The Major Parts of REAPER - REAPER DAW Tutorial

hi there this is stephen gonzalez how are you doing today in any daw if i don't know where things are it can become a really frustrating experience very very quickly and to alleviate this i'm going to introduce you to some of the major parts of reaper and that's what's next on reaper for voice talent in this video we're going to be tackling of course the major parts of reaper but along the way we're going to be talking about also what dockers are and their advantages and they're really really cool things about reaper and then finally we're going to be looking at the reaper theme adjuster this is something that's new with version 6 and it is an extremely powerful part of reaper now now if this is your first time within this video especially if this is your first time within reaper of a voice talent do me a favor and like this video subscribe and turn on the notification bell sending it to all and watch the video all the way through in fact watch it a few times because there's so much in here and i don't want you to miss a thing and with that let's get started here we have a reaper project and this is somewhat typical to be honest of what we see as reaper users we're going to be starting from the top with the title bar a title bar is that thing that in any windows application you'll see it but reaper does something really special with it it has the project name and whether it's modified or not in this case it is and it disappears if you save then we have the version and the architecture of the reaper version that you're using and then if it's licensed or not now beneath the title bar we have what's known as the menu bar and the menu bar contains of course the menu but the menu is pretty extensive as you can see one of the cool things about reaper is that there are many things that you can do to change and the menu is one of those things if you don't like what you see as far as the menu is concerned then you can literally sit there and wipe out what's there which i recommend that you save off with there before you just wipe it out but you can start from scratch and build your own menu system for reaper and reaper has a great many things in it that does that and we're going to be getting into that in a future course video then to the right of the menu is what's known as the undo button i say button because it doesn't look like a button until you hover over it and all of a sudden there's a shading area now if i click on this button it pulls up the undo history window this is exactly what it was it goes from initial state all the way to where we are now something like an adobe photoshop for example there's an undo window and you can select a certain place and you can right click and you can say remove everything that's beyond this so that the undo only goes from the initial state to where you are now i know some people who do this and some people who just allow the undo history to grow infinitely as they do the project so that way they're aware of what they did so that's the undo history window all the way to the right is another hidden button but it also is an information screen about how reaper is using your interface in this case is 44.1 kilohertz at 24 bit depth wave format doing two channels potentially the block size is 10 24 samples there's some latency numbers which we're going to get into latency in a future video and then we have the audio system that's selected and it should always be asio beneath the menu bar over here to the left again we have what could be considered your best friend this is the icon toolbar if you do an action repeatedly within a project or if you do one action that spans multiple projects then maybe that action is a good candidate to be included into this icon toolbar and i say the icon toolbar actually it's one of many if i right click on the clean space over here somewhere and i pull up the context menu for the toolbar and i say switch toolbar watch what happens you'll realize the main toolbar is one of 17 and they're all completely configurable just as with the menu we can throw away everything that's in this toolbar right now and start from scratch and make our own and in fact that's what some people do for example toolbar one is all about recording toolbar two is all about editing two bar three is all about processing two bar four is all about rendering and shipping or whatever it is so that's that's the power of it and then some music producers they have other things that they have here beneath the icon toolbar in this empty space here this is what's known as the track control panel and it contains track controls which is what this is you'll note that there's a lot of empty space in here and that's purposefully done because there are some things actually that are hidden within this particular tc and it has to do with something that we're going to be talking about in just a few minutes called the theme adjuster in its relation the tcp's relationship with the mixer control panel let's go to the right of the tcp and the icon toolbar and talk about this area now at the top we have two rows we have a regions row and we have a markers row i'll be speaking about markers and regions in future videos suffice to say that regions are objects that indicate a time frame and markers are objects that indicate an instantaneous point in time and they're very very useful in the workflow and editing processes now beneath the markers is what's known as the timeline and you'll see these funny looking fractions here right well these are actually measures and beats and then time underneath we can change the units of this timeline to be more user-friendly for vo work when we get to a certain point i'm going to show you how to change this in this video now inside the timeline also we have this vertical line with this upside down triangle this is what's known as the cursor in this case it's the edit cursor and then over here we have these two triangles with this kind of block between them and then the shaded part underneath this is the time selection i use time selections all the time it's a valuable part of the editing process so there's a few ways that we can generate a time selection we can either drag inside the timeline like that we can drag inside a clean area within the arrange area or we can do some double clicking for example between the region and the marker