From Audacity to REAPER...HELP! (Need Reaper Knowledge)

[TheStixter]

Ok so I've mastered the Audacity software, but I recently got a new mic (Shure SM7b) and the latency in the program was just killing me. I moved to using the Program REAPER due to the ease of recording...Now I'm stuck and frustrated. I can't figure out how to do some key things and basically all my projects are on halt. How in the world do you select/highlight an area of a wav file? In Audacity there was a cursor that you dragged to highlight a certain area and edit according...In Reaper the wav's our split up in segments and when you drag it moves the entire track! I figured out to split the segments and drag those but I can't figure out how to edit inside the segments, how to silence certain areas of a track, or how to "Quick Mix" (as Audacity used) several tracks together. I also have no idea how to export a group of tracks to .wav or mp3. In Audacity you simply selected which tracks that you wanted to export out together. In Reaper when I select certain tracks and go to "Consolidate/Export tracks" it gives me the option to do the entire track, a select time period, then it gives you an option for tracks selected but instead of exporting them out together, it does them one by one. I know these are some noobish questions and I apologize, but I've looked all over for some kind of basic tutorial or video on how to do these things in Reaper and have had no luck. If someone out there could please, please, do a video tutorial or step by step instructions on how to do the things I'm needing to do, it would be greatly appreciated.

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by TheStixter

How in the world do you select/highlight an area of a wav file? In Audacity there was a cursor that you dragged to highlight a certain area and edit according...In Reaper the wav's our split up in segments and when you drag it moves the entire track!

Reaper doesn't have "free selection" (free range selection) like most daws where you can highlight and edit a certain portion of a wav or random portions of audio or tracks. You must use "selected area (inside the loop range) of the selected track(s)".

And then there are limits to what you can do editing wise to that "selection". In opposition to most other windows software, selection in Reaper is right-click drag instead of the normal way.

In Reaper when I select certain tracks and go to "Consolidate/Export tracks" it gives me the option to do the entire track, a select time period, then it gives you an option for tracks selected but instead of exporting them out together, it does them one by one.

Are you looking to mix/render or export stems? Reaper's stem rendering is among the best I've ever seen. Not sure what you're trying to do exactly. If you select some tracks and right click you can "Render Selected Tracks" to stems and have them automatically imported into the project. If I'm not mistaken it renders all the stems at the same time.

Consolidation in Reaper on the other hand - in my opinion - is poor. It doesn't recognize where the file(s) stop so if you set a 4 min loop range it will make all 4 minute files. Even for tracks that are only 1 minute long, and a couple of other little irritating things.

There are video tutorials on the Reaper forum for most of this stuff. Here's a few... Index of /~pipeline/REAPERVideos/basics

Asking these questions on the Reaper forum will get you much better answers.

[TheStixter]

I'm basically trying to export my .wavs out of the program so I can move them to audacity to edit. I need the files to be in their currect timeframes. In other words, exactly how they are lined up in Reaper. I need to know how to export each individual take out to .wav or .mp3 format. Also how to export 2 takes or more out together. Or how to quick mix 2 or more takes together in Reaper and then export that out. Whichever way works.

In Audacity what I did to export out certain takes in the currect timeframe was silence the beat and select the acapella takes I wanted and hit "export selection". That way the vocals would be left in the same time frame so if I ever added the beat back to it starting at 00:00 it would line up. Know what I'm saying?

[Lawrence]

Yeah, export the files or range selection as *.bwav with timestamps and they should line up fine when you bring them back.

I guess the question is what are you going to do edit wise in Audacity? It might be possible right inside Reaper.

[TheStixter]

Im trying to edit inside the segments. I'm tryin to silence certain areas. Quick mix 2 tracks into 1. I'm not seeing any of that stuff in Reaper. And how do you range selection or export to .bwav with timestamps....through the consolidate/export tracks?

