Folders vs Busses vs Groups vs VCAs in REAPER

hi I'm Kenny Choi uh welcome to another one with tutorials in this video I'm going to show you the differences between folders verse buses verse groups verse VCAs in Reaper now this topic is one of the most requested that I've gotten I've shown in other videos how to use buses VCAs and especially groups so I won't go into great detail in this video I'm just going to compare the differences when working with multiple tracks and also tell you when I use each choice and as you'll see there's a lot of similarities but each one has its own benefits and drawbacks so the project in front of me here with four tracks now the first thing I want to show you is how to use folders to create a folder we'll make a new track and we'll put it up at the top that part is very important you can't create a folder what's on top of the child tracks is the folder and this will be the child tracks as long as we do this right here see the folder button if we click this all these tracks down here are now in this folder which means the audio is being routed from these tracks into this so if I hit mute we're not going to hear it I pull a fader down it fades out and if we sell it we're just going to hear the tracks in the folder which is more noticeable if I create another track down here and take it out of the folder by clicking this now this track is not in this folder just these tracks are so if I hit solo this track is now muted and if I hit mu all these tracks are muted but not this one because it's not in that folder now if we look at the routing inside each child track it's still going to the mast apparent sentient but a parentheses here we can see that it's going to a folder in this case track 1 because we haven't named it and then this track is going at the mast apparent scent now some of the benefits of folders versus other choices is besides that it's quick you just put things in a folder and quickly create a place for all the audio to go and be adjusted as a group but you can also hit this triangle right here to change the track height of each of the child tracks hit it once they all get smaller hit it again they get really tiny so you're organizing your projects you could put things in folders and create a much neater looking project maybe have a bunch of jump tracks I'll beat our tracks or vocals you can make them smaller very quickly by putting them in a folder and hit this triangle to make them smaller tiny or normal-sized I should also mention if we go to the mixer the order of our folders can be changed normally they're going to be in front of a child tracks we can right click over here and choose this right here group folders to the left and all the folders in our project gonna be on the left side which makes it very useful if you create one few drums one for your bass one few guitars and so on all those folders will show up on the left side of your mixer making them easier to find if you want to quickly mute them or so of them they're all going to be the left side of your mixer or if you don't want that behavior you just turn it off right here but there is a downside to folders let's say for example we're using this track down here as an effects return maybe for reverb or delay so maybe we bus all these tracks to it by dragging them from the routing to here it defaults to post-fader buses let's create one for each child check let's take this out of the master parents end so I'm here it now if I play the track will see signal being sent to this track so as an effects return for reverb or delay or dry sound is coming from here and the wet sound is coming from here but now if we go to a folder and change the level watch what happens even with the fader all the way down we're still getting full signal so that relationship between the dry sound from here and the wet sound from here has changed so if we bring this down even a little bit it's going to affect the balance of your affects returns now you can go around this by putting affects returns in that same folder but if you don't want to do that you may not want to use folders what you could do like I usually do is I keep my folders at 0 dB I don't change them then I'll change the volume of my group of tracks a different way but another great use of folders is to quickly Eddy Cue or other effects too many tracks at once so in this situation we have four different tracks we wanted to add the same EQ to all them we just put it on a folder go right here go to reap Riku and now this EQ effects all these child tracks everything that's in the folder so that's another great use for a folder but now let's compare that to buses let's get rid of this let's give it a folder and that track if using buses it's pretty similar let's create a track nemeth boss you what we do instead fuse this we bustle our tracks by dragging it one by one or you could do this in the routing matrix if you want to go quicker now all these tracks are going to here which creates a bus but if I hit play it's twice as loud because we hear in these tracks and this track at the same time so if you didn't want that to happen we take these tracks out of the master parent sent and we can do that just by selecting them all hold on alt on a PC option on the Mac click the routing and all these tracks are no longer going to the master parent sent so now we can hear these tracks just coming through a bus and just like before we can mute it and we don't hear it but notice these tracks are not muted we don't hear them but we're not saving a DSP by muting this track we're just meeting the bus that they're all going to and again we can solo it and adjust the volume we had effects to the whole thing now one of the benefits of this is you can put the track anywhere we could put it over here up top it doesn't matter it doesn't need to be in order like a folder and one of the great uses for this is creating parallel compression a lot of times what I'll do for drums let's put this at the bottom I'll send out my drum tracks to a boss now duplicate that bus right here so all these tracks are being sent to both of these then I'll compress in to store this one leaving this one alone and I can balance both of them this would be dry and unprocessed and this one being compressed and distorted which is going to create parallel effects who could do the same thing if we do eat this one by leaving these tracks in the Mastiff parent scent turn them back on so they're in here let me get the dry sound coming from here and the compressed or distorted sound coming from the bus as we mix this in with these but like a folder it has the same problem let's take all these tracks under the mast appearance end now just hearing it from here let's say we create a no track as an effects return and again we send all these tracks to that now watch the meter over here even if we bring this down it's still sending full signal to effects return so just like the folder buses have the same problem when dealing with effects sends and returns for bring this down it messes up the dry versus all wet balance so it's also a great choice when dealing with effects sends and returns that are separate from the bus but it's still very usable for adding effects to many tracks or creating parallel effects processing but there's still other ways to deal with multiple tracks let's delete these two again let's put these back to the master parent send another thing we could do is we can create a temporary group we could sweat these all hold on shift and just grab any of the faders that will also control all the tracks at the same time keeping their relationship intact we can mute it this way we could saw them pan them and of course change the level but this is just a temporary group if we click outside of it they work separately again if you want something more permanent we can create actual groups so we can select them all hit shift G and from here we can create a group for now let's choose all that's going to create a group that works for all parameters stuff and move my fader they'll move together with a mute or solo or panning so it's a very useful way of controlling many tracks at the same time if you wanted to automate this we can create envelopes by hitting V so it's the automation mode let's put it in touch then we could