Controlling Volume in REAPER

[Music] hi I'm Kenny Choi welcome to another one of my tutorials in this video I'm gonna show you volume control in Reaper now the reason I want to show you this because it's a lot of different ways of controlling volume in Reaper so I want to go through all of them and show you what each one does but it's best at and in the order in which it shows up in terms of signal flow let's start off at the beginning I have a bass track in front of us and this three takes on the recording one two and three so if you play it we take one we could take one or two or three if we want to control the volume of each one of those takes separately we can do that using take flight so let's choose the first one double-click it and it opens up to a media item properties so right over here we can control the volume of it we can bring it down or up now if you notice nothing happens in real-time in order to apply these changes if they're the button down here apply and if we hit it you change the volume of just that take now this one's lower compared to this one so you get just the most separately right from here make it lower or higher it apply and it applies it in real-time now it's not destructive we could always change it back by double-clicking it get back to zero and it's back the way it started no processing is actually happening but we could change this one to be lower Betty now let's bring this down a little bit as well about six each one of them is different we could also just the pan over here pain this one to the left [Music] and I was just playing on the left meanwhile this one is still playing in the center so we can just the pan as well this is all to take level so each take is completely separate and we could also use this button over here called normalize this is going to work with the volume control to bring it up as loud as possible without distorting without going into the red so if we choose this one hit normalize put our pan back it goes up about 3 dB so if we apply that it gets as loud as possible without distorting so if we go any higher like up here it's going to be too hot I'm going to get some Distortion but we hit normalize it just goes up high enough without overloading but again we can double-click to put it back to normal or bring it down to any level we want but the normalize works with the same control separate on each take also be applied by right-clicking the take and going to item processing and choosing it right here normalize items you see is a keystroke attached to it we choose it here the same thing although it applies it automatically it's using the same control so if we go back in here we could undo it all happening at the tape level the next place we can control volume is using the take envelopes let's right-click this go to take and write down over here we have take envelopes and there's a bunch of them let's focus on this one take volume envelope if we choose this it creates an envelope writing that take let's close this hold on shift to create points like here here I bring it up and down to change the volume of different sections I'll bring it down but we could draw it in holding that control on the PC we'll come into the Mac and just draw in a volume envelope [Music] and again it's separate on each take so you go to this one and do the same thing envelope enjoy one in here instead let's make it the opposite we'll go down then up down and up [Music] while this one sounds like this so each envelope is completely separate for each take and it also works with when we double-click the take level so I can still adjust this right here and it works with the envelope so that's the take volume envelopes the next place we can adjust the volume is at the item level this whole thing is an item so if we go to the top here change that cursor so we can grab this line and adjust the item volume bring it all the way down or the way up and notice it changes all of them together so it's not based on the take level it's based on the item level so all the takes are getting lower and this one will this one or this one [Music] but it's still using the tech envelope and they take volume for an addition it's using the item volume which can be adjusted here and if you're just using one take on your track you could use all these together you know this one or these or this or all of them we justice instead from here let's put this back up go to our preferences and we could change it under this preference appearance media we could change this to a knob and instead of pulling it down from up here with a little knob or button right here that also adjusts the entire item [Music] just in all the takes at the same time now the next in line is the track envelopes we'll go to our track over here if we choose this we have all the envelopes that control this track and there's three of them for volume we have a volume one a volume pre effects one and a trim volume let's start off in order the first one is going to be volume pre effects at least in terms of signal flow so if we choose this we've an envelope right here that controls all this again we can draw points but holding that shift and change the level of just this section we could draw it in by holding the control on the PC or command to the Mac I mean you draw in a curve which again affects all [Music] and because this is based on the track if we split these into different items let's make a split there here and here we have an item volume for each one of these up here which are separate at the item level but down over here but clear this this controls all it so we could bring it up and down and it controls all these items and all these takes but we can cut it into segments by hold then shifts and just adjusting this piece right here ordering it in like before now everything we've done so far in terms of signal flow happens before our effects so if I put an effect especially a dynamic effect like a compressor on this track but said a compressor this compressor is happening after all the volume adjustments we've already made so a threshold that we just right here is affected by all of it police everything so far so if I read just this one to be lower it's hitting the compressor less with the change of threshold to adjust if I bring it up we have to readjust it again so it's important to know that any effects are happening after the volume adjustments we've just made and that's going to happen on the items as well so if I drag this over to here this compressor is now on this item but it's still going to work the same way any adjustments over here like the item adjustments can affect what goes to this compressor so it's important to note because everything I show you after this is going to happen after the effects so it's not going to affect any compressors or dynamic effects so let's hide this one here let's go back to our envelopes the next one we could choose besides the pre effects is a normal volume one this is a typical volume animation we're gonna use for adjusting our track