Documentation - HeDa Track Inspector

Requirements

Installing and General view

Installation

  1. Install the VST3 version of dpMeter4. The VST2 also works with the latest version, but it requires changing the setting Use VST2 version after you install Track Inspector and go to settings.
  2. Install HeDaScripts Manager if you haven't already and use it to download and install Track Inspector or Track Inspector VIP
  3. If you want, add the toolbar icon for the installed action HeDa_Track Inspector.lua. The pack comes with a icon that is installed in your icons directory ready to be used for your toolbar.
  4. Using Monitor FX chain for Master Inspector.
    In order to get the meters for the master track, you have three options. Using monitor FX chain (the default one), using a PREMASTER track (deprecated) , or if none of these options are selected, then it will put the plugins in the master track itself. You must be sure that they are always the latest in the chain.
    Using the Monitor FX option is the best solution, but it requires some setup on your chain first. There is a FX Chain included in the script that will be installed in the FX Chains subfolder. Search for the file: Track Inspector Monitor FX dpmeter4.RfxChain
    This chain includes the Track Inspector plugin for RMS, waveform and peaks, and the dpmeter4 plugin for EBUR128 meter. Load this chain in your monitor FX chain, and route the input channels you need to them. Normally your main stereo 1/2 channels. But this could depend on how you setup your projects outputs.
    IMPORTANT: Put them before any possible control room equalization or any other effect you could have in the monitor FX chain that could affect the output. This way the meter will be unaffected by the monitor FX chain.

Closing the script:

If you run the script again while it is running, a prompt will be presented to terminate the script.
You should click to remember the setting and click Terminate to close it.

Usage

The script is designed to be docked to the left. It should take as much vertical space as possible and not too wide. You can of course dock it to the right too, or have it floating in other monitor as you wish. Depending on how you have your dockers configured, Track Inspector may appear docked in the wrong place the first time you run it. You can drag it (from the docker tab) to other position and it will remember the position for next time.

The script is divided in series of "panels" or "blocks" described below. If the panels take too much space for a particular track because it has a lot of plugins, or sends etc, then you can scroll all the panels up and down by dragging with the middle mouse button. Or you can collapse some panels to make more space.

Each panel has a title text that is a button with a small triangle.

  • Click on it it collapses/uncollapses the panel.
  • CTRL+Click on it: Collapses/uncollapses all other panels (except meters)
  • Right click on it: Shows a menu with options related to this panel. Also clicking the ≡ button next to it
  • The GV button at the bottom of the script, toggles between global visibility for panels, or TV Track Visibility of panels. It means when it is onTV, you can collapse some panels and it will be remembered for this track. On GV mode, when you collapse a panel it will be always collapsed for all tracks until you uncollapse it.

How to create additional instances with its own configuration

Example on how to create an additional instance that only displays the notepad panel for example:
It is important to copy the lua file to the "Track Inspector VIP settings" folder because all the files on the Track Inspector VIP folder are replaced with each update. But your edit to your custom instances will remain untouched in that settings folder.

  • 1) Copy the file "HeDa_Track Inspector VIP.lua" to the "Track Inspector VIP settings" folder and rename this copy to "HeDa_Track Inspector VIP_Notepad.lua" for example.
  • 2) Add the file "HeDa_Track Inspector VIP_Notepad.lua" to actions list in REAPER. Using the "Load" button.
  • 3) Edit it. With the action selected, click the "Edit" button.
  • 4) Change the instance number:
    you will see a line in the code
    instance = 1
    change it to instance = 5 or any unique number (more than 4, used by the default included 4 instances: default, master, floating and floating 2)
  • 5) Close and save it or CTRL+S and run it.
  • This new instance will have its own configuration. Go to settings and turn off all the panels except the Notepad panel for this example. Now you have an instance that only shows Notepad.

 

General panel

This first panel at the top displays general controls usually found in the TCP.

General panel menu: the little triangle, there is no name for general panel button. Right click on the triangle to display the menu with the options to show the track inputs, and lock control. Also to export/import all project settings to a file, for example track versions, and notes etc...

