the original, so you can't transpose a song somewhere unusable by accident. Relative pitch offsets on individual items are preserved.

Pitch is also editable directly in the Project Title window and from the transport bar's PAD field.

Formant correction

Transposed vocals can be formant-corrected so they don't sound artificial. A preference automatically adds formant correction to items that have been pitch-corrected.

What key changes don't affect

Production MIDI tracks are unaffected by pitch changes — program changes, CC, lighting and video cues stay as they are.

3.9Live Looping Mode#

Live Looping mode forces every song in the setlist to play at the same tempo, so a collection of loops loaded as separate songs can be triggered against each other and stay locked.

Enable it from the main toolbar.

With Auto change tempo on seek in live looping mode on, a newly triggered song adopts the currently playing tempo instead of its own.

The 127 tab-recall actions make this practical: any loop can be fired from any key or controller pad.

Quick reference — the live keyboard

Back to contents

A reference tour of every REALIVE view and window: what it shows, what you can do in it, and how to open it.

Shortcuts are the macOS defaults. Actions appear in REAPER's Action List prefixed with REALIVE_.

Windows users: shortcuts below are shown with macOS keys. On Windows, Cmd becomes Ctrl and Opt becomes Alt. Everything in REALIVE works on Windows except automatic audio device detection and switching, which is macOS only.

A note on windows. Most REALIVE windows can be docked. If one opens somewhere unexpected the first time you use it, drag it where you want it — REALIVE remembers where you put it.

The REAPER rule still applies. When in doubt about anything on screen, right-click it.

4.1Edit View#

Tab · SwitchCurrentView

The normal DAW view. All tracks are laid out and all folders opened, so you can see the whole song at once and work on it as you would in any REAPER project.

If you'd rather set up your own default layout, turn off Show and minimize all tracks on edit view in REALIVE Preferences and REALIVE will leave your track heights alone.

The saved screen layout behind this view is Realive: Show All Tracks Minimized (ShiftCtrlF1), which you can customise to taste.

Screensets are replaced when you install a new version of REALIVE. If you've customised one, save it somewhere else first. Chapter 12 covers what happens to screensets and key bindings on update.

Two things can be hidden in Edit view to reduce clutter, both in Preferences: the SMPTE clock and the Playlist window.

4.2Live Play View#

Esc · ResetLivePlayingView

The performance view: a large timeline showing the current song's structure, sized to be read from a stage.

What's on screen:

• Section text items from the structure track, large enough to read from a distance
• The Next Section window, when the upcoming section isn't visible
• The clock, bottom left, if enabled
• The SMPTE display, bottom left, if the project carries timecode
• The lyrics display, if enabled

To put your own text on a section item, right-click it and choose Item notes.

Live view can be set to maximize the screen automatically (Maximize screen on live view), and to disarm all record-armed tracks as a precaution (Disarm all tracks on live view). If you need armed tracks during playback, turn the second one off.

Show only measure in Live Mode simplifies the timeline display to measures only.

4.3Playlist Window#

Also called the Project Tab List. This is the heart of REALIVE — every open project appears here.

The window has three parts.

The top: current list

The loaded playlist (.RPL). Double-click to save it under a new name. When modified from its last saved state, the name shows in italics.

Right-click for New / Open / Save / Rename, set duration figures, and copy the list to the clipboard as text. Cmd-click reveals the .RPL in the Finder.

The middle: songs

Every open project, in order. The active song is highlighted and bold.

Routing, separator, drone and line check projects don't blink.

Songs can be tinted according to the separator above them, making set blocks visible at a glance.

The bottom: empty area

Double-click to create a new song from the template. Right-click for recent playlists, templates and other options.

Working in the list

Right-clicking a song gives the usual file operations plus set and song length figures, category options, and routing modes.

Tooltips can be enabled or disabled in the window's config menu.

Length stats

At the top of the right-click menu:

• Highlighted song's length
• Time elapsed since the set started
• Time remaining until the end of the set
• Full set duration

Separators, routing and loop projects are excluded from the totals.

4.4Audio Routing View#

Ctrl1 · AudioRoutingTab_Toggle

The master routing project, shown on its own with everything else out of the way. It has its own toolbar: Back, Menu (click/cues routing and SMPTE offset), Audio Device, Mixer/Matrix, and Line Check.

= cycles the display between Mixer, Patch List and Routing Matrix. Pressing it quickly cycles through all three; pressing it slowly returns to the mixer.

Full coverage in Chapter 6.

4.5Main Toolbar#

Top left of the main window.

Snap / Auto-Scroll — managed automatically according to the current view and mode, but can be overridden manually.

Auto-Stop menu — manages where the song ends, via the blue !-->STOP<-- marker present in every project.

Audio Device menu — device selection, block size, playback responsiveness, and automatic device detection. If playback stalls because the device dropped, press this while the transport is still running and REAPER will resume if it can. See 6.4.

Ctrl Device menu — refresh control surface, control surface setup, MIDI monitor, focus behaviour, online help. See 5.2.

Live Looping Mode — forces all songs to play at a common tempo. See 3.9.

Loop menu — toggle loop, add infinite loop, add loop with counter, remove loop, and enable contextual looping. See 3.4.

Drone — opens the Drone Pad window. See 4.12.

Markers / Regions — the marker toolbar. Markers are entered at the edit cursor or play cursor and snapped to the grid. A marker placed inside a region splits it. See 2.4.1.

Action Markers — the action marker toolbar and menu (K). See 2.4.6.

Guide Cues — the cue toolbar, and the Add Cues window (Q). See 2.5.4.

Conductor Track Build — converts markers to regions, builds the structure track, rebuilds the click, and generates cues. See 2.4.

Live Play View — switches between Live and Edit.

Import Audio — audio, Ableton projects, YouTube links, and re-sorting. See 2.2.

Toolbar buttons for Add Action Markers, Add Markers and Add Cues open a menu; the toolbar itself is reachable from that menu.

4.6Project Title Window#

ProjectTitleWindow_Toggle · OptK

Top right of the main window. Shows the current song's title and its key state.

• Double-click the title to change it. This changes the displayed title only, not the project filename. Clearing it resets to the filename.
• Right-click to reach the Tempo and Pitch views.
• The key, if set in the Pitch view, is displayed here. Click it to hear a reference tone, right-click to change it, Opt-click to erase it.
• The pad (pitch) value is displayed and can be edited directly.
• The drone indicator appears in green while a drone sounds. Click to fade it out, Opt-click to stop it.
• Solo click shows here when engaged. Click to exit, right-click for options.

Titles can be forced to title case. Editing is done in place. The drone pad section can be hidden if you don't use it.

Separator projects with no name display as - Separator -.

4.7The REALIVE Transport Bar#

Prefs_RealiveCustomTransportBar · F2

REALIVE's own transport bar, replacing REAPER's. Covered in full in 3.2 — tempo and pad editing, song up/down, loop actions, SMPTE and Drone tags, line check indication, and the times display.

REAPER's standard transport remains usable, and can be given REALIVE behaviour in Live mode via Transport button special features in Preferences.

4.8Transport Info Window#

TransportInfoWindow_Toggle · J

Opens and closes automatically as needed. Shows what REALIVE is about to do, by colour:

Everything except red can be cancelled by moving the cursor or engaging looping.

Seek offset mode is also indicated here. See 3.5.

4.9Tempo View and Tempo List Window#

Tempo view

ShiftT · Tempo_ShowToolbar — close with Esc or Tab

Everything to do with a song's tempo. Change the tempo by hovering and scrolling, or double-clicking and entering a value or a /- offset. T engages tap tempo; Enter confirms. Changes made during playback take effect at the next bar, on the beat.

The tempo display and tap window blink at the tempo they show.

The tempo toolbar:

Scrolling the tempo keeps the arrange view and edit cursor where they are.

Tempo List window

Window_Tempo · CmdOptShiftCtrlT

Every tempo and time signature change in the song as an editable list — much faster than hunting markers on the timeline in a song with many changes.

Select, edit and delete changes; toggle linear versus immediate; copy and paste timeline data; use the sub-menu for further operations. Cmd-click and drag is supported. Tooltips available.

4.10Pitch View#

ShiftP · Pitch_ShowToolbar — close with Esc or Tab

Everything to do with a song's key. Change key by hovering and scrolling, or double-clicking and entering a note name or offset. With media items selected, changes apply only to them. Decimal pitch values are supported.

Right-click for options, including guide tones to help find a key. Guide tones play through the QsBd track, so only people with cues in their monitors hear them.

The toolbar:

Setting the original key enables:

• Drone pad in the song's key
• Key displayed in the Project Title window
• Key changes by note name rather than numbers
• Reference tones from the Pitch window and Project Title window, through the cues bus

Changes are clamped to ±6 semitones from the original. Relative pitch offsets on individual items are preserved. Formant correction is available for vocal tracks, with a preference to add it automatically to pitch-corrected items. Production MIDI tracks are unaffected.

4.11Clicks and Cues Controls#

There's no separate clicks and cues window — the controls live in menus.

Click: the click menu (Click_Menu), or Options → Click — click sound, triplet feel, half/normal/double time, division click, accent notes, click volume following velocity, and preventing click from more than one song at a time.

Cues: the cues menu (Cues_Menu), or Options → Cues — language, and whether inserting a marker refreshes the cue track.

Adding cues to a song is done from the Add Cues window (Q). See 4.17.

Routing for both is set in the Audio Routing project's Menu, or Options → Audio routing → Click/Cues Routing. See 6.5.

4.12Drone Pad View#

Window_Drone_ImGui · D

A drone pad provides a sustained ambient bed under the music, tuned to the song's key. It's widely used in worship contexts.

