Ask Justin Frankel

Can the path of REAPER Preferences/General/Paths use relative paths?I want to put all the project cache recordings and other content together with my portable version.

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 18:32:00 +0000

Don't think so, at the moment, but will look into doing that.

Hello Justin, is there any chance I could get your YouTube handle @deadbeef?

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 19:07:00 +0000

Uhh nah I like it

If computers had never been invented, what other profession you would likely have gone into? Full time musician? Spiritual guide(because of the beard ;) )?

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 19:08:00 +0000

Probably something aerospace related, always enjoyed playing with R/C planes as a kid...

Someone posted this: Do you think theres such a problem? Lately Ive mixed some live recordings and noticed that when doing multitrack mixing in REAPER, the sound while working in the DAW always feels like theres a veil over it. The more tracks, the more obvious it gets. But after exporting, the audio is noticeably clearer and more detailed. After repeated testing, 32-bit float gives the best quality nearly the same as the exported file followed by 16-bit. The default 64-bit setting sounds a bit muddy

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 17:39:00 +0000

I think if you're going by feelings you're making a mistake... you should either quantify the differences using scientific process or A/B/X it to see if your perceptions are quantifiable...

I once found the source code for your NetMon; now I can't seem to find it! Any clues?

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 17:37:00 +0000

It should be in the installer here

Sorry if asking here bothers you. I created a VST3 plugin with no GUI and set default values for all parameters in the code. In REAPER's generic UI, the sliders initially appear at the correct default positions. However, double-clicking a slider resets it to REAPER's centered default instead of the VST3 parameter's default value. If so, why doesn't REAPER reset to the plugin's actual default values?

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 01:06:00 +0000

there's no way for us to query the default IIRC, and it would be too much work to save it...

You ever miss the bay area or are you fully a NYC man now? (BTW the bay area misses you!)

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 22:23:00 +0000

still love the bay area for sure!

is helium gas from a heated fluid does cooling it return to a fluid, anything work like this? make ufo engine

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 22:23:00 +0000

hard to cool it I imagine!

Appears when opening the project..Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library Runtime Error! Program: C:Program FilesREAPER (x64)reaper.exe This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the application's support team for more information.

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 22:24:00 +0000

Probably a plug-in I'm afraid! Try loading the project with FX offline, then bringing them on one by one to narrow down which plug-in...

I saw that reaper use to come with a demo song "Making me nervous" by Brad Sucks... Why no more demo songs now?

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 14:39:00 +0000

adding a 500kb project for every single download seemed a little wasteful!

Have you considered adding higher-tier algorithms superior to lastique 3.3.3?

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 18:17:00 +0000

What algorithms are you thinking of?

halo justin, barusan saya lagi nyari nyari software buat dimasukan ke set tools buat bikin lagu vocal synth saya. banyak yg bagus-bagus, tapi sayang nya itu berbayar semua. gua yg pengangguran mana punya uang kan. dan akhirnya setelah pencarian yg melelahkan saya nemu Openutau diffsinger yg bisa gantikan vocaloid yg mahal nya gak ngotak itu, yey. terus untuk DAW nya, awalnya saya berencana pake ... (bersambung) (sambungannya) ... FL Studio, namun sayang nya ini gak support linux. akhirnya saya ketemu sama REAPER ini, dan saya bener2 terharu sama sistem lisensi nya, maksudnya kayak wholesome banget gitu loh. gak kayak software lain yg maksa user buat beli lisensi (gua yg gak punya duit kasian....). dan ketika saya liaht REAPER ini, wow. saya terharu banget, bahkan saya orang yg selama ini anti banget buat bayar apapun itu produk digitalnya, tiba tiba jadi ada keinginan buat beli lisensi REAPER ini. intinya saya kagum dengan sistem lisensi REAPER anda ini. kagum dengan anda thx.

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 18:16:00 +0000

thanks!

What should I do when I turn on the computer for the first time and the speed of opening reaper is very slow?

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 20:17:00 +0000

Windows? That always bothered me... it's gone so far downhill. I miss the XP days.

Is there a way to determine if a midi input or output is enabled or disabled? This can be useful for csurf extensions, so they can directly inform the user to disable their device in the settings (an API call for this would be great, of course).

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 22:09:00 +0000

iirc you can use get_config_var() with "midiins", "midiins_all", "midiins_cs", "midiouts"... these will all be bitmasks, array of uint64s.

hi justin. im sorry i did the hack. can you forgive me. i was lonely. and hurt

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 01:02:00 +0000

what hack?