  • Track number button: Click to go to another track by entering the id number. Right click to go to the master track.
  • Arm record button. Click to arm/disarm. Right click on it to display recording settings for the track.
  • Record monitor. Click to cycle the monitoring mode.
  • I-FX button: Click to open the Input FX chain.
  • Track Icon. Click to load a track icon from file. ALT+click to remove track icon.
  • Mute and Solo buttons: Click to do simple muting and soloing actions.
  • Invert Polarity button: Click to toggle polarity
  • Time base button: Click to display a menu with all the time base options for the track.
  • Track Inputs: Click to change the input to another mono or stereo input or All MIDI inputs.

Track Marker Notes

This panel let's you add markers at the edit cursor position, for the selected track. When you switch to other tracks, the markers associated with each track appear and the others disappear. You can also click the A button to display all track markers from all tracks to check the complete list.

Track markers are used to remember some task to do in some part of the track, for collaborate with other people and let them know where is it exactly something to do or to remind yourself. Each note has a checkbox status. This is useful to mark each note as "done" to review later. Once the task is done and reviewed you can delete the note if you want. There is an indicator of the number of total notes of all tracks, and the number of checked notes. for example 5/10 would indicate 5 notes done of a total of 10 notes in the project.

  • Add notes: Click the + button and enter the text for the note. It will create the marker at edit cursor position. You can move the markers later too.
  • Go to a note: Click on the note text in the list of notes. It will move the cursor to that note.
  • Edit notes: Right click on the note in the list of notes. The standard edit marker window appears to rename the marker.
  • Remove notes: ALT+click the note in the list of notes.
  • Showing all notes. Click the A button. The track inspector will only display a list of all the notes from all tracks. This is convenient to quickly go to a note from other tracks. It will change the current selected track if needed and go to the position of the note on that track.
  • Notes panel menu: Right click on the panel button. There are some options in this menu to configure the notes panel. the maximum number of notes per page, the ordering, etc. You can copy and paste notes from one track to another.

Freeze

  • Click on the first button: Define track freeze channels: Force the track to be frozen to mono / stereo / multichannel  or to never freeze. Auto(by default) will look for the number of output channels the track has and freezes to stereo or multichannel as needed. Not mono, because you can have a stereo FX on a mono track.
  • Right click the first button: It shows a different menu to help selecting tracks to freeze before freezing.
  • Select the tracks you want to freeze it can be one track, or multiple tracks(will freeze them one by one) and click on the freeze button or freeze + version button. The freeze + version button is the same but creating a Track Version first. See Track Versions panel for more info about Track Versions.
  • List of frozen plugins: When the track has some frozen plugins, you will see them listed below. It is useful to remember what was before freezing. And what can you expect after unfreezing.
  • Archive Children tracks: Enable/disable this option in the freeze menu (Right click on the freeze panel button name). REAPER by default removes the routing from these tracks when the parent is frozen, but the plugins remain active using CPU and memory. With the option to archive children tracks, you can save CPU and memory. You can disable this option if you want. This means that all the children tracks of the track being frozen, are hidden and all their plugins put offline to save memory. The tracks are renamed with a prefix to see that they were children of a frozen track. This prefix will be removed when you unfreeze using the Track Inspector button to unfreeze.

FX Chain

The FX Chain panel displays all the effects from the track. First there are the standard FX button to display the Chain window, the bypass button to bypass all, and a + button to add fx. The list of FX have a wet/dry knob that has some other uses too, and a FX group number, and the effect itself. 

Wet/Dry knobs

  • wet/dry knobs: Drag it up/down to change the wet/dry percentage.
  • Right click on the wet/dry knob to do a Soft-bypass. This means it will quickly go to 0% wet and right click on it again it will return to previous %wet value. This is good to compare the audio with and without the effect while playing. The advantage of this soft bypass method is that you can use it with plugins that generate latency. If you try to bypass that kind of plugin with the normal bypassing method you will hear clicks and timing issues.
  • Soft bypassing between two effects. For example, you have two effects and you want to compare between the two while playing and without the issue of latency. CTRL+click on the first plugin, and then Right click on the second one.and right click on the second one again as many times as needed to compare. CTRL click again to finish this mode.

