REAPER Control Room · Stream Deck plugin

What it does

A T9 keypad types into REAPER from the deck. Click into a track name, a marker name, the FX browser search or a value box, then tap. In 123 mode the keys type digits; in ABC mode you tap a key again for its next letter, and Enter takes the suggested word. It sits on the first page of the Stream Deck + XL and the 32-key Stream Deck XL, and on the 15-key Stream Deck one key opens it and Close gives your keys back.
The FX Parameter dial works with any REAPER plugin. Touch a control in any FX window and hold the dial still for about a second, and that parameter is on the dial. One dial holds three parameters; a press steps between them, and the touch strip shows all three with REAPER's own value text. Parameters on the master track work like any other. For a plugin whose window reports a different control on every touch, pin the parameter by its number or its name in the dial's settings instead, and pick a turn step of 1/100, 1/1000 or 1/10000 of its range.
79 of the 124 commands go to REAPER as its own command id rather than as a keystroke, and 34 of those reach actions REAPER ships with no default keyboard shortcut, so they work on a stock install with nothing for you to bind, on Windows and on macOS. A Custom Action key runs any REAPER action id you type into its settings, and a command key's settings show its category as a grid of key art to pick from.
Eight dials: horizontal zoom, track volume, track select, edit cursor by grid, track heights, marker navigation, Track Painter and FX Parameter. Track Painter arms a colour on the touch strip as you turn and paints the selected tracks on press. Track Select browses REAPER's own track names on the strip, past the eighth track too, and commits on press, or follows the dial as you turn with its Select on turn option; hold it down and turn to ride the selected track's volume. Drop markers as you work with Marker Nav, and a numbered pad jumps straight to markers 1 through 10, so you move around the project by number instead of scrubbing for the spot.
Five keys light from REAPER's own state over an optional OSC surface: Play/Stop, Play/Pause, Record, Repeat and Metronome. The Mixer key reads the real mixer state without it. Nothing has to be configured for the keys or for six of the eight dials; Track Select and FX Parameter need the feed. One optional press adds the live readings: on a Stream Deck + or a Stream Deck + XL, press the Track Select dial while its strip reads no REAPER feed, close REAPER and press again when asked, then start REAPER. The plugin installs the surface itself and keeps a backup of reaper.ini; on macOS it does this by itself whenever REAPER is closed. Track Volume then rides in REAPER's own dB and Track Select scrolls REAPER's own track names. On other decks, or if the port is busy, set it up by hand with the steps in the support notes below.
Seven bundled profiles for six decks, with Easy Link built in: one per deck, plus the pop-open keypad for the 15-key Stream Deck. The Stream Deck + XL and the 32-key Stream Deck XL open on a hub with the T9 keypad, one key per category and the most used commands, such as play, record, save, undo and redo; all 124 commands sit one press behind it, and every command page has a Home key back to the hub.

What you need

Windows 10 or later or macOS 13 or newer, Stream Deck software 6.9 or newer, and REAPER: built and tested against REAPER 7.82 and 7.84 on Windows and 7.84 on macOS. On macOS the Stream Deck app needs Accessibility and Automation, asked on the first key press. The Stream Deck + XL seats six of the eight dials at a time; a Stream Deck + seats Track Painter, Track Volume, Track Select and Horizontal Zoom.

Buy direct Elgato Marketplace See all 47 plugins

Buy direct delivers the build this page describes. The Marketplace listing serves 3.1.0.0 until 3.1.1.0 clears review: no Custom Action key, Track Select stops at the eighth track and has no Select on turn, FX Parameter captures by touch only at one turn step, Next and Previous Marker go as keystrokes, and on a Mac the shortcut keys are sent as US key positions. On a Mac, buy through the Elgato Marketplace.

