Go Back   Cockos Incorporated Forums > REAPER Forums > REAPER Q&A, Tips, Tricks and Howto

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-23-2020, 03:37 PM   #1
hannesmenzel
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 24
Default How do you deal with virtual instruments in Reaper?

Dear beloved Reaper community,

I'd like to know how you handle this:

I often do recordings with recorded analog instruments, virtual instruments and e.g. guitars using amp simulations. The latter two obviously consume the most of my DSP power, so you got to consolidate them anyhow.

I then start working with two Reaper folders, one I call the "Mix Bus" with all the analog recordings and one with MIDI tracks with VIs and reamped guitars and basses which I route to the "Mix Bus" to, well, mix them.

So my question is: What's your strategy to consolidate the VIs and amped guitars for later use to mix? One possibility is to freeze the routing target in the Mix Bus folder, but I don't like the freezing mode because it's incompatible with leaving the recording folder clean when you have multiple archived projects (I lost some material while unthinkingly cleaning the project folder). Rendering doens't work in every circumstance because you often have multichannel VIs like in Kontakt or so.

So what do you do? Do you finish recording and save it as the final recording state, following making stems to mix? Do you use the same project for recording, comping, mixing (even mastering)? How do you enable yourself to quickly going back to recording out of the mixing process if you got anything to fix? How do you archive things?

I know this is a not so urgent question, because somehow I get to my goal anytime, but I like to optimize this step for me and I'd really appreciate if you had a good solution for this.

Cheers, Hannes

P.S. Sorry, I just saw that this thread would be perfectly located in the "Recording Technologies and Techniques" forum, can I or someone move this there?

Last edited by hannesmenzel; 01-23-2020 at 03:42 PM.
hannesmenzel is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-23-2020, 04:30 PM   #2
foxAsteria
Human being with feelings
 
foxAsteria's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Oblivion
Posts: 10,255
Default

I hate freezing tracks. Total workflow killer. I just keep raising the buffer size as my project grows.

If I need to record something, I just mute my master fx and fx sends to get back some resources and lower the buffer.

If the latency is still not low enough, I bounce the whole project, record to that and import the new tracks.

You can also try the option in prefs/mute/solo/muted tracks do not use CPU and mute some of the heavier tracks temporarily.
__________________
foxyyymusic
foxAsteria is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-23-2020, 04:50 PM   #3
hannesmenzel
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 24
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by foxAsteria View Post
I hate freezing tracks. Total workflow killer. I just keep raising the buffer size as my project grows.

If I need to record something, I just mute my master fx and fx sends to get back some resources and lower the buffer.

If the latency is still not low enough, I bounce the whole project, record to that and import the new tracks.

You can also try the option in prefs/mute/solo/muted tracks do not use CPU and mute some of the heavier tracks temporarily.
Yes, thats the point, I hate freezing as well. Concerning the buffer: while recording I indeed switch between buffersizes (128-1024) while recording or mixing and do not mute tracks but deactivate demanding plugins in between. I would actually freeze if there was a non-destructive solution between cleaning the project folder and having multiple projects. (There is a script that cleans your directory regarding multiple projects, but that excludes frozen tracks...)

The VI thing gets complicated because of the routing from differently channeled Midi tracks to multichannel VI tracks back to seperate audio tracks.

Maybe I must just separating my recording and mixing stage, but there are situations you have to go back.
hannesmenzel is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-23-2020, 05:12 PM   #4
Greg Savage
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 653
Default

A more powerful machine, I work everything in the same session and only consolidate tracks that have fx that modulate. Often times you'll notice that what catches your ear, won't be the same until the 3 or 10th time through. So I definitely consolidate or automate those nuances other than that I keep everything as is.
Greg Savage is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-23-2020, 05:29 PM   #5
foxAsteria
Human being with feelings
 
foxAsteria's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Oblivion
Posts: 10,255
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by hannesmenzel View Post
Maybe I must just separating my recording and mixing stage, but there are situations you have to go back.
Maybe try subprojects, which is like freezing but you can do many tracks at once and defer the render for later and then you can go back in and work whenever.
__________________
foxyyymusic
foxAsteria is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 07:40 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.