Audio clips/items and tempo

Hi, I'm new to Reaper and coming from Sonar. I've been reading for several days to learn as much as I can, but I haven't found the answer to this: In Sonar, whenever I import an audio clip/item AND place it at bar/beat 1 (very beginning), I can change the tempo of the project without affecting the playback of the clip. This way I can dial in the tempo for pre-recorded beats for a vocal recording session. In Reaper, when I change the tempo it changes the playback of the clip/item. How do I make it NOT do that?

If you want that to be the default, you can change it in project settings: Change the setting for Timebase/Items/Envelopes to TIME as shown in the picture. All items use the project default by... well, by default :) That will make the items stay in whatever time they were imported regardless of what you set the project tempo. Conversely, if you have a few items you want to change with the tempo, you can right click the item(s) in question and set them individually to Beats(position, rate, length)

wonderful, thanks very much for the quick answer! Edit: so this is project specific, I need to change this for each session/project?

Yes, it is project specific, UNLESS you make that the project defaults. Totally up to you. Notice at the bottom of that same screenshot, there is also an option to save as project defaults.

Pro tip: in that same dialogue under the Media tab, if you put a relative path in the audio files field, it will create a subfolder inside your project folder to save all the project audio and make for a tidier folder. I just put the phrase Audio Files in there. There's a few path defaults like that I set to make file management more sensible. Granted, you didn't ask about that :) but project and file management defaults in Reaper are probably my only real complaint. It's easily fixable though.

Thanks for the tip, I just noticed that about the clip files being all lumped in a general folder. this will def help keep me organized. appreciate all the tips, I'm sure i'll be back in a few with another question...or several. dave

If you like organization, you need this: