Rendering in Reaper......too big!

[MultiM]

hey guys:
my pc isn't really great, so I tend to render every track alone then mix them.
whenever I render tracks in reaper, the files are so big,about 4 to 5m(mp3 because WAV are way bigger!) so if I gathered the tracks the whole song will be so big,is there anyway that I can make the file smaller without losing the sound quality?

 

[bryan_kilco]

Get a better PC. Rendering to MP3 will degrade quality.

 

[Daybreak]

Well, essentially this^ big time. Withous losing sound quality, there's not much to do, given you're already recording in 44.1 KHz (higher sample rates take more space). But the space shouldn't really be a problem unless your hard drive is like, 150 GB. If so, just buy an external drive and put all projects you're not working on at the moment on it.

 

[Terminus]

When you render single tracks, solo the track and take ALL of the effects that are on the other tracks OFFLINE (right click on the effect, select Offline) except the ones you are using in the track. Then render it, should be faster. I'd advse against mp3 for individual tracks, you're losing a shit ton of clarity by doing that. 16 Bit WAV at the very least. And if you go with wav format, Reaper has less to compress so it doesn't take as long. Bigger files, sure but hey if you want quality audio you must do it.

 

[XxSicRokerxX]

no one will take you serious if you're rendering and working with mp3 files

 

[Notuern]

I used to render to mp3 back in the day when i wasnt good enough anyways.. but holding your self back like that will hardly make you better either.
I strongly suggest to get a bigger drive/more ram to work with.. we're not talking about loads of money here, its definitely worth it.

 

[JonWormwood]

Since we are talking about rendering to mp3 in Reaper, does anyone get weird clicks/pops when do they? Rendering offline at 320kb/s

 

[Terminus]

I use the lame encoder which I guess you have to download and install to make it work but don't get any pops or odd sounds at all.

 

[AudioGeekZine]

Since we are talking about rendering to mp3 in Reaper, does anyone get weird clicks/pops when do they? Rendering offline at 320kb/s

I've never had clicks, Weirder I've had some people complain they couldn't stream (in the browser, like in gmail attachments) some of the ones rendered with reaper.

I usually export 24 bit wav and then batch convert with XLD to mp3.