inside the timeline you see how it generates a time selection from the end of the region to the marker i can do it within the region now i can also go beyond the marker and logic would say that hey if i double click right now that time selection is going to go on to infinity right well you would be wrong because at the end of the project there is actually a hidden marker always and so it would always stop there and i think they put that there specifically because of the time selection double clicking thing so anyway that's how you do a time selection and now i'm going to put this back over here for future use now beneath the timeline is the area inside reaper probably where you're going to be spending the most of your time this is the arrange area now inside the arrange area in this specific project we have two things we have the grid which are these vertical lines and they denote units of time or units of songs or whatever and i can come over here to the icon toolbar for example and turn them off and turn them on for vo work normally we would have the grid off to be honest and we'll be getting into that in future videos the next thing which is probably the most important thing within reaper to be honest it's what's known as the media item this thing this is not the actual file which this is the file name it's not the actual file it's a representation of the file so i can do things like this i can bring the cursor over here and then do what's called a split in other words i take this one media item and i generate two media items from it and now i can drag this over here and i'm going to get rid of the time selection for a second the media item is the key to how reaper is able to be what's known as a non-destructive editor in other words what i have done is not really manipulated the wav file itself but created two windows if you will at looking at the wav file you see how the title of the wav file is the same in both media items so i can do things like this trimming the right edge of this media item and then dragging this back over here now in destructive daws what i have just done is erased what was there but in non-destructive daws and i'm not hitting undo by the way i can just simply do this and it's back together again and that's what's meant by non-destructive it simply hides what's there and remember these media items are only basically representations or windows at looking at the actual wav file the only time that a wav file is really manipulated is in its generation within reaper whether you're recording or doing something called stimming or freezing or gluing which generates another wave file but then from that point on it's never really manipulated to the point where stuff from it is erased beneath the tcp and beneath the range area is what's known as the transport now the transport contains transport buttons just like any other daw does you have play and record and loop and stop and pause you have beginning and end and all this good stuff so reaper has it there as well now to the right of the transport controls is what's known as the play cursor position it's play cursor or it can be edit cursor depending on what state you're in so far as recording or playing back or stopped or whatever and you'll note that they use the same units that the timeline does now this is adjustable again we can right click on it and we can say instead of using the ruler time unit we can do our own normally i just right click on the timeline and i set it to minutes and seconds or whatever and then the play cursor position reflects that now to the right of the play cursor position is what's known as the playback status but it's more it's not just playback it's more like reaper status is reaper stopped is reaper playing is it recording is it doing a pre-roll what is it doing then to the right of the playback status we have the selection parameters we have the beginning we have the end and we have the selection length and like for example we're going from 4.5 seconds to 6 seconds so we have a length of 1.5 seconds now the next two enable us as voice talent to be able to do punch and roll very effectively we have what's known as the project tempo and bpm stands for beats per minute when we get to the general project settings i'm going to show you how to permanently set the bpm to 60 for example which is a beat per second and then use that along with the time signature to equate one measure to being one second and then in the future punch and roll video i'm going to show you how to use this to create what's called a pre-roll the next thing is going to be the global envelope override basically if you're using envelopes like volumes or pens or whatever then you can override the whole thing with this object i have really to be honest never used it i don't know of any voice talent who have and then finally the thing that causes many many reaper users confusion and this is the playback rate control if it's not set to one then you're not listening to it as it's supposed to be if it's greater than one then you start sounding like a chipmunk and if it's less than one then it starts slowing down and you get that you know that effect right so if you ever find yourself using reaper and either you sound like a chipmunk or that monster check the playback rate controller make sure it's set to 1.0 and you can double click on the knob it'll set it's 1.0 and now underneath the transport is what's known as a docker and i know that you're seeing a mixer here but there's actually a docker involved and i can tell that there's a docker involved by this tab only a docker within reaper has a tab now what exactly is a docker well a docker enables you to do one of two things or both it allows you to position specific objects within reaper or it allows you to have two or more objects to share the same real estate within reaper or both and here's what i mean let's say that i don't want this mixer here i want it on the right side of the screen well all i would do is drag the tab and as i'm dragging you see that rectangle up here and now watch what happens as i approach the right side of the screen bam you see how it elongates and then once i release the left mouse button the mixer is now on the right side of the screen this is how we position things but let's take it a step further let's say that i don't want this mixer here but i want it to be at the top and i want it