Hello. Is there any way to make the "Wet" spinner in the plugin window, which is in front of the "Bypass" checkbox, change color at a value less than 100%, like the "Playback Rate" spinner at a value other than 1?

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 12:21:00 +0000

that's a good suggestion!

In JSFX when you do ext_noinit = 1; and init is not recalled, what about the @slider, whe playback and is stopped and the restarted, will the @slider be called? A null test that wasn't supposed to null when a slider hasn't been touched because the lookaheadcode is at @slider is actually pulling on playback stop/restart and no slider is touched. Making me.wondering if @slider is recalled each playback start in JSFX??

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 20:21:00 +0000

that's super easy to check, run this:

@init
ext_noinit = 1;
@slider
slider_call_cnt+=1;

then look in the watch window to see what happens to slider_call_cnt :) (spoiler: @slider shouldn't normally get called, but if the samplerate or blocksize changes, or undo state is loaded, etc, it will).

Did you incorporate std::move and move semantics in WDL and your code in general?

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 13:26:00 +0000

we try to avoid the need for it, but some of our classes have an explicit SwapContentsWith() method, which is a very low cost way to quickly swap out the contents of an object.

Does JSFX support dynamic memory reallocation? for e.g doing this in @init "buffer_size = srate;" then doing this in @block srate != prev_srate ? ( buffer_size = srate; ); Is this true: "If you recalculated buffer_size in @block when the sample rate changes, you'd just be overwriting a variable, the actual allocated memory wouldn't change. JSFX doesn't support dynamic array resizing, so you're stuck with whatever memory was allocated at startup"

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 15:18:00 +0000

setting buffer_size = x doesn't affect memory, it's just a single variable. You have a fixed address space which you can use however you like. The first time you access a section of memory, it may be allocated transparently behind the scenes. You can control how big the memory is by using options: with e.g. maxmem=128000000 (for 128 million slots, the default is 32 million). You can also have it pre-allocate all of that memory by using prealloc=* or some by using prealloc=32000000 etc (oops need to document that).

Have you listened to Violet Grohl's debut album? (Dave's daughter) Since you like Mazzy Star, I think you'd dig her vibe. youtube.com/watch?v=rom6bZxu7CQ

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 16:50:00 +0000

I haven't, but maybe I will! Edit: not bad, though don't really hear much Mazzy Star there.

Random question! You and your cohort were monkeyradio.org-adjacent, correct (given the old landoleet IRC, etc)? I've been trying to track down three mystery tracks from the old station: "LeBlioux of sacreBLIOUX - Pimpin2k1 Soundtrack (sanfran)", "Samelico - Pepper Sweet", and "asphaltmotherflame - Breathing Over Kiss". Any idea where I could find those or how to reach the artists? I'm terrified they're lost media, and would be grateful for any tips!

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 01:31:00 +0000

no idea, but I'll ask around

I have many js plugins, but many will be loaded at the same time in reaper.txt.xml.json.md and many other things that do not belong to js plugins, why is this and whether it is possible to filter these content.

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 19:38:00 +0000

ideally those files shouldn't get put in the same path, but I'll add some extensions to the exclusion (like .xml .json and .md). stupidly JSFX effects don't have an extension requirement (blame me 23 years ago)...

Can you point me any docs where I can learn how to create a new file association (with icon and associated program) for Win10? I don't mean C++, I mean simply create a file association.

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 02:24:00 +0000

this is done via the registry -- a google search of "file associations registry win32" got me here which is a good starting point.

lol justin u should see this : youtube.com/watch?v=wNFcw8mOWBY

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 12:54:00 +0000

yeah hah

spotted some old bird pics on the blog which made me wonder, have you seen Listers? I recommend that film to anyone, even if they're not into birding, the guys who made it are so talented. youtube.com/watch?v=FLWCsw9CdcIthe whole thing is free on yt

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:38:00 +0000

ooh nice I will check it out!

Your main feed at 1014.org is a lot about music, with the occasional blogpost, like in the olden days. One can display the recent comments, or the search form. Could it be possible to display only the blogposts? (= not the music) Not that I don't like your musical output, but sometimes I want to see if you have new blogposts, and the flood of music can hide those posts :) Double whammy if there could be a blogpost-specific RSS feed :)

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 14:07:00 +0000

for rss: https://www.1014.org/rss.php?music=0 … for the main view lemme look i forget. edit: added that https://1014.org/?music=0 though it'll go away when you navigate etc

As REAPER's MIDI editor is a dynamic library, could one (outside Cockos) theoretically code a replacement (with a bit of reverse engeneering)?

