MediaQuiver guide

MediaQuiver puts REAPER's Media Explorer databases and your own folders in one list and searches them as you type.

On this page: Getting started, The window, Searching, Common tasks, Preferences, Shortcuts, Requirements.

Getting started

Open REAPER's Actions list, type MediaQuiver and run Script: YH-M_MediaQuiver.lua.
Databases you scanned in REAPER's Media Explorer are listed under REAPER DBs in the sidebar. Nothing is written back to them.
To add your own sound folder, click New database… under Databases and pick it. It is scanned, and its folder tree stays browsable in the sidebar. Add folder… under Folders adds a single folder.
Type in the bar at the top, for example door slam. The list narrows as you type.
Click a row. It plays at once (Autoplay is on by default), through a track named Media Explorer Preview. Without that track the sound goes to the hardware output with no FX; Create the track beside the waveform makes it.
Drag the row onto the arrange, or press Enter to insert it at the edit cursor on the selected track. By default the preview track's FX chain is copied onto the placed take.

The 14-day trial and your licence key: see Licence key and trial.

The window

Search bar: The title bar is the search box. The magnifier opens Search in. To its right: scissors (takes as separate rows), lock (searches only inside the files now listed), clock (Recent and saved searches), sidebar and inspector switches, Preferences and close.
Sidebar: Library (All, Played, Recent, the open project's files), Categories, Databases, REAPER DBs, This Computer, Folders, Searches and Collections. Categories needs the official UCS list, imported once in Preferences > Search.
List: One row per file. Columns such as Projects, Peak and Path are hidden until you show them from the right-click menu on the headers. A row is selected when you release the mouse button, so dragging does not start playback.
Waveform: A click sets the play position; dragging selects a range. The wheel zooms around the pointer; Shift and the wheel scrolls sideways.
Player: Below the waveform: transport, Pitch, Rate, volume and switches (Autoplay, dice, Skip silence, Reverse, Pin and more); the sliders button lists them in words. Right of the waveform is the preview track's FX chain.
Inspector: The selected file's details. For a WAV file, Edit… changes its metadata.

Searching

Words must all match. "door slam" keeps words together. metal OR wood or metal|wood matches either (OR in capitals). NOT loop or -loop leaves a word out. door* and *slam match a word's start and end.
Fields: folder:boom, ext:wav, d:crowd (description), cat:GUN (UCS CatID), tag: (a colour tag's name), used:yes (used by the open project). Numbers: len:<2 (seconds), lufs:>=-20, sr:96000, rating:>=4.
A plain word is looked for in the fields ticked in Search in; only File name is ticked at first. The metadata fields (Title, Artist, Genre and the like) come from REAPER's own media databases.
Type a word in Japanese, Chinese or Korean and it is looked up in the built-in dictionaries and your own; the English words are searched, and so is the word you typed. They appear as chips under the bar: click one to leave it out, or drag across several. All and None switch them all.
English synonyms are on by default: wind also finds breeze, gust and storm. breeze offers wind as an unchecked chip.
Preferences > Search > Open your dictionary opens a text file: one line per word, a tab, then English words separated by commas. Any language works; Reload reads it again.

Common tasks

Audition through the preview track's FX

Add FX to the preview track with I, a right-click on the FX button, or + Add FX, shown when you hover below the FX list. Preferences > Playback > Output chooses the track: Named track (the default), Selected track, Selected or named, or Hardware.

Place a range

Drag across the waveform, then drag from inside the range to the arrange, or right-click the row and choose Insert the selected range only. A row's Insert elsewhere menu has more ways to place a file.

Files with several takes

The scissors button lists the takes inside a file as rows (name #2/5). It is off by default. Q and Shift+Q step through the takes.

Skip silences

The Skip silence button cycles Do not skip, Skip the silent ends and Skip every gap. Silence is hatched on the waveform. The threshold is in Preferences > Waveform > Silence and takes.

