justin = { main feed , music , code , askjf , pubkey };
Ask Justin Frankel
No reasonable question unanswered since 2009!

Suggested topics: programming, music, sleep, coffee, etc.

Note: please do not ask questions about REAPER features, bugs or scheduling, use the forums instead.


Name: Ask: Human (enter yes):
[unreplied] | [replied] | [recent comments] | [all]
[older questions]

Question: Can you take a look at the last 4 post of this kvr thread, there is an argument there where someone mentions you. Do you agree with the argument of the one who mentioned you? kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p...
Asked by Opinion (154.161.101.x) on May 11 2026, 1:57am
Reply on May 11 2026, 1:35pm (edited at May 11 2026, 1:36pm):
    I assume you mean this:

      REAPER developer Justin Frankel, recently used AI to do all tedious work of studying the Ffmpeg API, AI gave code suggestions but some were wrong and he tweaked it. So per your logic, that code is public domain and Justin don't own that aspect of REAPER. Funny!

    I don't think that's a correct assertion; if I asked it to modify some existing code that I owned the copyright for, that would not make the resulting modified version entirely public domain; the changes made would be, but the underlying code would still be subject to copyright protection. Additionally, if I modified its changes, then my modifications would also be copyrighted.

    Perhaps a better way to look at it would be this: if you asked a LLM to write some new code according to a spec, then the resulting code (assuming it didn't directly copy some existing code which was copyrighted, which is hard to know) would be public domain. If a human then modifies that public domain code, then those modifications are subject to copyright, but the code prior to human edits is still public domain. So if someone were to copy the per-human-edit code, they could freely use it as it is public domain. Of course this doesn't address the fact that the LLM almost certainly ripped off some copyrighted (which could be copylefted for that matter) code.
Comment...
Question: Hola Justin. I just wanted to say you’re an inspiration to me right now as a systems engineer. When I see your work, even this website, I feel soul, life, and personality in what you build. After years in corporations, computing can become tickets, meetings, and sterile LinkedIn language. But your work brings back the feeling I had as a kid: that a computer was a magical machine that could become almost anything at my fingertips.
Asked by walo (190.122.193.x) on May 9 2026, 7:12pm
Reply on May 9 2026, 10:59pm:
    aww thanks!
1 Comment...
Question: hi i was doing a research for a project where i have to make an ad and design a social media campaign for a brand/service (im in design school) and i learned about winamp during this process. i have a lot of questions about it which google just can't answer because they are veryyyyy specific and maybe a little stupid lol but i'll just ask one. how do you feel about winamp now (as someone who developed it) & how the current music scene has rapidly shifted from music players to streaming platforms?
Asked by casserole cooking (157.50.199.x) on May 8 2026, 6:03pm
Reply on May 8 2026, 8:00pm:
    too long to answer here, email me (you can figure out my email it's my first name at my company name domain)
Comment...
Question: XML or JSON as an interchange format? Personally, I prefer XML.
Asked by Matthew (98.13.80.x) on May 7 2026, 9:15pm
Reply on May 8 2026, 7:58pm (edited at May 8 2026, 7:59pm):
3 Comments...
Question: What's missing in browser tech to allow Reaper to run on the web platform?
Asked by Will (99.100.219.x) on May 7 2026, 4:21pm
Reply on May 7 2026, 5:37pm:
    you could probably run some of it but a million things to do it well
Comment...
Question: I recently saw a discussion about "upscaling" (aka enhancing/interpolating/...) compressed audio. Intuitively I thought it's not possible until someone pointed me here (they even use "upscaling"): sony.co.uk/electronics/support/art...What's your take, s.th. for REAPER perhaps?
Asked by wasereb4 (31.16.104.x) on May 7 2026, 12:22pm
Reply on May 7 2026, 5:38pm:
    meh we have good quality at this point we should just use it
Comment...
Question: We share similar viewpoints on AI and I wondered if you're concerned by Mythos (and its successors by competitors, progress is fast her). Can one root any server with it or related things? May it "break internet" or worse. Or is it a well driven ad for anthropic? It's the first time I'm concerned by it and I'm annoyed lol.
Asked by object (31.37.8.x) on May 6 2026, 11:27pm
Reply on May 6 2026, 11:36pm:
