[Rwp] sonar like recording mode in reaper

[Chris Belle]

For those of us like Snowman and Bryan smart and myself who are being 
challenbged by the
crazy recording modes in mreaper, I have been experimenting and trying 
all sorts of things and for those of us who love the sonar layered type 
of recording, this is what I've discovered.
First of all,
set all items to mix.
Secondly, go to options and set your recording mode to
normal, which is default.
then go down to new recording that overlaps existing media items
In there there are several options
The one you want is creates new media items in separate lanes, layers
Then when you record, you'll get a new item each time you record like 
usual, but it'll be at the time point when you started recording.
And they'll all play and won't cut each other off,
I haven't tested this with midi yet, but it's nice to be able to control 
arrow to different items,
and just deal with one thing rather than trying to figure out, ok, which 
take or multiple takes are active  and at what time position, if for 
instance you do like me and build up guitar parts sometimes with holding 
certin notes an bending others, to fake bender gear I don't have,
or steel guitar like things,
then you want to be able to comp mixed items on one track and just mix 
them in place without having to deal with smaller items taking the cake, 
you just want to build up a layer quickly.
So this is the way i figured out how to do it.
Just please give me a virtual track situation, and don't mess with me,
this layered mode is also nice for puncing in because often if you punch 
cleanly you can just leave things alone, and don't have to worry about 
overlapping edges or if they do overlap and mix a little bit, it sounds 
smooth and not glitchy like regular punches can be and then you have to 
edit cros-fades and such.
since cross-fading was such a pain in sonar, we figured out how to make 
that layered mode work really well for us.
Don't get me wrong, I dig all the power of reaper's various recording 
modes, and plan to use them, and I'm getting my head around it slowly, 
but it's hard to break 20 years of habbit, so one good thing about it, 
we couldn't edit our layers in sonar, but with reaper, even doing it 
this way, we can always cut  or copy
our items to other tracks for easy separation and editing and get rid of 
any unwanted material.
I wish there was an action to blow up multiple items to separate tracks 
like there is for takes, to explode them across tracks, but at least 
reaper does the context sensitive thing and knows you are dealing with 
items and so you can pick them and copy them as needed.
Oh well, one thing for sure, reaper gives you 27 52 95
ways to skin multiple felines.
Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.