The drone is global. It is not a track inside your song, and there is nothing to add to a project to use it. Set the song's original key in the Pitch view and the drone follows it.

Sounds

Ten drone sounds are supplied, chosen from Options → Drone Pad → Drone sound:

Missing samples are refreshed automatically when an audio routing project loads.

The window

Trigger the drone, change the note, and change the sound. Octaves span C4 to B6.

Triggering is velocity-sensitive by pitch: the higher the note, the lower the velocity.

Ways to trigger it

Stopping it

Click the indicator in the Project Title window to fade out, Opt-click to stop. Fade-out and stop are also in the drone menu.

Whether the spacebar stops the drone is a preference. There's also a preference to stop the drone on play/stop fade.

Chasing

When you seek or change song, the drone chases: if a drone marker is found near the seek position, REALIVE waits for it before changing key rather than switching abruptly. This applies both to automatic song changes via action markers and to manual seeks.

Options → Realive Drone Pad holds the remaining drone settings.

4.13Mixer View#

= · SwitchMixerView

Outside the routing project, a three-way toggle:

1. Mixer docked at the bottom
2. Mixer full page
3. Back to Live Play

Inside the Audio Routing project, = cycles Mixer → Patch List → Routing Matrix instead. Pressing it quickly cycles; pressing it slowly returns to the mixer.

4.14Clock Window#

Window_Time · W

A wall clock in the bottom right corner, for knowing what time it actually is during a show. It moves itself out of the way when that space is needed.

24-hour and am/pm formats are supported. Enable or disable in Menu → View, and use Hide clock on edit view in Preferences to control whether it shows outside Live mode.

4.15SMPTE Timecode Window#

Add timecode to a project by right-clicking the timeline and choosing Insert → SMPTE Track. The timecode display then appears in the bottom left of the main window.

Right-click the display for the frame rate and other options.

• The frame rate is global. Changing it updates every open project.
• Freewheel MTC is available from the TC Manager window.
• If the edit cursor isn't at the start of a SMPTE item, REALIVE offers to set the time at the cursor position instead.
• SMPTE is included in bounced stems, busses and click modes, and excluded from mixdowns.
• The SMPTE track can be offset from the Audio Routing project's Menu.
• REALIVE prevents SMPTE being routed to an output bus already in use.
• SMPTE can be shown in the Web Remote, and set up automatically during a line check.

Hide SMPTE clock on edit view in Preferences controls whether it shows outside Live mode.

Routing and sync detail in 6.6.

4.16Lyrics Display Window#

OptY — the window you read while playing. (Y opens the Add Lyrics window, where the words are entered. See 2.7.)

It shows the current lyric with the next one below it, and follows playback automatically — including when you loop a section or seek elsewhere.

Right-click for options:

The same lyrics are available on any phone or tablet through the Web Remote's lyrics page, which works as a prompter. See 5.3.4.

This window shows lyrics to you and the band. Driving house presentation software such as ProPresenter is a separate thing entirely — see the Lyrics production MIDI track in 7.2.

4.17Cue, Marker and Action Marker Windows#

Three windows for placing things on the timeline. All three dock, remember their position, and can be forced to the lower part of the screen.

Add Cues window

Window_AddCues_ImGUI · Q

Opens with the filter focused and favourites shown. Type a few letters, press CmdEnter, and the cue is inserted — the fastest path from thought to timeline.

Break and punch items are sorted sensibly, and entering a cue from the quick window zooms to the items so you can see what happened.

OptQ opens Quick Cue Search. CtrlQ adds a cue at the cursor without opening a window.

Add Markers window

Favourite mode, custom names, and a confirm button. The insert position can be frozen so that repeated entries all land in the same place. Adding a region from a time selection is supported, including inside an existing region.

CtrlM opens the Add Markers window (Window_AddProjectMarkers_ImGUI).

Add Action Markers window

Window_AddActionMarkers_ImGUI · K

Tabs for the different action types, including a dedicated Loop tab. Covers next-song actions, go-to actions, loops, stops, drone triggers and cursor moves. See 2.4.6.

4.18MIDI Monitor Window#

Window_MIDIMonitor — no default shortcut

Shows MIDI arriving at REALIVE. Use it when a controller isn't doing what you expect, to confirm whether the messages are reaching REAPER at all.

Note On messages are displayed before Note Offs, which makes reading a stream of chords considerably easier.

Window_MIDILearn (H) opens the MIDI learn window.

4.19Reference Piano Window#

Window_Piano · CmdP

Plays reference notes and chords through the cues bus, so only people with cues in their monitors hear them. Chords are buttons rather than a dropdown.

Useful for giving a singer a starting note, or checking a key change before committing to it.

4.20REALIVE Render Window#

Bounce_ImGui · OptB

Mixdowns, main busses, stems, click and cues, or selected tracks. Multi-project bouncing, normalisation, and reassembly of multi-bounces. Hovered lines are highlighted; tooltips throughout.

Full coverage in 2.8.3.

4.21Routing Assignment Window#

Assign track outputs without working in the routing matrix directly.

• Presets for common configurations
• Copy outputs to clipboard
• Checkmarks next to outputs already in use
• Audio device configuration from within the window
• SMPTE cannot be assigned to a bus already in use
• Clicking an unselected track doesn't disturb your current selection
• Esc closes cleanly

See 6.2.

4.22Utility Windows#

The Renamer is Amagalma's ReaNamer, adapted for REALIVE. It understands project titles and supports wildcards in the replace field.

The Control Surface (CSI) window is covered in 5.2.1.

Back to contents

You can run REALIVE from the computer keyboard, a MIDI controller, a foot pedal, or a phone or tablet over the network. Most people use two or three of these at once — a controller under one hand, the keyboard for setup, a tablet for whoever isn't standing at the computer.

This chapter covers each method. What the commands actually do is in Chapter 3.

Shortcuts are the macOS defaults.

Windows users: shortcuts below are shown with macOS keys. On Windows, Cmd becomes Ctrl and Opt becomes Alt. Everything in REALIVE works on Windows except automatic audio device detection and switching, which is macOS only.

5.1Keyboard Control and the Action List#

5.1.1REALIVE Actions in the Action List#

REAPER's Action List is where every command lives, and it's how you assign anything to a key, a controller button, or a foot pedal. Open it with F12.

Every REALIVE command begins with REALIVE_. Type that into the Action List's filter and you'll see the lot.

Use the REALIVE commands rather than REAPER's own equivalents wherever one exists. They look similar but they aren't: REAPER's stop just stops, while REALIVE's knows about your setlist, your regions, and what else is playing. The REALIVE versions are built to work together, and mixing the two produces behaviour that seems almost right and occasionally isn't.

Some commands exist in numbered sets. Jumping to a song, for example, exists as 127 separate commands — one per slot in the setlist — so any song can be assigned to any button. You'll see these as families rather than single entries.

Command families you'll use most:

Chapter 9 lists the commands worth knowing, with their shortcuts.

5.1.2Keyboard Viewer#

ShowKeyboardViewer · OptShiftF11

An on-screen keyboard showing what's assigned to each key. Faster than searching the Action List when you can't remember a shortcut, and useful for learning the layout when you're new.

5.1.3Live Keyboard Commands#

The keys you'll actually use during a show.

Playback

Navigation — these move the edit cursor, not playback

, and . are the < and > keys without Shift.

Looping and recovery

Views and windows

A printable cheat sheet is available from Options → Show Realive Help File.

5.2MIDI Controllers and Control Surfaces#

A controller is what lets you run the show from where you're standing rather than from the laptop. A foot pedal is enough for many players; a pad controller gives you song recall as well.

There are two ways to connect one.

MIDI learn — assign REALIVE commands directly to controller messages from the Action List. Simple, works with anything, and fine for a handful of buttons.

Control Surface Integrator (CSI) — a fuller system that ships with REALIVE, with ready-made templates for common controllers. Better when you want a whole surface mapped, or two-way feedback.

5.2.1The Control Surface Window#

Window_CSI · CtrlF1

Shows what's connected and what's mapped to what.

The mapping pane lists which note or control is assigned to which REALIVE command — the answer to "what does this button do again," without opening a configuration dialog.

Mappings can be copied to the clipboard, which is useful for building a crib sheet or sending a setup to someone else.

The window refreshes when a control surface is connected or closed, so it reflects what's actually there.

Encoders are step-limited, so a fast spin sends a controlled number of changes rather than a burst that overshoots.

5.2.2Supported Controllers and Setup#

These devices ship with ready-made templates:

• Behringer XT Mini
• Line 6 FBV Shortboard MKII
• Akai MPD218
• Akai MPK mini mk3
• Any device following the Mackie Control (MCU) standard — transport controls only

Others can be added manually.

Control surfaces are detected automatically. Connect a device that's already configured and REALIVE should find it. If it doesn't, press Refresh control surface in the Ctrl Device menu. Configuration files are checked and updated when needed, and you can force an update from the control surface menu — even during playback.

Setting up a device

Work in REALIVE's Control Surface window (CtrlF1) rather than in CSI's own dialogs:

1. Open the window and find your device in the list.
2. Give it a custom name if you want it labelled something meaningful.
3. Choose the surface file for it. REALIVE's own surface files are listed; if none appear for your device, it needs adding.
4. Check the mapping pane to see which note or control is assigned to which REALIVE command. Filter it by device, action or MIDI message to find a specific one, and copy the whole mapping to the clipboard if you want a crib sheet.

REALIVE checks the configuration files and will tell you if something's wrong with them rather than failing quietly.

If you use the Line 6 FBV Shortboard MKII, set it up with Line 6's FBV Control application first, using the Propellerhead template.

Two things that cause most controller problems

A device assigned to more than one surface. Open the other surfaces and make sure nothing else claims your controller. Unused surfaces can be removed safely and added back later.

