Reaper DAW 101 Part 4:- External Effects - VST, AU, 32 bit and 64 bit....

hi everybody Adam Steele from hot Pole Studios here if you've been watching the reaper tutorial series so far you'll have seen a set up the basics then talk about the effects that come with Reaper and then we talked about routing for awhile routing of how to get your effect to go from places to other places now we're going to talk about third party plugins external plugins that you buy separately and load in that make this really come to life and become the center of what I would consider to be a production professional platform [Applause] [Music] okay so the first thing that you'll need to know about external plugins just in general is that there are different types of them if you've been using the plugins that are built into reaper it doesn't matter what platform you're using whether it's windows or mac OSX or even linux of some kind the the plugins that come with it are the ones that work with that exact version of reaper that's how they're bundled that's how that works if you're getting plugins separately they need to be the right type to work with the version of Reaper that you have this is the same with anything like Cubase on different platforms logic obviously is Mac OSX only but there are certain caveats you need to know that you're getting the right version to make it work first thing to know then is that there are different types of plugins plugins being the name for external effect whether that there whether they're instruments or virtual guitar amps or just a chorus delay anything like that we call them all plugins because they plug into Reaper there are different formats of plugins that have been made by different companies though one of the most widely used ones is VST this is a standard that was made by Steinberg many years ago Steinberg of the people who own and make Cubase and Nuendo and then there are others this au which is the format that logic uses there's a ax which is the format that Pro Tools uses the modern versions of Pro Tools and then there's DirectX which is not really used anymore and there's the j/s format which is only really in Reaper so that's not really one we're going to talk about either generally speaking today we're going to be looking at vsts because as far as reapers concerned they're the ones that work with it the most often aax won't work with Reaper but Audio Units au if you have them on OSX will work with Reaper but to be honest if you've got the mac VST version I'm just gonna say VST for simplicity next up you have to know which format of that VST if we're going to go with VST s that you need and vsts are made specifically for Windows or for Mac OS X or even for Linux so you obviously need to know which machine you're using it's fairly obvious though if you're on Windows or if you're using a Mac or if you're using Linux you're probably going to know which one you're using and then there's one more step beyond that and you need to know really whether you're using a 32-bit or 64-bit system it's quite easy to tell because if you're using Reaper and in the top bar here it says the version number and then x64 which is what I highly recommend that you use you're using a 64-bit system and so you should really be using 64-bit plugins so they all just kind of talk to each other nicely and work without any problems as far as I know pretty much every laptop and desktop computer made in the last 10 years is a 64-bit system anyway so it should really be using 64-bit operating systems if it isn't then your machine may be a little out of date at this point and some plugins may not be made or even supported for 32-bit anymore knowing all this let's dive in to actually getting some plugins and getting them working so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to get a virtual guitar amp so right now with this project that I have I only have a few tracks let's hit play on this one okay so it sounds cool but I want to run that through a virtual guitar to really distort it if I had a clean DI guitar then I could get that di guitar and run that through a virtual guitar amp so we're going to need a virtual guitar amp so the first thing I'm going to do is save this project and I'm going to go to options and preferences now at the bottom somewhere near the bottom of preferences is plugins and then there's VST in here in VST this top line here tells us exactly where these VST files are going to go and we're going to need to write this down somewhere so that when we install plugins we make sure they're going in the right place by default everything goes to my C Drive to the Program Files folder and into VST plugins on some computers the default here is Program Files slash Steinberg slash VST plugins because Steinberg made the farmer I tend to delete that slash Steinberg part out because I like to keep everything simple and in one folder then there's a semicolon here which means kind of a also this and then there's Program Files common files VST 3 so if that's something that I didn't mention earlier there's VST 2 and VST 3 largely speaking they work exactly the same if you are working with a plug-in manufacturer who makes VST threes they may be more appropriate to choose to use because they're a newer format they can be a bit more efficient on the processor but the actual sound is identical it's just there are some funky new features that VST 3 can use which are becoming a little bit more common now but are largely still kind of in future development so as we've written these down we're going to hit ok and close reaper down because we need to now go and actually get some plugins from the internet generally so we're going to start off with a couple of free plugins and then we'll talk about paid plugins later on because there is a whole world of paid extras which I swear by but you don't have to but it's one of those things where it becomes choice at that point so so we're going to use the blue cat free and I'm going to link this in the description below and the reason I'm picking this one is because I know it's free and I know there's loads of different options here so there's all the different Mac versions all the different Windows versions so we won Windows x64 and then there's a choice of VST or VST 3 I'm going to go with just good old VST because it's stable it's simple it works I'm going to click that that's just started downloading and something that's really useful for us to know is that that's downloaded as an exe file so that's got an installer so if I click on this it comes up with the usual