so not only could draw right down here like this holding down shift to create points and doing this because the record to it using the fader so if I switch the mode I can automate it right here and it gets drawn in the envelope and to play it back just hit play and it plays back that volume animation so that's another level of volume control we have on the track but again this is after the effects so keep that in mind besides this envelope we could turn this off and switch this back to trim read and now we can control volume again over here because this fader is not connected to this anymore we still hear the envelope but we can adjust it again over here so this gets adjusted after the envelope and this is the trim level but we can't automate this this is just used for the overall level if you want to change a base level by few DB just do it here and all this is considered in addition to this trim but again we can't automate this but we can order me another envelope a trim envelope and it's right down here trim volume which is not to be confused with trim read that's separate so let's make an envelope for trim volume and it's down over here now the way this works is very similar to this one they're in the same area in terms of signal flow so what it's used for is to trim this envelope so we can bring it down or up and it's gonna readjust everything we've heard so far but again we can hold down shift and work on sections and we don't see the change over here but we are gonna hear it let's bring this down lower we'll bring it up so the change is still happening even if I don't see it here or over here so you're probably wondering what do you use it for well you want to use it when you're happy with this automation or up here you just want to trim it again but automate it so again we could draw it in like this or let's it really happen with this automation but we want to write more while still considering this what we do we go to our actions and type in trim envelope right over here we have actions to deal with that for one we could swap them right here so if we choose this it moves this envelope to here and vice versa so now let's close this we could choose an automation mode like touch and we could redraw on top of this so everything over here and everything over here is still considered but we could write along with it or trim it so watch now all this is considered along with this now to keep it simple after you've done this you want to combine the two so let's go back to our actions and then we would use this one over here apply trim envelope this one down here the volume envelope so now it's going to combine the two so it's still going to sound the same as both of them but they combine together so let's choose that now we have one envelope doing both its combined before look like this then after it looks like this so it's a way of rewriting or REIT the volume envelope we already have so that's the trim envelope and now the next level of changing the volume can be done with VCAs let's make a new track let's name it VC a master and what selected hit shift G and choose right over here BCA master then we'll choose this one and choose VC a slave and now this volume can control this one as its master [Music] but the audio isn't flowing from this track into this one it's just controlling it from here so you can kind of picture a mini fader over here being controlled from the VCA master so if you have any sense on this track those Sens will be adjusted to stay in proportion as you bring this down so if we're sending this to reverb for bring this down the reverb send is going to go lower as well which doesn't happen with a folder or a bus which is what I'm gonna show you next let's clear this not to make a folder instead if we go over here click this button this track is now in this folder so again we can control the volume of it from here [Music] but the difference is the audio is actually being routed from this track to this track so if you have a send on it the send is gonna stay constant even if we lower this one the benefit of it is we could put effects on this track and we can actually hear them with the VCA we wouldn't because the audio isn't going from his track to this one but the folder it is which is the same or similar as a bus let's take this out now the separate again Plus this track to this one grab here and drop it let's take this track and the parents end now this track is flowing to this one [Music] so not hearing it from here anymore with just hearing it from here so once again we can control the volume from here we can add effects on it but it's not as good as working with sense as bringing this down is not going to affect the Sens on this track so you want to be aware of that VCA is a better for that so let's delete this bus and let's put this track back in the master parents end which is a good time to show you where this track is being bussed by choosing it here we could hear it to the master track right up here this is turned off it's not being bussed there so not hearing it now the master track can control the volume let's change this layout to be standard so we get a fader this is our master track it can also control the volume of our entire project in this case is just the bass put it back to zero and if we go to the routing here we see is a master track volume right here but even this track is being sent to a hardware output in this case one and two so if we do eat this and hit play we still see it over here going to the master track but we don't hear it because not being sent anywhere on an audio interface so the master track also needs to be sent somewhere in this case output 1 & 2 which can be controlled right over here which again is separate from the master fader which is here so it goes from this one to this one now you probably think we're done not really there's one more volume control we can't adjust although it's not going to affect any render if you render our mix we're still gonna hear the difference if we go Peter view we could choose the monitoring effects now there's no actually volume control on this but we can add one if we type in volume we can choose this plugin right here show the volume of the entire mix right from here but keep in mind this doesn't affect the render this is just what we hear through our speakers so we bring this down as a fade it's only gonna be heard by us in the control room doesn't affect the render or any final bounce but I thought I should show it to you as it is part of the volume control of our tracks so that's pretty much it there's quite a lot of them but hopefully this makes it clearer how to control a volume or create volume adjustments and every single stage I hope you learn something I hope you can use it and I'll see you next time Thanks [Music] you ah you

Channel: REAPER Mania

Views: 53,824

Rating: 4.9486079 out of 5

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Id: hmfnmvpx2po

Length: 21min 2sec (1262 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 09 2016