A device set up wrongly in REAPER's MIDI preferences. This is the one that catches everyone, because the settings are not simply on or off.

Go to Options → Preferences → MIDI Devices, find your controller under Input, and set it like this:

That last setting is what causes most trouble. If REAPER is also treating the device as a control input, it and CSI both respond to it, and you get doubled or unpredictable behaviour. CSI needs the device available as a MIDI input, but it must not be claimed as a control input as well.

If a controller is behaving strangely — double-triggering, or doing two things at once — check these two before anything else.

MIDI Monitor, in the Ctrl Device menu, shows what's actually arriving. If a button produces nothing there, the problem is upstream of REALIVE.

5.2.3Mapping REALIVE Controls#

Twelve commands cover a complete performance setup. Search the Action List for Realive_LexaController to find them.

That last one is the trick worth understanding: the same two buttons navigate in Live view, change tempo in Tempo view, and change key in Pitch view. Four functions from two buttons, which matters when a foot pedal has five switches.

Useful additions from the Realive_Control_ family:

5.2.4Detection and Behaviour#

Stop before changing songs — under Options → Realive Control Surfaces, makes song changes from a controller stop the current song first.

Control surface play and stop forces focus to REAPER — brings REAPER to the front when you use the controller, if it's fallen behind another window. Whether this is helpful depends on whether you're running anything else on the machine; it's a preference.

Switching views resets to the Live view after a short period of inactivity, so you don't return from a break to find yourself in Tempo view.

5.3Web Remote Control#

REALIVE serves web pages that any browser on the same network can open — a phone, a tablet, a second laptop. Nothing to install.

Get the address from Options → Web Remote Control → Copy web remote control link to clipboard, then paste it into a browser.

There are several pages, chosen from the thumbnails at the top.

5.3.1The Control Window#

Full control of REALIVE from a browser: transport, navigation, looping, song changes. This is what you'd hand to a musical director standing away from the computer, or use yourself from a tablet on a keyboard stand.

It comes in several layouts for different needs and screen sizes; switch between them from the thumbnails.

5.3.2The Info Window#

Read-only. What's happening, for people who need to know but not to control.

• Current song title
• Tempo and time signature
• Song key
• Current section and the one coming next
• Transport position, in bars and beats and in minutes and seconds
• Play state
• Timecode, if the song carries it
• Comments, where present

It opens automatically in Live view if On live view, activate web remote feedback playback infos is enabled.

5.3.3Stage View#

A basic active-region view: the section playing now, and what's coming next. Nothing else.

This is the page for players who need to follow the arrangement from a music stand without operating anything.

5.3.4Lyrics Page#

Lyrics only, as a prompter — the current line with the next one following, tracking playback.

It stays correct when you loop a section or seek elsewhere, and it carries any colour or emphasis you applied when entering the lyrics, so a singer's own lines can be marked out.

Requires a lyrics track in the song. See 2.7.

5.3.5Configuration#

The Web Remote configuration window controls which pages are available and what appears on them.

REALIVE can also keep the computer's screen and system from sleeping while you're in Live view — see Prevent screen and computer idle on live view in Options → Live view. The custom transport bar shows an AWAKE tag when this is active.

Practical notes

• The device must be on the same network as the REALIVE computer
• A stable network matters; a phone dropping to cellular loses the page
• The link can be copied to the clipboard and sent to whoever needs it
• If the address doesn't work, check the machine's network connection — REALIVE reports the address it's serving on

Back to contents

Every song in REALIVE sends its audio to one place: the Audio Routing project. This chapter covers how that works, how to set up your outputs, and how to check everything is reaching the room before the doors open.

Shortcuts are the macOS defaults. Actions appear in REAPER's Action List prefixed with REALIVE_.

Windows users: shortcuts below are shown with macOS keys. On Windows, Cmd becomes Ctrl and Opt becomes Alt. Everything in REALIVE works on Windows except automatic audio device detection and switching, which is macOS only.

6.1The Audio Routing Project#

What it is

Songs make the music. The Audio Routing project delivers it.

It's a special project that sits in your playlist alongside your songs, and every song's audio passes through it on the way to your audio interface. Think of it as the front-of-house mixer for the whole show: one place where you decide what goes to which output.

The advantage is that you set it up once. Move the click from outputs 3–4 to 5–6, and every song in the setlist follows — whether that's three songs or three hundred.

Two rules

You must always have one open. Try to start playback without an Audio Routing project and REALIVE will warn you.

Its name must contain the word "routing." That's how REALIVE recognises it.

How its tracks are wired

Each track in the Audio Routing project takes its input from an internal channel that the songs feed into, and sends its output either to the master or straight to a specific hardware output.

You don't have to think about the input side. Your work is on the output side: deciding which stem goes where.

Enabling and disabling

The routing project can be switched off, which stops all audio passing through. Its name turns red in the Playlist window when it's disabled.

Toggle it by right-clicking it in the Playlist window, or from Options → Audio Routing → Enable audio routing tab.

When it's active

The routing project behaves like a song that plays whenever audio needs to get out. It's active while:

• A song is playing
• A drone pad is sounding
• A line check is running
• The online mode is set to Always online

That last one is a choice worth understanding.

Set this in Options → Audio routing → Audio routing online mode.

Always-online is for anything that has to stay live whether or not a song is playing — a reverb on a talkback mic, an instrument someone plays between numbers, an effect the band expects to be there during a pause. Anything of that sort stops the moment the routing goes offline.

Auto-Tune belongs somewhere else. The recommended setup is to run Auto-Tune in a separate portable installation, controlled by REALIVE over MIDI. That keeps vocal processing entirely independent of the playback rig: it stays live between songs regardless of what routing is doing, and a problem in one system doesn't take the other down. See 7.4.

Opening it

You can also click it in the Playlist window. From the routing view, Back returns you to the last song you were on.

6.2Routing Assignments and Outputs#

The mixer and the matrix

Press = in the routing project to cycle the display:

Mixer → Patch List → Routing Matrix → back to Mixer

Press it quickly to move through all three; press it slowly to jump back to the mixer.

The mixer is the familiar view. The routing matrix is a grid of tracks against outputs, which is faster when you're assigning many tracks at once.

To remove an assignment, Opt-click it in the matrix.

Some assignments can't be removed from the matrix. If one won't clear, Opt-click it in the mixer instead.

The Routing Assignment window

An easier way to handle outputs than working in the grid.

• Presets for configurations you use regularly
• Checkmarks next to outputs already in use, so you don't double-assign by accident
• Copy outputs to clipboard, for stage plots and patch lists — also available by right-clicking a song in the Playlist window
• Audio device configuration without leaving the window
• Clicking a track that isn't selected won't disturb your current selection
• Esc closes it

SMPTE is protected: REALIVE won't let you assign timecode to an output that's already carrying audio. That mistake is silent and expensive on a show day, so it's blocked rather than warned about.

Mono and stereo output modes

Dual mono splits a stereo folder across two mono outputs. The main folder track is tagged _L and _R so you can see which is which.

Reverse dual mono does the same with the channels swapped, for rigs wired the other way round.

The master fader

The master fader defaults to mono.

If you're using a multi-output interface and sending stems directly to hardware outputs, you generally don't want the master output duplicating that audio. Auto-mute master track on multi-outputs audio device in Preferences handles this automatically.

Individual track outputs can be muted directly rather than soloing at the master, which keeps behaviour predictable when several songs are open at once.

Don't solo the master fader. Beyond the monitoring confusion it causes, a soloed master fader stops MIDI leaving REALIVE — which silently breaks Auto-Tune control and anything else driven over MIDI. Mute what you don't want to hear instead. See 7.1.

Bus processing

Effects can be placed on the routing buses to process everything passing through them — the whole show, not one song.

Hard limiters can be enabled or disabled on the routing buses. A limiter on the output is cheap insurance against a stem someone bounced too hot.

6.3Line Check#

A line check plays a spoken identification through each output in turn — "kick," "bass," "click," and so on — so one person can walk the stage and confirm every line is landing where it should.

It's the fastest way to catch a patch error before a show.

Running one

The Line Check button is also on the routing project's toolbar, and in Options → Realive Line Check.

Press the button again or hit the spacebar to stop.

While it runs

The transport changes appearance so it's obvious a line check is in progress, and the state is shown in the Playlist window. If the REALIVE transport bar is enabled, the line check indicator blinks.

You can navigate by measure during a check, so you can return to a line that needs a second listen instead of waiting for the cycle.

What it covers

Stems, click, cues, MIDI cues, and timecode. A line check can set up SMPTE automatically if timecode is part of the rig.

Dynamic mode adapts the check to the outputs actually in use, rather than walking through every possible one.

6.4Audio Device Management#

Live playback fails most often because something happened to the audio interface. REALIVE has a set of tools aimed squarely at that.

The Audio Device menu

On the main toolbar, and on the routing project's toolbar.

If playback stalls but the interface is still connected, press this button while the transport is still running. REAPER will resume automatically if it can. This is the first thing to try, and it usually works.

If the device is genuinely gone, the menu opens so you can choose another.

Settings in the menu

Select audio device — choose the interface directly (macOS).

Audio device buffer — the latency setting, from 16 up to 4096. The default is 512. For playback alone a larger buffer is easier on the computer; a smaller one matters only if you're monitoring something live through the same machine.

Playback drive buffering — how much audio is read ahead from disk, and the main influence on how fast playback starts. Options run from disabled (fastest, needs a very fast SSD) through 200 ms, 1200 ms (default), 2000 ms and 4000 ms. Shorter starts faster and leans harder on the drive.

