Ask Justin Frankel

justin = { main feed , music , code , askjf , pubkey };

Ask Justin Frankel
No reasonable question unanswered since 2009!

Suggested topics: programming, music, sleep, coffee, etc.

Note: please do not ask questions about REAPER features, bugs or scheduling, use the forums instead.

[newer questions]

[unreplied] | [replied] | [recent comments] | [all]

[older questions]

Question: What are your pros and cons of cargo bikes vs bike trailers?
Asked by PedalingPanda (194.156.7.x) on July 6 2024, 7:04am
Reply on July 6 2024, 3:54pm:

Bike trailers you don't have to use all of the time, and when you're not using it you can treat it like a normal bike (easier to deal with, take indoors, etc). But for moving a lot of stuff I'd prefer a cargo bike, much less tedious to ride. Comment...

Question: Can you tell in easy language what is ReaScript and if I learn python fully, what I can do? Create my own effects or even instruments for REAPER?
Asked by Abhi (207.244.71.x) on July 6 2024, 6:10am
Reply on July 6 2024, 3:53pm:

Comment...

Question: You said you use Mac and not Windows. Then why REAPER's manual has Windows' version in almost all pictures?
Asked by Abhi (171.48.1.x) on July 6 2024, 5:57am
Reply on July 6 2024, 3:52pm:

I am not the author of the user guide Comment...

Question: I'm not a Pearl Jam diehard by any means, but I really recommend the new album Dark Matter since you liked Ten so much back in the day. It's the same vibe. Very, very good!
Asked by Will (23.125.224.x) on July 4 2024, 2:23pm
Reply on July 5 2024, 12:23am (edited at July 8 2024, 8:07pm):

thanks, I'll check it out! Edit (Jul 8): gave it a full listen, pretty good! At its high points I liked it a lot, though I did find myself a little bored at times. That second half of the last track was really good, but there's another song I've heard in the last 5 years that I am very highly reminded of, gotta figure out what that was. Gonna wrack my brain on that one while I go for a run in the 90+ degree weather now. Edit again: ah, one of the Verve songs off of Forth, I think. Very different song but some common progression and feel in there Comment...

Question: hello
Asked by Bozai Bozai Numaan Ali Khan Numaan Ali Khan (49.205.254.x) on July 4 2024, 11:59am
Reply on July 4 2024, 1:58pm:

hi ih Comment...

Question: Hello Justin. By chance, the release days of the pre-releases always coincide with the birthday of some member of the Forum, intentionally?
Asked by Javiramallo (195.235.163.x) on July 4 2024, 11:49am
Reply on July 4 2024, 1:58pm:

Hah unintentionally, sure, the forum has enough members to cover every birthday no doubt. 3 Comments...

Question: Do you fancy coming for a visit to St. Helena?
Asked by James (80.73.220.x) on July 1 2024, 11:20am
Reply on July 2 2024, 2:22pm:

California or the island? I haven't thought about either, I guess, but the island looks interesting. Comment...

Question: Snapdragon Windows Arm version of Reaper, when?
Asked by Michael (129.222.78.x) on June 30 2024, 1:17pm
Reply on June 30 2024, 1:46pm:

Our pre-release site has an ARM64EC/Windows11 build of REAPER 7.04rc1, but there is pretty much zero demand for it as a platform, last I checked. Perhaps we'll update that build in the next few months. 2 Comments...

Question: Do you think complicated software like REAPER can be developed just using HTML, CSS & Javascript?
Asked by Abhi (110.227.151.x) on June 30 2024, 8:26am
Reply on June 30 2024, 1:45pm:

The UI could for sure, but you're very limited when it comes to threads (you can have workers but no shared memory) and plug-ins (n/a). 2 Comments...

Question: CreateProcess exists in UTF-8 hooks but not in SWELL emulation. Do I have to manually control the situation with posix_spawn or fork()/exec()? Thanks.
Asked by Gio (94.70.6.x) on June 30 2024, 5:15am
Reply on June 30 2024, 1:44pm:

Rather than implement and try to emulate the full CreateProcess API, we instead offer SWELL_CreateProcess() (and SWELL_CreateProcessIO() on macOS). 1 Comment...

Question: Out of complete curiosity. What is "./REAPER/Plugins/reaper_host_x86_64" and what is it used for?
Asked by Matthew (76.37.54.x) on June 29 2024, 5:13pm
Reply on June 30 2024, 1:43pm:

It's used for when a plug-in is hosted out of process, which can happen due to be set to "separate process", or if it's x86_64 and you're running in arm64 etc. Comment...

Question: is it possible to know what audio file the peakfiles in reaper/reapeaks point to? filenames are some big hexadecimal for me and it doesnt look like there's a reference string in the .reapeak content
Asked by kriasb (84.52.206.x) on June 29 2024, 11:35am
Reply on June 29 2024, 11:36am:

it's a sha1 hash of the lowercase version of the full path and filename Comment...

Question: Which OS do you spend the most time on these days (not counting your mobile phone)?
Asked by Will (23.125.224.x) on June 27 2024, 7:13pm
Reply on June 28 2024, 2:32am:

macOS for dev work, linux for recording 2 Comments...

Question: Are there any binary search trees in the REAPER code?
Asked by Will (98.251.43.x) on June 24 2024, 9:34pm
Reply on June 24 2024, 11:41pm (edited at June 26 2024, 5:08pm):

Not off the top of my head. Lots of sorted buffers that are bsearch'd though. Comment...

Question: Do you know personally the developers of the other big DAWs?
Asked by Will (98.251.43.x) on June 23 2024, 5:27pm
Reply on June 24 2024, 2:06am:

I've talked to Paul of Ardour a bit, but afaik that's about it Comment...

Question: Why we can easily see source code of any website in browsers? What if some web developer doesn't want their source code to not publicly visible?
Asked by Abhi (122.161.59.x) on June 23 2024, 4:25pm
Reply on June 24 2024, 2:06am:

You could obfuscate it if you want, I suppose. There are tools to do that. Comment...

Question: Hey Justin! You've been around for a minute - what (if anything) do you miss about the 90s era of computing / internet culture?
Asked by ＦＥＲＲＯ (76.32.109.x) on June 22 2024, 3:40pm
Reply on June 22 2024, 9:52pm:

Hah not too much, things are pretty sweet now. I'd say I miss upgrading your Windows install being optional, but I don't really use Windows anymore unless I have to so it doesn't bother me much... Comment...

Question: Hey jf - The plugins that are bundled with Reaper. Were they developed on top of a custom plugin architecture or just regular VST? And if so, how would you go about implementing one?
Asked by Matthew (76.37.54.x) on June 21 2024, 8:22am
Reply on June 21 2024, 3:23pm:

They are VST-ish, but if you were to implement something similar you'd have to use VST2, which isn't freely available unfortunately. Closest thing to it is probably CLAP, which would be a better alternative! 2 Comments...

Question: Are you the best DAW engineer alive?
Asked by Will (23.125.224.x) on June 21 2024, 3:43am
Reply on June 21 2024, 3:22pm (edited at June 21 2024, 4:16pm):

Not sure how one would quantify best. Lots of potential criteria to choose from, and even then the context would be different, you can't directly compare marathon times on vastly different courses. But any rate, I'm going to go with "no" as an answer. Comment...

Question: What did you do for acoustic treatment in your studio/rehearsal space?
Asked by Sunblister (147.161.165.x) on June 18 2024, 4:10am
Reply on June 18 2024, 1:32pm:

the space was built out by others with a lot of insulation/isolation which was nice, but it's a very live room so I have some