licenses stuff I yes and then it guides me through an installer I have to accept the terms of their license agreement and then the destination folder has come up as Program Files VST plugins' which is great because that means that it's going to go into the right folder so that when we open reaper it's going to pick that up run with it it's going to come up in our effect list so we hit install shouldn't take very long if you've got a solid-state drive like an SSD what that SSD for short this will be a lot faster of an install and if you've got an old spinning hard drive and actually did a video about this particular laptop and how I upgraded it when I got it relatively inexpensively so check that out in this link up in the corner I know if that's now installed so let's hit finish close this down if I bring Reaper back up that should now load and after going for the evaluation version stuff which we're gonna get every time until you actually purchase it now if I look in my list of effects there it is VST bc free amp from blue car audio it's come up in that list so if i double click on that that's now giving me an amp i can click the whatever mode i like and so if the modern drive if I crank this up you'll really hear this really quickly [Music] so yeah you can hear that I've used the guitar amp on a sample which of course you don't need to use a guitar amp on a guitar specifically you can use it on anything you like I quite often use them on vocals to get really gritty Distortion of course I could put a clean guitar through this audience so know that I'm using and use the blue cat free um all that does kind of defeat the object of some of the inbuilt stuff on the sanno but that's a time for another day so that's how you do use a guitar amp we can just knock that effect off now let's look at a vsti or VST instrument let's say I wanted to get some drums going because I know that's going to be important to a lot of you to have some sort of virtual drums so we're gonna save this close it back down again open up Chrome again you don't have to do this again and again and again you can install a load of these in one go that's fine but I'm going to use empty power drum kit this was recommended to me a while ago and it's really good as far as something free goes so empty power drum kit - let's download it for free and so it gives us a choice here just of Windows Mac or Linux doesn't give us all the other different format options quite a lot of the time you'll download an installer or something like that that has everything in or it's just got one particular format so let's click the Windows one ah now it's giving us a choice VST or ax we're not using Pro Tools we're using Reaper so we want VST at 64 bit of 32-bit we want 64 bit and most people will probably want 64 bit as well then it's going to start downloading how to install so it gives us a nice little how-to here so we download it and we copy the dll file and this PDK file which is their own proprietary thing into our VST plugins folder so let's open this zip file up and we'll see in here we've got that PDK file and that dll file now we need to find our VST folder which we wrote down somewhere and if yours is different to mine I hope you wrote it down like we suggested so I'm going to my C Drive and then to Program Files and then down to VST plugins' so all that's in there right now is that BC freedom that we downloaded before so let's drag and drop these two things in here I need to provide administrative permission fine right there in there now so that DLL file is the little bit the hooks into Reaper our Cubase or whatever it is that you're using and then any other data like the drum sounds or if using really big plugins sample libraries and that kind of thing can be installed so my separate depends on who's made the plug-in and how they've made it so let's close all this down and open Reaper one more time there we go empty power drum kit is being loaded for the very first time they're loading up it just so happens that I already loaded this up once so let's just delete that so the empty power kit if I skip the registration there we go so if I just click on these now that's cool and then what you can do is you can add a MIDI item like we did back in Episode one in the basics and instead of notes being piano notes there now drum notes something I like to do is little aside is if I got a view piano roll notes is diamonds just have a drum mode it looks more like drum hits rather than lengths of notes because length of notes makes no sense really on a drum and so when I play that back suddenly we have drums and that'll loop and loop and so you can then make drum loops that way now you've got a drum kit there you can then do whatever it is that you need to do with your drum kit there now let's look at paid plugins because this is where it can get a little more difficult so save before closing sure now if you want to use a lot of paid plugins either they're going to come with some sort of serial number some sort of offline activation or online activation some of them have custom systems that their companies make but the ones that I tend to use the most are using a system called the I lock this is an older one of mine and I lock - this is the newer one that I've got the nighlok three which is smaller and tougher and made of metal which is the general reason that I bought it because I use this a lot and then some companies like waves you can actually store the licenses on a regular USB key so that's what I do I have these connected together so I don't lose them and the I lock on its own won't really do much what you need to do is buy yourself a nighlok dongle or you can use this new eye lock cloud thing but I tend to go with the old school because some of my licenses will only work with a real physical eye lock you go to I lock calm and from here you go to the free download for the license manager which is right here you've got Mac OSX windows 32-bit or windows 64-bit of course which windows 64-bit that's us you download that you get that installed and if you don't already have an airlock account then from the Eyelock website you then sign up and get a nighlok account that's free and from there if you then get any plugins that need I like licenses you can use that email address and that sign in for the eye lock website to send licenses too so let's open up the eye lock license manager because you can do all of this without having even installed the plug-in yet so I'm gonna plug in my eye lock down here there we go and now you can see my eye lock with the horrible