Fast response when hitting play — minimises buffering while everything is stopped so the play button responds as quickly as possible. Costs CPU. If you hear dropouts, turn this off first.

Automatic device detection

macOS only. REALIVE can watch for interfaces being connected and disconnected and offer to switch. Windows users select devices manually.

• Devices you've never used are ignored, so a connected display or a webcam doesn't get suggested as your show output
• Availability is re-checked while nothing is playing
• Moving the mouse cancels a pending automatic change, so it can't fire while you're in the middle of something
• On startup, if no audio device is found, REALIVE falls back to the system device rather than failing silently
• Resetting a missing interface also resets any projects that were playing through it

Device-specific change actions are also available, so a particular interface can be selected from a controller button.

6.5Global Clicks, Cues and Monitoring#

Two ways to run click and cues

Per-project (the traditional way): every song carries its own click and cue audio.

Global: click and cues live in the Audio Routing project and are triggered by MIDI from each song. Turn it on with Enable global click and cues in REALIVE Preferences.

Why global mode is worth it

Projects convert automatically when you switch modes. To convert one by hand: Menu → Timeline → Global click and cues: convert project.

Where click and cues go

From the routing project's Menu, or Options → Audio Routing → Click/Cues Routing:

Context is the sensible default for a rig that moves between stereo and multi-output interfaces, since it adapts on its own.

The SMPTE track offset is set from the same menu.

Click and cue routing can be updated while a song is playing.

Setup actions

These run automatically when needed. Only missing pieces are added — an existing setup isn't rebuilt for nothing.

Monitoring the original track

Two actions that matter during rehearsal and recovery:

Muting the original track is reflected across all open songs, and it follows the toolbar state when you change song, so it can't be left unmuted by accident.

6.6SMPTE Timecode, Sync and Routing Safety#

Adding timecode to a song

Right-click the timeline and choose Insert → SMPTE Track. The timecode display appears at the bottom left of the main window.

Frame rate

Right-click the timecode display for frame rate and other options.

The frame rate is global. Change it in one place and every open project follows, so a setlist can't end up with mixed frame rates.

Freewheel MTC is available from the TC Manager window, for receivers that need timecode to continue through gaps.

Placement

If the edit cursor isn't at the beginning of a SMPTE item, REALIVE offers to set the time at the cursor position instead — useful when a lighting cue needs to start partway through a song.

The SMPTE track can be offset from the routing project's Menu.

Routing safety

Timecode sent to an output that's carrying audio is a problem you discover during the show. REALIVE prevents it:

• SMPTE can't be assigned to an output bus already in use
• It can't be routed to any used hardware output in the routing project
• The click and cues routing menu can add a SMPTE track if one already exists in the project
• SMPTE is set up automatically during a line check
• Timecode is muted when changing songs only if the new song is itself playing timecode

In bounces

SMPTE is included in stems, busses and click renders, and excluded from mixdowns. See 2.8.3.

On the Web Remote

Timecode can be displayed on the Web Remote. See 5.3.

6.7Advanced Routing Workflows#

Routing presets

Save the configurations you use regularly from the Routing Assignment window — a house rig, a fly rig, an in-ear-only setup — and recall them rather than rebuilding.

Multi-output strategies

Stereo interface. Click and cues to the main outputs, or split music left and click right into a headphone amp. Simplest, and adequate for a lot of shows.

Multi-output interface. Stems to individual outputs for front of house, click and cues kept off the master. Turn on auto-mute of the master so audio isn't duplicated.

In-ear rigs. Separate band and vocal cue buses so singers can have a different cue mix. Global click and cues mode makes this straightforward.

Effects on buses

Effects placed on routing buses process the whole show. Limiting is the common case. Effects can be bypassed as a group when you need to hear the signal untreated.

Performance and safety

A short list worth adopting as habit:

• Set the routing online mode to Always online if you have effects or instruments that must stay live between songs
• Turn on auto-mute of the master on multi-output interfaces
• Run a line check before every show, not just the first one
• Keep hard limiters on the output buses
• Let REALIVE protect the SMPTE output rather than assigning it manually
• If playback stalls, press the Audio Device button before doing anything else

6.8Troubleshooting Quick Reference#

Back to contents

This chapter covers live pitch correction with REAAT, and the MIDI tracks REALIVE uses to drive external gear — lighting, video, instrument patches and lyrics systems.

7.1Live Auto-Tune with REAAT#

What REAAT is

REAAT is a companion app: a second, stripped-down copy of REAPER that runs quietly in the background alongside REALIVE.

You never work in it. Its only job is to host your pitch-correction plugin and process your vocals at the lowest possible latency. REALIVE controls it remotely, so once it's set up you launch it, leave it alone, and do everything from REALIVE as usual.

Watch first: Portable install explained

Why it runs separately

Putting pitch correction in its own app rather than inside REALIVE buys you four things:

Your show can't be taken down by a plugin. If the pitch plugin glitches, hangs or crashes, it happens in REAAT. REALIVE keeps running. Your backing tracks, cues and automation are never at risk — which is the whole argument, and on its own reason enough.

The lowest latency available. REAAT runs with its own small audio buffer, tuned purely for real-time vocal processing. It isn't carrying the weight of everything else REALIVE is doing, so the singer hears themselves sooner.

Settings that don't fight each other. REAAT has its own audio and MIDI configuration. Optimising one app can't break the other.

Full remote control. REALIVE still drives everything — key changes, bypass, presets — so you never touch REAAT during a show.

What you need

A supported pitch-correction plugin. REAAT works with:

• Waves Tune Real-Time (WAVETUNE)
• Antares Auto-Tune, including the UAD version

No other pitch-correction plugin is supported.

A copy of REAPER to turn into REAAT — download it here.

The REAAT folder, included with REALIVE.

A note for Windows users. The steps below use the IAC driver, which is part of macOS. Windows has no built-in equivalent — you'll need a virtual MIDI cable utility to make the same connection between REALIVE and REAAT.

Installing REAAT

1. Put the REAAT folder in place

Move the included REAAT folder into your Applications folder.

Inside it there's a reaper.ini file. Don't delete it. The installation needs it.

2. Add REAPER to the folder

Download REAPER and copy the application into the REAAT folder, alongside reaper.ini.

3. Rename it

Rename that copy of the application to REAAT, so you can tell the two apart at a glance. You'll now have REALIVE's REAPER and REAAT as clearly separate things.

4. Launch it and enter your licence

Open REAAT and import your REAPER licence key.

5. Set the audio device

In REAAT, go to Preferences → Device and choose your audio interface.

6. Turn on the IAC driver

This is the link that lets REALIVE control REAAT. The IAC driver is a virtual MIDI cable built into macOS — it lets two apps on the same computer send MIDI to each other without any hardware.

1. Open Audio MIDI Setup (in Applications → Utilities)
2. Choose Window → Show MIDI Studio
3. Double-click IAC Driver
4. Tick Device is online

Then, back in REAAT: Preferences → MIDI Devices, and enable the IAC ports for both input and output.

If REALIVE later can't control REAAT, this is the first thing to check. An IAC driver that isn't online is the most common cause.

7. Import the REAAT settings

Drag the included ReaAt_XXXXXXXX.ReaperConfigZip file into the REAAT window.

REAPER will ask which settings to import — confirm, and let it restart if it asks to.

8. Check your plugin is ready

Make sure WAVETUNE or Antares/UAD Auto-Tune is installed and authorised on this machine. REAAT will load it as its processing plugin.

9. Open the right project

By default REAAT opens a WAVETUNE project.

If you're using Antares or UAD Auto-Tune instead, open the Antares project from File → Project Templates.

Three things to check in REALIVE

REAAT being installed isn't enough on its own — three settings on the REALIVE side decide whether MIDI actually reaches it.

All three fail the same way: REAAT simply doesn't respond, with no error message anywhere. Check them in this order.

1. The routing master fader must not be soloed

If the master fader in the Audio Routing project is soloed, MIDI never leaves REALIVE and REAAT does nothing at all.

This catches people out because soloing the master feels like a harmless monitoring choice, and everything else keeps working normally — audio plays, the show runs, and only the pitch correction is dead. If REAAT has stopped responding and nothing else changed, check this first.

2. The routing track must send to the IAC Driver MIDI bus

This is the output end of the virtual cable. Without it, REALIVE is sending MIDI nowhere.

Check the routing track's output is assigned to the IAC Driver bus.

3. MIDI must be sent from the MIDI track, on the right channel

REAAT provides 16 MIDI channels, one per voice or instance. Confirm that the MIDI track is sending, and that its channel matches the one you intend to control. A channel mismatch looks exactly like no connection at all.

Your workflow from here

1. Launch REAAT. Leave it running in the background.
2. Work in REALIVE as normal. Key changes, bypass and presets are all handled from REALIVE.
3. Don't touch REAAT during the show. It has no job that requires your attention.

Because REAAT is independent of REALIVE's routing, your vocal processing stays live between songs — during a break, a talk, or while you're setting up the next number.

Controlling REAAT from REALIVE

REALIVE sends key changes and control messages to REAAT automatically as songs change, so pitch correction follows the song's key without anyone adjusting anything.

Auto-Tune tracks are set up from REALIVE's Add MIDI Tracks window, which has a dedicated Auto-Tune tab. From there you can enable and disable processing manually, and REALIVE supports rigs running more than one pitch-correction instance.

Setting up a song

Think of REAAT as a background instrument, in the way a plugin host sits behind a keyboard rig. You never open it to work — you control it from REALIVE.

For each song, add the Auto-Tune control tracks from the Add MIDI Tracks window. REALIVE creates one track per MIDI channel — one per singer — and beneath each, a child track for every parameter it controls:

Set a value and REALIVE writes it onto the timeline as an item, so it takes effect at that point in the song. Put a key change partway through and Auto-Tune follows the modulation; drop a bypass item into a spoken section and correction steps out of the way.

