Big ass REAPER workflow question!

[Erkan]

So I'm almost done writing my songs for the next project... currently working on writing the synth parts and extra melodies and whatever, and I started thinking about the mixing process (as always, I think way ahead of myself).

What I need is a smooth way of handling all the songs in the project. I don't like mixing everything in a single project like some guys do... I feel it is clumsy and just really unoptimized. The only thing I really need apart from what I already have in REAPER is like some sort of "master project" where I can go in and change settings, which would then be applied to all the tracks in every other project. One way this could be done would be by simply saving FXChains or Track Templates for each track. But then REAPER would have to auto reload these every time the project is opened so that any change I've made to the presets would get applied to every other project that uses them. Is this possible?

Example: I have my snare track. I suddenly decide I wanted to throw on an exciter on it and go crazy. Fine, but then I would have to go in and repeat the process on all 8-9 songs. Can I add it only to one of the songs, and REAPER would automatically add it to all other songs that use the same snare track?

I know this is a tough one but I'm sure someone has been wondering the same thing... or someone has the answer, since it's a great workflow helper

 

[TheDriller]

Are you really planning to mix all of the songs at the same time?
IMO, that way lies madness.

If it was me, i would mix one song, then use that as a template for the others. otherwise, you could spend half your life just tweaking snares between 10 songs.

 

[Erkan]

Well, no, not at the same time but rather as a way of quickly changing stuff between the songs after the initial mixing.

What I have done in the past (when I used Ableton Live ... yeah, lol ) was to save the FXchains of one "finished" mix and then apply to the rest of the songs. But we all know that there is ALWAYS something you wish you had changed, and it could be something like finding a whole different compressor that sounds so much nicer. So instead of going through all of the songs to add that certain compressor, it would be so much smoother if REAPER could automatically reload the FXChain each time the project is loaded. Or some similar way atleast...

Edit: So in other words, I work just like you but I have never ever managed to make one FINISHED mix and apply it to all other songs without having to go back and still change some settings, and in that case... I have to go through and repeat the same process for every single song.

 

[CatharsisStudios]

post this shit on the reaper froums asap

 

[Metaltastic]

DAMN good question Erkan, I too would be very curious about this, as AFAIK the only way to do it would be to save your new snare FX chain (to continue with the example) and then load up the projects for each other song and replace the FX chain. It's not unworkable, but an automatic way would be awesome! (though often automatic things can be infuriating, so I'd definitely wanna know how to turn it off ) Also, however, on a more basic note, if one were to have a bunch of sessions for songs, do all the mixing in one, and then want to apply it all to the other songs in one fell swoop, is this possible? (it is in PT with the import session data option)

 

[JeffTD]

Just mix one song that has the most common tracks for each song in it as close as you can to final, then save as a template. bring the tracks from the other songs in and mix those, just go one by one. You'll find little things that will help mix with every song (IE certain things working better on the kick in fast songs than others, etc) and can make small tweaks to fit the songs while still having it sound cohesive and like 'an album.'

 

[Metaltastic]

Hmm, so in other words, make new sessions for each song using the template, and then import the files from the previous sessions in there? Makes sense, I can dig it!

 

[TheDriller]

Well, no, not at the same time but rather as a way of quickly changing stuff between the songs after the initial mixing.

What I have done in the past (when I used Ableton Live ... yeah, lol ) was to save the FXchains of one "finished" mix and then apply to the rest of the songs. But we all know that there is ALWAYS something you wish you had changed, and it could be something like finding a whole different compressor that sounds so much nicer. So instead of going through all of the songs to add that certain compressor, it would be so much smoother if REAPER could automatically reload the FXChain each time the project is loaded. Or some similar way atleast...

Edit: So in other words, I work just like you but I have never ever managed to make one FINISHED mix and apply it to all other songs without having to go back and still change some settings, and in that case... I have to go through and repeat the same process for every single song.

ah , i see.

but I would be concerned about the potential for an endless loop of tweaking, running back and forth between songs. i would do my best to avoid this situation, as i know from personal experience that it is likely to make this kind of "personal project" come to a shuddering halt.

you mention the word "Finished" a few times, and thats exactly my point, that if you have the mindset of putting on new compressors and exciters and all that stuff, then really its just an extended mix proect that can stretch well into the future, and never be finished.

we are talking about Workflow here, and in my opinion that kind of perpetual mixing is a dangerous/suicidal workflow.

the way i work is to get it sounding awesome and then stop. then it is done, forever.
I can return after a month, listen and think "oh, that guitar is a bit muddy", but its finished now, so there is nothing i can do except learn the lesson and do it better next time. (whereas if i had spent my whole time mixing and tweaking and re-mixing that track, there would never be a next time)

The danger here is that this is your personal project, with no real time constraints. if you are not careful, this can very quickly work against you, and the project will never end.
my advice is to just do it. put aside thoughts of constant tweaking, just mix it and get it done.

remember, finished is always better than perfect.

