Setting up Reaper

Reaper’s default setup is geared towards music production, so we first need to make a few adjustments to the settings and project to make it easier for us to work.

By default Reaper will attempt to loop imported audio files – great for making music, not so great for editing an interview – so we need to turn this off.

We also change the time-base from bars & beats to minutes and seconds and disabling grid-line snapping.

To save you changing preferences, here’s the default project you can load up just once to set reaper up for editing general audio.

1. Download the file above and save it somewhere safe (don’t move or delete it as Reaper needs it when it opens up)
2. Now go Options > Preferences and under Project, browse for the template file Reaper will use as default. You will only need to do this once, as long as you do not delete the project file you downloaded.
3. Close and re-open Reaper, and the settings will be changed.

The video below will show you how to complete the above steps.