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 04:01:00 +0000

in theory, yes. In fact, one could create a completely separate midi editor and midi source, which could coexist next to the built-in one, if they wanted. but it would be a massive undertaking.

In JSFX, The @gfx section runs at the screen refresh rate (typically 30fps), while @sample runs at the full audio sample rate. Is this true? So that means a fast changing variable in @sample that is being passed to @gfx for movement display may not be as fast as the @sample value itself due to the screen refresh rate, right?

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 07:01:00 +0000

the jsfx @gfx rate is arbitrary and slow (you can request higher rates etc but you're not guaranteed anything), and the audio thread runs at a fixed rate (or doesn't run, if bypassed/etc). so yeah, you'd need to buffer things for display to ensure they get displayed. you can look at how e.g. the JSFX oscilloscope does that.

Hi Justin, I'm a big fan of reaper, since i use it I never went back to PT, recently I join a hiphop production team, the leader asking me to mix in Logic, but Logic's summing system is so stupid and not flexible. How can I convince him to let me use REAPER ? I told him about REAPER ,but he think its a junk without trying it, he think it is unstable, and looks not so professional. what should I do ?

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:25:00 +0000

No idea - maybe try to integrate it into the workflow a little here and there when you need it? but hey whatever works and if the leader is worth following then follow them.

Hey Justin, what do you think of new c++ standards? (e.g. c++20, 23)

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:23:00 +0000

I haven't kept up with them, but I'm still on older standards so that we can maximize compatibility (e.g. gcc 4.x still for linux, lol).

Do you think a meaningful, lossless project conversion between DAWs (Reaper Ableton FL Studio) is technically feasible, or are the internal models too fundamentally different?

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 15:06:00 +0000

Lossless is not going to be possible except in the most basic synthetic examples.

II sold my pedalboards and went through the desert of using a PC for guitar gigs. After a million tweaks (including core isolation for IRQs), I've stabilized the RT longest block around 2ms, but since the limit is 2.6ms (128@48kHz), I sometimes hear unpleasant clicks. I use Process Lasso to run Reaper on 6 of the 8 cores. Do you recommend enabling "Live Multiprocessing for Live Input" and any other magic tricks to avoid crying over every annoying click?

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:52:00 +0000

hmm if live fx multiprocessing reduces the RT longest block time then it's a win, probably. the clicks could be some DPC latency thing. I'm done with Windows for this reason...

hey there. I'm curious to know what are some open source projects you've been digging lately? are there any teams that impress you with the quality and speed of their development? thanks!

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 19:01:00 +0000

Dunno, I guess I take them all for granted!

I think you should see this and tell us your initial reactions: reddit.com/r/Reaper/s/Q2nMLtCbIz

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 21:50:00 +0000

a bit unnecessary heh

On the programming side, what makes reaper so resource friendly, and lightweight, compared to other DAWs ? Is it the lack of addons (plugins etc...) or your practice uses algorithms, technology and resources that are less cpu expensive?

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:34:00 +0000

hard to say, but we do the best we can! even if it's better than it needs to be...

Does a JSFX EQ plugin that allows users to tweak the Q-Factor up to 15 require ext_tail_size = -1; I learnt a high-Q value can make audio "ring" for a long time after the input stops so ext_tail_size = -1; is required in this case???

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 19:07:00 +0000

ext_tail_size = -1 [edit: this is wrong do not use it] means no tail -- so you should not set ext_tail_size or set it to 0 for infinite. Or you could do something reasonable like srate (for a second of tail, your filter should resolve by then?).

edit: ok so yeah -1 means "if the plug-in is receiving silence and the output has dropped below this threshold for a while, stop processing it until some non-silence comes in". which should be good for filters. You could also calculate the lifespan of an IIR filter using some fancy math, probably, or iteratively find it when calculating the filter coefficient with less fanciness.

Hi Justin, I represent Vlinder.Inc, We are developing an open-source VST for C2PA audio provenance, and our research shows REAPER is the only DAW with the scripting SDKs and export hooks fully compatible with our requirements. We want to highlight this compatibility on audioprovenance.org and in our upcoming reports. Do you have any objections to us writing about REAPER's capabilities in this context, and what are your guidelines for using the REAPER logo? Have mailed you regarding the same in detail.

