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Old 04-01-2019, 05:17 AM   #1
Coachz
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Default Create Stealth Sends Script

Introducing JB_create_stealth_sends action by coachz

The idea for Stealth Sends came about on 10-16-2018, 02:11 PM
https://forum.cockos.com/showpost.ph...0&postcount=26

It came about in a thread aiming to allow bus tracks faders to control BOTH child track volumes and their sends.
https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=212296

I've been using Stealth Sends for a while and having good luck. The goal of Stealth Sends is simply to have Sends follow fader moves of not just their own track but also of any parent tracks. So this is for when using folders.

Before using see the IMPORTANT note below. Have fun with Stealth Sends. I think they are MUCH easier to manage than VCAs and while I think a checkbox in prefs (Child sends follow Parent faders) would be a great solution, we don't have that currently. I hope it helps someone. Time to rock !



Say you have an electric guitar with a send to a reverb on an FX track and you have the following folder structure.

guitars <--- used as a folder
... el guitars <--- used as a folder
......el guitar 1 <--- guitar track
......el guitar 2 <--- guitar track
FX Room Reverb 20/21 <--- reverb fx bus. The 20/21 is required to allow the script to identify the track

Normally in Reaper when you pull down the el guitars folder fader or the guitars folder fader the sends from the guitar tracks will NOT go down so your tonal balance is wrong. Using Stealth Sends you are no only sending channels 1/2 up the parent folder chain and to the master track but you are also sending parallel highways of audio channels up the chain and THEN at the top they SEND to the FX bus channel. This allows the sends to be controlled by the parent faders.

Bad Solution 1: Once I got the idea for doing this I decided to put sends on everything. Every single track and a send to every single FX bus. I had 10 fx busses to start and about 50 tracks in my default template so that was over 500 sends going to them. On the child channels I had the volumes all pulled down ready for me to use as needed. Well, that caused glitching and popping so I then muted them all and it went away but now I had to manually unmute all the way up the parent chain to use one.

New Solution: With this attached "JB_create_stealth_sends.lua" now I can simply select the tracks in a folder that I want to add and run the action.

IMPORTANT: Only select tracks in ONE FOLDER at a time to assign stealth sends. Also, please test this thoroughly on empty projects before using on your important musical masterpieces.

Your FX tracks must have the audio channels in the form xx/xx in the track name to allow the script to match it.
For example:

FX1 20/21 Delay 1/4 Note
FX2 22/23 Delay Ping Pong
FX3 24/25 Reverb Medium

Notes...........

The selected track send faders are set to about -10dB but can be changed if you like by changing line 231 from
reaper.BR_GetSetTrackSendInfo( selectedTr, 0, lastSend-1, "D_VOL", 1, 0.3 )
to
reaper.BR_GetSetTrackSendInfo( selectedTr, 0, lastSend-1, "D_VOL", 1, 0 )
This would make them 0dB

You have up to 64 channels so I like to start at 20/21 pair and go up. You can start where you like, just make sure to have numAudioChannels equal to your highest number you will use.

The code is hard coded to 40 channels by numAudioChannels = 40 on line 36. You can change this up to 64 using the increments that Reaper uses: 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,20,24,28,32,36,40,48,56,64

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\
This script does not show any text to the screen unless you enable either of the two debug modes.
debug = false -- disable main messages
debug2 = false -- disable detail messages

Set them to true as desired. The first debug produces this output in the reaper console.

Number of Parent Tracks: 4
New Send is being add from: [el guitars] to [guitars] on Channels 26/27
New Send is being add from: [guitars] to [Instruments] on Channels 26/27
New Send is being add from: [Instruments] to [world] on Channels 26/27


The second debug (debug2) produces this output in the reaper console.