FX Groups

Set group: Click and right click to increase or decrease the FX group number of each plugin. At the bottom of the list of plugins you see the fx group buttons to show/Hide all plugins from the group, or enable/bypass by SHIFT clicking them. If you click on the >> button you can set it to work with all the plugins in the project, or only in current track.

Auto groups by plugin name. Copy the file FXGroups.cfg found in the script folder, into the Track Inspector settings folder. Then edit it to define the names that are automatically assigned to each group. You can create as many lines as groups needed. Go to the script settings  ≡ button at the bottom left. and activate the auto groups option. Here is an example of a modified FXGroups (in red)

auto_fx_groups = {
[2]={"VSTi", "VST3i"},
[3]={"ReaComp", "General Dynamics", "ReaXComp"},
[4]={"ReaEQ","ReaFir"},
[5]={"Reverb", "ReaVerb"},
[6]={"ReaPitch"},
}

The next variable fx_groups_colors is to customize the group colors. One line per group with the Red Green and Blue values from 0 to 255.

Plugin name

  • Click on the plugin name: It floats the window of the plugin. Clicking on it again it hides it.
  • Right click on the plugin: It opens the entire FXChain window with the clicked plugin visible.
  • SHIFT+click on the plugin: It bypasses/unbypasses the plugin.
  • ALT+click on the plugin: Removes the plugin.
  • CTRL+click on the plugin: Sets the plugin Offline/Online
  • Drag the plugin: Use it to change the order of the plugins.

FX Parameters

The parameters panel displays all the parameters that have been assigned to be shown in Track Controls. You can click the + button there, to add the last touched parameter. Or right click on it to automatically add all touched parameters while it is active. Right click again to deactivate.

The parameter sliders can be used to change the parameter dragging with the mouse or using the mouse wheel.

Sends & Receives

Send presets buttons:

  • CTRL+click on the preset to save current track as assigned to that preset button.
  • Click on the button to add a send from current track to the track saved in the preset.
  • SHIFT+click on the button to add a send to the 3+4 channels (side-chain)
  • ALT+click on the button to remove the send preset
  • Right click to go to the track stored in the preset

Send sliders:

  • Drag the slider to modify the send level
  • Double click the slider to reset send level to 0.0
  • CTRL+drag the bar to change send level with more precision.
  • Mouse wheel to change send level
  • Click the send name to open the I/O window
  • Right click on the send name to go to that track
  • ALT+click on the button to remove the send
  • Click the ~ button or right click the send slider to toggle the visibility of the send's volume envelope

Track Delay

This is a small panel (not enabled by default, you can enable it in the settings ≡ button) It only adds the JSFX: time_adjustment effect at the end of the chain when you move the slider and adjusts it accordingly. It is useful as a quick shortcut for a very common thing to do on tracks, and as visual feedback that there is a delay on the track.

Track Versions

This panel gives you the ability to create copies of the tracks and archive the originals as an old version in case you need it in the future. The archived tracks are hidden on the TCP and MCP,, and all their fx plugins are set to offline to avoid CPU usage and memory consumption. When you decide you want to go back to that previous version it is unarchived by unhiding it and setting the plugins online again.

Track Inspector maintains an internal list saved in each project with all the versions of each track.

Creating a new version: Click on the V1 button. This button displays the name of the current version of the track used. By default, if there is no other versions created, it displays V1, but it can be renamed too. A menu shows the options to create the version.