long name has come up there if I then sign into my eye lock account which will come up with all the details in the corner which of course I'm gonna blur out because I don't want to be given away personal details but yours will be right there and for me that comes up with a list here of all the licenses that I have whether I've bought them being given them their trials anything like that some of these admittedly I've been sent by companies because of what I do here on the channel but any which way they're all here and then you can when you've got them and you've got a nighlok plugged in you can right-click on them and activate them or deactivate them as necessary to move them to different systems and then once they're on your I lock you then run the plug-in that has the I lock activation and it should just work and for me this means that I can take this I lock dongle out plug it into the studio machine behind me there those same plugins just carry on working and I don't need to have multiple licenses and pay for things multiple times there are other licensing systems I just wanted to mention this one specifically because it's one of the most widely used from here and I'm gonna talk about the slate virtual mix rack because it's one of my favorite most powerful sets of paid plugins it's got compressors eq's all sorts of stuff so if I go to slate digital dot-com slash installers that gives us a big list of all the slate installers and we just get a choice of whether it's Mac or Windows because this is quite a big file it's nearly a gigabyte to download I downloaded this at a time so I'm now going to skip ahead to the Downloads folder where it's already sat waiting for me v complete bundle windows dot zip and this is one of those exe file one so I can just double click this wait for it to install again because I installed a solid-state drive in here this is going to be relatively fast if you've got an odd spin in hard drive it may take a bit longer than this ah perfect so this now requires a 64-bit host by installing this new version 32-bit support will be broken of course for me that's fine because like I was saying everything should really be 64-bit by now if you're on Windows or even any vaguely modern version of OS X it's all 64-bit we shouldn't really be using 32-bit software at this point so I accept their agreement all the modules at the bottom of this list it gives us an option of whether to use ax or VST two and three I tend to leave them all ticked to be honest if it gives me a choice of using a ax if I happen to end up with Pro Tools on this machine it will just work most of the file space is for all the stuff that's common to there this plug-in so I'm not that bothered and then it goes Program Files VST plugins' slash slate digital now okay with this because this is a sub folder underneath VST plugins' it actually keeps things quite nicely organized within that main folder which means that reaper sees it all and it's still if i have to go into that folder it's nice and neat and i'm not seeing a big jumble of files so next install go just while this is installing I'll just briefly mention that when you do buy plugins that have a lock relevant generally they ask you for your a lock details and they send the licenses to that I lock account at that time so that all tends to get taken care of and then it asks us if we want to restart now which I generally tend to say yes to restarts if there's nothing else major going on on that computer shouldn't take too long especially with Windows 10 and an SSD this should be very very quick okay we're back that wasn't too long at all so now if we open up Reaper this will come up here yeah virtual mix rack is scanning because it's still trying to start up windows at the same time I did give this quite a lot to do there we go so we're all loaded up so now we should be able to find if I just go back to this Dark Tranquillity and loop that that if we add the virtual mix rack where did that go virtual mix rack that should come up on the screen with a nice big powerful set of there we go virtual channel strips eq's all sorts of stuff there we go so I've got really powerful like vintage queues and all sorts of compressors and what-have-you that I have access to right here and they're all paid for and I've got all this kind of stuff and that means that this now is basically unlocked to be a professional production machine and so any external plugins that I want now I can just throw on here and go really and I'm only limited by the power of the process of this in this machine which is the same can be said for pretty much any computer Pro Tools uses their ax version of the same kind of thing that can use mostly the same plugins I know I can use all these slate ones as a X's and so whatever platform I go to I know that generally speaking I can use the same tools no matter where I go which is really quite liberating cuz it means that if I prefer the use of Cubase or Reaper or Pro Tools or logic even I still have all the tools that I know available to me inside that which is really quite useful ok so that concludes today's tutorial on external effects and their use in Reaper there is more to talk about and of course we're going to go back to routing in the next installment because we're going to talk specifically about multi-channel routing that is to say generally with drum plugins where you might want to have the kick snare Tom's overheads rooms all that kind of stuff coming out of separate channels so that you can mix it all like you would at the real drum kit so we're going to talk about all that with a paid plugin which is why we talked about this first in the next episode thanks for watching thanks to all the patrons for supporting the channel because you really helped us to make this a reality and to be quite honest you guys helped us to pay for things like these plugins that I've just shown you right here helps us to keep the lights on and keep the world turning and we are forever grateful so thank you very much and stick around for the next episode because we're gonna see you all very shortly Cheers thanks for watching guys if you enjoyed this feel free to check out our other videos as you can find here or check out our Facebook and Twitter or our patreon page which helps us to make more videos like this thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Hop Pole Studios

Views: 65,155

Keywords: reaper, daw, tutorial, vst, AU, drums, guitar amp sim, free drums

Id: zhqLUq5Nxy8

Length: 23min 13sec (1393 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 14 2019