ENTERING Add Sends To Parents Code Block .........
--------------------------------------------------

First Selected Track Name: vocal
Number of Parent Tracks: 4

0 Sends for Track: [el guitars]
New Send is being add from: [el guitars] to [guitars] on Channels 20/21
lastSend: 1


0 Sends for Track: [Instruments]
New Send is being add from: [Instruments] to [world] on Channels 20/21
lastSend: 1

ENTERING Top Parent Code Block.........
--------------------------------------------------
Total # of Tracks 10
Track Name at index: 0 world
Track Name at index: 1 Instruments
Track Name at index: 2 guitars
Track Name at index: 3 el guitars
Track Name at index: 4 vocal
Track Name at index: 5 flute
Track Name at index: 6 gt3
Track Name at index: 7 fx 20/21
FX Track Name: fx 20/21 is a match for 20/21
Matched FX Track: fx 20/21
Top Parent Track: [el guitars]
Top Parent Track: [guitars]
Top Parent Track: [Instruments]
Top Parent Track: [world]

0 Send(s) Currently on Track: [world]
New Send is being add from: [world] to [fx 20/21] on Channels 20/21
lastSend: 1

ENTERING Add sends from selected tracks code block
--------------------------------------------------
Track Name: vocal
ParentTrack Name: el guitars
0 Send(s) Currently on Track: [el guitars]
New Send is being add from: [vocal] to [el guitars] on channels 20/21
lastSend: 1

Track Name: flute
ParentTrack Name: el guitars
0 Send(s) Currently on Track: [el guitars]
New Send is being add from: [flute] to [el guitars] on channels 20/21
lastSend: 1

Track Name: gt3
ParentTrack Name: el guitars
0 Send(s) Currently on Track: [el guitars]
New Send is being add from: [gt3] to [el guitars] on channels 20/21
lastSend: 1

Track Name at index: 8 fx 11/12
Track Name at index: 9 fx 24/25
Attached Files
File Type: lua cz_create_stealth_sends.lua (9.6 KB, 25 views)

Last edited by Coachz; 08-15-2023 at 07:08 AM.
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Old 04-03-2019, 01:37 PM   #2
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I think the code is ready for people to try. It's working very well here and answering a lot of my prayers for being able to use folders as buses and preserve tone even when volumes are changed. Please let me know if you have any questions or problems.
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Old 04-03-2019, 02:04 PM   #3
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Please, some kind of quick start, the original post is way too long.
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Old 04-03-2019, 02:16 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bFooz View Post
Please, some kind of quick start, the original post is way too long.
Thanks for the tip but I don't know a quick start. Stealth Sends involves understanding that these audio parallel highways of track channels are propogating up the chain. I added a \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ to the post in the middle because you don't have to read about debug messages but the part above that is not long and can easily be read in 1 or 2 minutes. Then the world of Stealth Sends is your oyster.
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Old 10-11-2019, 08:52 AM   #5
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Fixed a bug that was making incorrect send. I'm still in love with Stealth Sends.

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Old 10-12-2019, 10:53 AM   #6
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I'm trying to understand this. Situation is:

- fx sum
---fx 1
---fx 2
---fx 3

- main voc bus
---voc sub bus
-----voc 1
-----voc 2
-----voc 3

(without using the script):

Master/parent sends of all tracks are enabled.

I would like to send voc 2 to fx 2.

I create a send from voc 2 to voc sub bus (Audio 1/2 -> Audio 9/10).
I then create a send from voc sub bus to main voc bus (Audio 9/10 > Audio 9/10).
I finally create a send from main voc bus to fx 2 (Audio 9/10 -> Audio 1/2).

This allows me to use any of the 3 faders (voc 2, voc sub bus or main voc bus) to manipulate the level of voc 2 incl. fx 2. Is this correct?

Having everything set up this way, reducing any of the three faders does result in lowering voc 2 incl. fx 2 BUT the reduction doesn't seem to be consistent. Reducing a little bit results in the direct portion being attenuated a fair bit while the fx portion seems to remain more prominent compared to the initial (desired) relation voc 2/fx 2.

.
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Old 10-12-2019, 11:01 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SonicAxiom View Post
I'm trying to understand this. Situation is:

- fx sum
---fx 1
---fx 2
---fx 3

- main voc bus
---voc sub bus
-----voc 1
-----voc 2
-----voc 3

(without using the script):

Master/parent sends of all tracks are enabled.

I would like to send voc 2 to fx 2.

I create a send from voc 2 to voc sub bus (Audio 1/2 -> Audio 9/10).
I then create a send from voc sub bus to main voc bus (Audio 9/10 > Audio 9/10).
I finally create a send from main voc bus to fx 2 (Audio 9/10 -> Audio 1/2).

This allows me to use any of the 3 faders (voc 2, voc sub bus or main voc bus) to manipulate the level of voc 2 incl. fx 2. Is this correct?

Having everything set up this way, reducing any of the three faders does result in lowering voc 2 incl. fx 2 BUT the reduction doesn't seem to be consistent. Reducing a little bit results in the direct portion being attenuated a fair bit while the fx portion seems to remain more prominent compared to the initial (desired) relation voc 2/fx 2.

.
Doing it that way for me caused the levels to be louder. I found that ONLY sending from the vox2 track up the it's parent and THEN from the very top track "main voc bus" to the send gave the correct values and allowed full control from any track. You can do it manually, just only create 2 sends. One from the vox2 to to it's immediate parent and one from the top track to the fx track.
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Old 10-12-2019, 11:09 AM   #8
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but how does the signal sent to voc sub bus (Audio 9/10) can come through to the main voc bus then??

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Old 10-12-2019, 12:24 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SonicAxiom View Post
but how does the signal sent to voc sub bus (Audio 9/10) can come through to the main voc bus then??

.
Via the Parent send. The implicit send you've created is redundant.
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Old 10-12-2019, 02:59 PM   #10
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so I now learned that the "Master send" checkbox actually acts on any no. of channels used on a given track and not only on its "main" ch. 1 and 2; the same is true for a channel's fader.

The method seems to work in terms of signal flow capability, however, there's that level inconsistency that I mentioned earler: The direct signal/fx signal proportions do not remain the same over the range of any of the involved faders so that while I'm decreasing let's say the voc sub bus fader the fx portion I'm hearing is considerably more prominent and only starts to decrease at the end of the fader move towards negative inf.

Does this happen for you guys also?

.
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Old 10-12-2019, 03:54 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SonicAxiom View Post
so I now learned that the "Master send" checkbox actually acts on any no. of channels used on a given track and not only on its "main" ch. 1 and 2; the same is true for a channel's fader.
That’s exactly why stealth sends work. I was kind of surprised when I first figured it out myself.

Quote:
The method seems to work in terms of signal flow capability, however, there's that level inconsistency that I mentioned earler: The direct signal/fx signal proportions do not remain the same over the range of any of the involved faders so that while I'm decreasing let's say the voc sub bus fader the fx portion I'm hearing is considerably more prominent and only starts to decrease at the end of the fader move towards negative inf.
Assuming the send is post-fader, it should follow the fader exactly. What you actually hear depends on all sorts of things, though. You’re completely sure you dont still have some redundancy or other weirdness in the routing???
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Old 10-12-2019, 04:37 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ashcat_lt View Post
Assuming the send is post-fader, it should follow the fader exactly. What you actually hear depends on all sorts of things, though. You’re completely sure you dont still have some redundancy or other weirdness in the routing???
Routing should be correct. I followed Coachz's instructions and created one send from voc 2 to its immediate parent track and one from the main bus to fx 2. You should clearly hear the phenomenon when using a reverb.

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Old 10-13-2019, 03:50 PM   #13
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I did a null test showing that the sends seem to do what they are supposed to do. Two test tones are being sent to send fx tracks. The signals null when summed with polarity flipped. However, the test cannot proove wether the wet/dry relation is kept intact or not. I have the impression that the relation is not consistently maintained.

The test's track template can be downloaded here (caution: -8 dB 110 Hz and 220 Hz test tones - be careful with your monitoring level!): https://www.audioworld.de/data/steal...20template.zip

Another strange thing is that the signal doesn't completely null momentarily while the main bus's fader is moved. Moving any other fader or using automation, the signals null prefectly.

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Last edited by SonicAxiom; 12-02-2019 at 05:07 PM.
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Old 10-13-2019, 05:01 PM   #14
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Quote:
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However, the test cannot proove wether the wet/dry relation is kept intakt or not.
But that’s exactly what it proves. Any nonlinearity (compression, saturation, etc) on either the dry or wet path will complicate matters, but one should expect that kind of thing.
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Old 10-13-2019, 05:01 PM   #15
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It may have something to do with pan law on your tracks or folders.

I did find that it works for me.

When I have a lead vocal track under a lead vocals folder and that under a vocals folder and I send from the track up to the lead vocal folder and then have a send from the vocals folder over to the effect I find that I can pull any of those three faders down and have the vocal level and the effect level change together which is what my goal was with this script. Of course it can be done manually 2
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Old 10-14-2019, 04:37 PM   #16
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i am intrigued, I've heard of you talking about stealth sends for some time but it was never really explained. I can definitely see the benefits, I personally hate VCA's, they aren't easy to setup or maintain imo. I'm to a point now where I'm putting individual send returns inside the group folder (instead of an FX folder) to manage this. Given that there's a CPU hit on the sends, I'm wondering which is more economical?

So if I am reading this right, the only thing I need to have in the track name are the channels: ##/## ? I can put anything before or after this statement in the track name? And, this is only for the send return tracks, yes?
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Old 10-14-2019, 04:57 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by poetnprophet View Post
i am intrigued, I've heard of you talking about stealth sends for some time but it was never really explained. I can definitely see the benefits, I personally hate VCA's, they aren't easy to setup or maintain imo. I'm to a point now where I'm putting individual send returns inside the group folder (instead of an FX folder) to manage this. Given that there's a CPU hit on the sends, I'm wondering which is more economical?

So if I am reading this right, the only thing I need to have in the track name are the channels: ##/## ? I can put anything before or after this statement in the track name? And, this is only for the send return tracks, yes?
Correct. If you put 21/22 for example in your fx track name with any thing else then select the sending track in your sending folder and when you run the action enter 2122 and it should create the sends. Vcas were too messy for me and I love this way.
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Old 12-25-2019, 03:36 PM   #18
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Old 12-25-2019, 04:33 PM   #19
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Sory but not fonction Bad argument hum
Did you label your track as described and enter it in the dialog as described ? What did you label the track and enter in the dialog?
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Old 05-09-2020, 07:07 AM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coachz View Post
Did you label your track as described and enter it in the dialog as described ? What did you label the track and enter in the dialog?
Hi there, Coachz.

I have a link(at end of this message) of a screenshot for you to see - showing what I have done, according to the understanding that I gathered. It seems to be working fine ok.

You know, it's a shame that I don't know Reaper any better than I do. However, before recently, I was the owner of a Yamaha MotifXF6 Synthesizer Workstation, and did all of my composing in it. I had just used Reaper as a DAW to import my music in, and track my lead vocals down. My music-making tools, now, are comprised of a keyboard controller, a few plugins and Reaper. Needless to say, I have donned my 'learning cap', within attempts to gain a good working knowledge of this great program.

https://ibb.co/q76P3vp
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Last edited by NLAlston; 05-09-2020 at 07:15 AM.
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Old 05-09-2020, 08:02 AM   #21
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Originally Posted by NLAlston View Post
Hi there, Coachz.

I have a link(at end of this message) of a screenshot for you to see - showing what I have done, according to the understanding that I gathered. It seems to be working fine ok.

You know, it's a shame that I don't know Reaper any better than I do. However, before recently, I was the owner of a Yamaha MotifXF6 Synthesizer Workstation, and did all of my composing in it. I had just used Reaper as a DAW to import my music in, and track my lead vocals down. My music-making tools, now, are comprised of a keyboard controller, a few plugins and Reaper. Needless to say, I have donned my 'learning cap', within attempts to gain a good working knowledge of this great program.

https://ibb.co/q76P3vp
Okay, for me the purpose of stealth sends is to have an FX folder separate from everything else with different FX tracks in that folder and then to be able to send from the rest of the project to any one of those Fx tracks. This way any volume you adjust will also adjust the send to the effects. On your screen shot I don't see an FX folder that you would be sending to so I'm not sure what stealth sends would be buying you. Here's a screenshot of my folder structure to give you an idea.

The stealth sends is a script I wrote that takes advantage of the multi audio channel Reaper superhighway that let you have many parallel channels of audio going at once.

It has made Reaper fantastically easy for me to get the results I want while others use VCAs for a similar result but to me it's a lot more hassle that way. I hope it helps.

https://forum.cockos.com/showpost.ph...28&postcount=8
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Old 05-09-2020, 08:18 AM   #22
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On your screen shot I don't see an FX folder that you would be sending to so I'm not sure what stealth sends would be buying you.
This is kind of what I thought when you first mentioned stealth sends in the other thread. This user is just now learning that folders are even a thing, and you’re at least a couple of steps ahead. But then I’m sure theyre going to get there at some point, and it’s maybe best to start them off right.

To be clear, though, you can set up stealth sends without this script. This is just a quick and easy way to make a bunch of them at once.
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Old 05-09-2020, 08:35 AM   #23
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Originally Posted by ashcat_lt View Post
This is kind of what I thought when you first mentioned stealth sends in the other thread. This user is just now learning that folders are even a thing, and you’re at least a couple of steps ahead. But then I’m sure theyre going to get there at some point, and it’s maybe best to start them off right.

To be clear, though, you can set up stealth sends without this script. This is just a quick and easy way to make a bunch of them at once.
Absolutely
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Old 05-09-2020, 11:56 PM   #24
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Originally Posted by ashcat_lt View Post
This is kind of what I thought when you first mentioned stealth sends in the other thread. This user is just now learning that folders are even a thing, and you’re at least a couple of steps ahead. But then I’m sure theyre going to get there at some point, and it’s maybe best to start them off right.

To be clear, though, you can set up stealth sends without this script. This is just a quick and easy way to make a bunch of them at once.
You are right, especially in your understanding the lack of my knowledge when it came to folders. I learned that they were there, a while back, but had no inkling as to how to go about using them. I understood that they were containers, of a sort, but had no idea as to how to use them. Thanks to YOU all, I am beginning to move down the proper road, and I am so appreciative of you all taking time with me.

My greatest confusion surrounds 'Sends', 'Buses' and such.

There was mention of my not having an FX folder, shown in my screenshot. that is (again) because of lack of knowledge about that.
The reason that I had wanted to combine my tracks is because of having the ability to address everything IN that track (or folder) in one fell-swoop. From what I gather, now, my way is not even close to be a good way of achieving what I want.

But, believe me, I WILL follow the given suggestions, and rise above where I presently am.
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Old 05-10-2020, 04:34 AM   #25
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Quote:
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You are right, especially in your understanding the lack of my knowledge when it came to folders. I learned that they were there, a while back, but had no inkling as to how to go about using them. I understood that they were containers, of a sort, but had no idea as to how to use them. Thanks to YOU all, I am beginning to move down the proper road, and I am so appreciative of you all taking time with me.

My greatest confusion surrounds 'Sends', 'Buses' and such.

There was mention of my not having an FX folder, shown in my screenshot. that is (again) because of lack of knowledge about that.
The reason that I had wanted to combine my tracks is because of having the ability to address everything IN that track (or folder) in one fell-swoop. From what I gather, now, my way is not even close to be a good way of achieving what I want.

But, believe me, I WILL follow the given suggestions, and rise above where I presently am.
Our way is not the only way so feel free to try other ways. In the old days when Hardware was sitting outside a big physical mixer in a rack they had to send from the mixer to the effects and back as a group and so they would have just the amount of each instrument that they were going to send and they would all go together to that single effect unit and then be returned back.

Using that same paradigm I have an effects folder with a variety of effects in them just like having a variety of rack units. For example I'll have a quarter note delay, an 1/8 note delay and a Reverb and then from my background vocals I might send a little bit of each to that one Reverb. This way I don't have to put a Reverb effect on every track that I want Reverb to appear on and instead can have it just on one track and save a lot of Computer Resources.
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Old 05-10-2020, 09:12 AM   #26
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In Reaper we don’t really have anything specifically called a “bus”. Well, there are the MIDI buses, but that’s a little different. When most people use the term, what they usually mean is just a track that collects and mixes the signals from a number of other tracks. You might call it a submix track. In fact, the folders you’ve made are exactly that, and what you’re doing there is exactly what we’d use a bus track for. The child tracks all mix together at that one parent track and you can control the overall volume and panning of that submix from that one parent track. You certainly can - and many people do - put effects on that “bus” track as well, but most of the point is to have just one fader to turn several tracks up and down at once.

A send is simply a way to get some or all of the audio from one track to another. Every track has a built in parent send that automatically passes audio up to the next track higher in a folder structure or up to the master, which is almost like a big folder that holds all the tracks. But you can also create what I call an “explicit send” from any track to any other. This creates a corresponding “receive” on the...well...receiving track, and you can control how much of the first track gets mixed into whatever else is on the receive track from the controls on either of them.

You very much could make a bus (submix like what your background vocal folder is doing) using explicit sends. Instead of making that track a folder, you’d just make explicit sends from each of the tracks that are currently children. You’d turn off the master/parent send from those children so that they have to go through the submix bus, and it would end up working and sounding the same. The only difference is the convenience of the automatic parent send (less setup work) and the sort of visual organizational aspect of the folder.

