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Reaper is a strong, versatile and customisable audio utility. You should utilize Reaper for music creation and manufacturing, podcasts, voice-over, sound design, audiobooks, dwell efficiency, mixing for video, mastering, and far more.

In our free Reaper course, you’ll study the fundamentals of Reaper with Dave Bode, and on this lesson Dave will present you present you two sensible examples of how one can do routing in reaper.

Tips on how to Do Routing in Reaper

With regards to a routing in Reaper you’ve gotten a number of choices for routing audio from one observe to a different observe. That may assist you to to unravel issues, it may assist you to to course of your tracks creatively, and far more. 

Tips on how to arrange a Reverb Return Observe

With reverb, there’s nothing inherently fallacious with taking a single observe and including your favorite reverb to it. You will get it arrange simply the way you prefer it, and it really works simply superb. Nevertheless, in relation to utilizing reverb on a number of tracks it is a little bit bit extra environment friendly to make use of a reverb return observe. Let me present you ways that works.

Within the Observe management panel, I’ll double-click to create a brand new observe, and title this Reverb Return.

Subsequent, I’ll click on on the results and do away with the default results, after which double click on in a clean space so as to add my Reverb impact.

I’ll use a quite simple stack reverb impact referred to as Reverbit. The thought with a reverb return or any kind of results return observe is that I’ll put an impact on this observe, after which I’ll ship audio from different tracks. In different phrases, I’ll route the audio from my different tracks to this observe, and the one factor that I need to hear on this observe is reverb.

As I solely need to hear reverb, I pull down the dry combine in order that I am not getting any of the unaffected audio again via this observe. If I pulled the moist combine all the best way down and left the dry combine at 0 any audio that I ship to this observe would get louder, and that’s not what I need. I do not need to hear any of the audio that has been unprocessed, I solely need to hear the audio that has been processed, so I pull the dry down and depart the moist all the best way up.

I am additionally going to extend the room measurement for this impact as much as the mid 90s.

Ship Audio to trace

Subsequent, I have to ship audio for any observe that I need reverb on to my reverb return observe. A simple approach to do this is to only click on and drag on the route button. As you drag it down you may see a little bit cable icon, that is a tip ring sleeve icon.

When you launch it, that can create a ship from Observe 4 to Observe 5. Now I’ve reverb on my keyboard soundtrack.

A number of Observe Reverb

Possibly you need to reverb on a number of tracks. You might drag each down from the Route button over to the observe or you possibly can click on the Route button.

Below the Receives drop-down you possibly can add receives from all tracks. Now audio is being despatched from every one in every of my tracks to my reverb return, which implies I will hear reverb on every little thing, which seems like a scorching mess, so let me present you ways I might go about fixing that.

Fixing Reverb

For one, I might take the reverb off the bass. Reverb on bass just isn’t quite common and it may sound a bit muddy, I do not actually need that. I additionally need to regulate the extent of the ship from every one of many different tracks to sort of steadiness issues out.

I in all probability do not need a ton of reverb on my guitar after which I will pull it down a little bit bit from the drums as properly, and all of that can sound loads higher.

One other factor that I may do is bounce into the consequences and pull the moist stage down 6 or 7 decibels, which might give me a little bit bit extra granularity in adjusting the sends or the obtain quantity for every one of many tracks.

With much less moist reverb sound, that implies that I’ve a little bit extra decision within the combine stage for every one of many tracks.

Tips on how to Arrange a Headphone Combine

The second instance that I need to present you with routing is how one can arrange a headphone combine and ship that to a different output in your system. Similar to earlier than, I’ll begin by creating a brand new observe by double-clicking within the observe management panel. I’ll title this observe Headphone Combine, after which I’ll click on on the Routing button.

Right here, I need to arrange the consequences return however on this case I need to route audio from the tracks, however I do not need to truly hear the audio that is going to my headphone combine. So what I’ll do is to uncheck the button Grasp ship channels from/to and that can disable observe quantity 6 from sending audio again to my grasp observe.

If I did not do that, something that I despatched to this observe would simply develop into louder, and that is not what I need to use this observe for.

As a substitute, what I need to do is add a brand new {hardware} output. On my specific audio interface, the Motu M4, I’ve 4 inputs and 4 outputs. Outputs 1 and a couple of are related to my studio screens, however Outputs 3 and 4, I may have related to one thing else, like a headphone amplifier.

I’ll choose Outputs 3 and 4, after which add receives from all of my tracks. Meaning there’s some exercise within the meters, but when I solo observe 6, I gained’t hear something as a result of I disabled observe 6 from sending audio to the grasp observe, and that is precisely what I need. As a substitute, it is sending audio out on {Hardware} Outputs 3 and 4.

The benefit of establishing a headphone combine like this on a separate output is that you’ve impartial management of what’s going out to that headphone output. It’s also possible to management the degrees and the pan independently of what is taking place over the observe management panel, and what is going on out to your predominant screens.

For instance, whoever is listening to this headphone combine might want rather less bass. Possibly loads much less guitar, as a result of lets say that they are a guitar participant so perhaps they need to hear a few of it, however not loads. They do not need a number of reverb… and we will dial within the combine for precisely what they want.

It is value mentioning that you could be need to change the sends over for every one of many sends from Submit-Fader (Submit-Pan) to (Pre-Fader Submit-Results). By default if you create a ship in Reaper, it is Submit-Fader. For many issues that works simply superb however for one thing like a monitor combine, it in all probability makes extra sense to have this be Pre-Fader (Submit-Results).

That approach, if if you are listening again to the undertaking and the particular person is practising or recording, when you’re making changes to the volumes of your tracks, it gained’t have an effect on what they hear within the headphones as a result of it’s Pre-Fader.

Pre-Fader (Submit-Results) is very nice as a result of when you have results on the tracks like compression and EQ, odds are they will need to hear what that seems like as properly, in order that’s in all probability your finest guess. You even have choices for Pre-Results: Pre-Fader, Pre-Pan, and Pre-Results.

On prime of that, you even have choices for muting, flipping the part, collapsing the stereo picture all the way down to mono, adjusting the pan, and far more.

There is definitely much more that you are able to do with routing in Reaper, and the one restrict actually is your creativeness.