Need some help with Reaper

[TheRiverFlowsFrozen]

I've been using Reaper for about 4 days now and love it's simplicity (as well as it's price tag). I'm still rather noobish, so bear with me.

I'm Quad tracking guitars and using TSE-X30 with Poulin LeCab. It seems than when I get to my 4th track, everything slows waaayyyy down and mouse clicks become near impossible. I'm adding the effects chain to each individual track and my PC can't handle the load of all the ampsims running simultaneously. I find that I can only record with the FX bypassed. When it comes to rendering the song, it's a pain to wait for everything to register when I click any buttons.

Is adding the ampsims to each individual track the proper way? Or is there some way to group all of my guitar tracks under one FX chain to improve latency?

Also, I can't for the life of me get TSS to show up under my plugins. Does anyone else have this issue?

 

[PhilR]

PC Specs? I don't suffer from either of the problems you describe. Perhaps your system simply isn't powerful enough.

 

[TheRiverFlowsFrozen]

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2.41 GHz
3GB of RAM

 

[PhilR]

Not really surprised then. The Athlon 3800+ is over 5 years old dude. Amp sims & convolution processing is VERY CPU intensive, you need to upgrade to a multicore processor to really get the most from them.

 

[Jormyn]

I think TSS is one of those plugins that has a weird name, so searching "TSS" in Reaper's FX list won't find it. Try "BTE" or "Overdrive".

Thankfully, once you've found it, you can right-click it and edit the name for future reference.

 

[TheRiverFlowsFrozen]

Thanks for the response, guys. I found that I was having the issue when recording the tracks in stereo. I rerecorded each track in mono and the slow downs dropped dramatically. Still a lot of latency, but bearable.

 

[Everybody]

yea TSS is actually BTE Vintage Overdrive, I had the same problem

as for your guitars, I know there has to be a way to send one guitar chain to 4 tracks, rather than 4 instances on 4 tracks...but I dont know how, maybe someone will chime in.

 

[TheRiverFlowsFrozen]

yea TSS is actually BTE Vintage Overdrive, I had the same problem

Found it. Thanks a ton

 

[Nectar-and-Fuel]

TSE and LeCab both run in stereo, but when I run two hard panned L/R tracks into them I find I lose some stereo width (even with LeCab set up to pan 100% L/R).

However if you are running the 3rd and 4th tracks at 80% L/R or something you could try making 2 stereo busses, one for the L guitars and one for the R. If they "blend together" a bit too much you can try changing some settings on the individual tracks (I usually turn down the tone a bit for the inner tracks).

 

[Therion_Prime]

Just freeze each of the guitartracks.

 

[muckypup1]

What I do is create 5 new tracks, then with the top track, click on the tiny button in the shape of a folder that is next the the IO button. Then with this top track, select all your software, like TSE, LePou's cab sim, and start recording your tracks. Doing it this way means you don't need to add it for each separate track, which is good for your computer as it won't strain it in the least.

 

[HDWR]

^ if you do it this (track folder) you won't get the stereo spread you are looking for unless you get deep into the plug in pin outs. Look in to the user manual for that info. Best bet is to just freeze (render) the tracks to mono and mute original tracks. To do this just right click on the track control panel and select it from the options that appear. What I've been doing a lot lately is applying fx as a new take. Sort of the same deal there only right click on the wave form and select apply fx as new take mono. It's faster than the full render and you still have quick access to the original. Also when you edit the active takes it edits the original. Great for guitar DI edits so you can see the transients. Hope that helps!

 

[Erkan]

Get a quad core and the problem is solved. I can run about 20 guitar tracks with any of these sims (x30, 8505, SoloC, whatever) at 64 samples latency (the lowest setting on the Profire 2626).

I know I know, everything costs but seriously... you will be SO glad if you upgraded to a quad core. Screw everything else, you barely need a graphics card to do audio stuff anyway so go all out on the CPU, get at least 2GB RAM and have a decent hard drive to begin with. You can always expand your storage later with more drives but the CPU should be priority number one.

 

[DaveBlack]

Speaking of which, can you apply effects or render as a new track? the new take thing is okay but its more work to keep deleting the takes you don't need.

 

[punkrockacademyfightsong]

Speaking of which, can you apply effects or render as a new track? the new take thing is okay but its more work to keep deleting the takes you don't need.

just press SHIFT + ALT + T (crop to active take) after rendering, costs you 0,2 seconds every time.

 

[Dexter_prog]

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2.41 GHz
3GB of RAM

Is that an X2? (dualcore)

 

[HDWR]

just press SHIFT + ALT + T (crop to active take) after rendering, costs you 0,2 seconds every time.

nice tip! I do like to keep my takes there in case I need to go back for tweaking of the applied fx. The renders just take up so much valuable screen space and the render process takes some time.