REAPER 101: The Track Control Panel

REAPER 101 is a series of short articles to help beginners get started with REAPER quickly.

This tutorial will explain the various buttons and options of the Track Control Panel.

The Track Control Panel, often shortened to TCP, is the section in the arrange view for each track in the project. All the essential controls you find in the mixer are crammed into this section to give you quick access without needing to open the mixer window.

Track Control Panel features

The image above identifies 15 features of the TCP with the default Reaper 4 theme. It may look different depending on the track size or width or the theme and layouts in use.

1. Record Enable – click this if you want to record on this track
2. Track Name - give your track a name to keep your project and files organized
   
3. I/O routing – opens this pop out window to configure routing in and out of the track
   
4. Volume Fader – makes the audio on this track louder or quieter
   
5. Metering – shows MIDI and audio activity for input and playback
   
6. Mute and solo – make this track silent or all other tracks silent
   
7. Track Number – tracks are numbered as the appear in the project from top to bottom. The number changes if you move a track
   
8. Envelopes/Automation – menu for automation modes and related options
   
9. Polarity/Phase invert – flips the audio upside down
   
10. Input selector – select the analog, digital or MIDI input for the track
    
11. Record input monitoring – listen to the input signal or not
    
12. Panning – output the audio on this track on channel 1 (left output/speaker), channel 2 (right), both (center) or anywhere in between
    
13. Track FX chain and bypass – add and edit effects for the track; bypass all fx
    
14. Folder – make this track a folder, or last track of several in a folder
    
15. Track icon (optional) – you can insert an image to identify tracks, this is normally hidden

TCP height and width can be adjusted by dragging the bottom or right edge.

Most of these features/buttons/menus are also found in the Mixer Control Panel, but we will focus on the MCP in another article.