# Orchestral Template and Reaper



## Darthmorphling (May 21, 2012)

I hope this is the correct forum to post this in as it is not really a hardware or sample question, but a software DAW issue. 

I posted this in the Reaper forums as well.

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=103317

Hopefully there are some Reaper users here who may be able to shed some light for me.

I have a question regarding the master track not controlling the volume on a template I created.

Here is what I have:

I created a template for Albion Orchestra using the tutorial from Tutorialsforreaper.com

specifically this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkDXd...layer_embedded

The video has each kontakt patch going to a seperate output within kontakt. I have each patch going to a single one.

For example I have a "Strings Hi" vst folder track. then I have 8 patches loaded up in that track's instance of kontakt. Patch 1 goes to output 1 and uses midi channel 1, next patch goes to output 1 and uses midi channel 2 and so on. There is a seperate track under this folder for each of the patches in the Kontakt instance.

There are 6 of these Kontakt folder tracks for each section of the orchestra and they have between 4-10 patches and tracks.

I have everything set to auto arm when the track is selected. Every track works as expected except for one major thing. I can not control the overall volume of the project with the master track. The only volume control that works is the folder track containing each VST instance. So I have to adjust each folder's volume individually. Shouldn't I be able to do an overall volume change? I did check in the manual and could not find how to accomplish this.

I then created a track to act as a bus for the first strings section and could get that one to control the volume, but still could not get the master volume to work.

I almost have this template set up and would like to have each section's folder tracks routed to three tracks: Dry, early reflection reverb, and late reflection reverb. Then I would like to have all of these routed to a single orchestral track which would then get routed to the master track.

Here is Alex Pfeffers'example using Cubase that I would like to follow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PQBn...=1&safe=active (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PQBn...=1&amp;safe=active)


Can this be done?

Thanks!

Don


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## Ozymandias (May 21, 2012)

Hi Don,

Do you have Master/Parent send enabled on your folder parent tracks?

If you can hear sound but have no control over it with the Master track, then you may have routed your tracks direct to your computer's audio outputs.


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## Darthmorphling (May 21, 2012)

That was the problem. Thanks! On each of the folder tracks I had set a hardware output. So now all I need to do is delete the hardware sends from each of the folder tracks and then send them to the appropriate reverb busses.

All is good now!

Thanks again,

Don


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## Ozymandias (May 22, 2012)

Glad you got it sorted. 

Regarding your template, it should be possible to set up that kind of routing. Once you've created your 3 dry/early/late tracks, drag a "cable" from your section folders' I/O buttons to each of those tracks. (Or connect them using the routing matrix.)

You will probably want to disable the master/parent send for those particular folders so that only the dry track is sending a dry signal to the master/parent.


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## Darthmorphling (May 22, 2012)

I was able to get everything set up the way I wanted. Reaper's routing is powerful, but a bit confusing at first.

My only issue now is one of the patches, Celli Ostinatum, is really low in comparison to the other low string patches when I play on my keyboard. However, when I use Reaper's piano roll the volume is much higher.

I am guessing that I messed something up in my initial build of the template. I think I am going to start from scratch now that I have it all sorted out.

thanks again for all the help!

Don


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## ontrackmusic (May 25, 2012)

I thought I'd bump this thread rather than start a new one, since the title is general enough...

My orchestral template in Reaper is quite huge...several instances of Play, Kontakt, and VSL. My project save time is really long, I'd guess about 20 seconds or so. 

I've tried setting the plugins to save minimal undo states, and I've ensured that the undo history is not being stored with the project. 

Can you guys think of any other way I can get the save time down (other than running a separate host such as VE Pro)? Interestingly, this is only an issue on my Hollywood Strings/Brass-based template. My EWQLSO+LASS template, which has a similar number of tracks/VST instances, doesn't have this problem. Of course, it's not loading 20GB+ worth of samples either.

Thanks for any tips/advice you can offer...


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## Darthmorphling (May 25, 2012)

I wish I could offer some insight, but I'm still a Reaper noob. If you wouldn't mind, I may be PM'ing you with some questions about your template. Also If you wouldn't mind sharing your template with me I would appreciate seeing how you have your routing set up. I do not have the libraries you have, but at least I can analyze your settings. 

I watched the video again last night on turorialsforreaper.com and I now think I have it figured out. I'm going to finally rebuild the template this weekend.

thanks,

Don


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## Ozymandias (May 25, 2012)

Hi ontrackmusic,

How large is the .RPP file for your template project?

VST recall can take up a fair amount of disk space. My own template (mostly Kontakt) is around 70-90Mb, and seems to take a good 5-10 seconds to save.


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## Darthmorphling (May 25, 2012)

70-90 mb for a template. I guess Sharing isn't really a viable option then. I was able to get the reverb tracks working like I wanted. However, my method of only having one output worked against me in the aspect that I couldn't control the volume of each individual patch. Watching the video again helped in that regards and I think I can get it to work this evening. 

The last few evenings I have just had fun messing around with the different sounds that Albion can produce. I haven't felt this excited about creating music since I first started playing guitar close to 30 years ago.

