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You don’t run a skill yourself. Describe the task in chat, and Reagent loads the matching skill and follows its steps.

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Available Skills

  • Every change a skill makes to your project or files follows your permission mode. With Default permissions or Auto-review, Reagent asks you to Allow each approval step named below before it runs. With Full access, they run without asking.
  • To see which skill ran, expand the activity summary in the chat (such as “Ran 3 tools”) and find the Load skill step.
  • If Reagent doesn’t pick up a skill, ask for it by name, for example “Use the create-variations skill.” The names are create-variations, ucs-renamer and ucs-category-lookup.
  • You can’t add, change or remove skills. To save your own multi-step instructions, create a slash command.

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Create Variations

Create Variations turns one sound, the source, into several different-sounding copies, for game audio that shouldn’t repeat or for creative sound design. The source can be one item or several layered items on different tracks. Reagent replaces layers in each copy with material from a pool, such as other recordings of the same kind of sound, then randomizes the copies. Without a pool, the copies differ only by randomization. To randomize selected items without building variations, see Variation Tools. You need REAPER open with the Bridge running, and the SWS extension. The Bridge is a small script inside REAPER that connects it to Reagent (set it up). The SWS extension is a free REAPER add-on, which Create Variations uses to copy and find items.

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Build From a Layered Sound

When your source has two or more layers and you select at least one alternative with it, Reagent can find the source and pool by itself from where the items sit on the timeline. It tells them apart by timing: source layers start within 2 seconds of each other, and each alternative starts more than 2 seconds from the stack. Keep the starts of any two alternatives more than 2 seconds apart too, even on different tracks, or Reagent may take them for the source.
1

Stack the source layers

Put each layer on its own track, lined up to start together (within 2 seconds).
2

Place the alternatives on the same tracks

Put each layer’s alternatives on that layer’s track, more than 2 seconds from the stack and from each other. A copy only takes pool material from its own track. A long recording with silence between sounds works well, because Reagent splits it at the silences.
3

Select everything

Select the stack and the alternatives. Reagent treats the tightest group of items as the source and the rest as the pool.
4

Ask for variations

Reagent builds the copies after the last item in your project, each in its own region named reagent var 1, reagent var 2, and so on.
Create Variations changes which items and tracks are selected and moves the edit cursor. It also replaces anything you had copied in REAPER, because it copies and pastes items. Building and randomizing are separate approval steps, Build variations and Randomize items. Each part of the work is a separate undo step with a name that starts with reagent:. Use Edit > Undo in REAPER (Cmd+Z on macOS, Ctrl+Z on Windows) to step back through them.

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Other Layouts

If your selection isn’t a stack plus alternatives, tell Reagent what to use:
  • A single-item source: say which item, for example “Use the first selected item as the source and the rest as the pool.” Keep the pool on the source’s track.
  • Alternatives later on the same tracks: select only the source and ask Reagent to use the items further down those tracks. It uses every item after the source on those tracks, selected or not.
  • Copies only: select only the source and ask for variations. In a new chat with no stack, Reagent copies everything you selected and uses no pool.
For example, for a footstep with alternatives further down its track:

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How Create Variations Works

  • Splits the pool at silences into one item per sound, removing the silence. Say “don’t trim the pool” to skip this.
  • Marks peaks in the source and pool items with take markers, then lines up pool material peak to peak. Sustained sounds with no clear peak get no marker and are lined up by their start. Say “don’t align to peaks” to skip this.
  • Rotates through the pool so material is spread evenly, least-used in this chat first. The original layer stays in the rotation, and your pool items stay where they are.
  • Leaves a gap before and between the copies of 5 seconds or 10% of the source’s length, whichever is longer.
  • Randomizes only the copies, at the intensity you asked for or the default. Your original items aren’t randomized.

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Randomization Intensity

Name an intensity: none, default (used if you don’t name one), high or maximum. Even the default intensity can move pitch by more than an octave. For subtle variations, name the properties and ranges you want. They replace that intensity’s ranges. Add “nothing else” to change only what you name:
To repeat a result, ask Reagent which seed it used (the number that fixes the random choices). Undo the randomization, then ask for the same seed. With none, Reagent changes only the properties you name. The table shows what the other levels change.
  • A pitch envelope is a pitch bend drawn over the item. At high and maximum, each variation copy gets one, on its longest item. When you randomize items outside a variation build, each item has a 20% chance of getting one.
  • Maximum also tries to reverse about 1 in 10 items.
  • Randomization keeps each item’s fades.

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Follow-Up Requests

In the same chat, you can keep going from what Reagent just built:
“Make 3 more” builds more copies from the same source, with regions numbered from reagent var 1 again. Randomizing again adds to the earlier pitch, volume and timing changes, so undo the last randomization first to start from the unrandomized copies.
If Reagent found a stack or built variations earlier in the same chat, it may reuse that source and pool instead of your new selection. Start a new chat, or say which items are the source. If it picks the wrong items, undo and say which items are the source and which are the pool.

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UCS Renamer

UCS Renamer gives the selected items in your REAPER project UCS names, based on what their audio sounds like. Reagent picks this skill only for UCS naming, so mention UCS in your request. UCS (Universal Category System) is a public standard for naming and organizing sound effects libraries. A UCS name has four parts separated by underscores: Put together: METLImpt_Pipe Wrench Hit_JD_FOLEY01. UCS Renamer needs REAPER open with the Bridge running, and the SWS extension. On a Mac, it also needs Apple silicon and macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later, because Reagent’s built-in UCS classifier doesn’t run on Intel Macs or on macOS 12 or 13. See System Requirements. Select the items and ask:
Reagent then works through these steps:
  1. Classifies each item on your computer with the built-in UCS classifier, which listens to up to 10 seconds of each item and knows 660 of the 753 UCS categories.
  2. Describes the sound. If you didn’t say what it is, Reagent may analyze the audio to pick words such as “Heavy”, “Bright” or “Rapid”. FXName stays short, ideally under 25 characters.
  3. Asks for your CreatorID and SourceID unless you gave them in this chat. Pick a suggestion or type your own in Something else. They don’t carry over to a new chat. Include them in your request to skip the question.
  4. Avoids duplicate names. When a name would repeat another new name or an existing item name in the project, Reagent adds a space and a two-digit number to the end of FXName, such as Pipe Wrench Hit 01 and Pipe Wrench Hit 02.
  5. Renames the takes with a short script, shown as a Run script approval step.
Check the new names afterward. The classifier returns lowercase CatIDs such as metlimpt, so ask Reagent to fix any CatID not in the standard spelling (METLImpt). UCS Renamer changes the take names in your project, not the audio files on disk. Reagent can’t write UCS information into audio files yet. See Writing Metadata.

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UCS Category Lookup

Ask which UCS category fits a sound. You don’t need REAPER open.
Reagent gives the best-matching CatID with its category and subcategory, why it fits, alternatives and when to use them, and an example UCS filename. Before you rename a whole library, check the suggested CatID against the official list at universalcategorysystem.com. The lookup works only from your description and doesn’t listen to the audio. To pick a category from the audio, use UCS Renamer, or select the items and ask Reagent to classify them (see UCS Classification).

REAPER Tools

The tools skills use to read and edit your project.

Audio Analysis

Classify items and read the UCS metadata in your files.

Permissions

Choose when Reagent asks before making changes.

Slash Commands

Save your own multi-step instructions.