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Old 04-19-2018, 04:43 PM   #1
ArtVandelay
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Default I have a few quick questions before I begin the final stages of my first real project

I've had a weird and awkward journey with music production. It's a long story, but I originally started music many years ago, but have had many setbacks, health issues, yadda yadda, which have ended up in entire months at a time where I pretty much just gave up just due to life getting too effed up and not allowing for it. In the past I've casually released the odd song without much thought, but very recently I've gotten much more serious and actually have a serious collection of material I want to finalize and formally release the best that I can. These are songs with all parts written from beginning to end, with some minor mix tools applied just to get an idea of what I want as far as mix goes, but I fully intend to re record all parts.


But before I do anything else I want to make sure Reaper and my interface are capturing everything and running in the highest of quality and lowest latency for my final recordings. I am using a MacBook Pro with a Steinberg UR44. What are some basic settings I should adjust or make sure they are where they need to be at? I'll be recording mics on a guitar amp, and vocals. And recording some synths, drum machines and bass guitar direct in. What are recommended project settings to run Reaper at highest quality? Reaper tells me 48KHZ 24bitWAV in the top right corner. Does this sound right? Also what should I have everything set at for rendering final stems/mix?

I know this is such basic crap, and believe me I feel very stupid asking it, but it would have been so long ago that I addressed and learned stuff like this that I forget what it all even means. Because of my awkward off and on relationship with music my skillset is pretty off balance in that I'm very good at some things (writing, producing, sound design with a large collection of gear, playing instruments, somewhat ok grasp on basic mix/master) and terrible at other things (final mix/mastering stage, any sort of computery tech details I just couldn't retain, basically anything associated with actually finalizing an album of songs)

Any help or push in the right direction would be so much appreciated!!
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Old 04-23-2018, 12:35 PM   #2
Sinner
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Settings are going to depend on your computer and card. Surely you'll be able to get something acceptable with the gear listed above, but I wouldn't know without testing, even considering my bandmate has a Macbook pro.

What you really want to do is just do some testing. Get the best latency without issues. You'll hear the issues. You may also increase the buffer once you have more effects running, and more tracks. Test with something simple that would be easy to hear pops, clicks etc. like clean sustained guitar notes.

Here is a video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkmoucD4S7M
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Old 05-01-2018, 07:28 PM   #3
insub
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Originally Posted by ArtVandelay View Post
What are some basic settings I should adjust or make sure they are where they need to be at? I'll be recording mics on a guitar amp, and vocals. And recording some synths, drum machines and bass guitar direct in.
In the Media tab of the Project Settings (Opt-Enter) define a path for your media files. I have mine set to "AUDIO" which puts all the media files into a subdirectory of the project directory named "AUDIO".
Set the Recording Format to WAV or AIFF, maybe AIFF is better for Mac (I use PC, so...) 24 bit PCM.

I like to have the ReaPeaks stored in a Temp folder outside the project folder. Define the location in Preferences > Paths > Store all peak caches in alternate path:.
While there, I have a Temp folder set for the Default recording path, when project is unsaved...

Quote:
Originally Posted by ArtVandelay View Post
What are recommended project settings to run Reaper at highest quality? Reaper tells me 48KHZ 24bitWAV in the top right corner. Does this sound right?
That's good. But, there are advantages to higher sample rates while mixing, and often you get lower latency at a higher sample rate. Always record at the maximum bit depth of your interface, which will be 24 bits. I recommend recording at 96 kHz samplerate. You can use 192 kHz if your MacBook Pro is super powerful and has tons of drive space.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ArtVandelay View Post
Also what should I have everything set at for rendering final stems/mix?
Render stems to the same format as recording.
Render the mix to the same sample rate and bit depth as the project files with dither OFF for mastering separately. Or, if mastering while mixing, render to the destination format with the dither option active.
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Old 05-02-2018, 12:46 PM   #4
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I'd argue that there is no value (for what you're doing) to having a sample rate above 48k (even 44.1k), but you can read the endless debates on that subject and come to your own conclusion. :-)

Do record at 24bit, though.

What you described sounded like you won't be playing/recording VSTi's, in which case there is no value pushing for the lowest latency. I record at max latency, generally, for smallest chance of dropouts, least CPU usage, etc. Doesn't matter to me if it takes 5ms or 200ms to start playing when I press the space bar, as compared to having a glitch in the recorded audio which can be a serious issue. You can always record at high latency and set the latency low when/if you need it for VSTi's, etc. Remember that all audio will be properly time-aligned by the DAW once recorded, so that isn't an issue in terms of latency choice. Low latency is only important if: you're playing VSTi's live as you record them, or you don't have "zero-latency monitoring" available on your interface (they all do nowadays) and you need it for recording vocals (you can always just take one side of the headphones off if you need to), or you want to hear your voice as you record it coming through effects on your computer.

For layering direct-in analog signals and mics and such, there's usually no need to worry about latency.
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