Audacity/Reaper

Fez

M-Audio stuff is good I also like the Stealth plug from IK Reaper is great.

JAYJO

Cheers all. Ive got the deal from digitalscream so i will be starting from there ie M audio fast track. next up i think will be what to go with, Audacity ,Reaper, Pod Farm etc. pros cons please ? All advice appreciated Thanks.

Cacofonix

OK.

Install the M-audio software (get it from the M-audio site if you don't get the CD with it).

Then - plug in.

It goes:

Instrument - >  cable - > M-Audio - > USB Lead -> computer.

That gets the sound into your machine.  Go to control panel and sounds and audio interfaces. 

Plan A Set the M-audio as input device and the machine soundcard as output. 
Plan B Invest in external speakers and plug those into the M-Audio and you can use the M-Audio for both input and output.  Trust me, this is a better plan than plan A, because with plan A you'll get a slight delay in the sound played and the sound heard back.  This can be fun, and you'll have a play, but it will be a pain if you want to play along to anything.

Reaper - open up the Tools menu and check the audio interfaces.  You need to set the M-Audio as the audio input interface and the PC soundcard as the audio output.  This is Plan A but within Reaper.

Then create a new audio track in reaper.  Input is (guess it! - M-Audio interface).  Output is the PC audio interface.

Set it to "monitor audio" or hit the "record" button in reaper.

Play something - sound!

Press stop in reaper and a waveform should appear.  Then go to beginning of track by clicking the back buttons and click the play button.  Sound!

Create another audio track and open a backing track into it (reaper manual).

Select the first audio track and delete the waveform.  Press record and the backing track should play as you jam along.

Off you go!

If you want to get clever, you can plug an amp modeller into the track you are recording onto (reaper manual) and play with distortion and other effects.

Audacity is pretty much the same, but reaper gives you more flexibility to vary the sound, by adding pretend amps and stuff.  Audacity is great, though, for mangling and playing with the sound after you've recorded it.

JAYJO

Thank you very much for this info i will refer to it when i get the M audio fast track.

JAYJO

Ive got reaper up and running . Ive got an idea of how to record tracks and im looking into how to edit etc. What i have no idea of is the Drum tracks etc. Are there any available with reaper ? (cant see any in the fx folder etc). Do i need to download M drummer or the likes to get drums onto this. What would you recommend for a nooby trying to add drums to a recording with reaper?. Thank you in advance for any help with this  Cheers!

Bidley

I use this for drums; http://sourceforge.net/projects/drumtrack/

Not the best sounds but it's free and relatively easy to use. Just export the tracks as .wavs, then import them into Reaper (which you can do by dragging and dropping).

JAYJO

Bidley said:

I use this for drums; http://sourceforge.net/projects/drumtrack/

Not the best sounds but it's free and relatively easy to use. Just export the tracks as .wavs, then import them into Reaper (which you can do by dragging and dropping).

Thanks mate!  will have a go at this tonight. 

JAYJO

Ive downloaded this and had a look at it.(Drumtrack link!)  Is there any tutorials available?, i cant find anything. I will keep tinkering but a few pointers for an absolute noob would be really appreciated cheers!

Bidley

What are you looking to do? Make a basic track or export one?

Basically, the grid is your drum sounds. Add a mark to the grid to make that drum sound at that point in the loop. The panel on the left is your settings for that particular loop. If you want to change tempo and/or time signature for the whole song, you can do this in the settings menu. The bar at the top right is your sequencer, highlight the loops you make in the box in the top left (you can create more by clicking the '+' button above it, you can also name the loops here too), then click the boxes in the sequencer. You can use this to arrange your loops into a song.

Exporting I'll explain as best I can when I get home, I need the program in front of me really... Hope all this helps, I'm not the best at explaining stuff. The key is to mess around with the grid until you can make a standard beat, everything will fall into place from there.

JAYJO

As you guessed, im not up to exporting yet, just trying to get to grips with creating a track and then exporting later. I too will have another look tonight. Thanks for your help its much appreciated. 