[TheStixter]

For instance, I'm trying to quick mix four of my hook tracks into 1...duplicate that and copy it down to the other blank areas where my hook belongs. Reaper is good for recording...I'll give it that, but editing, copying, duplicating, quick mixing and all the other shit involved in mixing I cant seem to do. I just want to export each take out in its time frame and move it to Audacity to work with and I cant even figure out how to do that.

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by TheStixter

Im trying to edit inside the segments. I'm tryin to silence certain areas.

You can do that in Reaper you just need to do some splitting of the parts on the timeline.

Quick mix 2 tracks into 1. I'm not seeing any of that stuff in Reaper.

It's there. Granted, lots of things in Reaper are just not that obvious. To do a quick mix of two tracks into one file, solo the two tracks and render a mix of the two (current range or whole file). It will (can) import that back into the project on a new track. If you just want to silence a part, hover the mouse and hit S to split the part away and mute or delete the part.

The two soloed tracks in this graphic will be mixed - only the time range (loop range "render time selection") - and it will be imported back into the project.

And how do you range selection or export to .bwav with timestamps....through the consolidate/export tracks?

You can render stems of your audio selection to any of multiple file formats. For mix renders it's right there in the dialog as above. For stem renders it's not so obvious. This is one of those things about Reaper. The file formats for different things are all over the place as below. Instead of one screen where you can set file formats for different things they appear kinda in different places in the Project Settings dialog.



Again, the best place to ask these questions is on the Reaper forum. There's a lot under the hood there... a whole lot. It's a surprisingly powerful daw.

[TheStixter]

Talk about not being obvious. WOW. Thank you soooooo much for taking the time and walking me thru that. I was about to throw my computer. Reaper has an amazing recording interface, but I am definitely not liking the mixing end of it. I'm just gonna render everything out to .wav and import into Audacity for now. Might try Adobe Audition or something a little more obvious for right now. That got a little over my head.

[E-Irizarry]

Sorry if this is me putting my heel on your neck, but yo you need to realize that REAPER is the real deal.

REAPER has an internal 64-bit engine, so even if you have a 24 or 16-bit stereo sound card, you are still mixing down to the final 64-bit product at the end of the day.

Also, you can CHOOSE which recording format and WHERE to put those files. It's the only DAW that I've seen do that.

Also, it has the best Noise Gate ever. I recorded in a noisey room and it treated the noise as static and the vocals were still pristine and clear.

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by E-Irizarry

REAPER has an internal 64-bit engine, so even if you have a 24 or 16-bit stereo sound card, you are still mixing down to the final 64-bit product at the end of the day.

Mixing to 64-bit floating point master file? Yes, although I'm not sure how many editors can load that file.

Also, you can CHOOSE which recording format and WHERE to put those files. It's the only DAW that I've seen do that.

You lost me here ... what exactly are you talking about? Are you talking about recording to mp3/ogg and the like? I also don't get the "where" thing as Reaper's project file management facility is ... well... it doesn't really have one. It's been on the feature request list for ages. Having become accustomed to Cubase's audio pool it (Reaper's project file handling) is kind of a mess.

Although it's cool I guess to be able to track to mp3/ogg or some other compressed format ... I couldn't imagine why I'd ever want to do that.

I do agree that it's the real deal though. Great daw.

[Audiop]

I have played around with Reaper and even though I guess it is very good and possible to learn a lot about it.. it feels so awkward and non-intuitive.

Audacity OTOH I found very easy to use.. but on the other hand I guess not nearly as powerfull. Would love to see ASIO and multichannel built into Audacity, plus a good set of plugs.



/Peter

[E-Irizarry]

For example, Lawrence, you can record in FLAC and can put those FLAC files on any directory on the network as it records it to that project directory that has been allottedly chosen.

Based on the multithreading setting that REAPER has, its multithreading game is so crazy that all four of my fans turn on in my computer and blow all that hot air out because the processors are working so damn hard threading like that.

I hope it clears it up, brother. If not, I just don't know any other way to explain it.

[E-Irizarry]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

Mixing to 64-bit floating point master file? Yes, although I'm not sure how many editors can load that file.

Sony Sound Forge 8/9 can.