write envelopes for all the tracks at the same time but notice it recorded all the envelopes at the same time not just one but if we want to create a track that will control the others we could do it this way instead let's undo that let's clear that group let's create a new track let's put on the top although we don't have to will name this master group for this track and choose right here master so all the parameters are still gonna be controlled by the group truck is going to be the master then we can select all these tracks and make them slaves right over here so now this track is going to control all these watch again it kept the relationship of all these tracks with each other so kept their balance but we controlled it all from here if we move these tracks they move separately so you can still recreate our mix over here just them together from a pier but we should keep in mind no audio is running to this track in fact if I mute this track we can still hear these so no audio is going from these tracks to this one just this fader or the solo but whatever we choose is controlling the same parameters on these tracks that's an important difference let me show you why if we wanted to automate this track crane envelope for volume and if I draw an envelope right here that's only going to affect this track check it out we can see the change if we switch this to read watch how the fader moves but we don't hear a change because this envelope is not controlling these tracks if you want it to behave that way we would do it this way what's undo that we create an envelope for all of them like that then switch this to touch mode and all the tracks go into touch mode and all the tracks are going to record automation so we still can control it with this master fader but each track needs to have its envelope be written to so we created the same effect this track is controlling all these but it's actually writing to them individually in fact if I delete this track it doesn't matter because the individual tracks have the automation or their envelopes or the on them so it's important to realize how that works differently now if you really want the behavior with one track will control many you probably want to use VCAs let me show you that this track and get rid of while grouping and now let's create another track for the top again it doesn't have to be the top my name is vici a master and now while selecting it go to our groups and this time I'm going to choose right here VCA master then we'll go to these tracks select them all and choose VCA slave so now this track can also control these tracks but it does it a bit differently check it out I'll bring the fader down and it fades out but if you notice it doesn't control the faders these faders stay watch it just controls the volume of all of them so you might be thinking these tracks are routed through this track but that's not really the case watch what happens if I mute it we still hear it so it's really happening here is this fader is controlling imaginary faders on each individual track just pretend as an extra fader on each one of these tracks and this fader right here is controlling those it sounds a bit weird but it actually makes sense as it solves the problem of our effect sense so if I create another track down here as an effect return and I route each one these tracks to it like an effect send going to an effects return hit play we see the signal here now watch what happens if I bring this fader down it's affecting the sends on each track and therefore the effect return as well so if there's an effect over here like a reverb or delay is going to keep these tracks the dry tracks in proportion to the effect so as you bring this down the effect is going to go down the same amount so it's much more usable when dealing with tracks that use effect sends and returns also we can automate this track without automating the individual tracks let's create an envelope and if we draw on it down here and up and down what happens again the faders don't move just this one does let's move it to read but we can hear the result this envelope is controlling the volume on all these tracks in addition to the volume that's right here these also work and if we look at our effects return down here it's also receiving proportional signal to the level of the somme hope watch right here so if it was used for an effect return it would work perfectly using this method so it's great for automating many tracks at once while still keeping the automation on these tracks intact let me show you with create envelopes for each of these Automation on each one can be different down down up now we can keep this automation intact and create new automation for the group so it's clear this create a new one now we could write just this track and it's going to affect the balance is here as a group and what's even better is we can apply this envelope to the individual tracks and then clear this let's go to our action list type VCA there's a few actions right here that work with VCAs we can apply all the VCAs from selected tracks to group tracks and reset the volume panel mute so if we choose this one let's make it smaller which choose this track if we choose this it's going to apply this envelope to the individual envelopes let's make it more subtle let's make it a little bit higher and watch what happens down here they stay intact but they adjust themselves based on the VCA so do it what's redo it so it happens each one changes based on this we could do it as many times as we want so if you want to rewrite automation as a group we could do that I neither hear the result or apply it using this they all change to match what we did up here powerful feature and like I said it's very usable when you have effects sends and returns on the tracks you want a group but because it's no audio running through the VCA master we can't put effects there because they're not going to apply to a group let's undo all this so to sum it up at least for my personal preferences and my uses I like to use folders for organization purposes so I could put a track up here create a folder so I can make the truck smaller or tiny or bigger I could also meet the tracks very quickly or solo them or add effects to them like EQ what filters but I tend not to do is adjust the fader personal preference this weather the deal with any of the FEC's sends and returns using their relationship to each other now for buses I tend to use them for parallel compression or parallel distortion where I'll create a few tracks these tracks - both of them take these tracks out of the Mastiff parents end use one track as a dry track another one for heavy compression or distortion and create parallel effects using this method or sometimes I'll use busing for creating headphone mixes or obviously for effects ends and effects returns now as far as grouping I'll use grouping for similar tracks so I'll select them all to create a temporary group a create group right here and group them all together so I can move the faders all at the same time or mute them or solo them but if want to automate them and have them controlled by another track that's when I use VCAs so give her this create a new track as the VCA master right here and make these the VCA slave and control their level as a group right from here it's a lot more useful when using automation or creating envelopes but you could also do with this is add-in mutes and souls so you could still treat them as a group attracts together so love them all or control them with one fader so that's VCAs and again there's no actual audio running through this fader this fader is just controlling imaginary faders on each one of these tracks which makes it a lot more useful when you deal with effects ends and effects returns that are part of the same group so that's pretty much it that's folders verse buses verse groups verse VCAs hope this video made the subject a bit clearer and I hope you can use some of the methods that we've gone through so thank you for joining me and I'll see you next time Thanks you Oh

Channel: REAPER Mania

Views: 85,659

Rating: 4.9693618 out of 5

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Id: P62cSnHY7IA

Length: 25min 35sec (1535 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 26 2016