(This guide will assume that you already know how typical venue authoring works. If you do not, use the docs as a guide)

Making a special venue track for the song you’re authoring can give that song something special visually for both those playing and anyone at the party spectating. But venue direction can be so tedious! If you do a venue that has a lot of special effects, lighting, and camera cues, it can look all messy in Reaper, and if you decide you want to go and change something, you’ll be greeted with this kind of mess!

Taken from “Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff” venue track

The good news is, it doesn’t have to be as confusing as it tends to be. Thanks to a member of the old RBN forums, there was a method discovered so that you can have seperate tracks for different elements of the venue. This way you have a lot more visual room for every element. This tutorial will explain an alternate method of venue direction that will help to unclog the potential mess you’ll make while venue directing.

Step 1 – Making Tracks

What you want to do is add three more tracks in your project. I’ll name them “Camera,” “Lighting,” and “Post Processing.” Keep the old venue track, since it will have the track name and any MIDI notes (such as sing-alongs and spotlights) you use for your venue. You may want to move these new tracks right below the Venue track for a future step. Last part of this step is to add new MIDI item onto these tracks (Insert -> New MIDI Item), and adjust it to be as long as the venue track. Your new tracks should look like this.

Step 2 – Authoring in Individual Tracks

Now instead of authoring everything into a single venue track, the new tracks allow you to seperate the elements into their own track. The names should explain which events go where, but here’s a rundown of what each track should look like:

– “Camera” track: [coop_d_closeup_hand], [directed_bass_cls], [coop_all_far], etc.

– “Lighting” track: [lighting (verse)], [lighting (silhouettes_spot)], [next], [bonusfx], etc.

– “Post Processing” track: [bloom.pp], [space_woosh.pp], [film_contrast_red.pp], etc.

– “Venue” Track: Should only include the title track (“VENUE” Track Title event) and any MIDI notes you use in the song.

Step 3 – Collapsing Tracks into Seperate Takes

Now that the venue is done, Go ahead and select all four MIDI items.

Next, right click on the VENUE MIDI take, go to “Take,” then “Implode Takes Across Tracks Into Takes.” It should now look like this.

Then, right click on that, go to “Item Settings,” then select “Play All Takes.” While it doesn’t look any different, this does make a huge difference.

Step 4 – Exporting and Compiling

This is the easiest step. Just export the MIDI and build like you would your typical Rock Band custom! If you’ve followed the steps above and have a chart free of technical errors, then it should compile normally.

Step 5 (Optional) – Editing It Later

If you wish to change something in the venue, right-click the Venue MIDI track, go to “Takes,” then select either “Explode All Takes to New Tracks” or “Explode All Takes In Order.” Then move the tracks to their respectful places, remove any superflous tracks if necessary, and then edit them. To put them back together repeat Step 3.

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And that is the alternate method to doing this that I wanted to present to you all. If you have any questions or concerns please leave them down below.