Support

Good to know

Runs on Windows 10 and 11 and on macOS 13 or newer, built and tested against REAPER 7.82 and 7.84 on Windows and REAPER 7.84 on macOS. Requires the Stream Deck app 6.9 or later. On macOS the Stream Deck app asks once, at the first key press, for Accessibility and for Automation of System Events; if you declined, both are in System Settings, Privacy and Security. Seven profiles are bundled for six decks: the 15-key Stream Deck, the Stream Deck +, the Stream Deck + XL, the 32-key Stream Deck XL, the Stream Deck Mini and the Stream Deck Neo, plus a pop-open keypad profile for the 15-key Stream Deck. The Stream Deck + XL seats six of the eight dials at a time; a Stream Deck + seats Track Painter, Track Volume, Track Select and Horizontal Zoom.
Every key and six of the eight dials work without the OSC feed. Track Select and FX Parameter need it, and say why when they cannot work: Track Select's strip reads no feed, or a project with no named tracks. To add the feed on a Stream Deck + or a Stream Deck + XL, press Track Select while it reads no REAPER feed, close REAPER when the strip asks, press again, then start REAPER. On macOS the plugin adds it by itself whenever REAPER is closed. By hand, on any deck or when the port is busy: copy Pathfinder.ReaperOSC from the plugin's osc folder into %APPDATA%\REAPER\OSC (on macOS, ~/Library/Application Support/REAPER/OSC), then in REAPER's Preferences, under Control/OSC/web, click Add, choose OSC, set Mode to Configure device IP+port, Device IP 127.0.0.1, Local listen port 8000, Device port 9000 and Pattern config Pathfinder.ReaperOSC, and click OK. No restart.
There are three kinds of command key here and they treat focus differently. The 79 command-id keys go to REAPER itself, so REAPER has to be running but does not have to be the front window, and pressing one cannot land in another app: on Windows they find REAPER's own window, and on macOS they, like every dial, go through a small listener script the plugin starts inside REAPER. The 14 Track Painter keys hand the colour to a script running inside REAPER, so they need it running but not in front. The 31 keystroke keys go to the active window in the usual way, so keep REAPER in front for those; on macOS they arrive as Command chords typed as characters rather than US key positions, except Play/Pause, which sends Control+Space so Spotlight stays out of the way. Keys that open a dialog, such as Open Project, Save As and Render, hand it to REAPER and stay quiet while the dialog is open. With REAPER closed, the command-id keys have nothing to reach. A shortcut you capture in a key's settings overrides the command-id route, so that key becomes a keystroke key and needs REAPER focused like the other 31.
Updating from an earlier version: a profile you already installed keeps its old pages until you remove it and let the plugin install it again, which is how the 32-key Stream Deck XL and the Stream Deck + XL pick up the Home key on every command page. Easy Link rules you captured before keep working. A Windows shortcut you captured with an arrow or a numpad key under an earlier version never fired: capture it again once. If you set up the OSC feed with version 2, the FX Parameter dial's strip reads OSC pattern out of date: press it once to update the file, which keeps a backup, then restart REAPER. A pattern file you edited by hand is never touched.
Seven of the eight dials have no settings panel: their icon and title are the only settings, and the strip above each dial is its readout. FX Parameter's panel clears a slot. On FX Parameter a hold of about a second captures the parameter you touched last into the active slot; a row whose plugin cannot be found dims to no feed, and one whose plugin moved reads moved: re-capture, so hold again. Take FX, input FX and monitoring FX cannot be captured. Turn while pressing for ten times finer steps. Track Volume turns only, with nothing on press or tap, and Marker Nav has no tap: every candidate for those gestures either wrote to the project or opened a window that takes over the dial's turns, so they were left off rather than shipped as a hazard. Marker Nav's press drops a marker at the cursor.
The Mixer key reads REAPER's real state, on Windows from REAPER's own setting in REAPER.ini, so a mixer floated out into its own window and a REAPER language pack both read right. If it loses the reading it goes dark rather than showing a stale answer. Keys with no reading from REAPER light from their own presses, and the Lights Off key clears those at once if a light gets out of step, leaving alone the keys REAPER is reporting. Every key can play a press sound, 33 in the box. Recordings made with our free Sound Sampler plugin appear in the same Key Sound picker under Your recordings, with no import step.

True of every plugin we make

Every key carries the app's own shortcut for that command, and every key is remappable. Type your combination into the key's property inspector (its settings panel in the Stream Deck app) or click Capture and press it once. Where an app leaves a command unbound, the key still reaches it by the route that app exposes.
Keystrokes go to the front window and nothing steals focus, so keep the target app in front when you press.
Every command has its own drawn key art, so the deck reads at a glance instead of listing shortcuts.

Read the full quick fixes, or see this plugin on the support hub.

Still stuck? Email tony@pathfinderprototyping.com with the plugin name, your Stream Deck software version, and what you pressed versus what happened. A human answers.