to be able to share the same real estate as say the effects browser well i would take the tab for the mixer and i would drag it to the top and release and now the mixer is at the top then what i would do is i would say view an effects browser and normally yours would be a floating window if you will now how do we get it docked well we can right click on the title bar and say doc effects browser in the docker and now it's sharing the same real estate as the mixer now notice something about the mixer though there's so much real estate here that could be used for other things right wouldn't it be better if the effects browser were here somewhere well you can do that it's very easily just drag the effects browser tab over and you'll see that the docker drag rectangle whatever you want to call it it only spans half the screen not the full screen like it did with the mixer now whenever i release watch what happens now all of a sudden the effects browser is in its own docker separate for the mixer but even with that there's still so much real estate here let's say that maybe i want to do video work let's say and further let's say that i want the video over here to the right but i want the effects browser in between the mixer and the video well what i can do is i can drag the boundary between the two dockers and do this and now i can go to view and where's video video and now you'll see videos in its own docker over here to the right now i can right click on it and say don't dock but then i can say doc again and it's back that's how you go from docking to floating window and back but let's say now i drag this tab and i drag it to the upper right hand corner notice that the docker drag rectangle again whatever you want to call it spans the width but it doesn't even cover half this is telling me that it's going to go in the upper right hand corner but it's going to be in its own docker and whenever i release there we are now let's say that through experience the video doesn't have to be in its own it could share with the with the effects browser all i'd have to do is drag the tab over to the fx browser and now the effects browser and the video share the same real estate again this is the power of a docker it is incredibly powerful all right let me get this thing back to where it was and one other thing while i'm thinking about it believe it or not the transport bar is in a docker if i right click anywhere in this clean space say here somewhere i see dock transport in main window or doc transport in its own docker or i can say dock transport position the reason why i'm showing you this is because many other daws they have the transport at the very top of the window well you can set reaper up to do that all you have to do is do the doc transport position and say top of main window and now the transport is at the top that's really really cool that's the power of dockers okay i'm going to put it back where it was here okay now let's talk about the mcp or the mixer control panel this one has two tracks in it has a master track and it has a channel track out of the box and a new project you won't actually have this new track and when we get to recording in reaper i'll show you how to generate a track but you'll see that for a great many things it's a mirror of the tcp for example if i click on this record arm for this channel track and you'll see that it turns red and that the vu meter is hopping nicely then if we come over to the tc over here we'll see the same thing if i unrecord arm we'll see that it's unrecord armed in the mcp same thing for mute same thing for solo now you'll note for example there's a route button in here but there is no route button and the tc also you'll note there's a lot of real estate here that seems to be hiding something and you would be right again when we record arm you'll see how there's some stuff and we on record arm it disappears this has to do with what's known as the theme adjuster which is new for version 6. and to get to it we go to options we go to themes and we go to the theme adjuster and here it is just a cursory look at it you'll think that this is no big deal but it's an extremely powerful new thing with version six if we click this right arrow head you can actually do some controls with the tcp for example let's say we're in layout a which is what we are in right now okay if the mixer is visible we could hide things simply by clicking on hide or we can click on hide and unhide it making it visible i'll show you that in a second if the track is not selected what to hide if the track is not armed what to hide and then you have always hide regardless of what's going on whether the mixer is visible whether the track's selected whether it's armed or not whatever the case may be i always want to hide it now remember in the mcp we have here the route button notice if the mixer is visible they have hidden the routing button in the tcp but supposing i want the routing button there always well i would just simply click on hide to unhide it and there it is and not only that but did you notice that the effects button like that moved to make way for the route button so there is going to be some adjustment when things get hidden or unhidden we have something for the mcp as well and we have something for custom colors and all that and envelopes even which we're going to be getting into in a whole series of videos here for envelopes this theme adjuster is extremely powerful so be careful how you use it to quote a 1970s advertisement i think anyway in the next video with that the next video we'll be looking at some settings which will make reaper even more vo friendly don't forget that there's a link in the description below to the windows centric playlist and if you're watching this far thank you for watching and this is stephen gonzalez with steven gonzales voiceovers wishing y'all all the best you'll have a wonderful and wonderful day

Channel: REAPER for Voice Talent

Views: 357

Keywords: REAPER DAW Tutorial, REAPER for Voice Talent, RFVT, REAPER, Voiceover, Tutorial, How to, Steven Gonzales Voiceovers, SGVO, DAW, Digitial Audio Workstation, Parts, Major Parts, Track Control Panel, Mixer Control Panel, Track Control Panel Reaper, Mixer Control Panel Reaper, Home Studio, Personal Studio, VO, Voice Acting

Id: jFXbeLFTfA0

Length: 20min 26sec (1226 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 10 2020