  • New Track Version (duplicate): Creates an exact copy of the track to keep working on it while maintaining the previous version as an old snapshot to come back in the future if needed. For example, you can have a track with many takes recorded, and you decide it is time to glue them all into a single file to keep working on it. You create the duplicate version and glue the items. The V1 version will still have all the takes. And since it is only a hidden track, REAPER won't delete these takes when cleaning the project, since they are really inside the project, just hidden.
  • New Track Version (clear items): Creates a new version without the items but maintaining all the envelopes.Useful to create a different version of the track with different media items.
  • New Track Version (clear items and envelopes): Create a completely new track version associated to this track.
  • Rename Track Version: By default it renames them as V1, V2, V3, etc... but you can rename them to include better description, for example, "Glued takes V2", "Glued and processed takes V3" etc.
  • Delete Track Version: Deletes the track version and unarchives latest available version as the current version now.
  • And then there is the menu with the list of all versions created. Use it to switch from one version to another.
  • Copy items from one version to another. Sometimes you want to keep working on the latest version, but you need only one item from a previous version to replace something but not everything on the new track version. There is a method to quickly copy items from other versions. If there are versions for the track, a triangle appears at the right of the version button. Use it to expand a lit of buttons for the versions. The tracks will be unhidden too. Click on the number of the version you want to define the version origin to copy items from. Then select some items, and click on the arrow on the target version track. The items will be copied from the origin version, to the target version.ç

Track Groups

When you change a track version, or create a new track version, it will do it on all the tracks of the same group. By default, all tracks have the "No group" assigned to them because there are still no groups defined. This group button can be hidden from the versions panel menu if you don't want to use groups.

  • Create Track Group: It creates a new track group and assigns the current selected tracks to it.
  • Rename Track Group: Changes the name of the group. By default it is G1, G2, G3, etc, but it can be whatever you want.
  • Remove Track Group: Removes the group of the current track and all tracks from this group are assigned to "No group"
  • Select one group from the list of groups to assign this group to the current selected track(s)

Track Tags

This panel gives the ability to tag tracks to do several tasks:

  • color tracks by tag (disabling color by tag restores track colors to previous colors)
  • show/hide tracks on TCP or MCP by tag
  • solo visibility all tracks by tag
  • solo and mute tracks by tag
  • enable auto arm tracks by tag
  • open dedicated hedamixer instance by tag
  • bypass all fx of tracks by tag

Now you can add a tag or multiple tags to each track. First select the track or multiple tracks you want and click +Tag button to add the tag. You will see a list of tags below which are the tags assigned to the selected track.

ALT+click on it to remove the tag from the selected tracks.

If the track has more than one tag, then you can click on which tag will be used for track color by tag.

Autotag folder tracks: If the track is a folder track, when you add a tag, it will ask you if you want to enable autotag the children tracks with the parent tag. This tag will be in a different color to indicate this is a parent track tag affecting all children tracks too. If you use folders to organize your tracks this can be helpful. Click on the Autotag button to refresh all children tracks on all the project.

Below this you see some presets buttons and a list of all tags used in the project. On the tags list:

  • Click on the tag name to select the first track with this tag and scroll the view to it.
  • Right click on the tag name to select All tracks that have that tag.
  • CTRL click on the tag name to assign this tag to the selected tracks without having to type the name of the tag.
  • ALT click on the tag to remove this tag from the tag list and from all tracks.
  • There are two buttons TCP and MCP. This toggles the visibility of the tracks with this tag on the TCP or MCP.
  • Next to it there are the solo and mute buttons for each tag. If toggles the solo or mute for the tracks with that tag. It respects the tracks that are already muted.
  • Next it is the weight of the tag. It is used to reorder the list of tags. Weight is not shown by default and the tags are sorted alphabetically. you must enable it from the tags panel menu. Then you can assign a negative weight to move tag up, or a positive weight to move it down. tags are sorted first by weight number, and then alphabetically.

There are a number of preset buttons above the tags list ready to store and load the state of the table of visibility and solo/mute status if you enable the option "Loading presets include mute and solo" from the tags panel menu.

