Did you think you needed new ways of controlling your REAPER audio software. I knew it! I knew it. Well, today is your lucky day.

I did this a while back, and it was great... until I updated my Ubuntu installation, and started using a newer version of Python. Best I can tell, REAPER doesn't actually support Python 3.11 or newer. Somebody want to prove me wrong? Leave a comment! I'd love to hear a better way to do this. This left me flailing; looking for a better solution so I could still have a big "Record" button on my Stream-Deck.

This is all because REAPER has this cool system that allows you to interact with the software through a scripting interface, and even drive some actions directly through Python. Very cool for geeks like me!

Now... this would've taken me quite a while, so I had a friend help me with some of the research. As this whole thing breaks down, you ultimately need to do the following:

1. Install pyenv
2. Install Python 3.10 with shared-library support
3. Configure REAPER to use that Python version
4. Install reapy-next
5. Create a working toggle recording script

1. Install pyenv

Install dependencies

Here's a list of packages that will likely be needed to help get your pyenv system up and running.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y build-essential libssl-dev zlib1g-dev 
  libbz2-dev libreadline-dev libsqlite3-dev curl 
  libncursesw5-dev xz-utils tk-dev libxml2-dev 
  libxmlsec1-dev libffi-dev liblzma-dev

Install pyenv

curl https://pyenv.run | bash

Add pyenv to your shell

Add these lines to ~/.bashrc:

export PATH="$HOME/.pyenv/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(pyenv init -)"
eval "$(pyenv virtualenv-init -)"

Reload your shell:

source ~/.bashrc

2. Install Python 3.10 with shared-library support

REAPER requires the Python shared library (libpython3.10.so).

Install Python 3.10:

env PYTHON_CONFIGURE_OPTS="--enable-shared" pyenv install 3.10.13

Set it as your working version:

pyenv shell 3.10.13

Verify the .so exists:

find ~/.pyenv/versions/3.10.13 -name "libpython3.10*.so"

Expected output:

~/.pyenv/versions/3.10.13/lib/libpython3.10.so

3. Install reapy-next

reapy-next is the Python package that provides a whole slew of functionality for interacting with REAPER through a Python lens. And hey, let's be honest... I'm basically blind to anything other than Python.

pip install reapy-next

4. Configure REAPER to use pyenv Python 3.10

REAPER must be pointed at:

• The Python interpreter
• The Python shared library (.so)

Open:

Options → Preferences → Plug-ins → ReaScript

Set:

Python interpreter:

/home/joestan/.pyenv/versions/3.10.13/lib

Python library (.so):

libpython3.10.so

Restart REAPER.

5. Ensure REAPER actually uses Python 3.10

With REAPER open, run the following terminal command:

~/.pyenv/versions/3.10.13/bin/python3 -c "import reapy; reapy.configure_reaper()"

That command should immediately return without any error. If it hangs, and a message appears in REAPER regarding some Python 3.12 path that cannot be found, it's time to get to grepin'.

5.1 Fix REAPER config files

If you saw Python 3.12 above, it's time to fix your reaper.ini. I had to do some searching to actually find that.

Run the following command to find any locations that are still referencing Python 3.12

grep -Rni "python3.12" ~/.config/REAPER

Then go pop those files open and change those full Python paths to the pyenv equivalents shown above.

Restart REAPER again.

6. Install the ReaCmd Package

That's right. You guessed it.

I wrote another Python package.

But this one's small! You can snag it from GitHub. To make it easy, just install that package in your pyenv environment:

~/.pyenv/versions/3.10.13/bin/python3 -m pip install git+https://github.com/engineerjoe440/ReaCmd.git

Now you should have a script accessible to actually operate the record-toggle operation.

~/.pyenv/versions/3.10.13/bin/rea-record

Voila

Done.

You now have:

• A working pyenv Python 3.10 installation
• REAPER correctly embedding Python 3.10
• A working reapy-next client script that toggles recording

I hope you find this helpful. I'm sure I'll be coming back to that to fix my system again in the future!