But you can send to any number of tracks that you want if you want to have parallel processing - do a couple different things to the signal and then mix those things together. And obviously a track can receive (and mix together) signals from as many other tracks as we want.

Like Coachz was saying, an FX track is a pretty common use for that. You really could call it like a reverb bus. Other people might call it an Aux or whatever. In the end, you send signals from any tracks that you want to get some reverb, they get mixed together and then go through the reverb. As long as you’re cool with everything having the same reverb sound (we often do, to make it sound like everything is in the same space), it definitely does save resources by having just the one active plugin, and it also gives you one dedicated fader to control how much of that reverb mix is added to the full mix.

Because this is a parallel path. Usually the other tracks are also mixing together elsewhere - in your case the folders and then up to the master. And the controls on each send(/receive) are on top of or independent from the faders that adjust that main mix so that the mix at the reverb track can be very different from the “dry” mix. When that’s then combined with the main dry mix, it has the effect of making some tracks wetter than others.

I guess I’m kind of babbling at this point. Your use of folders is perfectly valid and makes plenty of sense, and like I said it basically IS a bus structure. Any time you wish you could do the same thing to a group of track at the same time, you’ll end up using one or more of these techniques, and if you need help with it, you just come around here and ask. There is no “right wa” to do these things honestly. Whatever makes sense to you as long as it ends up sounding the way you want.
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Old 05-10-2020, 09:31 AM   #27
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Very well put. It's nice to know the way things used to be done for example why they use to pultec eqs and why they had these buses.

It's also great to understand that some of the techniques were done a particular way because of actual limitations that we no longer have.

Having that background you can decide how to mix and what limitations Daws have that the old environment didn't have and what flexibility Daws now give you that they did not have before. Hundreds of tracks being a great example.
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Old 05-10-2020, 06:29 PM   #28
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Our way is not the only way so feel free to try other ways. In the old days when Hardware was sitting outside a big physical mixer in a rack they had to send from the mixer to the effects and back as a group and so they would have just the amount of each instrument that they were going to send and they would all go together to that single effect unit and then be returned back.

Using that same paradigm I have an effects folder with a variety of effects in them just like having a variety of rack units. For example I'll have a quarter note delay, an 1/8 note delay and a Reverb and then from my background vocals I might send a little bit of each to that one Reverb. This way I don't have to put a Reverb effect on every track that I want Reverb to appear on and instead can have it just on one track and save a lot of Computer Resources.
WOW....THAT sounds like the way.
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Old 05-10-2020, 06:34 PM   #29
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Originally Posted by ashcat_lt View Post
In Reaper we don’t really have anything specifically called a “bus”. Well, there are the MIDI buses, but that’s a little different. When most people use the term, what they usually mean is just a track that collects and mixes the signals from a number of other tracks. You might call it a submix track. In fact, the folders you’ve made are exactly that, and what you’re doing there is exactly what we’d use a bus track for. The child tracks all mix together at that one parent track and you can control the overall volume and panning of that submix from that one parent track. You certainly can - and many people do - put effects on that “bus” track as well, but most of the point is to have just one fader to turn several tracks up and down at once.

A send is simply a way to get some or all of the audio from one track to another. Every track has a built in parent send that automatically passes audio up to the next track higher in a folder structure or up to the master, which is almost like a big folder that holds all the tracks. But you can also create what I call an “explicit send” from any track to any other. This creates a corresponding “receive” on the...well...receiving track, and you can control how much of the first track gets mixed into whatever else is on the receive track from the controls on either of them.

You very much could make a bus (submix like what your background vocal folder is doing) using explicit sends. Instead of making that track a folder, you’d just make explicit sends from each of the tracks that are currently children. You’d turn off the master/parent send from those children so that they have to go through the submix bus, and it would end up working and sounding the same. The only difference is the convenience of the automatic parent send (less setup work) and the sort of visual organizational aspect of the folder.

But you can send to any number of tracks that you want if you want to have parallel processing - do a couple different things to the signal and then mix those things together. And obviously a track can receive (and mix together) signals from as many other tracks as we want.

Like Coachz was saying, an FX track is a pretty common use for that. You really could call it like a reverb bus. Other people might call it an Aux or whatever. In the end, you send signals from any tracks that you want to get some reverb, they get mixed together and then go through the reverb. As long as you’re cool with everything having the same reverb sound (we often do, to make it sound like everything is in the same space), it definitely does save resources by having just the one active plugin, and it also gives you one dedicated fader to control how much of that reverb mix is added to the full mix.

