Prepare

At first, we need to do some preparations.

1. Start REAPER

Playtime runs within REAPER, so at first you need to start REAPER.

2. Set up your audio and MIDI devices

If you haven’t done it already, you should let REAPER know which audio and MIDI devices you are planning to use with it, because Playtime will use them as well!

  1. Open the REAPER preferences via Options  Settings…​

  2. In the section Audio  Device, configure your audio input and output.

  3. In the section Audio  MIDI Inputs, configure your MIDI input devices, such as music keyboards.

  4. In the section Audio  MIDI Outputs, configure your MIDI output devices, such as hardware synthesizers.

If you want to know more about this process, please consult the one and only REAPER user guide.

3. Fire up Playtime

Press the Playtime button in REAPER’s main toolbar, or use any of the alternative ways to start Playtime (described in Installation). After pressing the button, you should see the Playtime window with an empty Matrix:

main screen empty
Figure 1. Playtime window with empty matrix

You can press Shift+Cmd/Ctrl+P to show/hide the Playtime window at any time.

At this point, you could directly continue with Create clips, but I strongly recommend to read the following deep dive, as it will improve your understanding of how Playtime works!

Deep dive: Playtime button

Pressing the button actually does multiple things in one go:

  1. Create a new REAPER track named "Playtime" at the very top of the project.

  2. Arm the track and set its input to "MIDI: All: All channels".

  3. Add an instance of the Helgobox plug-in to the track’s FX chain.

  4. Open the Helgobox App associated with that new Helgobox instance.

  5. Navigate to the Playtime section of the App.

  6. Create a Playtime Matrix in this Helgobox instance.

If you wanted, you could do all of those steps manually instead:

  • Right-click REAPER’s track control panel and choose Insert virtual instrument on new track…​

  • Double-click instrument plug-in "VSTi: Helgobox - ReaLearn & Playtime (Helgoboss)"

  • Optionally rename the track to "Playtime"

  • In the Helgobox plug-in window, press Menu  Show app.

  • In the Helgobox app window, press the Playtime button in the Navigation bar on the left.

  • Press the button Create a Playtime Matrix

What we learn from that:

  • Playtime is built into Helgobox, which is an instrument plug-in, so there needs to be an instance of it somewhere in your project. → This is a good thing because it means that you can play it like an instrument!

  • A new Helgobox instance doesn’t have a Playtime Matrix by default. You first need to create one. → This means Playtime doesn’t consume any CPU and memory if you don’t use it!