  • CTRL+click in the preset number to create a preset. It stores the combination of visibility of TCP and MCP in that preset. It will ask you for a preset name, useful to remember what was the preset for. You can enter a name or just leave it with a number.
  • The lastest loaded preset is highlighted. And the name of the presets is displayed above the preset buttons.
  • Click in the preset number to load the preset. It changes visibility of all the tracks with the tags as stored in the presets. If you create new tags after a preset is created, the visibility of these won't be affected when loading the preset that didn't have those tags saved in the preset.
  • So, to update a preset (for example if you added tags that were not existing when you created the preset) you can just check the visibility of the new tags as you want in the preset, and CTRL+click again in the same preset number and it overwrites the preset.
  • ALT+click to delete the preset. Nothing more is deleted, only the preset configuration.

Autotag button

What you have to do first is to have the tags in the track names. This helps if you use Track Templates. you can have all your templates with the tags in the track names ready. Then clicking autotag button reads the names of the tracks and finds the tags and apply them and remove the tags from the track name.

The tags format should be #tag for example a track is named "Violin#instruments #orchestra" (separate tags with space like this if you need multiple tags for the track) then it will become "Violin" with the tags instruments and orchestra applied.
Another format is @tag which is used in folders. It means if you have a folder track "Strings@orchestra" the track will be renamed to "Strings" and it will add the orchestra tag to all children. The orchestra tag will also be added to the folder but it will be shown in green. This means it is this special tag that will apply to all children each time you click autotag again(for example if you add new children tracks)

Integration Track Inspector Tags with HeDaMixer VIP

In Track Inspector 1.4pre42, there is an added feature in Tags to open a special instance of HeDaMixer VIP, that shows the tracks of that have that tag. This opens a new instance for each tag so it makes sense that if one instance is already running, the new one will have the prompt to terminate current instance or create a new instance. You can safely use Create New Instance, to be able to open more than one HeDaMixer with tags.
If you clicked remember setting and terminate, and now you want to change it to New instance, you can uninstall HeDaMixer (Not Track Inspector) and install it again. All your custom settings will remain and then it will ask again to terminate or to create new instance.

Automation

Automation panel is a simple one with some buttons as shortcuts for normal actions already available in REAPER, you can hide the panel while you don't use and show it during the automation phase of the project. Automation mode buttons: Select one or multiple tracks and set the automation mode

Fader and panning

  • Pan Law button: Change selected track(s) pan law.
  • Pan mode button: Change track(s) pan mode

One of the elements in the meters panel is the track gain and panning sliders. The panning slider changes to reflect the panning mode of the track.

The track gain fader:

  • Drag it or use the mouse wheel to change it.
  • Right click to increase or decrease by specific dB amount.
  • Double click to reset to 0.0
  • ALT+drag to move it temporarily
  • Click on the dB number to open the I/O window

The Meters menu panel has some options for the fader. Activate UL/DL limit buttons and Save/Load fader gain button:

  • UL / DL buttons: The set the up limit and down limit of the fader movement. Like putting old tape on the slider. To clear the limit, set it again at the same point.
  • Load/Save button: CTRL+click to save the value to memory. (works on all selected tracks at once too) Click to load and recall memory value. ALT+click to clear memory value.

Below the fader, there is a PreFX button, that changes the fader to blue, to indicate it is in prefx mode. This means that now when you move the fader, you are not affecting the normal fader of the track, but increasing or decreasing the PREFX volume envelope of the tracek. This is useful to adjust the level of the audio that comes to the first plugin of the FX chain. When you activate this mode, the meter also activates the prefx metering mode, splitting the meter in two, one for prefx, and one for postfx or postfader.

