Cockos Incorporated Forums - View Single Post - Reaper for Classical Music

studer58 · 08-17-2018, 12:25 AM

I'm simply asking now whether I've been getting it wrong all these years, or if there's a more correct and streamlined way of employing FX via a pair of busses ...specifically in orchestral and chamber music concerts, where the quality and spatial rendering of effects is crucial to creating a believable and satisfying simile of the event.

As an aside, I've used Reaper busses happily in multitracked pop and rock type productions, and with great success. This primarily because there are no rules or conventions with this genre, and "natural spatial rendition" almost never enters the equation...you simply alter, chain, tweak, pan etc until it sounds good, within the context of the mix...in other words, there is no 'wrong' way to employ effects in such a context. Orchestras are different !

I won't elaborate on the need to select a credible, supportive ambience convolution sample (or plate, hall, chamber etc...perhaps even a few of these), eq the spot mic and send an appropriate level to the effect and return it to the mix, while retaining 'location' in the stereo spectrum. Sounds so easy...and maybe I'm overthinking it.

Yes Reaper's strength (and Achilles Heel) is its tweakability and programmability, and for me that means more ways to get it wrong ! I'm not about to move to another platform at this stage, and I'm sure they all have their own shortcomings too. Once I have a sure fire way to accomplish what I've outlined above, you can can be sure I'll create a template !

Let me outline a typical procedure, and perhaps you can point out any obvious flaws in my method ? I'll have a main pair, an outrigger (flanks) pair, a woodwind pair, a percussion spot and perhaps a soloist spot (flute, oboe, voice, piano pair, etc)

I'll create individual Reaper tracks for each of these, panned and level balanced appropriately. At this stage it'll sound like a pretty good recording...except that perhaps the spots appear a little too prominent. So I'll eq some of the 'presence' out of them, which improves it a bit more. I decide the spot, wwinds or perc require a little ambience....

Create a stereo pair of FX tracks (busses)...because I don't want my FX return to come back as a mono blob of ambience in the centre. I'll pan these hard left and right, add an instance of Reaverb to each, then select a sample from my Bricasti M7 plugins, say a Gold Plate. When I select this, I'm offered a choice of either an M to S sample, a Left sample or a Right sample.

Typically I'll place the left sample on the left FX buss and the right sample on the right FX buss. I'll often add a HP/LP filter below this, to give me an effects envelope of about 200 to 6k for both busses. Then I'll click on the Receives drop-down on each buss and put in an appropriate amt of send from each of the spot channels, and match the panning the spots occupy in the main mix.

I'll tweak these levels and pans via muting and soloing the spots in the main mix, until the balance seems right. How does this sound thus far ....?

My main question relates to the creation of a suitable 'stereo reverb/ambience field' for the returning FX. For instance (given that Bricasti gives the M-S, L and R samples) is it correct to hard pan the FX busses ? And should that be done on the track panel pan or the FX box (which also has a pan)..or both ?

I'll match the panning of the spot track in the main mix in the I/O dropdown panel of the Receives also.... I feel that I'm about 90% of the way there with what I've described above, but it's the panning of the sends/receives and the overall FX busses (and creation of a credible stereo ambience field) that's my main hurdle.

I knew this was going to be a long description (unavoidable, when discussing Reaper !) so if you'd prefer to simply PM me your current working FX template instead of replying that would be cool too...but for the benefit of other Reaper users, it would be helpful if you could expose any flaws in my typical MO procedure and outline them here ! Thank you for any contributions you can make here

ps...of course I could forget about FX busses altogether and simply drop an FX instance into each individual track... and do all the level sending and panning there, but that would require more CPU processing...and feels intuitively wrong to someone who's so used to creating a pair of FX return channels on an analog desk and bussing returns from an external hardware FX rack !

08-17-2018, 12:25 AM	#8
studer58 Human being with feelings Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 281	I'm simply asking now whether I've been getting it wrong all these years, or if there's a more correct and streamlined way of employing FX via a pair of busses ...specifically in orchestral and chamber music concerts, where the quality and spatial rendering of effects is crucial to creating a believable and satisfying simile of the event. As an aside, I've used Reaper busses happily in multitracked pop and rock type productions, and with great success. This primarily because there are no rules or conventions with this genre, and "natural spatial rendition" almost never enters the equation...you simply alter, chain, tweak, pan etc until it sounds good, within the context of the mix...in other words, there is no 'wrong' way to employ effects in such a context. Orchestras are different ! I won't elaborate on the need to select a credible, supportive ambience convolution sample (or plate, hall, chamber etc...perhaps even a few of these), eq the spot mic and send an appropriate level to the effect and return it to the mix, while retaining 'location' in the stereo spectrum. Sounds so easy...and maybe I'm overthinking it. Yes Reaper's strength (and Achilles Heel) is its tweakability and programmability, and for me that means more ways to get it wrong ! I'm not about to move to another platform at this stage, and I'm sure they all have their own shortcomings too. Once I have a sure fire way to accomplish what I've outlined above, you can can be sure I'll create a template ! Let me outline a typical procedure, and perhaps you can point out any obvious flaws in my method ? I'll have a main pair, an outrigger (flanks) pair, a woodwind pair, a percussion spot and perhaps a soloist spot (flute, oboe, voice, piano pair, etc) I'll create individual Reaper tracks for each of these, panned and level balanced appropriately. At this stage it'll sound like a pretty good recording...except that perhaps the spots appear a little too prominent. So I'll eq some of the 'presence' out of them, which improves it a bit more. I decide the spot, wwinds or perc require a little ambience.... Create a stereo pair of FX tracks (busses)...because I don't want my FX return to come back as a mono blob of ambience in the centre. I'll pan these hard left and right, add an instance of Reaverb to each, then select a sample from my Bricasti M7 plugins, say a Gold Plate. When I select this, I'm offered a choice of either an M to S sample, a Left sample or a Right sample. Typically I'll place the left sample on the left FX buss and the right sample on the right FX buss. I'll often add a HP/LP filter below this, to give me an effects envelope of about 200 to 6k for both busses. Then I'll click on the Receives drop-down on each buss and put in an appropriate amt of send from each of the spot channels, and match the panning the spots occupy in the main mix. I'll tweak these levels and pans via muting and soloing the spots in the main mix, until the balance seems right. How does this sound thus far ....? My main question relates to the creation of a suitable 'stereo reverb/ambience field' for the returning FX. For instance (given that Bricasti gives the M-S, L and R samples) is it correct to hard pan the FX busses ? And should that be done on the track panel pan or the FX box (which also has a pan)..or both ? I'll match the panning of the spot track in the main mix in the I/O dropdown panel of the Receives also.... I feel that I'm about 90% of the way there with what I've described above, but it's the panning of the sends/receives and the overall FX busses (and creation of a credible stereo ambience field) that's my main hurdle. I knew this was going to be a long description (unavoidable, when discussing Reaper !) so if you'd prefer to simply PM me your current working FX template instead of replying that would be cool too...but for the benefit of other Reaper users, it would be helpful if you could expose any flaws in my typical MO procedure and outline them here ! Thank you for any contributions you can make here ps...of course I could forget about FX busses altogether and simply drop an FX instance into each individual track... and do all the level sending and panning there, but that would require more CPU processing...and feels intuitively wrong to someone who's so used to creating a pair of FX return channels on an analog desk and bussing returns from an external hardware FX rack !