Because this is a parallel path. Usually the other tracks are also mixing together elsewhere - in your case the folders and then up to the master. And the controls on each send(/receive) are on top of or independent from the faders that adjust that main mix so that the mix at the reverb track can be very different from the “dry” mix. When that’s then combined with the main dry mix, it has the effect of making some tracks wetter than others.

I guess I’m kind of babbling at this point. Your use of folders is perfectly valid and makes plenty of sense, and like I said it basically IS a bus structure. Any time you wish you could do the same thing to a group of track at the same time, you’ll end up using one or more of these techniques, and if you need help with it, you just come around here and ask. There is no “right wa” to do these things honestly. Whatever makes sense to you as long as it ends up sounding the way you want.
This is EXCELLENT information, and I can't tell you how much it means to me. I know that I have a whole lot to learn, and I am going to immerse myself into that PDF manual - so as to reduce the hammering effects of the questions that will surface .
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Old 05-11-2020, 04:07 AM   #30
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WOW....THAT sounds like the way.
For me it is. For you it is whatever lets you make music without having to feel like you are a full time computer operator. When you get your preferred workflow your creativity will be free and you won't be stopping to perform long computer tasks.

When a new music idea strikes, a good Reaper setup becomes an extension of your senses with actions at your fingertips. For me it's mostly toolbar buttons and some keyboard shortcuts to actions. There are other options too like right click context menus and radial menus that others use.

Checkout the fine videos at the top of the page and manual and find what interests you and ignore the rest. For example when I was first starting out I used the mixer and the TCP along with grouping functions and screensets and a variety of other Reaper features. Over time I found that I only use the TCP and never open the mixer and I don't use grouping or screensets at all. But it's nice to know what the capabilities are in Reaper and figure out which features are for you.

Continually expose yourself to more Reaper videos and new chapters of the manual to learn what's there. By doing that you'll find the tools that work best for you to make music you like. But remember it's about making music and if you are making music then you're doing it right. If your messing around with the computer all the time and not making music you're doing it wrong.

Here's a song we did in Reaper just recently that's part of an entire album done in Reaper. Enjoy

https://youtu.be/hAx4taf3Tnk
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Old 05-12-2020, 09:00 AM   #31
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For me it is. For you it is whatever lets you make music without having to feel like you are a full time computer operator. When you get your preferred workflow your creativity will be free and you won't be stopping to perform long computer tasks.

When a new music idea strikes, a good Reaper setup becomes an extension of your senses with actions at your fingertips. For me it's mostly toolbar buttons and some keyboard shortcuts to actions. There are other options too like right click context menus and radial menus that others use.

Checkout the fine videos at the top of the page and manual and find what interests you and ignore the rest. For example when I was first starting out I used the mixer and the TCP along with grouping functions and screensets and a variety of other Reaper features. Over time I found that I only use the TCP and never open the mixer and I don't use grouping or screensets at all. But it's nice to know what the capabilities are in Reaper and figure out which features are for you.

Continually expose yourself to more Reaper videos and new chapters of the manual to learn what's there. By doing that you'll find the tools that work best for you to make music you like. But remember it's about making music and if you are making music then you're doing it right. If your messing around with the computer all the time and not making music you're doing it wrong.

Here's a song we did in Reaper just recently that's part of an entire album done in Reaper. Enjoy

https://youtu.be/hAx4taf3Tnk
Enjoy it? I surely did. It was very nicely done, and very catchy indeed. Professionally done, for sure.
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Old 05-12-2020, 07:02 PM   #32
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Coachz,

I would also like you to give listen to my very recent song project. It's a cover of a 60-year old classic, by Brook Benton (The Boll Weevil Song). I have maintained great love for that song since the days of my youth, and had always had something, in my head, that I wanted to add to it.

This is the same piece of work that I was desiring to add a reverb effect to (regarding vocals). I learned that the initial upload, to Youtube, did not translate the reverb properly. It had more of a muddying effect, more than anything else. So, consequently, I re-uploaded it with the vocals being dry.