There's also a build-all option that places every parameter at the start of the song, giving you a complete starting state to adjust from.

Setting the key from the project key is the setting to know. With it, transposing the song retunes the singer's correction to match — no separate edit, nothing to forget.

Auto dump

Auto dump "Prod_MIDI" tracks, in Options → MIDI, changes how your edits reach REAAT.

With it on, every move you make in the window is sent to REAAT immediately, so you hear the result as you work.

Sending is not the same as saving. To write those values onto the track so they play back with the song, press Apply. Without that, your changes affect the current moment but aren't stored in the project.

If something isn't working

7.2Production MIDI Tracks#

Production MIDI tracks let a song send MIDI to the outside world as it plays — instrument patch changes, lighting cues, video triggers, lyrics, and Auto-Tune control.

How they're organised

Each type of production MIDI has a master track with up to 16 child tracks, one per MIDI channel. The children are what carry your data; the master gathers them.

REALIVE builds the matching receive tracks in the Audio Routing project automatically, and points them at the right output. You don't set that up yourself.

What each type is for

The Add MIDI Tracks window has a tab for each type. They work the same way underneath — MIDI placed on a track that goes out to your rig — but each has its own tracks, its own channels, and a name you can read on the timeline.

Video control

Notes that control Resolume, driving video and LED screen content.

The typical use is hooking Resolume onto the song's timecode and releasing it again. Once hooked, Resolume follows the timecode rather than waiting to be triggered cue by cue — so screen content stays locked to the song even when you loop a section or seek elsewhere, because both systems are reading the same clock.

As with lighting, REALIVE sends plain notes and Resolume decides what each note means. Choose whatever note numbers suit you here, and map them to hook and release on the Resolume side. Nothing about the numbering is fixed by REALIVE.

Use it alongside a SMPTE track in the song. See 6.6.

Lights control

Notes that fire lighting scenes and cues.

This one is deliberately generic: it sends plain MIDI notes and the lighting system decides what each one means. Whatever your console or controller expects, you send the note and it fires the cue.

The advantage over an operator watching for the chorus is simply that the timing comes off the timeline, so it's identical every night.

Lyrics control

Notes that advance lyric and teleprompter cues during the song — ProPresenter, EasyWorship and similar presentation software.

This is not REALIVE's own lyrics feature. The Add Lyrics window and Lyrics Display in 2.7 and 4.16 show words to you and the band, on screen and on the Web Remote. This track type sends MIDI to someone else's presentation software so the house screens follow the song. The two are unrelated and can be used together, separately, or not at all.

If your venue runs lyrics through ProPresenter, this is what keeps it in step with playback without anyone clicking through slides.

MIDI CC

Control Change messages — a controller number and a value — for continuous parameters: volume, modulation, expression, and anything else on a device that moves through a range rather than switching between states.

Program Change

Patch changes, sent as bank MSB, bank LSB and program number.

The bank select pair matters: on most modern gear the program number alone only reaches one bank of 128 sounds, so both are needed to land on a specific patch.

Use it to put a keyboard rig on the right sound at the top of each song, or to change patch at a section boundary. See also 7.3, which sends the song's setlist number automatically with no per-song work at all.

MIDI Empty Track

A bare MIDI sending track on a channel — no items, just the routing.

Use it when you need MIDI going somewhere REALIVE doesn't have a dedicated tab for, and you want to write the events yourself. It gives you the plumbing and stays out of the way.

(This appears in the Action List as MIDITracks_AddTrack_INSTRUMENTS.)

Notes versus controller data

Worth knowing when laying items out.

Note types — Video, Lights, Lyrics — write an item that lasts until the next item on that track, so a cue reads as a state on the timeline: active from here to there.

Controller types — Program Change and CC — write a brief item, because they're single events. The value is sent once and stays in force at the receiving end until something changes it.

That's why a track of lighting cues looks like a run of long blocks while a track of patch changes looks like a row of small marks.

Adding tracks

Adding a track offers you:

• Insert multiple tracks — say how many you need, up to 16
• Insert on next available MIDI channel — the usual choice
• On MIDI channel 1–16 — pick a specific channel

Sixteen channels per type is the ceiling. REALIVE tells you if you ask for more than it can add.

Production MIDI tracks can't be added to the Audio Routing project — they belong in songs.

Adding items

Position the edit cursor and use the add-item shortcut. You'll be asked for the values, which differ by type:

The MIDI channel comes from the track the item lands on, so you choose it once when you create the track rather than every time you add an item.

The item is named with what it contains — Note: 60 - Vel: 127, CC: 7 - Val: 100, MSB: 0 - LSB: 0 - PC: 12 — so the timeline is readable at a glance, and a confirmation appears showing the value and its MIDI channel.

Automatic numbering

Two shortcuts let you place a series without typing values each time:

• Next available note or CC — takes the previous item's number and adds one
• Next available value or velocity — keeps the number and steps the value

Useful for laying out a run of lighting cues or patch changes quickly.

You can't place an item on top of another one — move the cursor first. REALIVE will tell you rather than overwriting silently.

How they behave

• Unaffected by key changes — a transposed song doesn't transpose its lighting cues
• Excluded from bounces
• Excluded from track sorting — they stay where you put them
• Not active in the Audio Routing project

Keeping external gear in step

Auto dump "Prod_MIDI" tracks, in Options → MIDI, resends the current values whenever you stop or move the cursor.

Without it, moving the playhead to the second chorus leaves your external gear on whatever patch it was last sent. With it on, REALIVE looks back from the cursor, finds the value in force at that point on each production MIDI track, and sends it — so the rig matches where you actually are.

It only runs while playback is stopped, so it never interferes with a live pass.

7.3Automatic Song ID Program Changes#

REALIVE can send a MIDI program change matching the song's number in the setlist every time playback starts.

Enable it with Send Song ID as a Program Change on playback in REALIVE Preferences.

This is the simplest way to keep external gear following your setlist: keyboard rigs can recall the right patch, and lyrics systems can jump to the right song, without any per-song programming.

7.4Choosing How to Drive External Systems#

Three ways to make something outside REALIVE follow the song. Which you want depends on what's receiving.

Video is the case where two of these combine. Resolume follows timecode, so the song carries a SMPTE track and Video control notes: the notes hook Resolume onto the timecode, and from there it runs in sync on its own. You get frame-accurate screen content that survives looping and seeking, because both systems are reading the same clock.

Lighting is usually the middle row. Notes fire cues at points in the song, and the console does the rest.

Presentation software is the middle row too — a note per slide advance, placed where the words change.

7.5MIDI Export and Validation#

The exporter handles tempo markers without time signatures, and time signatures without tempo markers, so an exported file carries a usable map either way.

Useful for handing a song's MIDI to a lighting designer, a keyboard tech, or another system that needs the arrangement rather than the audio.

Back to contents

Everything REALIVE lets you configure lives under Options, in the block headed REALIVE PREFERENCES at the top of the menu. Below that block are REAPER's own options, which behave as they do in any REAPER installation.

This chapter walks the menu in the order you see it.

8.1Use REALIVE Custom Transport Bar#

Replaces REAPER's transport with REALIVE's own, which adds tempo and pad editing, song up/down, loop actions, SMPTE and drone indicators, line check indication and the setlist times display.

Also toggled with F2. See 3.2.

8.2Audio Device#

Show audio device — opens the audio device dialog.

Warn on playback if audio device is missing — tells you when you try to play with no working interface, rather than failing silently. Leave this on.

Fast response when hitting play (CPU intensive) — minimises buffering while everything is stopped so playback starts as quickly as possible. Costs CPU. If you hear dropouts, turn it off.

Playback drive buffering

How much audio is read ahead from disk. This is the main control over how fast playback starts.

Shorter means a faster play button and more demand on the drive. If you get dropouts or stuttering on playback, move up the list rather than down.

Audio device buffer

Your latency setting: 16, 32, 64, 128 (short latency), 256, 512 (default), 1024 (relaxed), 2048, 4096 (very light on CPU, longer playback start).

For playback alone this makes little practical difference — a larger buffer is easier on the computer. It matters if you're monitoring anything live through the same machine, where a smaller buffer means less delay.

8.3Audio Routing#

Show audio routing tab — same as clicking it in the Playlist window.

Audio routing online mode

When the routing project is live and passing audio.

Choose Always online if you have effects or instruments that must keep working between songs. Otherwise the third option is the efficient default. See 6.1.

Auto-mute routing's master track on multi-outputs audio device — stops audio being duplicated when you're sending stems directly to hardware outputs. Recommended on multi-output interfaces.

Enable hard limiters on audio routing's tracks — puts limiting on the routing buses. Cheap insurance against a stem that was bounced too hot.

Click/Cues Routing

Where the click and guide cues go.

Context is the sensible default for a rig that moves between a stereo interface and a multi-output one, since it adapts. See 6.5.

8.4Live View#

Disable live view (Edit mode only) — turns off the performance view entirely and uses REALIVE as an ordinary DAW.

Auto disarm all tracks on live view — a safety measure. Turn it off if you need record-armed tracks during a show.

Auto mute original track on live mode — keeps the reference recording from being played in front of an audience. Leave this on.

Auto maximize screen on live view — fills the screen when you go live.

Prevent screen and computer idle on live view — stops the machine sleeping or the screen dimming mid-set. Worth having on for any show where the computer is left alone.

Auto change tempo on Seek to next song in Live looping mode — in Live Looping mode, a newly triggered song adopts the current tempo rather than its own. Applies to the 1–9 keys. See 3.9.

Show/Hide next section window on live view — shows what's coming when the next section isn't visible on screen.