 

[JeffTD]

Hmm, so in other words, make new sessions for each song using the template, and then import the files from the previous sessions in there? Makes sense, I can dig it!

Exactly. AFAIK, that's the most common workflow for an album. It lets you make individual song tweaks quite easily, and doesn't require a ton of useless tracks for each song.

 

[Erkan]

ah , i see.

but I would be concerned about the potential for an endless loop of tweaking, running back and forth between songs. i would do my best to avoid this situation, as i know from personal experience that it is likely to make this kind of "personal project" come to a shuddering halt.

you mention the word "Finished" a few times, and thats exactly my point, that if you have the mindset of putting on new compressors and exciters and all that stuff, then really its just an extended mix proect that can stretch well into the future, and never be finished.

we are talking about Workflow here, and in my opinion that kind of perpetual mixing is a dangerous/suicidal workflow.

the way i work is to get it sounding awesome and then stop. then it is done, forever.
I can return after a month, listen and think "oh, that guitar is a bit muddy", but its finished now, so there is nothing i can do except learn the lesson and do it better next time. (whereas if i had spent my whole time mixing and tweaking and re-mixing that track, there would never be a next time)

The danger here is that this is your personal project, with no real time constraints. if you are not careful, this can very quickly work against you, and the project will never end.
my advice is to just do it. put aside thoughts of constant tweaking, just mix it and get it done.

remember, finished is always better than perfect.

Yeah I know.. I'm very well aware of the point you are making But you know, when it's your solo project, you can obsess a lot more than when you're working with others' projects

Admit it though, wouldn't it be a nice feature in REAPER? =) I might go ask in the REAPER forums, I'll update this thread if it's worth it.

 

[HatchetDrummer]

The way I was taught was to run all the songs off the daw just like a tape machine, in one project.

In all reality a DAW is nothing more then a glorified 2" machine, just without all the sonic benefits of a good Ampex, MCI or Otari.

I've done project both ways, having each song saved to a different project file, and having all the songs in the same file just separated with some silence. After doing it once with different projects I got really tired of doing nothing waiting for a project to load when I could have just moved the mouse to the other songs.

I guess is depends how you work but if your mixing with any analog gear even if its just for summing purposes its much easier for me to have all the songs in front of me, that way if i do make a change It takes one click and a press of the space bar to see how those changes might have effected other songs.

Realistically I've only been in a few situations where a mix change flat out didnt work on another song off the album! It seems much more intuitive to me to have it all there. Plus when it comes time to rip the mixes through the console I can just hit record and let it do its thing. I guess thats a little more important when you have the band sitting there on the clock waiting to get their mix CD to go blast in their car so they can go home and play with themselves listening to their own music.

YMMV

 

[Erkan]

Well, keeping everything in the same project does have its benefits, I can't say no to that. But I can really imagine it stressing the computer up as well, and maybe increaing the chance of random crashes and shit... I don't know. You would also end up with a gazillion audio tracks since every song will have all its tracks in the project so I don't know... feels like you're bloating the project in vain. I could probably squeeze out a bit more from the computer by keeping the projects separate

 

[John_C]

Just thought i'd mention that andy sneaps workflow is to go between tracks tweaking.

 

[Erkan]

Just thought i'd mention that andy sneaps workflow is to go between tracks tweaking.

Boooooom, in your face!

That's awesome Shows that it IS possible to that and still get shit done. I asked my original question in REAPER Q&A Tips and Tricks forum but no answer so far. I've always gotten the impression that people don't really know shit over there... starting to hate that forum.

 

[AdamWathan]

Boooooom, in your face!

That's awesome Shows that it IS possible to that and still get shit done. I asked my original question in REAPER Q&A Tips and Tricks forum but no answer so far. I've always gotten the impression that people don't really know shit over there... starting to hate that forum.

They really don't for the most part man, they are all too obsessed with adding all of these obscure features while there is so much basic editing functionality that needs to be addressed.