But, allow about four minutes of your time, to take in what I have done. Your opinions/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. The link is as follows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJpfB5UI6Bs

Advanced thanks,
Nathan
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Old 05-13-2020, 04:17 AM   #33
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Nice song but I would not have run the drums through a phase shifter. It's a happy vibe though so thumbs up.
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Old 05-13-2020, 05:26 PM   #34
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Nice song but I would not have run the drums through a phase shifter. It's a happy vibe though so thumbs up.
thank you. It means much. You mentioned 'Phase Shifting', on the drums, and I don't know what happened. Due to a very limited VST instrument arsenal, at my disposal, I had bought Propellerhead Reason 10, a while back. It was in Reason that I did the bulk of that song's music (with the addition of the utilization of a few other instruments, while in Reaper). In Reason, I pounded out a simple rhythm, and had added no effects to it. But, maybe, there happened to be such an effect already embedded.

As already had been mentioned, I do have a lot to learn. I don't create for marketability. Music is very therapeutic to me, and creating it takes me to a whole 'nother place. Aside from that, what I do isn't within the vein of that which would have a calling for monetary returns. However, I WOULD like to be able to present my works in as professional a manner as possible.
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Old 05-14-2020, 03:41 AM   #35
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You're doing fine already so I just enjoy the ride and learn as you go.
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Old 05-14-2020, 09:45 AM   #36
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Talking about this on another thread and I came back to this issue we have with send names. Since Reaper doesn’t seem to want us to be able to name track channels, every send on a child track displays as sending to the folder. Even in the I/O panel, you have to look for the output channel and then “remember” which effect bus that goes to. I think you’ve said you never used the mixer, but many of us who do are pretty used to just grabbing the knob that says “reverb”, and if all the knobs just say “drums”, we have to “remember” which one is where or go into the I/O panel and try to figure it out from there. I’m positive that if one actually did implement this as a template and use it consistently, they figure it out pretty quick. But then I often drink when I mix.

So...
I thought like we could have a multichannel volume control plugin. Just a simple JS with at least as many sliders as we have sends. Set up the plugin pins to affect the appropriate send channels, and then show those parameters in track controls and then alias the parameters to reflect the ultimate destination track, then use those instead of the send knob. It could implement pan too. Heck it could do all kinds of shit, even solo(!!!). But the point is that then our knobs tell us what they’re doing without having to go in, “oh channel 21, where does that go again?”
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Old 05-14-2020, 09:58 AM   #37
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Talking about this on another thread and I came back to this issue we have with send names. Since Reaper doesn’t seem to want us to be able to name track channels, every send on a child track displays as sending to the folder. Even in the I/O panel, you have to look for the output channel and then “remember” which effect bus that goes to. I think you’ve said you never used the mixer, but many of us who do are pretty used to just grabbing the knob that says “reverb”, and if all the knobs just say “drums”, we have to “remember” which one is where or go into the I/O panel and try to figure it out from there. I’m positive that if one actually did implement this as a template and use it consistently, they figure it out pretty quick. But then I often drink when I mix.

So...
I thought like we could have a multichannel volume control plugin. Just a simple JS with at least as many sliders as we have sends. Set up the plugin pins to affect the appropriate send channels, and then show those parameters in track controls and then alias the parameters to reflect the ultimate destination track, then use those instead of the send knob. It could implement pan too. Heck it could do all kinds of shit, even solo(!!!). But the point is that then our knobs tell us what they’re doing without having to go in, “oh channel 21, where does that go again?”
I feel your pain. I did make a shortcut a long time ago that I use that lets me jump down to my effects bus to see all of my effects tracks and what their audio channel receive numbers are so if I get confused I can hit one keyboard shortcut and see immediately for example that my hall Reverb is on Channels 23/24. And then when I hit the same shortcut it takes me back to where I was. But yes I live in the TCP and have not use the mixer in many many years
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Old 05-14-2020, 10:17 AM   #38
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I mean you can show track controls in the tcp too...
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Old 08-20-2020, 08:10 AM   #39
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Updated script in OP to fix bug in channel assignment.
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Old 10-13-2021, 11:51 AM   #40
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I was trying to find the thread where we talked about it, but I guess here is as good a place as any...

So one of the “issues” with stealth sends has always been that if there is compression or really anything else on the parent track, none of the sends will have that same treatment. I had developed a rather weird way of “hacking” ReaComp to do it, but with the latest update we don’t need that “back” part anymore. ReaComp just does it. Same with a number of other ReaPlugs. Doesn’t really help if you insist on using other plugins on your busses, but...
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