Creating Samples

[project_delta]

I'm pretty new to the production game and I just wanted to check that it was possible to take short audio cuts of something in a track using Audacity to create a sample for import into Reaper for remixing purposes? If so, is there any particular audio format they need to be saved as for import or not?

[nowaysj]

They should be in the same format as whatever the project your working in is. Most daws are 44.1khz at a bit depth of 16, 24 or 32. 24 bits is best for your purposes. Also look into reaper's ability to record your audio directly, so you don't need another program. Whether Reaper can do this depends on the Asio driver you are using. If words or terms that I used don't make sense, google them. If that doesn't help, ask for clarification.

[SunkLo]

One of Reaper's core strengths is audio editing. I'd kill myself if I had to use audacity to chop audio. Trust me when I say you're going to want to do it all within Reaper. In addition to the pleasure that is Reaper's non-destructive audio editing, it'll also save you from having to go hard drive spelunking when you import and export wavs. Plus recording will be a lot easier as well.

Check out the Reaper guide for info on its editing abilities and all the shortcuts. It's designed to be really fast and efficient once you learn the workflow and all the hotkeys.

I could probably record a wav of me sneezing, zoom in and close my eyes, wave the mouse back and forth while spamming S, and then start clicking and dragging randomly while periodically holding down alt to stretch and scatter the chops around. Open eyes, throw Valhalla ShimmerVerb on an insert with the feedback turned up, hit play... Free money.

[nowaysj]

You have uncovered my production secrets. If you receive a large heavy package in the mail. Open it in private.

[SunkLo]

Yeah I was reticent to let the cat out of the bag. Maybe this will counteract all the yois and shitty massive wobbles. If people are gonna paint by numbers, they might as well make less annoying shit.

[test_recordings]

Just do it in Reaper

[nowaysj]

Can OP record in reaper off of youtube while using asio4all? Doesn't he need multiclient asio drivers (which asio4all are not)?

[project_delta]

One of Reaper's core strengths is audio editing. I'd kill myself if I had to use audacity to chop audio. Trust me when I say you're going to want to do it all within Reaper. In addition to the pleasure that is Reaper's non-destructive audio editing, it'll also save you from having to go hard drive spelunking when you import and export wavs. Plus recording will be a lot easier as well.

Check out the Reaper guide for info on its editing abilities and all the shortcuts. It's designed to be really fast and efficient once you learn the workflow and all the hotkeys.

I could probably record a wav of me sneezing, zoom in and close my eyes, wave the mouse back and forth while spamming S, and then start clicking and dragging randomly while periodically holding down alt to stretch and scatter the chops around. Open eyes, throw Valhalla ShimmerVerb on an insert with the feedback turned up, hit play... Free money.

Thanks, I'd been trying to look up whether Reaper was any good for audio editing but I'd been told the exact opposite on some other forums I was trying to look it up on.

[Crimsonghost]

New production challenge: can sunklo make a track with his eyes closed.

[SunkLo]

Can I map samples to my keyboard and play to a click for the first pass? Cause if so then, yes haha. Although I'd probably accidentally hit that unused email hotkey and end up in the microsoft email client setup wizard.

[nowaysj]

One of Reaper's core strengths is audio editing. I'd kill myself if I had to use audacity to chop audio. Trust me when I say you're going to want to do it all within Reaper. In addition to the pleasure that is Reaper's non-destructive audio editing, it'll also save you from having to go hard drive spelunking when you import and export wavs. Plus recording will be a lot easier as well.

Check out the Reaper guide for info on its editing abilities and all the shortcuts. It's designed to be really fast and efficient once you learn the workflow and all the hotkeys.

I could probably record a wav of me sneezing, zoom in and close my eyes, wave the mouse back and forth while spamming S, and then start clicking and dragging randomly while periodically holding down alt to stretch and scatter the chops around. Open eyes, throw Valhalla ShimmerVerb on an insert with the feedback turned up, hit play... Free money.

Thanks, I'd been trying to look up whether Reaper was any good for audio editing but I'd been told the exact opposite on some other forums I was trying to look it up on.

Listen man, you sound young and inexperienced. Here is a heads up: be careful about taking advice on forums. Take the advice, but always test it, consider the source, and compare it against other sources of advice, and what you find through your own investigation and testing. And really, listen to what sunk writes.

[SunkLo]

And really, listen to what sunk writes.

Smoke drugs, vandalize public property, and never do your homework.