Show only measures on timeline in live mode — a simpler timeline with less to read.

Control surface forces REAPER to be foreground app — brings REAPER to the front when you use a controller. Useful if something else is running on the machine; unnecessary otherwise.

8.5Edit View#

Edit mode only (Disable live view) — the same setting as in Live View, repeated here for convenience.

Hide the project tab list on edit view — for a cleaner screen while editing.

Hide SMPTE clock on edit view — the timecode display shows in Live view by default. Turn this off to see it always.

Hide clock on edit view — the same for the wall clock.

Cursor guide line: Show on timeline and on item only — a vertical guide that helps line things up while editing. From Amagalma's work on the REAPER forum.

Show and minimize all tracks on edit view — automatically shows and sizes every track when you enter Edit view. Turn it off if you'd rather keep your own track layout.

8.6Playback Actions#

Prevent playrate change — locks playback speed so it can't be changed accidentally mid-show.

Stop current song before switching with keyboard or control surface — song changes stop the current song first, rather than leaving both playing.

Cycle seek modes on seek action — lets one button reach every seek mode in turn: next bar, next region, relative to the target region. Useful when a controller has fewer buttons than you have modes. See 3.5.

When seeking, play a guide cue and count — announces the section you're moving to, with a count.

Transport buttons special features — gives the standard transport buttons REALIVE behaviour in Live mode: rewind and forward move the edit cursor rather than force-seeking during playback, play becomes play/seek, and stop becomes the three-stage stop. See 3.2.

Reset repeat state when starting playback — clears loops each time you start. Turn it off if you like to arm loops before starting.

Force seek navigation moves the loop points — loop points follow when you force-seek.

Solo click: Fade out song before initiating solo click — fades the song before the click is exposed instead of cutting to it. Adds a short delay; triggering solo click again during the fade forces it through immediately. See 3.6.

Send Song ID as a Program Change on playback — sends a MIDI program change matching the song's number in the setlist every time playback starts. The simplest way to keep external gear following your setlist. See 7.3.

Loop: set loop point dynamically — looping picks its target in order: area selection, time selection, current loop points, current region. Without it, loops always apply to the current section. See 3.4.

8.7MIDI#

Chase MIDI events on playback — sends outstanding MIDI events when you start partway into a song, so external gear is in the right state rather than waiting for the next event.

Chase MIDI events on looping — the same when a loop wraps around.

Auto dump "Prod_MIDI" tracks on stop or cursor movement — resends production MIDI when you stop or move the cursor, keeping external gear in step with where you actually are.

8.8Interface#

Keep video window open on view change — stops the video window closing when you move between views.

Link regions and structure item — keeps the structure track's text items in step with your regions automatically.

Show playlist's "elapsed/remaining" times on transport bar — adds the setlist timing display to the transport. See 3.2.

Reasampler mode enable — an experimental mode that turns REALIVE into a sample-triggering instrument.

8.9Line Check#

Play line check (All Busses) — walks every bus, announcing each one. CtrlK

Play line check (Click & Cues only) — click and cues alone. OptCtrlK

See 6.3.

8.10Cues#

When inserting a marker, refresh the cue track — rebuilds cues automatically when you add a section marker. Turn it off if you're placing markers by hand and don't want the cue track changing under you.

Language… — sets the guide cue language and voice. See 2.5.5.

8.11Click#

Toggle triplet feel — converts the click between straight and triplet feel, doing the time signature arithmetic for you.

Feel — Half time, Normal, or Double time.

Click sound… — choose the click sound.

Click options

Prevent click from more than one song at a time — stops two clicks sounding when songs overlap. Given that overlapping songs are a normal part of REALIVE, this is worth having on.

Click volume follow click track's velocity — click level follows the written velocity rather than staying fixed, so accents come through.

Fade out song when initiating Solo-Click — the same setting as in Playback Actions.

8.12Drone Pad#

Auto enable/disable on Solo Click… — the drone follows the solo click, so recovery moments have a pad under them.

Stop drone — stops it now.

Play drone (in current song's key) — starts it in the current song's key. Requires the song's key to be set in the Pitch view.

Stop drone when stopping with spacebar — whether the spacebar takes the drone down with the song. Turn it off if you use the drone to cover gaps between songs.

Drone sound

See 4.12.

8.13Web Remote Control#

On live view, activate web remote feedback playback infos — the info page starts automatically when you go live.

Copy "Web Remote Control" link to clipboard — puts the address on the clipboard to paste into a browser on any device on the same network.

• Transport infos only — the read-only information page
• Full control — the full control page

See 5.3.

8.14Additional Commands#

Below the submenus, four items sit directly on the menu:

Enable global click and cues — moves click and cue audio into the Audio Routing project, triggered by MIDI, instead of carrying it inside every song. Smaller projects, consistent levels, independent band and vocal cues, and faster language changes. Projects convert automatically. See 6.5.

Show Keyboard Viewer — an on-screen keyboard showing what's assigned to each key. By Michael Pilyavskiy.

Show REALIVE Help… — the key command cheat sheet.

About REALIVE… — version information for REALIVE, REAPER, SWS, JS_API and ReaImGui, plus the version of the current project. Check here first when something behaves unexpectedly after an update.

8.15REALIVE Settings Elsewhere in the Options Menu#

Three REALIVE items live further down, among REAPER's own options.

Options → Configuration files → Import… / Export… — saves and restores your whole REALIVE configuration. Use it to move a working setup to another computer or a backup laptop. See Appendix A.

Options → Timeline → Behavior → Toggle Realive auto-stop — enables and disables the automatic stop at the project end marker.

Options → Timeline → Behavior → Set Realive auto-stop at cursor — places the stop point at the edit cursor.

Settings worth checking before a show

Back to contents

Every REALIVE command appears in REAPER's Action List prefixed with REALIVE_. That prefix is left off the tables below to keep them readable — Control_Play_Stop is listed in REAPER as REALIVE_Control_Play_Stop.

Shortcuts are the macOS defaults as shipped. On Windows, Cmd becomes Ctrl and Opt becomes Alt.

A dash means no default shortcut. The command still exists and can be assigned to any key or controller button.

Some commands exist as numbered sets — jumping to a song, for example, exists once per setlist slot. These are shown once as a family rather than listed individually.

Transport and playback

Seeking

Navigating

Moves the edit cursor:

Moves playback:

Solo click and counts

Loops

Songs and setlist

Views

Windows

Menus

Most REALIVE menus have no default shortcut — they're reached from the main toolbar.

Building a song

Tempo and pitch

Routing, click and devices

Drone

Production MIDI

Import and render

Editing

Zoom

Conductor tap

Setup and information

Customising shortcuts

Assign anything in the Action List: find the command, press Add, and press the key or controller button you want.

Your own assignments survive REALIVE updates. Where a new version wants a key you've already used, yours wins and the new command simply arrives without a shortcut. See Appendix A.3.

Back to contents

If something is going wrong right now

Fixes to reach for on stage, before you diagnose anything.

Diagnose afterwards. Everything below is for then.

10.1 Playback

Nothing plays, and there's a warning about the routing project

You need an Audio Routing project open, and its name must contain the word "routing." Open one from the playlist, or add one to the setlist. See 6.1.

The transport moves but there's no sound

Work down this list:

1. Is the routing project enabled? Its name shows red in the Playlist window when it isn't. Right-click it to enable.
2. What's the routing online mode? If it's set to Offline, no audio passes. Options → Audio routing → Audio routing online mode.
3. Are the output assignments right? Check the routing project's mixer or matrix.
4. Is the master muted? Auto-mute on multi-output interfaces may be doing its job when you didn't expect it.
5. Run a line check (CtrlK). It will tell you which outputs are alive.

Playback stops mid-song

Usually the audio interface. Press the Audio Device button while the transport is still running — if the device is still there, REAPER resumes automatically. If it's genuinely gone, the menu opens so you can pick another.

Playback takes too long to start

Options → Audio device → Playback drive buffering. Move to a shorter setting — 200 ms, or disabled if you're on a fast SSD. Fast response when hitting play shortens it further while everything is stopped, at the cost of some CPU.

Dropouts, stuttering, or crackling

The opposite adjustment:

1. Turn off Fast response when hitting play
2. Increase Playback drive buffering — 2000 ms or 4000 ms
3. Increase the Audio device buffer — 1024 or higher

Dropouts are almost always the drive or the buffer, not the computer overall.

The play button needs pressing twice from a controller

REALIVE ignores a second press within a fraction of a second, to stop a controller sending two triggers from one press. If your controller sends nothing on the first press, check it in the MIDI Monitor.

The song plays at the wrong speed

Check the playrate. Prevent playrate change in Options → Playback actions locks it so it can't be knocked accidentally.

Recording won't arm

Live mode disables recording as a safety measure — attempting to record switches you to Edit mode. If you need armed tracks during a show, turn off Auto disarm all tracks on live view.

A seek didn't happen

Three possibilities:

• It was cancelled. Moving the cursor or engaging looping cancels a pending seek.
• It arrived too late. A seek that can't land musically is ignored rather than played badly.
• It's still waiting. Check the Transport Info window: green means end of bar, turquoise end of region, orange another song. Red means committed.

Two songs are playing at once

That's by design — it's what makes segues and crossfades possible. CtrlReturn three times stops everything.

To prevent it when changing songs from a controller, turn on Stop current song before switching with keyboard or control surface.

The song doesn't stop where it should

Every project has a blue !-->STOP<-- marker. Move it. Auto-stop can be toggled at Options → Timeline → Behavior → Toggle Realive auto-stop.

10.2 Routing, Click and Cues

Effects or instruments stop working between songs

The routing project is going offline when nothing plays. Set Audio routing online mode to Always online.

