Why you should disable REAPER automatic fades

The problem

By default, whenever you split an item in REAPER, it will add these tiny fades at the beginning and end of the item.

The intention with this is that it saves you from pops and clicks. And while it works, it's just problematic for one big reason…

It’s way too large!

If you split an item right at the start like this, it will remove a lot of the initial attack. And it’s just a very audible dip. If this was a snare, you’d say good bye to that precious snap!

The solution

There’s actually two ways you can go about this,

1. Go to Preferences > Media Item Defaults.
2. Set automatic fades to 1 ms instead of 10 ms.

Now, I personally like to just disable this cause I wanna have full control of it. But if you wanna keep it, at least keep it to 1 millisecond. That should be enough to prevent a pop.

Disable tiny fade-in on playback start

This is a similar situation, but this time is on playback.

By default, you hear a tiny fade in when you press play. This fade-in is enough to misjudge a kick or a snare because it will remove some of the attack.

Setup:

1. Go to Preferences > Audio.
2. Uncheck Tiny fade out on playback start.