If you're looking to get more efficient with your automations in REAPER, I put together a bunch of useful shortcuts. I also included a few that aren’t native shortcuts but they are great to have.
Here are 10+ automation shortcuts 🚀
📒 Table of content
7. Quick delete envelope point
1. Quick open lane
Press V to open/close the volume envelope lane.
Press P to open/close the pan envelope lane.
2. Four point envelope
Create a time selection and press Shift + Ctrl/Cmd to create a four-point envelope.
This is perfect for quickly adjusting the values for a section, while keeping the rest of the lane untouched.
3. Adjust envelope curve
Hold Alt/Opt while clicking and dragging the curve of an envelope to shape it freely. Very useful for smoothing out transitions.
Double Alt/Opt click to reset it.
4. Manual adjust point
Hold Ctrl/Cmd and double click an envelope point to manually enter a value or change the curve shape.
5. Create automation items
Press Alt/Opt and drag at the bottom of the envelope to create automation items.
They are containers for envelopes. You can loop, copy, stretch and pool like regular items. You can basically treat your automation as if they were items!
(You can also double click on them to apply an LFO and adjust the settings!)
6. Fine tune envelope point
Press Ctrl/Cmd + Alt/Opt as you drag a point up and down to adjust it in very small steps.
7. Quick delete envelope point
Press Alt/Opt + click on an envelope point to remove it.
8. Reset envelope point
Double click an envelope point to reset its value to 0dB.
9. Draw envelope
Hold Ctrl/Cmd as you drag on the envelope lane to freehand draw ignoring snap.
To do so, go to Preferences > Mouse Modifiers > Context: Envelope Lane | Left Drag and setting a mouse modifier to “Freehand draw envelope”
💎 Shortcut suggestions
The next actions don’t have a shortcut, but they are super useful and I suggest setting one to them!
10. Show & hide envelopes
If you have a bunch of envelopes taking up space in your session, here’s a quick way to show/hide all of them or just selected tracks.
In the Actions menu (shortcut: ?), search for “Envelope: Toggle show all envelopes for all tracks” and set a shortcut to it. I have it set to Alt + Tab.
11. Show last touched envelope
This is one of my favorite actions!
You don’t need to go through a massive list of parameters to get an envelope going. Just touch the parameter you need, run this action and a lane for that parameter will appear on the track!
In the Actions menu (shortcut: ?), search for “FX: Show/hide track envelope for last touched FX parameter” and set a shortcut to it. I have it set to L.
That’s it!
Hope these are useful, reaperfriends~ 💙