[hudson]

One of Reaper's core strengths is audio editing. I'd kill myself if I had to use audacity to chop audio. Trust me when I say you're going to want to do it all within Reaper. In addition to the pleasure that is Reaper's non-destructive audio editing, it'll also save you from having to go hard drive spelunking when you import and export wavs. Plus recording will be a lot easier as well.

Check out the Reaper guide for info on its editing abilities and all the shortcuts. It's designed to be really fast and efficient once you learn the workflow and all the hotkeys.

I could probably record a wav of me sneezing, zoom in and close my eyes, wave the mouse back and forth while spamming S, and then start clicking and dragging randomly while periodically holding down alt to stretch and scatter the chops around. Open eyes, throw Valhalla ShimmerVerb on an insert with the feedback turned up, hit play... Free money.

Thanks, I'd been trying to look up whether Reaper was any good for audio editing but I'd been told the exact opposite on some other forums I was trying to look it up on.

Listen man, you sound young and inexperienced. Here is a heads up: be careful about taking advice on forums. Take the advice, but always test it, consider the source, and compare it against other sources of advice, and what you find through your own investigation and testing. And really, listen to what sunk writes.

Reaper is the best for audio editing, that's probably the #1 reason I use it.

[alphacat]

Wasn't there a Reaper theme skin that was geared towards waveform editing? Could swear there was but can't find it now.

[test_recordings]

Is there any way of setting up a drum rack in Reaper to get more than one sample in a channel? I tried using a VST but it didn't work

[SunkLo]

You can use free item positioning to have multiple samples within one track's arrange lane at the same time if that's what you mean. Alternately, use a sampler like Geist with multi-outs going to different channels on the single track, or routed out to multiple tracks. You can have different plugins affecting separate channels of one track but I prefer to have a track for each sample if I'm mixing drums or something.

For instance I've got a drum preset that looks something like this:



The selected track has my MPK set as its midi input and auto-arms when I select it. All midi gets recorded to this track which then goes through Superior Drummer's multi-outs to the 6 tracks to the right. Those tracks then go to the Drums buss on the far left since it's the folder's parent track.

You can have all your samples processed on one track by choosing to affect only certain channels within your plugins' channel routing windows. You could actually have multiple versions of your sampler open (or multiple instruments loaded in Kontakt for example) that are each receiving a different midi channel and swap between them in the midi editor. I've done this before to have multiple Kontakt percussion instruments mapped out across the whole keyboard. But I find it's neater and easier for setting levels to have a track for each when you've got a lot of samples that need separate processing. I'm assuming you just wanted to be able to have a single midi clip trigger multiple samples, right? In that case do the multi-out folder thing. You can minimize the folder and only see the drum buss channel or hide tracks manually in the track manager. I'd recommend hiding all the tracks except the midi one in the TCP so you don't have a bunch of empty lanes in the arrange view.

[nowaysj]

An aside: why is it that you prefer DMG's Compassion to Fab Filter's Pro C, and Fab Filter's Pro Q to DMG's Equality (or I guess Equilibrium)?

[SunkLo]

Cause that was the order I tried them in

Compassion is my favorite dynamics plugin. As for Pro-Q vs Equilibrium, Pro-Q is just simple and does what I need. Equilibrium has all kinds of filter types and phase modes and customizable layouts and all that shit, which is great. But I don't want to spend ages A/Bing a bunch of details until I'm in endgame. For mixing while I produce, Pro-Q is just simple, pretty resource light, and something I'm already familiar with. I have been meaning to set up some Equilibrium effect presets for various tasks so that way when I go to add the plug I have a few different starting points to click. It's just something I haven't gotten around to.

[nowaysj]

Well gander upon Equality as well then. I have not looked at Equilibrium, but Equality is a straight forward usable eq that I think is very transparent, with various modes to deal with phase issues.

When I tried Compassion, I couldn't really figure it out though. Well the deeper aspects. But then I'm sharp like that. Do you, like design your own compression curves and stuff?

[SunkLo]

Not in the same way you do in... Maximus is it, that has that waveshaper type bezier curves? It's more like a being able to stick a screwdriver in the case and adjust shit. You can do things like VCA smoothing to get more of a leveler effect instead of it bouncing around, you can set the RMS time, add in threshold hysteresis, flip on a gate/expander or transient shaper, soften up the knee or adjust attack and release curves... tons of shit to be fiddled with.