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 16:17:00 +0000

You can of course discuss REAPER as much as you want! And feel free to use REAPER's logo when referring to it, just don't modify it too much, thanks!

hello buddy, im behind the realease of AcoustSee (GitHub) the open repo is the 2025 and the closed repo (2026 development) is about to be realeased soon, let me know if you wanna take a peek and ill add you to the project =)

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 02:00:00 +0000

interesting!

I'm really curious about what Schwa actually does. Because I can't find any relevant information about him anywhere. I also tried asking AI about him, and got two different answers: one says he's a world-renowned master of audio algorithms, and the other says he's a rock musician.

Sat, 30 May 2026 23:00:00 +0000

It missed his bicycling prowess! If you have a specific question I'll do my best to answer it.

Doesn't REAPER support rendering 32-bit FLAC?

Sat, 30 May 2026 13:19:00 +0000

Ah libflac 1.4.0 added support for this, we'll need to update our libflac...

From now on, all developers use AI to code. It seems that manual coding is over. Do you use AI to code Reaper?

Wed, 27 May 2026 15:36:00 +0000

Lol generally fuck no. I wrote something last month about this.

Hey Justin, is there wisdom you can share when it comes to optimization, since you might be the best at it, to my knowledge? Anything can help, either for making software, a website, games, etc.

Wed, 27 May 2026 13:11:00 +0000

I doubt I'm the best at it, but I could be worse! I'd say don't optimize prematurely (wait until you find a real bottleneck)... then look for algorithmic optimizations before you start optimizing the specifics of the implementation. and think about memory access patterns, since things in-order are generally faster than randomly dancing around. but the key is: always measure and confirm that the thing you're doing is faster in real-world cases...

I wonder if your political views have changed in recent years? If I remember correctly, you were a supporter of Bernie Sanders long time ago.

Tue, 26 May 2026 20:38:00 +0000

Not really, Bernie's great, not sure I've ever directly supported him but I definitely approve.

I noticed, that loading a png with with transparency with the gfx-functions, that the transparency is obeyed when blitting it. Is there a way to draw transparent pixels in gfx as well? I only found that I could use normal colors but I might have missed some way to draw transparency...

Tue, 26 May 2026 13:48:00 +0000

yes! gfx_a2 controls what is written to the alpha channel. and of course you can also control whether the alpha channel is used when blitting by setting a bit of gfx_mode

1. In JSFX, does a non-slider dependent math like makeup_gain = 10^(8 / 20); gets recalculated any time a slider value changes simply because this math is in @slider, or non-slider dependent math in @slider doesnt get recalculated any time a slider moves? 2. What's the difference putting it in @init vs @slider, and which is best?

Mon, 25 May 2026 13:15:00 +0000

FYI, makeup_gain = 10^(8 / 20) is optimized to makeup_gain = 2.5118864315 or whatever (it will precalculate constants). but yeah that will get executed on every time any slider changes if it is in @slider. having said that, that only takes a few cycles so you can put it wherever. If you put it in @init that's also fine, but if other code ever modifies it then it will behave differently...

There's a format you might not know about: .LRC It's a format that can display lyrics, but in Winamp, it requires a plugin to display... What's your opinion on this format?

Sun, 24 May 2026 03:16:00 +0000

never really saw the appeal of reading lyrics heh, unless you're doing karaoke

What was the last thing that frustrated you?

Sun, 24 May 2026 03:05:00 +0000

I have an old arm chromebook. At some point I was annoyed that google stopped updating chromeOS for it, so a couple of years ago I opened it up to enable firmware writing, put libreboot on it. then getting a working mainline linux kernel working on it was a pain, ended up using postmarketOS for a bit. but it sucked. and it was a lot slower (to build a debug build of reaper was like 6 minutes, vs 3 minutes on chromeos/crouton). the other day I decided I would put chromeos back, so I rewrote the firmware with the default depthcharge one I had saved. (turns out, side note, that the hardware switch to enable firmware writing actually enables toggling of write-protect... so even though I put the hardware switch back on, my firmware was left not write protected. but anyway). I went to go restore the chromeos with the default boot loader, but it failed "unexpected error" every time. I tried all of the troubleshooting steps the web could give me. no worky. I figured it might be due to my firmware not being write protected. but I couldn't change the write protection without booting, even if I opened the laptop up. so I kept playing with it again today, and realized while it was restoring the system, you could switch virtual terminals and see what was happening. anyway, at some point, it detects that it can write firmware, and then tries to update the firmware. and then fails, and restores the system back to the state it found it (even thought it had successfully written all of the partitions). so, I finally got it it work by turning the system off right as it was about to update the firmware. Was pretty frustrating for a while, but I avoided having to toss this thing, which is still useful (small light laptop that I can toss around without having to worry about, etc).

