Regions and Markers

Regions

Part:

A Part is a section of a Reactional Track that is meant to be played in a loop until a jump to another Part is triggered, some logic escapes it, or until the track is stopped.

You can set up a part in Reaper by creating a region around the time span that you wish to transform into a part and prefixing the name of that region with Part: (letter case doesn’t matter here, so you can also write part: or PART:).

Creating a region and naming it Part: <name> will create a part in the theme with the same name. Appending an identifier to the name, such as Part: <name> 1, will create a part with the same name but with a unique identifier. These parts are then parsed to belong to the same part group.

Closing marker /part

Not all DAWs support regions, but rather only have markers. In these cases a part region will be defined by the first marker Part: myPart up until the next part marker, or until you close it with a marker named /part

Naming Conventions for Parts

• Descriptive: Ensure the names are clear and descriptive of the part's function or sound.
• Concise: Use one word, if possible, to keep names short and easy to understand.
• Examples: Parts can have functional names such as "Intro," "Verse," "Chorus," "Bridge," "Outro," or descriptive names such as "Idle," "Calm," "Soaring," "Intense," etc.

Good Naming Examples	Bad Naming Examples
Part: Intro	Part : my_stinger - spaces before :
part: Chorus1	* _!Part: Piano1 - any other leading symbol(s)
PART: Verse	Part - Main - incorrect separator
Part: Outro	Part 2ndVerse - lacks clear separation
part: Breakdown	Part: Bridge - leading space
Part: Calm	Part : Calm - space before colon
part: Intense	Part: Intense - clear and descriptive

By following these naming conventions, you ensure that parts are clearly identified and easy to manage within Composer.

Stinger:

This works similarly to parts, but instead of creating a part, it will create a stinger. Any instruments named Stinger: <name> that also have MIDI on their tracks within the Stinger region will be rendered as a stinger. This means a stinger can feature many instruments.

Stinger Groups

You may want to have several Stinger: regions with the exact same name. Doing so will ensure that they belong to the same Stinger Group. As an example if you have 4 stinger regions named "Stinger: Impact", the stinger group Impact will randomly play one of these for stingers whenever Impact is invoked to play.

Closing marker /stinger

Not all DAWs support regions, but rather only have markers. In these cases a stinger region will be defined by the first marker Stinger: myName up until the next stinger marker, or until you close it with a marker named /stinger

Naming Conventions for Stingers

If you wish to sell your themes on the Reactional Platform, you should adhere to the standard convention of themes already avaiable. As such we require a minimum of nine stingers, categorized and ordered as follows:

Positive

• Positive, Small
• Positive, Medium
• Positive, Large

Neutral

• Neutral, Small
• Neutral, Medium
• Neutral, Large

Negative

• Negative, Small
• Negative, Medium
• Negative, Large

Ensure that the stingers are organized in this specific order.

By following these naming conventions, you ensure that stingers are clearly identified and properly categorized within Composer and more specifically on the Platform.

If you are working on a specific game, you will of course not need to adhere to this guideline, and you may have as many or few stingers as you like, named for your specific use case.

Markers

Key:

A change of key can be signified by adding a marker at the point in time where you want the change to happen. To ensure the key change marker is handled correctly by Composer, prefix the name of the marker with Key: (letter case doesn’t matter here, so you can also write key: or KEY:).

The actual key description should be written by separating the root note’s name and the mode’s name by a space, such as C Dorian or D Minor. Letter case is not important for the note name (you can write C# or c#), but you should be careful with the mode name, as only the first letter can be capitalized (aeolian and Aeolian are supported, but not AEOLIAN).

Supported Modes:

Ionian	Dorian	Phrygian	Lydian
Mixolydian	Aeolian	Locrian
Major	Minor	Chromatic

Chord:

A change of chord can be signified by adding a marker or a region at the point in time you want the change to happen. If you create a marker, the chord defined by that marker is considered the current chord until the next chord marker or region. If you create a region, the chord defined by that region is considered the current chord for the duration of that region and until the next chord marker or region.

For the chord change marker (or region) to be handled correctly by Composer, you need to prefix its name with Chord: (letter case doesn’t matter here, so you can also write chord: or CHORD:).

The actual chord name needs to be a concatenation of the chord’s root note name and the chord’s type, for example C#min7, Edim7/D, A5, or F. The chord’s name is not case sensitive.

Supported Chord Types:

maj	min	aug	dim	sus	5
maj	min	aug	dim	sus2	5
maj6	min6	aug7	dim7	sus4
maj7	min7
maj9	min9

Note: Slash chords (Edim7/D) are supported but the part that follows the slash is omitted, i.e., Edim7/D is treated the same as Edim7.