Fwiw, I'm with most everyone else here on your issue. If you change the fx chain for the snare down the road after you've already "finished" the mix and applied it to every song, just save that new fx chain and reload it for each track. It takes two seconds to go file>load fx chain and then your track has all the same settings as the one you changed. Unless you are making massive changes to the mix I think this feature is unnecessary or at least very low priority vs other issues in reaper. If you really change the whole mix that much after already deciding it's done, just save the new project template and reload in the audio for the other songs like everyone has to do in every other DAW, no big deal.

 

[Erkan]

They really don't for the most part man, they are all too obsessed with adding all of these obscure features while there is so much basic editing functionality that needs to be addressed.

Fwiw, I'm with most everyone else here on your issue. If you change the fx chain for the snare down the road after you've already "finished" the mix and applied it to every song, just save that new fx chain and reload it for each track. It takes two seconds to go file>load fx chain and then your track has all the same settings as the one you changed. Unless you are making massive changes to the mix I think this feature is unnecessary or at least very low priority vs other issues in reaper. If you really change the whole mix that much after already deciding it's done, just save the new project template and reload in the audio for the other songs like everyone has to do in every other DAW, no big deal.

Yeah, I agree there's a lot of basic features that really need to be adressed in REAPER.. and I totally understand what you mean by people getting obsessed about adding some really hyped up features. The damn program consists of nothing but sub menus and checkboxes, it's time to revert back to basics and step back and just take a good fucking look at the product. They would be shocked if they did that

Yeah I know what you're saying, but the mixing process would become so much more dynamic if you could set each track to have a main FXchain to use, and as soon as you change that chain, every other project using that chain as its main chain would also get updated. To me, it sounds like a pretty good feature actually. I think Presonus Studio One has something similar or something? I'm not really sure but I think I read about it "auto updating" mixes... whatever they mean by that.

 

[AdamWathan]

Yeah, I agree there's a lot of basic features that really need to be adressed in REAPER.. and I totally understand what you mean by people getting obsessed about adding some really hyped up features. The damn program consists of nothing but sub menus and checkboxes, it's time to revert back to basics and step back and just take a good fucking look at the product. They would be shocked if they did that

Yeah I know what you're saying, but the mixing process would become so much more dynamic if you could set each track to have a main FXchain to use, and as soon as you change that chain, every other project using that chain as its main chain would also get updated. To me, it sounds like a pretty good feature actually. I think Presonus Studio One has something similar or something? I'm not really sure but I think I read about it "auto updating" mixes... whatever they mean by that.

Yeah I agree totally, it's an awesome idea to be able to configure FX chains that Reaper reloads everytime it runs the project, instead of just loading that FX chain once and saving it within the new project so it can't update. Definitely a cool idea dude.

What I am DYING for is track based edit grouping. Even if I could just have it "show" a master track on my drum folder track so I can edit that track and have it apply all cuts/fades/shifts/etc to every track within the folder. The item grouping in Reaper is a PAIN IN THE ASS. I HATE having to select all my newly recorded items and group them manually after every single take, and deleting one item in an item group doesn't delete the whole group.

That, plus a slip editing mode that doesn't auto crossfade overlapping items OR play both items simultaneously. I just want it to behave like ProTools and let me extend one item over top of another and mute the one underneath. Reaper already does this if I paste a smaller audio item inside a larger one, it creates a tiny crossfade at each end and only plays the one I pasted. Why can't there be an option to allow ALL media editing to behave like that? I have ZERO desire to have any overlapping items playing at once unless I specifically go out of my way to make that happen, and the auto crossfades on overlapping items should be set to a default value like 10 ms, so if I drag one item and overlap it 15 seconds over the previous item, instead of creating a 15 second crossfade between the two it should create a 10ms crossfade and cut out the last 15 seconds of the first item replaced by the first 15 seconds of the next item.

UGH FUCK EDITING IN REAPER. Someone buy me ProTools HD.

 

[drew_drummer]

In Logic 9, you can browse to a project, open it up, and copy in a track with its plugins and settings, into your current project - with or without content also.

 

[TheDriller]

In Logic 9, you can browse to a project, open it up, and copy in a track with its plugins and settings, into your current project - with or without content also.

Indeed, its a great feature. saves a lot of hassle.

 

[The-Zeronaut]

-Open your projects in tabs
-Select the track you want to copy settings of
-ctrl + c
-go to the other projects
- hit ctrl + v
- now you have a copy of the track with all its plugins , fx , volume and pan (im not sure about the sends :S)
-delete the audio
-take the audio of the track of that session and put it in the new track you just have pasted

thats what i do to "copy settings" from one song to another