Audio is duplicated across outputs

On a multi-output interface, the master is repeating what you're already sending to individual outputs. Turn on Auto-mute routing's master track on multi-outputs audio device.

An output assignment won't delete

Some can't be removed from the routing matrix. Opt-click it in the mixer instead.

MIDI isn't reaching external gear

Check whether the routing master fader is soloed. A soloed master stops MIDI leaving REALIVE, which breaks Auto-Tune control and anything else driven over MIDI — while audio carries on working perfectly, so nothing looks wrong. Mute rather than solo.

The click is in the wrong place

Options → Audio routing → Click/Cues Routing. Six modes; Context adapts automatically between stereo and multi-output interfaces. See 6.5.

Two clicks at once

Turn on Prevent click from more than one song at a time in Options → Click → Click options. Worth having on permanently, since overlapping songs are normal in REALIVE.

Cues are in the wrong language

Options → Cues → Language…. If your setlist mixes languages, lock the language so it doesn't change with the song.

Cues have gone quiet while looping

By design. Cue tracks mute while a section loops, so a repeated vamp doesn't announce itself every pass.

Cues didn't get built for a section

Check the marker name against REALIVE's section names — the cue generator reads those. See 2.4.1. Rebuild with CmdOptCtrlK.

Note that repeats such as Vrs Again and Chrs Again deliberately get no count, since the band is already playing.

A stem landed in the wrong folder

REALIVE sorts by filename against its instrument list. Unrecognised names are left at the end of the track list. Move it by hand — and send the name in, so it can be added.

10.3 Timecode and Sync

No timecode reaching the lighting or video system

1. Does the song have a SMPTE track? Right-click the timeline → Insert → SMPTE Track.
2. Is it assigned to an output? REALIVE won't let it share an output that's already carrying audio.
3. Is the frame rate right? Right-click the timecode display.
4. Run a line check — it covers timecode.

The frame rate is wrong in some songs

It isn't per-song. The frame rate is global, so changing it once updates every open project.

Timecode stops between songs

Timecode is muted when changing songs only if the new song is itself playing timecode. If the receiving system needs continuous timecode through gaps, use freewheel MTC from the TC Manager window.

Timecode missing from a bounce

By design: SMPTE is included in stems, buses and click renders, and excluded from mixdowns.

10.4 Control Surfaces

Start with the MIDI Monitor (Window_MIDIMonitor in the Ctrl Device menu). If your controller produces nothing there, the problem is between the controller and REAPER, not inside REALIVE.

The controller does nothing

1. Are its MIDI preferences right? Options → Preferences → MIDI Devices → find it under Input. It must be enabled as a MIDI input, but not included in the "All" column, and not enabled as a control MIDI input. That last one causes most controller trouble — CSI and REAPER end up fighting over the device.
2. Is it assigned to more than one surface? Open the others and make sure nothing else claims it. Unused surfaces can be removed and re-added later.
3. Refresh it. Ctrl Device menu → Refresh control surface.

Those two settings account for most controller problems.

Buttons double-trigger

Almost always the control MIDI input setting above, or a device assigned to two surfaces. REALIVE already ignores repeat presses within a fraction of a second, so a genuine double-trigger means something is responding twice.

The same button does different things

By design. The measure buttons navigate in Live view, change tempo in Tempo view, and change key in Pitch view. See 5.2.3.

An encoder overshoots

Encoder steps are limited to stop a fast spin sending a burst of changes. If it's still overshooting, check the controller isn't sending on two channels.

REAPER keeps jumping to the front

Control surface forces REAPER to be foreground app, in Options → Live view. Turn it off if you run other software on the machine.

Views change on their own

Switching views resets to Live view after a period of inactivity, so you don't come back from a break in Tempo view.

10.5 Auto-Tune and REAAT

Check in this order — all three fail silently:

1. Is the routing master fader soloed? If so, no MIDI leaves REALIVE.
2. Is the IAC driver online? Audio MIDI Setup → Window → Show MIDI Studio → IAC Driver → Device is online. And the IAC ports enabled in REAAT's MIDI preferences.
3. Is the routing track sending to the IAC Driver bus?

If some functions work and others don't, check the MIDI channels match. Full detail in 7.1.

10.6 After an Update

A shortcut has changed

It hasn't been taken — your own key assignments win on conflict. A new REALIVE command that wanted that key simply didn't get it. Find it in the Action List and assign it elsewhere if you want it.

A screen layout is gone

REALIVE's layouts win, because the live view depends on them. Save customised layouts under a name REALIVE doesn't use. See Appendix A.3.

Something behaves oddly since updating

Check Options → About REALIVE… first. Most post-update oddities turn out to be REAPER, SWS, JS_API or ReaImGui lagging behind the minimum version. See 12.1.

10.7 Frequently Asked Questions

How many songs can a setlist hold? Up to 1000. Around 500 is comfortable on a decent computer — well beyond any realistic setlist.

Can two songs play at the same time? Yes, deliberately. It's what makes crossfades, fermata segues and continuous sets possible.

Do I always need the Audio Routing project? Yes. Every song's audio passes through it. Without one, REALIVE won't play.

Can I still use REAPER normally? Yes. Disable live view (Edit mode only) turns off the performance view and leaves you with an ordinary DAW.

Can I change key and tempo while a song is playing? Both. Changes land at the next bar, on the beat. Key changes are limited to ±6 semitones from the song's original key.

Can singers and the band have different cues? Yes. Cues are directed at band, vocalists, or both automatically. In global click and cues mode the two are fully independent, so singers can choose whether they want counts.

Can I use my own click sound? Yes — the click sound is chosen from Options → Click → Click sound.

Do I need a MIDI controller? No. Everything can be run from the computer keyboard. A controller lets you run the show from where you're standing rather than from the laptop.

What happens if my pitch-correction plugin crashes? Nothing, to your show. That's why REAAT runs as a separate app — a plugin failure happens there, and REALIVE keeps playing. See 7.1.

Do my keyboard shortcuts survive an update? Yes. Where a new version wants a key you've already used, your assignment wins.

How do I move my setup to another computer? Options → Configuration files → Export…, then Import on the new machine. The export includes your audio device list. See Appendix A.4.

Why does REALIVE use its own click instead of REAPER's metronome? Because REAPER's metronome knows nothing about your song's structure, count-ins, running clicks or time signature changes. REALIVE's click track is built from your conductor track and follows all of it.

A stem name isn't being sorted automatically — can it be added? Yes. Send it in and it can be added to the instrument list.

Does REALIVE run on Windows? Yes. Everything works on Windows except automatic audio device detection and switching, which is macOS only — Windows users change devices manually. In shortcuts, Cmd becomes Ctrl and Opt becomes Alt.

Can I display lyrics on a tablet for the singers? Yes. The Web Remote's lyrics page works as a prompter on any phone or tablet on the same network. See 2.7 and 5.3.4.

Back to contents

The vocabulary REALIVE uses, in plain terms. Cross-references point to the chapter where each is covered properly.

Action marker A marker that does something when playback reaches it — change song, start a loop, stop, trigger the drone. How a REALIVE show runs itself. (2.4.6)

Audio Routing project The project every song sends its audio through, on its way to your audio interface. The front-of-house mixer for the whole show. You must always have one open, and its name must contain the word "routing." (6.1)

Bounce Rendering audio out of REALIVE — a mixdown, stems, individual buses, or click and cues. Used for rehearsal tracks and practice mixes. (2.8.3)

Click track The metronome track REALIVE generates and maintains for each song. Not REAPER's built-in metronome, which knows nothing about your song's structure. (2.1.4)

Conductor track Collective name for the material REALIVE builds automatically from your markers: regions, structure text, click track and guide cues. "Build Conductor Track" is the button that makes a song playable. (2.4)

Contextual looping A looping mode that picks its target intelligently — area selection, then time selection, then loop points, then the current section, then the current measure. (3.4)

Count-in Clicks before a section starts, so the band comes in together. Half a bar, one bar or two, and band and vocals can differ. (2.4.4)

Cue (guide cue) A spoken announcement — "chorus," "bridge," "last time" — played to the band or vocalists through their monitors. Generated automatically from your markers. (2.5)

Cues bus The output carrying guide cues and reference tones. Only people with cues in their monitors hear it, which is why reference notes can be played mid-song without the audience knowing. (6.5)

Drone pad A sustained ambient bed tuned to the song's key. Global — it isn't a track in your song. Set the key in the Pitch view and the drone follows. (4.12)

Edit view The normal DAW view, for building and editing songs. Tab toggles it with Live Play view. (4.1)

Fermata marker Marks where the click should stop, rather than the song. Useful for a held final chord. (2.4.1)

Force seek Moving playback immediately rather than waiting for a musical boundary. (3.3)

Freewheel A solo click mode where percussion keeps playing while the click is exposed — gentler in front of an audience than cutting to a bare click. (3.6)

Global click and cues A mode where click and cue audio lives in the Audio Routing project and is triggered by MIDI, rather than sitting inside every song. Smaller projects, consistent levels, easier language changes. (6.5)

Guide tone A reference note played through the cues bus to help find a key. (4.10)

IAC driver A virtual MIDI cable built into macOS, letting two applications on the same computer send MIDI to each other. REALIVE uses it to control REAAT. (7.1)

Line check Playing a spoken identification through each output in turn, so one person can walk the stage and confirm every line lands where it should. (6.3)

Live Looping mode Forces every song in the setlist to play at a common tempo, so loops loaded as separate songs stay locked together. (3.9)

Live Play view The performance view: a large timeline showing the song's structure, readable from a stage. Esc returns to it. (4.2)

Marker vs region A marker is a single point in time. A region has a start and an end. REALIVE navigates and loops regions — building the conductor track converts your markers into regions, so you only ever place markers. (2.4.1)

Original track The track holding a full reference version of the song. Muted automatically in Live mode so it can't be played by accident. (2.1.2)

Place holder A slot in the setlist that isn't a song — a speech, a video, a set break. Like a separator, but it doesn't start a new colour category and it is counted in the list. (2.6.3)

Playlist (RPL) Your setlist. A plain text file listing the projects to open, in order. (2.6.1)

Production MIDI track A track sending MIDI out of a song to external gear — instruments, lighting cues, video triggers, presentation software, patch changes and controller data. Unaffected by key changes and excluded from bounces. (7.2)

Lyrics, the two kinds REALIVE's lyrics display shows words to you and the band, on screen and on the Web Remote (2.7). The Lyrics production MIDI track sends MIDI to external presentation software such as ProPresenter, so the house screens follow the song (7.2). Unrelated features that happen to share a name.