Hello, someone wants to develop a DAW. He claims audio is fundamentally a 1D floating-point array in memoryall editing (cut, paste, merge) is array operations, and all effects (delay, reverb, EQ) are mathematical transformations of this array. He thinks audio processing is just math, so building a DAW isn't difficult. Do you think this basic understanding is enough to create a functional DAW? His core point: Audio is a sequence of amplitude samples (44100 per second for 44.1kHz 32-bit float), and all audio

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:34:00 +0000

You can represent it that way, sure, but the difficulty is less about representing and playing back audio and more about making a tool that humans will find useful to use, lol.

made a test with Javier Cordero on NinjamZap on my Iphone 12pro max , it recognizes the Behringer Flow 8 in streaming mode as a 8x2 interface phone and mixer are powered by a powerbank... Will you try NInjamZap for IOS with us Someday ? ... it s good to see the players when you hear them ...

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:34:00 +0000

nice, one of these days sure

been seeing a lot of people in socials and forums complain about reaper "not sounding as good as other daws" or "sounds bad when I play it outside" and it comes to the user not even thinking about resample modes, why not make it default to be at the highest quality (r8) on everything? seems like an obscure thing to understand when first starting and it's not that obvious to even know how it may change your desired experience, like juts another "hurdle" to understand reapers "heavy learning curve" etc etc

Thu, 21 May 2026 20:54:00 +0000

changing the default resample mode is not going to affect that. IMO pan laws and other things come in to play more. r8brain may be highest quality but for most things it's unnecessary and it's not without some downsides especially in varispeed modes etc.

Hey Justin, hope you're having a good week. I'm curious how feasible is it to have a video frame accessor function in the ReaScript C++ api? Similar to GetAudioAccessorSamples() but for video frames. Like is it a "total re-write of the video processing engine, no chance" or "hmm bit tricky but doable"? Also, have you tried the latest craze in coffee ... making americanos with steamed water? youtube.com/watch?v=0HdzJz_evNw

Wed, 20 May 2026 12:45:00 +0000

Hmm will look into this, would you imagine it be via the mediaitem API (so you'd want all of the item timing transformations in place?) or just a PCM_source (so you could make a copy of the source and pull video frames directly from it)?

Separately -- steamed water - I've seen some coffee shops do this for 20 years heh, never really thought too much about it, nor did I correlate it with the flavor.

Watching an interview with you. Dude, you rock. I admire your self-awareness and rebelliousness. I dont really have a question, just that I find you inspiring, thanks

Sun, 17 May 2026 16:09:00 +0000

thanks! in case anybody is wondering it was probably this one.

Did you see all the love you're getting on hackernews this week? news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060077

Wed, 13 May 2026 22:36:00 +0000

ah nice thx

Hi Justin, need career advice. 8-year C++ dev here, stuck on legacy code, stagnant, underpaid and ready for change. I want remote work but most C++ roles are in-office so Ive been looking into webdev for better pay and flexibility. I also dream of starting my own venture someday and webdev feels relevant there. I keep getting rejected for senior webdev roles due to no webdev experience and cant afford a junior pay cut. Should I grind LeetCode for FAANG, keep pushing webdev or pivot? Based in India.

Wed, 13 May 2026 18:25:00 +0000

Hell if I know, sorry I've been incredibly lucky to always get to work on things I enjoyed, so my advice would be a ridiculous "find something you enjoy and make it work" but I realize that is probably unrealistic. It would seem to be a big waste to try to throw away your C++ experience. Maybe try to find ways to expand it, and rather than being a webdev or C++ dev, but a "full stack" sort of dev? Lots of C++ experience plus ability to integrate other stuff might be a good path?

How come that some of the EEL-functions are not available in Lua/Python? For instance gmem in Python or network-functions in Lua.

Wed, 13 May 2026 18:23:00 +0000

Python is deprecated, we haven't updated it in ages. Some of the eel functions would need to get ported to Lua...