Bidley

No problem dude, just have a muck around with it, it's not hugely complicated

rpr

Reaper has a template or recording drums called Readrums-

http://stash.reaper.fm/v/328/ReaDrums.RTrackTemplate

Also if you google it, there is a few tutorials.

You're gonna need samples of drum hits to load into it-if you need anyPM me and I'll try to help.

Save Readrums in the Track Template folder in the Reaper file and it should appear in the Track/insert track from template folder.

Highlight the amount of bars you want to program and go to Insert/ New MIDI item.

If you double click it the grid will appear with the drums marked. You can change the time divisions etc  at the bottom.

Hope this helps

Misterg

I found Addictive drums to be pretty easy to use in Reaper if you just want to get a drum groove going. (There's a free trial version).

Theres an excellent tutorial on youtube, too.

Edit: This one...



FWIW I went down the Readrums / sample route and found it as painful as pulling teeth.

JAYJO

rpr said:

Reaper has a template or recording drums called Readrums-

http://stash.reaper.fm/v/328/ReaDrums.RTrackTemplate

Also if you google it, there is a few tutorials.

You're gonna need samples of drum hits to load into it-if you need anyPM me and I'll try to help.

Save Readrums in the Track Template folder in the Reaper file and it should appear in the Track/insert track from template folder.

Highlight the amount of bars you want to program and go to Insert/ New MIDI item.

If you double click it the grid will appear with the drums marked. You can change the time divisions etc  at the bottom.

Hope this helps

 Thank you for your help and kind offer much appreciated! will look into this cheers.

JAYJO

Misterg said:

I found Addictive drums to be pretty easy to use in Reaper if you just want to get a drum groove going. (There's a free trial version).

Theres an excellent tutorial on youtube, too.

Edit: This one...



FWIW I went down the Readrums / sample route and found it as painful as pulling teeth.

 I will have a look at the tutorial thanks very much.

Misterg

JAYJO said:

  I will have a look at the tutorial thanks very much.

After about 15 minutes, the plot gets a bit lost in synching up MP3 files. At that point, you can skip to this tutorial (edit to insert the right one..!):



...and use the 'Addictive Drums Host' track that was created in the first tutorial to drop stuff into / loop, etc.

JAYJO

Bidley said:

What are you looking to do? Make a basic track or export one?

Basically, the grid is your drum sounds. Add a mark to the grid to make that drum sound at that point in the loop. The panel on the left is your settings for that particular loop. If you want to change tempo and/or time signature for the whole song, you can do this in the settings menu. The bar at the top right is your sequencer, highlight the loops you make in the box in the top left (you can create more by clicking the '+' button above it, you can also name the loops here too), then click the boxes in the sequencer. You can use this to arrange your loops into a song.

Exporting I'll explain as best I can when I get home, I need the program in front of me really... Hope all this helps, I'm not the best at explaining stuff. The key is to mess around with the grid until you can make a standard beat, everything will fall into place from there.

 Ive got the hang of putting some grooves together and now im looking to export so i can drop them in reaper. Ive tried a couple of times and not having much success? I will probably go for addictive drums eventually but i would still like to get grip of this drumtrack software so any pointers appreciated cheers mate.

JAYJO

Ive tried to downlaod addictive drums and i think ive made a pigs ear of it. Spent most of the night trying to find it. 

I joined the forum, gave me details etc and tried to download the free. version. 

Ive no icon to click on etc.

 I did find evidence of the downloader in one of my files. I clicked on explore and theres a couple more (I think to do with the downloader). When i click on one it says empty all (files or pages sorry cant recall). Does anyone know anything about this. Ive posted a question in the forum and i think i will be told to read the installation guide which i have and still none the wiser! Thanks in advance for any advice on this.  

Misterg

You won't get an icon.

It has probably installed to something like C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTPlugins

If you can verify that it's there, the easiest way[*] to use it is to include that path in Reaper's list of VST paths ( http://wiki.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/Preferences_Plugins_VST ) and then get Reaper to re-scan.

You should then be able to 'summon it up' as in the first tutorial video above through Reaper.

[*] Not the neatest, but it works.

JAYJO

okey dokey will have another go tonight. Thanks for your help!!