MIDI keyboards are awesome tools! I really like them because I don’t have to draw one note at a time in the MIDI editor with a mouse. It’s so much easier to let the music in my head flow into REAPER. However, setting up a MIDI keyboard can sometimes get a little tricky. I’ve had various friends turn to me and ask for help. When you connect a MIDI device to their PC or Mac, sometimes it doesn’t automatically show in the track input options. So in this article, I will show you how to setup a MIDI keyboard for recording in REAPER.
Setting up a MIDI Keyboard in REAPER
You can start you by connecting your MIDI device or keyboard to your system.
Once your OS recognizes it as a USB device, head over to the MIDI Device tab in the REAPER Preferences.
If you have connected any MIDI devices before, you’ll see them in Preferences. In my case, I have the MIDI Input and output of my Focusrite audio and MIDI interface, as well as other MIDI USB devices I own.
All connected MIDI devices that are not active for recording will appear as <disabled>, both on the MIDI Inputs and on the MIDI Outputs.
To activate a MIDI device for recording, double-click the register of the device on the MIDI Input list and check the options ‘Enable input from this device’ and ‘Enable input for control messages’, then click OK on the small window and Apply on the Preferences window.
Next, create a track and assign the input by right-clicking on the Rec arm button. You will find your MIDI device as an option inside Input: MIDI.
Here, you need to select which MIDI channel the track should listen to. If you’re not sure or don’t care, then you can just select the All channels option, it will work for most applications.
Make sure to activate your track’s Rec arm button and enable the Input monitoring option (The small speaker icon beside the Rec arm button).
It looks like this:
Using a MIDI Keyboard in REAPER
Now, every time you play a note, you should see a small yellow bar on the right side of your track’s Peak meter, and if you move a knob or fader (MIDI CC), it should appear as a small block on the bottom-right corner.
This is an excellent time to load a Virtual instrument into the track. In my case, I will load Vital with a lead synth preset, but the possibilities are endless. Kontakt libraries, Slate drums, Arturia Analog Lab, MODO Bass, etc. There are a lot of free and paid VSTi’s out there.
Now that you have a track that inputs MIDI and a Virtual instrument to interpret that MIDI as sound, you can start recording. The most basic way to start a recording is to click the Record button on the transport bar.
MIDI Recording Tips
You can set up a Pre-roll in the Metronome settings. Activating this setting gives you a couple of bars of playback before recording. REAPER can also be set up to record audio on the Pre-roll bars but not MIDI
Time selection Auto-punch allows you to start recording from the position of the Edit cursor, but only ‘write’ the item on the space inside the Time selection (you can later drag the MIDI item to expose the whole recording).
This is useful for punching-in determined parts of a song without having to create a new track altogether. It can be activated by right-clicking on the Record button in the Transport bar
It’s a common practice to overdub the MIDI performances so that they all get recorded into just one MIDI item. You can prevent REAPER from overwriting your MIDI items by changing the record mode to MIDI Overdub on each track by right-clicking the Rec Arm button.
Conclusion
Recording MIDI performances is a liberating process. You can completely edit the performance and fundamentally change the sound source by changing the Virtual instrument, even without having to re-record. I highly recommend that if you’re working with any MIDI at all in REAPER, you read this article to help you better set up your MIDI Editor and supercharge your workflow.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is my MIDI keyboard not working in REAPER?
How do I set up MIDI outputs in REAPER?
Can I use my computer’s keyboard as a MIDI keyboard in REAPER?
Does REAPER come with built-in Virtual Instruments?
- ReaSamplOmatic5000 is a quite powerful sampler that has multi-velocity and multi-layer capabilities.
- ReaSynth is a very simple additive synthesizer.
- ReaSynthDr is an extremely bare-bones, 4-piece drum sampler that can be set on one track or as a multi-out instrument.
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- Writing MIDI Drums in REAPER - July 3, 2023