REAAT The companion app that hosts your pitch-correction plugin, running alongside REALIVE and controlled by it over MIDI. Keeps vocal processing isolated from the playback rig. (7.1)

Running click A single beat before the song so the band can find the tempo before the first downbeat. (2.4.4)

Seek Moving playback without dropping a beat: position the edit cursor, trigger a seek, and REALIVE waits for the right musical moment before jumping. The central live gesture in REALIVE. (3.5)

Seek with offset A seek that keeps your position within the section. In bar 3 of verse 1, jumping to verse 2 lands you at bar 3 of verse 2, not its start. (3.5)

Separator A divider in the setlist — sets, services, segments. Any project whose name begins with =. Contains nothing and is skipped when moving between songs. (2.6.3)

SEQ folder The instrument folders holding your song's stems. Which folder a stem sits in affects how tempo and pitch changes treat it, so filing matters. (2.1.5)

SMPTE (timecode) A continuous time signal sent to lighting, video or any other system that has to run in sync with the song. (6.6)

Solo click Mutes everything except the click and loops it, so the band can find the beat again. The main recovery tool, and how you count a section in. (3.6)

Stem An audio file for one instrument or group — the building blocks of a REALIVE song. (2.1.5)

Stop marker The blue !-->STOP<-- marker present in every project, showing where the song ends. Move it wherever you want. (2.4.1)

Structure track The first track in a song, holding the large text items you read in Live Play view. Contains no audio. (2.1.1)

Tab One open project. REALIVE holds your whole setlist open at once, each song in its own tab, so any song can start immediately. (2.6)

Three-stage stop CtrlReturn. First press stops where you are; second returns to where playback started; third stops everything and resets. One key out of any situation. (3.1)

Warp mode Determines whether audio stretches to follow a tempo change, or holds its position in time. (2.3.1)

Web Remote Web pages REALIVE serves to any browser on the same network — control, information, stage view and lyrics. Nothing to install on the device. (5.3)

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12.1System Requirements#

Check what you have with Options → Show Realive Version.

The version window also reports REALIVE's own version and the version of the currently open project.

Keeping these current matters more than it sounds. Most unexpected behaviour reported after an update turns out to be one of these components lagging behind.

CSI (Control Surface Integrator) is installed with REALIVE.

12.2What's New#

Release notes are maintained separately so they stay current. See the changelog for the full history.

A suggestion, not manual content: keep this section to the current release only, with a link to a separate changelog page. The previous manual carried a "What's new in REALIVE 7" list that was written in early 2024 and never updated, which meant the first thing a returning customer read was two years out of date. A short current-release note plus a link avoids that happening again.

12.3Credits and Contributors#

REALIVE is built on REAPER and on work shared freely by the REAPER community. It would not exist without the following people.

REAPER

• Justin Frankel and John Schwartz — for creating and maintaining REAPER
• The REAPER user community

Code, concepts and libraries

• Michael "MPL" Pilyavskiy — the original playlist window concept, and the Keyboard Viewer
• Christian "cfillion" Fillion — many coding concepts and a great deal of patient explanation
• Meo-Ada Mespotine — the REAPER API documentation
• Raymond "X-Raym" Radet — initial training and the region window concept
• Lokasenna — many coding concepts
• Amagalma — the cursor guide line, and ReaNamer
• Geoff Waddington — Control Surface Integrator (CSI)

Themes and interface

• Blankfile — the ILogic Next theme, which became REALIVE's main interface
• SNJUK2 — the Ableton-style theme available in Options → Theme

Please consider supporting their work directly.

12.4Guide Cue Voice Actors#

The spoken cues you hear in REALIVE:

• Severine Accus — French voice pack
• Dzidzor — English voice pack
• Gisela — Spanish voice pack
• Selvin — Spanish voice pack
• Michael Litresits — English voice pack

12.5Contributors#

For testing, feedback, feature ideas and finding the things that only break at 8pm on a show night:

• Patrice Clavette
• Antoine Côté
• Misael Santamaria
• Samuel Leonard
• Josué Daniel
• Michael Litresits
• Yanni Aumont

If a stem name isn't sorted automatically on import, send it in — the instrument list is always growing.

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A.1What REALIVE Is, Technically#

REALIVE isn't a separate application. It's a configuration for REAPER — scripts, key bindings, screen layouts, templates and toolbars — that turns REAPER into a live playback system.

That has one practical consequence worth understanding before you install: REALIVE replaces parts of your REAPER setup. If you already use REAPER for other work with your own shortcuts and layouts, read A.3 and A.4 first.

What you need

Check what you have with Options → Show Realive Version, which reports all of the above plus REALIVE's own version and the version of the currently open project.

Keep these up to date. Most odd behaviour reported after an update turns out to be one of these components lagging behind.

CSI (Control Surface Integrator) is installed with REALIVE — you don't need to fetch it separately.

A.2Installing REALIVE#

1. Install REAPER

Either a normal installation, or — preferred if you already use REAPER for other work — a portable installation, which keeps REALIVE entirely separate from your existing setup. See A.5.

2. Import the REALIVE configuration

Drag the configuration file onto the REAPER window and follow the prompts.

3. Make it your own (portable installations)

If you installed portably, it's worth making REALIVE distinct from your other REAPER:

• Rename the application to REALIVE
• Change the application icon — the images in REAPER/Data/Splash/ can be used as a source
• On macOS, if you're comfortable doing so, you can also change the name shown in the menu bar: show the package contents, open the english.proj folder, and edit the plist file

4. Check your versions

Options → About REALIVE… and confirm REAPER, SWS, JS_API and ReaImGui all meet the minimums above.

A.3Updating an Existing Installation#

Updating brings in new scripts, actions and features. Two things you've customised are handled specially, and REALIVE will tell you what it did.

Your key bindings

If you've assigned your own shortcuts, they're kept.

When a new version wants a key you've already assigned to something else, your assignment wins. The REALIVE command is still installed and still available in the Action List — it just doesn't get that key. Everything from the new version that doesn't conflict is added normally.

So after an update:

• Your custom shortcuts still work
• New REALIVE features are present, and have their shortcuts unless you'd claimed the key
• Nothing you set up is silently overwritten

If you'd rather have a new version's shortcut than your own, reassign it in the Action List.

REALIVE backs up your key bindings when you close the Action List, so recent changes aren't lost.

Your screen layouts

Screen layouts work the other way round: REALIVE's layouts win.

They have to. The live view is built around specific layouts, and a customised one can break how the performance view behaves. If one of yours conflicts, you'll get a message telling you which couldn't be restored. Any of your layouts that don't conflict are restored silently.

REALIVE uses these:

• Realive: Live Play View Window Set
• Realive: Show All Tracks Minimized
• Realive: Mixer Full Screen
• Realive: Show Routing
• Line Check
• Media Explorer
• Media Explorer Reasampler
• Reasampler

If you've customised a screen layout you want to keep, save it under a name that isn't on that list. A layout REALIVE doesn't use won't be touched.

After updating

1. Check Options → Show Realive Version and confirm every component meets the minimums above
2. Open a show you know well and play a song through
3. Run a line check
4. Check any controller still responds

Projects made with older versions are updated automatically when opened. REALIVE enforces a minimum project version and will convert older projects as needed.

A.4Moving REALIVE to Another Computer#

Your whole REALIVE configuration can be exported to a file and imported on another machine. This is how you set up a backup laptop identically to your main one, or move to a new computer without rebuilding your setup by hand.

Options → Configuration files → Export… and Import…

Most people never need this — installing REALIVE on the new machine and copying your projects across is usually enough. If you do want to move a customised configuration, REAPER's own documentation covers the export and import process in detail.

A.5Portable Installations#

A portable installation keeps everything in one folder rather than in the system's application-support locations. Useful for:

• Running from an external drive
• Keeping a backup rig identical to the main one
• Running REALIVE alongside a separate REAPER installation used for other work

REAAT — the companion app for live pitch correction — is itself a portable installation. See 7.1 for a worked example of the approach.

To create one: make a folder, put an empty reaper.ini file inside it, place REAPER in the folder, and open it. REAPER sees the reaper.ini and runs portably, keeping everything in that folder.

This is the same approach REAAT uses.

REALIVE also has a Make Portable Install action (MakePortableInstall, OptShiftCtrlP) in the Action List.

A.6A Note on Backups#

Before any update, and before any show that matters:

• Your songs and playlists are ordinary REAPER project files. Back them up like any other work.
• Your configuration can be exported (A.4). Do it once after you've set REALIVE up the way you like it, and again whenever you make significant changes.
• Custom screen layouts should be saved under names REALIVE doesn't use.
• Custom key bindings survive updates, but an exported configuration is cheap insurance.

The fastest recovery from a broken installation is a configuration export and a folder of projects. Neither takes long to make.

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