Suggestions of stock Reaper VSTs to use to make tracks sound wide and fat?

[sjs94704]

I say wide and fat only because a few guys have used these terms in their videos...

I've been searching YouTube because I learn best by watching videos, but, the videos I found that show how to do that the person in the video usually is using at least one third-party VST and so I'm just wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to do this with what is already in Reaper.

I am more of a singer rather than a music mixer so my knowledge and understanding of mixing terminology as well as not yet having learned what a majority of the Reaper stock VSTs do, so, please keep that in mind when you reply.

Thanks...

[Eliseat]

Hi sjs94704,

your question is way to vague. To make tracks wide and fat should help to make a mix wide and fat. But that's not true. You could get a very spread and loud mix with only mono tracks hard panned to left and right.

There are more aspects to realize. Of course its important to have a good source loudness on buses or tracks, but it has no impact if those tracks/instruments/buses share the same frequencies. Because that would end up in a pile of resonances and maximized loudness at specific frequencies which would lead into distortion or a thin mix. So the first thing for a fat mix is to use the full spectrum of frequencies.
If all your instruments are separated, panning them bravely helps a lot to get a wide mix. To get loudness depends on what kind of music you make. Dance music allows anything. So you could use limiters and saturation on tracks without limits. (Only your ears.) If you make Jazz or clean Rock with lots of dynamics you have to be careful not to squash it flat.

ReaEq helps to get the frequencies of every instrument cleaned up, to lower disturbing frequencies or to focus on important features.

ReaComp helps to even out tracks with to much dynamics which helps to get louder. BUT i would NOT recommend it as the only tool to get louder. Its not forbidden to use limiters at tracks. Just don't overdo it. The JSFX library offers many great limiters. Just type in the search field. Also saturation is a good idea to fatten up a bass or guitars. As always: It depends on how much your music allows to get saturated.

The use of buses helps a lot to get more fat. Use folders to route all drums, all guitars and all vocals thru and compress or limit it a bit, even out layered frequencies with eq etc. It also could be a good idea to send bass and drums thru a bus to glue and mix them for a tight low end.

And finally you should use your master bus to make the final mastering. Its a good idea to "glue" the whole mix with a limiter and/or compressor. Tiny amounts of limiting and compression in your mix should end up here with a solid loudness of the final mix.

So to answer your question: Everything you need is in the box. You can use saturation, limiting, equalizing, compression and stereo image controlling by using stock plugins. Just use the search function in the fx browser. BUT all that wont help if you don't understand what it does and what it requires to make a mix or track more fat and wide.

Greetings
Eli

Btw: If you want to know which plugins or JSFX people use on purpose to make a mix fat and wide, you wont get an answer like plugin "abc" does the trick. There are to many tiny steps to achieve this goal. But of course there are also tricks and methods to get a bit more fat and wide. And i don't mean eating a lot of cakes ...

[Pashkuli]

First off, you need to understand the anatomy of a recorded sound (vocal, drum, guitar, bass, piano, brass, woodwind, synths, etc.):

1. timbre, volume (gain stage: Loudness)
2. transients, attack, peaks, body, decay
3. acoustics of a sound (reverb: space, direct signal, reflections, diffuse)

Everything else (effects FX) is modulation. Tweaking all of the above is actually a modulation of the recorded signal but for the sake of the argument let them be segregated like that.

on 1.
Timbre: you need to know and see where generally most of the instruments are in the sound spectrum. It is the raw picture that you will manipulate with the built in Repaer effects like EQ, Compressor, Reverb, Delay, etc. to fit your style, genre, whatever is in your head.
Gain: mixing usually starts after all has been recorded, although tracks can be overdubbed, overlaid, etc. during the mixing.
Reaper has a semi-built-in Loudness Meter with the SWS Extensions, please do install those extensions! A good alternative would be Youlean Loudness Meter 2, Hornet LU Meter (great for grouped tracks gain staging, also Hornet VU MK3 is great, both cheap) and dpMeter 3 (or its pro expensive version dpMeterXT).

on 2.
Compressor is the tool to control Attack, Peak, Body (sustain), Decay (release). No time to explain all the things, use the one in Repaer. Reaper has a JS plugins called Transient Controller, Killer.

on 3.
Reverb is the best tool regarding mixing as it creates the space, the fatness (short reverbs and delays below 10ms) and the distance (dry/wet ratio). Microphones always will cathc some reverb (even if it's in a "dead" room, then the reverb will be 0). Guitar pickups catch what is called a DI guitar signal, has no reverb, although some acoustic guitar have pieso-pickups which could catch some ambience from reflected acoustic vibrations (depends on the room or the booth). Most synth patches, banks and presets got effects applied to them, some can be turned off or tweaked, some can't.

When starting a mix be sure to cut off the very low frequencies on most instruments. EQ with linear mode is a great option here (Reaper has such tool called ReaFIR: engage it as a Linear EQ and cut).
Always try to cut frequencies first when using EQ: bad resonances, harsh harmonics, etc. that most microphones or\and effects will add during recording.

Audio recording, mixing and mastering are both a Science (has some rules) and an Art (bending the rules)!
Experimentation, creativity and persistence are the key points regarding audio.

[Goldreap]

Some 'stereo' plugins need a stereo input to actually do anything but JS:MDA Pseudo-Stereo sounds great on mono stuff (like vocal).

[fred garvin]

Originally Posted by Eliseat

There are more aspects to realize. Of course its important to have a good source loudness on buses or tracks, but it has no impact if those tracks/instruments/buses share the same frequencies. Because that would end up in a pile of resonances and maximized loudness at specific frequencies which would lead into distortion or a thin mix.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Now that's food for thought... seems I might have that problem a bit.

Originally Posted by Eliseat

...a bunch of other awesome stuff...

Yes, rather... would you be so kind as to explain all these topics in great detail?

I'm kidding of course. I would appreciate anything you can spare on the problem of tracks with competing frequencies... I really have a problem with that but so does everyone, right? Pretty much everything has midrange content, I just don't seem to deal with it well.

[sjs94704]

Here is what I am doing. I am a singer. Currently, I am recording the song 'Somewhere' in the style of Barbra Streisand.

Here is a link to the song itself:
https://www.karaoke-version.com/cust...somewhere.html

What I have done is put each track in SOLO and then downloaded them in order to have each track separate.

Now, despite the fact that the website customer service says that the tracks already have VST treatment, I have discovered that by putting VST treatment in Reaper makes the tracks sound way better.

But, it is simply my opinion that these tracks 'as is' do not sound as full as they could to reach a truly great sound and is my motivation for asking about fattening up these tracks to sound just as if I was on stage right in front of the orchestra or band and what the music might sound like if I was.

These sings only cost $3.00 each. I'm wondering if someone would be willing and able to check out what and first see if you can tell what I mean and then if you can find a way to fatten up the tracks with existing Reaper VSTs I would appreciate knowing what you did?