    it probably isn't going to do anything truly new, but it changes the cost structure of an attack: you won't have to hire somebody talented who would be extremely expensive and take a while, you can just burn tokens.
Comment...
Question: did you lie about selling winamp to AOL so it wouldn't look like you stole sonic foundry acid source code?
Asked by none (73.181.182.x) on May 6 2026, 11:00pm
Reply on May 6 2026, 11:22pm:
    lol what?
Comment...
Question: My friend and I are about a year into making this daw and im starting to realize the hard part wasn't making the daw it's making something people will actually want to use without going insane. Almost at the end of the engineering hell but wanted to ask what (other than obv letting others try it) is best for getting out of your own head and making something actual humans will find useful?
Asked by mike (71.173.193.x) on May 6 2026, 7:44pm
Reply on May 6 2026, 9:52pm:
    make something that you want to use, because some percentage of other people are like you... but yeah it's a lot of work hah and you'll never be done
Comment...
Question: Have you used LLM code in Reaper again since your FFmpeg hack?
Asked by Chris (77.23.250.x) on May 6 2026, 12:30pm
Reply on May 6 2026, 6:08pm:
    Since this article, I used it to look up a few things related to screensavers, it was somewhat helpful but definitely gave me a lot of bad suggestions too. Unrelated to REAPER, having it generate some oauth2 code for another project was pretty helpful, but as I've probably mentioned before this speaks to the crappiness of documentation/SDKs more than the genius of LLMs.
Comment...
Question: Hi Justin! Not a fan of AI in general, but I asked Gemini Flash for a script to connect REAPER with KoboldCPP, running Acestep. it seems it somehow managed it.This script uses RealmiGui to take parameters and send the selected time/track in Reaper to generate a reference-based audio and then import to project. It seems usefull,as a base script.If you, or anyone you know find this interesting to check, I uploaded it here:limewire.com/d/m3XoN#86QwpzbmCQ . Thank you for everything you gave us!
Asked by justamessenger (37.98.193.x) on May 5 2026, 11:45am
Reply on May 6 2026, 1:13am:
    heh cool I guess
Comment...
Question: The latest music you've made is epic and does all the right things! This is my fav so far (also, because of the title, I clicked on it first:) - and I loved it: music.1014.org/Alone/260502_worth_... - Keep it up! =)
Asked by dom64 (179.43.189.x) on May 4 2026, 9:24pm
Reply on May 4 2026, 9:30pm:
    lol thanks that one was fun!
Comment...
Question: Forum FR? A button to copy [Code][/Code] text?
Asked by alex (187.201.253.x) on May 3 2026, 5:22am
Reply on May 4 2026, 3:24pm:
    the text within the code block, or the tags themselves?
Comment...
Question: Are you a fan of any anime or cartoons?
Asked by Danny K (172.56.61.x) on May 3 2026, 4:52am
Reply on May 4 2026, 3:23pm:
    Not particularly
Comment...
Question: If you couldn't use Reaper, which daw would you choose and why?
Asked by Derrick (172.58.51.x) on May 1 2026, 5:58pm
Reply on May 2 2026, 1:26am:
    I'd probably go with Ardour so I could still hack on it.
Comment...
Question: Is Reaper a large software project?
Asked by nncccn (112.224.167.x) on May 1 2026, 3:55pm
Reply on May 2 2026, 1:26am:
    It's definitely consumed a lot of programmer time! something like 35 human-years at this point?
Comment...
Question: Did you grow up with an interest in programming itself, or what you could build with code? Do you enjoy the process, the end result, or both?
Asked by Fabien (172.58.51.x) on May 1 2026, 3:14pm
Reply on May 2 2026, 1:25am:
    Both for sure!
Comment...
Question: What's the (theoretical) maximum length (in time) of Reaper projects?
Asked by wasereb4 (31.16.104.x) on May 1 2026, 4:49am
Reply on May 2 2026, 1:23am (edited at May 2 2026, 1:27am):
    Due to the use of double-precision floating point for timing in many places, I imagine things would start breaking in significant ways at 2^53 samples, which at 48khz would be more than 5,000 years. Wow 2^53 is really big.
4 Comments...
Question: Do you like life and what are the main reasons for that?
Asked by Hans (213.100.205.x) on April 30 2026, 10:30pm
Reply on April 30 2026, 10:34pm:
    Definitely - food, music, friends, exercise, come to mind. Probably more.
Comment...
Question: Can you tell me if CCL Cross-platform Framework is related to REAPER? Or it's from another program, I can't figure it out...
Asked by Andrey (5.187.85.x) on April 30 2026, 8:12pm
Reply on April 30 2026, 8:26pm:
    This is the first I've heard of it
3 Comments...
[unreplied] | [replied] | [recent comments] | [all]
[older questions]
Copyright 2026 Justin Frankel. | RSS