Am I the only person who uses Reaper for bass music/EDM? In the 16 years Ive been doing it Ive encountered only one other dubstep reaper guy. I recently made this in Reaper: youtu.be/8AWFVKDrVrI?si=X_-feorZLSRomRlAand every track on my SoundCloud going back to 2011 is Reaper. It wouldnt have been possible without you bro, thank you so much. I owe you and Steve Duda my life

Wed, 13 May 2026 02:11:00 +0000

thanks! probably not, lots of people use it but don't advertise that, I think? :)

What do you think about Neural Amp Modelling (NAM) and similar machine learning amp/fx capture tech?

Tue, 12 May 2026 19:15:00 +0000

actually need to play with it more, haven't done enough to have an opinion

What is your favorite vintage/outdated/no-longer-frequency-used/etc. hardware component + why? (Vaccum tubes, VFDs, dot matrix printers, etc.) What about software?

Mon, 11 May 2026 21:49:00 +0000

They still make them and they are commonly used, but I really love a tube guitar amp. Vox AC30, mmmm, it gets so toasty warm.

Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? PS. You must believe me when I tell you that I had decided to ask you this question specifically (smart guy answering all questions? Here am I with the question that has no answer) shortly BEFORE you brought up my favourite book in an answer to the previous question. I just cannot believe the odds of that.

Mon, 11 May 2026 21:48:00 +0000

I guess between him and Reality Winner, scary proposition of getting fucked over by the government. These days anything you would release people would probably go "so what" or think it was AI-generated. I mean the awfulness and corruption that is in plain sight every day makes any Snowden revelations look like no big deal.

Do you read fiction? If so, do you have any favourites?

Mon, 11 May 2026 21:47:00 +0000

Yes! Hard to pick favorites, but off the top of my head, things I've enjoyed: Catch 22, A Fire Upon the Deep, everything by Philip K Dick and Vonnegut (though I'll admit the later Vonnegut gets a little self-indulgent and out there, so maybe earlier Vonnegut), also Neal Stephenson, Nick Harkaway (and his alter-ego Aidan Truhen), Iain M Banks Culture series, Douglas Adams, Ray Bradbury, All the Pretty Horses, Blood Meridian. Edit: oops actually not Blood Meridian, I brainfarted because I was thinking about how brutal that one is, I'd say skip that one and do No Country for Old Men instead.

How do I set up JS: MIDI Choke so that 4 samples choke each other? As the Mute Group does in Akai MPC.

Mon, 11 May 2026 18:09:00 +0000

hmm try this jsfx... that might work?

Many of us pine for the days of iCQ/mIRC/Mumble/Forums and view the modern replacements in Discord/X/Reddit/Insta as lacking at best or harmful at worst. While all the old tech still exists the critical mass behind those tools isn't there so the experience is no longer the same. My questions are: 1. Was it the tools or the time/culture that made that era special. 2. If we were to reclaim that experience are there existing projects you think have a shot at doing or what would be needed?

Mon, 11 May 2026 18:10:00 +0000

I've been wanting to make a peer to peer Slack alternative (WASTE but modernized and with more persistent storage of chat and such), but haven't gotten around to it yet. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons I've procrastinated is the need for mobile device support and that generally being a pain to target/distribute/etc.

Can you take a look at the last 4 post of this kvr thread, there is an argument there where someone mentions you. Do you agree with the argument of the one who mentioned you? kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p...

Mon, 11 May 2026 16:40:00 +0000

I assume you mean this:

REAPER developer Justin Frankel, recently used AI to do all tedious work of studying the Ffmpeg API, AI gave code suggestions but some were wrong and he tweaked it. So per your logic, that code is public domain and Justin don't own that aspect of REAPER. Funny!
I don't think that's a correct assertion; if I asked it to modify some existing code that I owned the copyright for, that would not make the resulting modified version entirely public domain; the changes made would be, but the underlying code would still be subject to copyright protection. Additionally, if I modified its changes, then my modifications would also be copyrighted.

Perhaps a better way to look at it would be this: if you asked a LLM to write some new code according to a spec, then the resulting code (assuming it didn't directly copy some existing code which was copyrighted, which is hard to know) would be public domain. If a human then modifies that public domain code, then those modifications are subject to copyright, but the code prior to human edits is still public domain. So if someone were to copy the per-human-edit code, they could freely use it as it is public domain. Of course this doesn't address the fact that the LLM almost certainly ripped off some copyrighted (which could be copylefted for that matter) code.

Edit: Reading the original post -- re MAGDA -- the combined program linked with JUCE is GPL. The code made by Claude, in isolation, are arguably public domain (caveat LLMs rip off code etc). So you could in theory take those Claude contributions, and rewrite everything else, and make it not GPL. I imagine that would be so much work that it wouldn't be worth anybody's time, though.

