There's something about Reaper that I simply do not understand. Well, maybe that was an understatement, there are lots of stuff about how Reaper works that I don't understand, but this is a special thing. I insert a new track, then I insert New MIDI item. This gives me a short MIDI item on that track. I name this item, "MIDI Intro". Then I insert again New MIDI Item renaming it "MIDI Verse", and again renaming to "MIDI Refrain". So far no problems, it's all understandable to me. Now, I copy MIDI Verse and paste it after MIDI Refrain, and I do the same with MIDI Refrain, put a copy of it at the end of the track. So I end up with a track built from small MIDI items, like MIDI Intro

No, it's not just you. That's how it works. Every clip (i.e. item) is independent ... ... unless you: - make it "ghost copyable", using right-click >> Item Processing >> convert active take MIDI to file (ghost copyable) - then a MIDI file is stored in your project folder (or default folder) - now when you copy it you get a ghost copy - and when you edit any of the copies, all of the copies are changed. HTH

Holy smokes... thanks DarkStar. I was looking all over the place for that! I haven't used it much but I remember when it got added. Fabian, MIDI "Files" and MIDI "Items" are not the same thing. It may sound confusing but it offers a lot of flexibility depending on how you use MIDI. An "Item" is just a "placeholder" on the timeline... sort of... The notes, velocity data etc are stored in the project file. An actual MIDI "File" on the other hand exists separately on the hard disk apart from the project file. (*.rpp) Where are all the MIDI guru's when you need 'em? D

Hmmm... same name is not same object... seems illogical to me. I would have thought that copying an item would mean also "ghosting" it, and if that was not the behavior I wanted then I would need to detach the "ghost". Apparently, Reaper does it the other way around... But, if that's the way it is, then... well... that's the way it is. At least I now know how to achieve the behavior I expect. Thanks guys.

Yeah Data-man, I agree about the text metaphor. However, text doesn't look like file to me and so I wouldn't expect it to behave as such, whereas a media item looks and feels like a file to me. Main reason, I think, is that items have names, and same-named files (in the same dir) are the same object; cut one they all bleed... But I get the point, items in Reaper are "text" and not "file", important distinction, but that's ok. Thanks all

Yeah Fabian, but I think, you'll get used to it, if you work a while with it. I even can't think of a really practical way, to do it differently. You could prefix it with "copy of ", but if you zoom out your project, you wont see anything else than "co..", "copy o..".... And what, if you make a copy of a copy? it would be named "copy of copy of..." or "copy 3 of copy of...". Yes you could number the copies, but again, if you zoom out, you'll see many items with 1, 2, 3, at the beginning of the name. The only solution that comes to my mind would be coloring the pasted copies ramdomly, but this either isn't practical really and your project would look tawdry soon - and: a randomly created color could be very similar to your preset color, if not the same and you wouldn't know is it a copy or not. But if you really wanted to, you could create a macro doing exactly this. Just think of items as items not as files. If you copied in the DDD-1 pattern 10 to pattern 20, they were the same until you altered one of them. (This thing was very flexible but very noisy BTW - especially the toms - had one myself, way back in the '80s :)). -Data

Yes Winbe, good point. I forgot about that totally. Cubase has the same thing, called ghost parts. It'd be very convenient to have this, so the chronological order in which you do things isn't that important anymore. -Data

Yes, but now it seems that by using midi files instead of items, there is a solution to my problem. Not exactly what I wanted, but if is works, why not !

I tried the "ghost" thing in Reaper... seemed to be what I wanted... copies are being updated when I update the original... but.. what I did not realize ... is that it is based on midi files.. with no history ? (only one .bak file) Does this really mean that you cannot undo at all ? (except by copying the unique .bak file over the .MID, by hand...) I am glad I had copied my project on another hard drive, because the same .MID file was being written over and over, and after a bad "quantize", I was unable to "UNDO" and get my groovy drums back !! Argh... So ok I'll do without the sibblings/linked/ghosts... and consider FL Studio I guess, for my midi work...