Meters

  • To scroll all panels vertically, click with middle mouse button anywhere(except meter panel) and drag.
  • To change the height of the meters panel there are 4 modes:
    •  ▄ Meters panel height fills the space left after all panels. This is the default but sometimes there is no space left for the meter panel.
    •  .. Meters panel height fills the space left after all panels but with a minimum of half the height reserved for the meter panel.
    •  . Meters panel always half of height of the window.
    •   ↕ Meters panel always specific height defined by dragging up and down the ___ line next to it.
  • True peak maximum level: Displays a line with the maximum True peak level reached calculated by dpMeterII.
  • Loudness Range meter: Displays a bar to the right with the loudness range. You have to calculate at least 60 seconds of it to have a meaningful value,.
  • EBUR128 mode: You can switch the scale of the meter from standard EBU+9 and EBU+18 modes and a full scale LUFS, where you can customize the range from the minimum loudness value to be displayed up to 0.0
  • Post Fader/Pre-fader button: Switch the meters to be post-fader or pre-fader (after all fx plugins)
  • Pre-FX button: This button activates the pre-fx mode of the loudness meter. The meter splits in two, where the left one is the pre-fx meter. A number appears that displays the difference in Loudness Units between pre-fx and post-fader. If you click on it, it will adjust the fader to approximately match the pre-fx level. Let it run for a bit before clicking it to calculate a more exact IL value.

The Meters menu has some options for the meters:

  • Show RMS meter: Displays two meters, one for each stereo channel of the RMS signal. You can configure the RMS window with the RMS 400 button below.
  • Show Peaks: small meters next to the RMS meters with the standard peaks meters
  • Show Peak hold: Draws two lines over the RMS meters (one for each stereo channel) of the highest peak level reached each 3 seconds (you can configure the number of seconds in settings).
  • Insert marker when peaks over 0.0: When playing it adds a marker to indicate the position when the clip has occurred.
  • Show Waveform: Overlapped with the RMS meter. It displays scrolling waveform of the signal. When the peak is over 0.0 it is displayed in Red. You can CTRL+drag left and right over the waveform on the meter to change the scale of the waveform.
  • Show EBUR128: Displays the meter with the EBUR128 values read from the dpMeterII plugin, which has to be installed first. The line with the big number represents the IL or programme loudness value since the last reset. If you click on the number it resets to start calculating again. A reset is also done each time you switch to another track.
  • Show ML meter: Displays the ML (momentary loudness) meter instead of the SL meter.
  • Show SL histogram: displays the histogram of SL values since last reset of the meter.
  • Set minimum LUFS display dB...: When using the meter in LUFS mode, you can customize the minimum range for the meter with this.
  • Listening mode: Disables the meters to save CPU if you are not needing to see the meter and decide to use the ears, which is great. You can change or disable the pictures in listening mode by clicking on them.

Auto Enlarge selected track

This little button at the top right, sets the mode to automatically expand the height of the selected track to a defined level. Right click on the button to define the height in pixels. When you have many tracks and want to see many of them, you zoom out vertically to see small tracks and have as much tracks visible as possible. This way it can enlarge only the track you are working with and not lose this overall view of the project.

Show envelopes of selected track: This button ~ enables the option to show all envelopes used in the selected track. When you switch to another track, it hides all envelopes and shows again only the ones of the new track.

Locking displayed track: Lock button

This button at the bottom, is to lock the current displayed track on the Inspector, to the current track. When you select other tracks, it won't affect to Track Inspector until you unlock it again.

Dock/Undock button:

The bottom right button to float the script or dock it.This poor button doesn't do anything more.

Settings ≡ button

You can change several global settings here. The script undocks for a moment and expands to fit all the settings. Press OK to close it and save your settings again. Each setting has a tooltip that explains what it does.

All the settings, including some options on the panel menus, are stores in your TI_Settings.cfg file inside the Track Inspector VIP settings folder which is inside HeDaScripts folder, but outside the Track Inspector VIP folder. This way you can update the script without affecting your personalized settings.

RESET ALL TO DEFAULT: button to delete your TI_Settings file from your settings folder and load all again from Default config.

Track Inspector Themes

The second column in the settings, are variables saved in the theme. You can save the theme to a file, or save it with the same name as REAPER's theme. And you can make Track Inspector to always try to match the REAPER theme if a Track Inspector Theme file with the same name exists.

Track Inspector themes are not full complex themes, like WALTER themes for REAPER. It just supports some colors, font sizes, and some elements with customizable image files. It is not the objective to have a fully customizable interface, but some basic adjustments that can help to integrate it better with REAPER theme.