Hola Justin. I just wanted to say youre an inspiration to me right now as a systems engineer. When I see your work, even this website, I feel soul, life, and personality in what you build. After years in corporations, computing can become tickets, meetings, and sterile LinkedIn language. But your work brings back the feeling I had as a kid: that a computer was a magical machine that could become almost anything at my fingertips.

Sat, 09 May 2026 22:59:00 +0000

aww thanks!

hi i was doing a research for a project where i have to make an ad and design a social media campaign for a brand/service (im in design school) and i learned about winamp during this process. i have a lot of questions about it which google just can't answer because they are veryyyyy specific and maybe a little stupid lol but i'll just ask one. how do you feel about winamp now (as someone who developed it) & how the current music scene has rapidly shifted from music players to streaming platforms?

Fri, 08 May 2026 20:00:00 +0000

too long to answer here, email me (you can figure out my email it's my first name at my company name domain)

XML or JSON as an interchange format? Personally, I prefer XML.

Fri, 08 May 2026 19:59:00 +0000

I have my issues with both heh, but these days whatever works really. 539 lines vs 313 lines heh. If you're gonna do JSON do JSON5 at least to make it more friendly to humans, I guess?

What's missing in browser tech to allow Reaper to run on the web platform?

Thu, 07 May 2026 17:37:00 +0000

you could probably run some of it but a million things to do it well

I recently saw a discussion about "upscaling" (aka enhancing/interpolating/...) compressed audio. Intuitively I thought it's not possible until someone pointed me here (they even use "upscaling"): sony.co.uk/electronics/support/art...What's your take, s.th. for REAPER perhaps?

Thu, 07 May 2026 17:38:00 +0000

meh we have good quality at this point we should just use it

We share similar viewpoints on AI and I wondered if you're concerned by Mythos (and its successors by competitors, progress is fast her). Can one root any server with it or related things? May it "break internet" or worse. Or is it a well driven ad for anthropic? It's the first time I'm concerned by it and I'm annoyed lol.

Wed, 06 May 2026 23:36:00 +0000

it probably isn't going to do anything truly new, but it changes the cost structure of an attack: you won't have to hire somebody talented who would be extremely expensive and take a while, you can just burn tokens.

did you lie about selling winamp to AOL so it wouldn't look like you stole sonic foundry acid source code?

Wed, 06 May 2026 23:22:00 +0000

lol what?

My friend and I are about a year into making this daw and im starting to realize the hard part wasn't making the daw it's making something people will actually want to use without going insane. Almost at the end of the engineering hell but wanted to ask what (other than obv letting others try it) is best for getting out of your own head and making something actual humans will find useful?

Wed, 06 May 2026 21:52:00 +0000

make something that you want to use, because some percentage of other people are like you... but yeah it's a lot of work hah and you'll never be done

Have you used LLM code in Reaper again since your FFmpeg hack?

Wed, 06 May 2026 18:08:00 +0000

Since this article, I used it to look up a few things related to screensavers, it was somewhat helpful but definitely gave me a lot of bad suggestions too. Unrelated to REAPER, having it generate some oauth2 code for another project was pretty helpful, but as I've probably mentioned before this speaks to the crappiness of documentation/SDKs more than the genius of LLMs.

Hi Justin! Not a fan of AI in general, but I asked Gemini Flash for a script to connect REAPER with KoboldCPP, running Acestep. it seems it somehow managed it.This script uses RealmiGui to take parameters and send the selected time/track in Reaper to generate a reference-based audio and then import to project. It seems usefull,as a base script.If you, or anyone you know find this interesting to check, I uploaded it here:limewire.com/d/m3XoN#86QwpzbmCQ . Thank you for everything you gave us!

Wed, 06 May 2026 01:13:00 +0000

heh cool I guess

The latest music you've made is epic and does all the right things! This is my fav so far (also, because of the title, I clicked on it first:) - and I loved it: music.1014.org/Alone/260502_worth_... - Keep it up! =)

Mon, 04 May 2026 21:30:00 +0000

lol thanks that one was fun!

Forum FR? A button to copy [Code][/Code] text?

Mon, 04 May 2026 15:24:00 +0000

the text within the code block, or the tags themselves?

Are you a fan of any anime or cartoons?

Mon, 04 May 2026 15:23:00 +0000

Not particularly

If you couldn't use Reaper, which daw would you choose and why?

