How to insert comments into empty text items in REAPER

Inserting comments into Reaper projects is a great way to keep track of things as you are working.

The ability to take note of your plans and ideas right on your timeline is something that isn’t available in most other DAWs. It is especially handy for collaboration projects or when you are sending over work to another Reaper user to mix and master.

These notes can be handy pointers so they can get to grips with your workflow quickly.

Here’s how you can add a track dedicated to text where the waveforms would normally be.

To get these text items, add a new track in the place where you want the text to go. I like to put one at the top. Use the short-cut Ctrl+T to add an empty track. (REAPER shortcuts are awesome, look them up).  

Select Insert Empty Item from the menu. This will show up in the selected track. Then you will see a speech box, click the speech box.  

Then you are able to type what you want. Make sure you have the Stretch to fit item tick-box selected so it will span the item length. Also ensure that the item is long enough, I just set it to the length of the project.  

And there you go, easy to add text items for collabs and sending your mixes to people who need a bit of direction.