See which projects use a file

MediaQuiver reads your past projects in the background: REAPER's recent ones, plus folders you add in Preferences > Library > Usage and auto rating. Right-click a file, choose Used in N projects, then a project: it opens, or its tab comes forward, with the items that use the file selected. The Projects column shows the count.

A random file, or another source for an item

The dice (R) plays a random file from several selected rows, or from everything listed. To swap the source of the selected items in the arrange, bind a key in REAPER's Actions list to YH-M_MediaQuiver_SwitchSourceNext.lua, …SwitchSourcePrevious.lua or …SwitchSourceRandom.lua. They take another audio file from the item's folder and keep position, fades, FX and envelopes, in one undo step. Reversed items need SWS.

Audition to picture

The film button, on by default, moves REAPER's edit cursor along with the preview so the video window follows. When the preview stops, the cursor goes back.

Rate, tag and collect

Click a star in the Rating column, or press Alt+1 to Alt+5. Keys 1 to 8 set a colour tag, named in Preferences > Library > Color tags. Drag rows onto a collection in the sidebar, or press Ctrl+D for Favorites.

Render through the chain

Set Preferences > Insert > Preview FX > Render through the preview FX to Rendered file only or Original + rendered take, and the chain is rendered into a new file in the background after a file is placed.

Preferences

Click the gear in the title bar.

General: Keep ready in the background (closing the window only hides it), the YH-M Native extension and the Data folder.
Library: Databases, REAPER's databases, file types, Watching for new files, Color tags, Usage and auto rating.
Background work: What is read from your drives in the background, and when.
Playback: Output, Autoplay, fades, what happens when a file ends, Random, Skip silence, Pinned settings.
Loudness, Waveform: The level previews are normalized to; the spectrogram; silence and take thresholds.
Insert: Placement, Preview FX, trimming silence, small random variations, drag and drop.
Search: Typing, translation, the UCS table, and Online model (optional) for unknown words: off until you turn it on, and it needs your own API key.
Appearance: Theme, accent colour, Layout (Auto, Side by side, Stacked) and which panels show.
Shortcuts: Click a key and press the new one; Esc cancels, Backspace or Delete clears it.

Shortcuts

The defaults; change them in Preferences > Shortcuts. On macOS the window shows Ctrl as Cmd and Alt as Opt. Ctrl+K opens a command palette that finds every action by name.

Space: Play or stop. Shift+Space plays from the start; Esc clears the range, or stops.
R, Shift+R: Play a random file; shuffle the list.
Alt+Left, Alt+Right: Previous or next file you played.
Enter: Insert at the edit cursor. Ctrl+Enter: on a new track. Shift+Enter: as a new take in the selected items. Alt+Enter: into the time selection.
I: Add an FX to the preview track.
Ctrl+F, Ctrl+,: Focus the search box; open Preferences.
Ctrl+Shift+L: Lock or unlock the results.
Q, Shift+Q: Next or previous take in the file.
1 to 8, 0: Set a colour tag; clear it.
Alt+1 to Alt+5: Rate one to five stars; Alt+0 clears.
T, Ctrl+D: Add to the target collection; add to Favorites.
Ctrl+E, F2: Edit metadata (WAV); rename the file.

REAPER's Actions list also has YH-M_MediaQuiver_FocusSearch.lua (the window forward, cursor in the search box) and …SearchSelectedSource.lua (searches for the selected item's file name), for keys of your own, and …SendToCollection.lua, which does what T does.

Requirements

REAPER 7.0 or later and ReaImGui 0.10 or later, on Windows or macOS.
SWS, for sound. Without it the window, list, search, waveform and inserting work, but playback does not.
Optional: js_ReaScriptAPI. Without it the folder picker is a box where you type the path.
Optional: the YH-M Native extension, a separate ReaPack package. With it, dragging onto the arrange uses REAPER's own drop, as REAPER's Media Explorer does, and files are read in background threads. Without it MediaQuiver places dropped files itself and reads more slowly.