Sat, 02 May 2026 01:26:00 +0000

I'd probably go with Ardour so I could still hack on it.

Is Reaper a large software project?

Sat, 02 May 2026 01:26:00 +0000

It's definitely consumed a lot of programmer time! something like 35 human-years at this point?

Did you grow up with an interest in programming itself, or what you could build with code? Do you enjoy the process, the end result, or both?

Sat, 02 May 2026 01:25:00 +0000

Both for sure!

What's the (theoretical) maximum length (in time) of Reaper projects?

Sat, 02 May 2026 01:27:00 +0000

Due to the use of double-precision floating point for timing in many places, I imagine things would start breaking in significant ways at 2^53 samples, which at 48khz would be more than 5,000 years. Wow 2^53 is really big.

Do you like life and what are the main reasons for that?

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 22:34:00 +0000

Definitely - food, music, friends, exercise, come to mind. Probably more.

Can you tell me if CCL Cross-platform Framework is related to REAPER? Or it's from another program, I can't figure it out...

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 20:26:00 +0000

This is the first I've heard of it

Since this is your specialty, I wonder how you'd grade Torvald's repo: github.com/torvalds/AudioNoise

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:42:00 +0000

looks fine to me

Would you rather be stupid and happy or smart and depressed?

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:43:00 +0000

It depends on the magnitude of all of those qualities, I suppose.

Do you think A.I. will cause even greater interest in live music now and in the future? I think the artist themselves and their process or personal life will become part of the art as well..

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:29:00 +0000

hope so!

newstd.dreamhosters.com/?

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:30:00 +0000

lol

Who would you like to see as the candidate for president from the democrats?

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 20:18:00 +0000

fuck if I know, who can win?

Hello, do you about this ? vdo.ninja/alpha/examples/music-syn...This demo is for NINJAM-style or loop-based music sessions where the audio is handled outside VDO.Ninja an

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 23:19:00 +0000

not really sure what's going on there but cool anyway

How is this website viable? Is it really as simple as a stupid custom captcha and basic php where you're careful with file permissions, htmlspecialchars, etc. ? Or is there hidden wizardry?

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:26:00 +0000

shrug low volume target I guess?

Hi,there are starting to be quite a few shitty files on the stash, completely made by AI with no work put into them. Such a shame for REAPER! How are you going to handle this in the future, given this new factor that is AI?

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 20:34:00 +0000

ugh dunno

Tempted to get a Mastodon account?

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 14:04:00 +0000

I ran a server but the supply chain for it was so massive it seemed like too big a liability...

"his proudest moments are waving to Stevie Wonder" (cockos.com/team.php: there's room to improve the jokes I think :)

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 14:57:00 +0000

Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a comedian...

Are Big Tech companies digging their own grave with AI in the long term? Like, will we reach a point where there's such an overabundance of digital stuff that people no longer see value in it, and no one, not even Big Tech, can monetize it?

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 15:16:00 +0000

they're probably cementing their positions, because they will be the only ones who can monetize it (not by selling it, but by selling the user data etc)

Thoughts on the state of audio plugin development? Stuff like JUCE seems overly complicated, but I'm also just stupid. JSFX is awesome but you can't output actual VSTs. I'd love to see an audio plugin API with the simplicity of something like raylib

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 15:17:00 +0000

JUCE definitely feels overly complicated to me... but I don't have any good alternatives!

is realtime latency in voice chat between Ninjam users changing with the distance and there a place where we could actually see the numbers in a Ninjam session ...

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 15:17:00 +0000

yeah a bit, but I don't think we have the facility to measure it unfortunately

you are jewish?

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 22:17:00 +0000

I'm an atheist/secular humanist, but some of my ancestors were jewish

What do you think? You only need the cheapest pair of stereo headphones to get an experience just like being in a real environment.youtube.com/watch?v=YyhdEeui_PY

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 22:17:00 +0000

you can def do a lot with headphones!

I was wondering if there is a way to create a lua function to browse for a folder or set directory folder?

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 02:13:00 +0000

ah we have a C++ API call for that, suppose we could make a ReaScript version...

Why headphones for home theater? Do you and the wife not enjoy the same content?

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:30:00 +0000

yeah, though usually on a laptop, no big setup. in general though we don't watch that much stuff these days

Do you think audition is a DAW?

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 13:55:00 +0000

haven't used it in a long time, but iirc it was a sort of hybrid between a .wav editor and a DAW since it was CoolEdit Pro...