If I have any questions I may be PM'ing you both.

thanks,

Don


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## Ozymandias (May 26, 2012)

Hey Don,

In Reaper, I find that the layout of tracks, folders etc. only helps workflow up to a point, so I haven't invested much effort in that side of things. My template has a pretty conventional layout and routing. I've just made one change to the Default theme by setting supercollapsed track height to "0" (this is done within the RTconfig.txt file) to keep everything neat:

http://i.imgur.com/pxgif.jpg

I think most users would agree that the actions list is really where all the clever stuff happens. Since I started using Reaper, that's where I've tried to learn as much as I can (using the standard actions, those in the SWS extension, or other peoples' custom actions from the Reaper forum).


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## Darthmorphling (May 26, 2012)

I'm starting to get the hang of the routing. I got the strings working perfectly last night with each patch havin it's own midi track and it's own audio track. The midi goes to Kontakt and Kontakt sends the audio to the corresponding audio track. That was the hang up for me as I didn't set up the audio faders before so no individual volume control for each patch. 

I RTFM and figured out how to show just the midi track in the track layout and just the audio tracks in the mixer. Once I get this set up completely I will then start tweaking the theme to my liking. Do you know if it is possible to change the color of the entire track controls in the default theme and not just where the name is? I will keep looking as I have seen it done in user created themes.

This morning before the kids got up I was able to duplicate this section for each of the other sections. Now I just need to get the reverb buses working and I will be done. That just involves disabling the master send and routing each of the sections audio tracks to the section bus, correct?

It seems as if there are a lot of tutorials for each of these things for Reaper, but not an indepth tutorial on creating a template for orchestral work.

Thanks for all of your help!

Don


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## Darthmorphling (May 26, 2012)

I am finding it is easier to google my questions than it is to look it up in the Reaper manual.

How to change the whole track's color:

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=42113


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## Ozymandias (May 26, 2012)

I've never attempted to change the TCP colors before, but I imagine the Reaper forum would have a solution for that. (Edit: I see you've found one already.  )

If one of your reverb buses is going to be a dry signal, then yes I think you willl need to disable the master send on any section parent tracks which are routed to that. Otherwise, you'll get some duplicated signals (in theory, at least...).


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## Darthmorphling (May 27, 2012)

Ozymandias @ Sat May 26 said:


> I've never attempted to change the TCP colors before, but I imagine the Reaper forum would have a solution for that. (Edit: I see you've found one already.  )
> 
> If one of your reverb buses is going to be a dry signal, then yes I think you willl need to disable the master send on any section parent tracks which are routed to that. Otherwise, you'll get some duplicated signals (in theory, at least...).



Just wanted to say thanks for the help getting my template all setup. I got it all set up the way I wanted and everything is working correctly. Each instrument section has its own Kontakt instance. There are up to 16 midi tracks feeding the patches in that instance. Kontakt is sending audio to an audio track for each of the patches. Those audio tracks are not sending to the master track, but instead to two buses: one dry and one with reverb that goes to the master track.

I have each section color coded for easy identification and set up in folder. In the track section only the midi tracks are visible and only the audio tracks are visible in the mixer. I did modify the config file to make the super collapsed bars disappear, but I must have did it wrong. Not in a hurry to get that figured out just yet. Once summer vacation starts for me I am thinking about doing a tutorial for setting this up, but first I just want to actually make some music!

Thanks again Ozymandias!

Don


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## ontrackmusic (May 29, 2012)

Hi Darthmorphling...Congrats on getting your template setup. Sorry I was MIA there for a while. If you're still interested in seeing my template, feel free to shoot me a PM.

Ozymandias: My reaper project file is about 22-25MB if I remember correctly. I clocked my save time at over 30 seconds...really annoying. I'm still not sure why it takes so long, although I wonder if somehow the Hollywood series stuff in PLAY is involved, since my Kontakt-heavy template (with LASS) saves in a matter of a second or two. Dunno.


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## Darthmorphling (May 29, 2012)

@ontrackmusic

Thanks for the offer. I was just curious to see how the routing was set up. All is good now so again thanks! Actually I take that back it would be good tosee how you have your instruments set up. Your template is too big for gmail, but do you think it might compress using winrar or winzip? I'll PM you me email.

@Ozymandias

I was researching how to get the supercollapse option to work and apparently there are some possible issues with changing it to 0. Even though the tracks are not seen they can still be selected. This allows accidental editing or other mayham. 

Apparently there is a script you can run that actually toggles the tracks visible/invisible by clicking on the folder track.


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## Ozymandias (May 29, 2012)

Hi Don,

Yes, that's absolutely correct - I'd forgotten about that issue. Ironically, I've yet to accidentally edit an invisible track, but I have accidentally edited plenty of visible ones. :D

I use the WALTER route for hiding supercollapsed tracks mainly because I usually only have my MIDI tracks displayed in the TCP. Consequently, if I used a custom action to toggle visibility for all child tracks within a given folder, it would reveal both my MIDI and my audio tracks, which would throw a spanner in my template.

I could probably get around this problem by using custom actions which only act on specific dummy track groups (i.e. groups set up with no "master"), but I've never got around to trying that out. Regular incremental saves of my projects keep me reasonably immune from any wayward clicking.

That said, definitely go with whichever option seems best to you. The WALTER edit certainly has its risks.


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