hi dabonz and welcome to the Reaper forums!
I'm sharing my rap vocal recording and mixing template (see attachment). Maybe you find it useful. Here's what it looks like:
Here are a few explanations regarding its features and on how to use it:
First in the template, you'll find a few send fx tracks which have receives from the lead vocal track. They are combined in an fx folder track for convenience. The fx tracks provide a large and a small reverb as well as a long and a short delay effect. Note that the short delay is automatically determined from what you choose as the delay time in the long delay fx track (by default, it's half that time). More on this later.
Next up is the beat's track where you insert the beat
After that, you have 2 auxilliary tracks. They control the amount of ducking applied to the two delay fx tracks in case you are using delay on the vocals. Essentially, if you increase the send volume from the lead vocal bus (to be explained in a minute) to the delay fx track(s), the delay effect will get more intense. However, to not bury the lead vocals, I configured the delay fx tracks to be ducked (pushed down) by the lead vocals so that as long as the artist is rapping, the delay signal will automatically be attenuated a bit to be softly present but not loud enough to interfere with the lead vocals. However, whenever the lead vocal stops rapping, the ducking (attenuation of the delay fx) is released, resulting in the delay becoming automatically more prominent in the mix. Now, if you lower the fader on either of the first or the second delay side chain track, the respective delay will get ducked less much and, thus, will become more prominent at all times even while the artist is rapping.
Next, you have the lead vocal bus (folder) which sums the lead vocal track, a doubles track and a few other tracks that might be useful for rap lead vocals. For instance, you might wanna take some small parts (items) from the original lead vocal track and put them onto the "telephone" track to see what happens.
Finally, you have a backing vocals bus and some child tracks for up to 6 "choir" voices, already panned to appear across the stereo field.
On the fx bus track and on its child tracks, you find eq and compressor plugins to process these fx. Furthermore, you will find instances of the free SIR 1 impulse response convolution plugin. You'd have to find some appropriate impulse response files to get the reverbs going. There are several web sites that offer free impulse response files of the best reverb fx units ever built.
Basically, for the template to work as expected, you'll need to download and install the following free vst plugins:
- Abstact Chamber (free reverb plugin;
http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php...hamber&id=1220)
- ThrillseekerLA (opto-tube compressor;
https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads/)
- Autopan Modulator and Chorus Box (by Synthescience;
http://www.vst4free.com/index.php?dev=Synthescience)
All other effect plugins are Rea* fx or JS fx.
One special thing about the two delay fx tracks is that whatever delay time you enter in the ReaDelay instance of the first delay track, half that delay time will automatically be set in the second delay fx track. This works thanks to the great "JS: Globally synchronized sliders" plugin which is present on both of these tracks. First, you'd have to find out the tempo of your beat. Once you have the bpm no. open the "JS: Calculate BPM to milliseconds" plugin, set it to free mode and type in the bpm value in the field in the BPM line. Press enter and look up the calculated ms value for the delay time you like. Then, open ReaDelay on the first delay track and type in that ms value in the first (ms) field. The ReaDelay instance on the second delay track will automatically set itsself to half that ms amount and will create a faster, yet matching delay (if you send something to it, of course).
You can easily disable unneeded plugins in the send effect tracks. However, the autopanner and the chorus effects often make a great combo on these effects. You have to experiment a bit to find out what works for you.
I'm constantly using this template for lots of vocal recordings (not only rap). I hope you'll have some fun with it, too. At least, it can serve as a starting point for you to find your own optimized track template. If anything is unclear please feel free to ask.
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