Switching from Ubuntu Studio to Arch-KDE – I was nervous at first, because Ubuntu Studio packages complex audio configuration into managability. But it also loads the kitchen sink. And it doesn’t include REAPER, my DAW of choice.
Arch doesn’t include REAPER either, but then again, Arch doesn’t include much of anything.
Anyway, I have installed Arch, about 20 times, and I’ve installed REAPER, and it works. The audio configuration wasn’t much of a problem – there isn’t much there to get in the way. Just install things as I need them, and reap the rewards of the resulting simplicity. Sometime, though…
REAPER supports extensions, and there are MANY available. “Chord Gun” is one I have used. On Ubuntu Studio I followed Kenny Gioia’s excellent video on YouTube, but this time I asked Claude, and Claude said:
Chord Gun is a ReaScript (Lua script), not a traditional plugin. The
easiest way to install it is through ReaPack, REAPER's package manager.
Here's the process:
Step 1 - Install ReaPack (if you don't have it already)
Go to https://reapack.com and download the Linux .so file
In REAPER: Options > Show REAPER resource path in explorer/finder
Drop the downloaded .so file into the UserPlugins subdirectory
Restart REAPER
You should now have Extensions > ReaPack in the menu
Step 2 - Add the repository containing Chord Gun
The script lives in the community ReaScripts repo. In REAPER:
Extensions > ReaPack > Manage repositories
Click "Import a repository"
Paste this URL: https://github.com/ReaTeam/ReaScripts/raw/master/index.xml
Click OK and let it sync
Step 3 - Install the script
Extensions > ReaPack > Browse packages
Search for "Chord Gun"
Right-click it > Install
Apply and close
Step 4 - Run it
Actions > Show action list
Search f;or "Chord Gun"
Select it and click "Run", or assign it to a toolbar button or keyboard shortcut
I could have rewatched Kenny Gioia’s video and figured this out, but a nice checklist is quite handy, so I started with Step 1: copy reaper_reapack-x86_64.so into the ./config/REAPER/UserPlugins directory.
But no “Extensions > ReaPack” appeared in the menu when I restarted REAPER. Why? Claude suggested several things, and I ran through them. “ldd reaper_reapack-x86_64.so” revealed a missing dependency:
libxml2.so.2 => not found
I installed libxml2.so.2, but still no “Extensions > ReaPack”. Claude and I went back and forth, with me trying to convince him I hadn’t screwed up. I re-installed the missing library, and examined the /usr/lib directory carefully. No library. Somehow, even though the file was being installed, it didn’t appear in the place it was supposed to be.
At this point I was truly stumped. Things were simply not working as they should. It was either a bug in the install, or a bug in REAPER, both of which were completely out of my control.
Well, a fix was available: Claude deduced that it was purely a naming problem – ReaPack was generated with a particular name for the library (libxml2.so.2), and the needed library was sitting in /usr/lib with a different name. Adding a link to the name ReaPack needed solved the problem.
(In fact, the /usr/lib directory is a rats nest of linked names – of the 4864 entries in /usr/lib, 2740 are soft links to alternate names.)
I proceeded through the rest of the checklist to install Chord Gun. No problems.