Have you ever wanted to do some code based genrative music right from REAPER, on REAPER objects themselves? Take a look at LambDAW, by PhD student in Music Technology at Georgia Tech, ijc8!
It is called LambDAW because it is the combination of Lambda + DAW, but it is in fact a REAPER extension (the name is a bit misleading).
The idea is to bring generative capabilities to REAPER just by using item names and track names. Just put some inline Python-like code inside these fields and you will be able generate MIDI items, transpose MIDI notes, duplicate items, generate sounds etc… You can even do it live, a bit like SonicPI but with REAPER items.
The project is pretty recent, so there isn’t a lot of documentation to see the functions available, and not even a dedicated thread on Cockos Forum, but it has a research paper made for the 7th International Conference of Live Coding. Serious stuff!
I think it could have been interesting to use item notes and track EXT data to handle code as this can be multiline, which is always nice for coding. A code editor window, based on ReaImGui for eg, would just refresh based on what is selected. It could also have color syntax, functions helpers or code references. Way more than what can be done with just the Media Item Properties window for sure!
Anyway, I think this project is a good exemple of how REAPER API can allow out-of-the box thinking and lead to nice researches and experimentations. Hoping this post will help promote such initiative!
The extension is free and open source, so don’t hesitate to give feedback to the author, on the project GitHub Repo, linked below.
Have fun with it! 🤖
