Discuss the various methods you use in music production, from compressor settings to equipment type.
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By faze1 Thu Aug 18, 2011 12:19 am
dmarz45 wrote:
cyrus wrote:ok, so i want to see your guys reaper workflows and how you pull off complete beats with reaper.

ive made like 2 beats with reaper and although there were somethings i liked..........there were some things I also couldn't stand, but maybe I'm just not on same page as the rest of you with reaper.

lets say you got a drum loop, and song sample from vinyl.....i'd like to see you make a beat by chopping up drum loop, chopping sample, laying down your own groove, pitching up the samples, and finding the key and dropping in bassline to your chops......................


I record my sample into Reaper. Chop up the main parts I'm going to use(Pressing "S" splits the file). Right click --> render as new take and it makes wav files of your chops and saves them to the folder where u saved your beat. Open up battery and load the chops and then fine tune all my chops. After I do this I usually open up FL Studio and find some drums and layer them. You can even chop and layer your drums in Reaper and then just right click and render as new file. Then Ill just open up another instance of Battery and just drag all of my drum chops from FL studio into Battery. Then once I have my sampled chopped up and my drums loaded up Ill make the beat. Go into the piano roll editor and move around my drums\sample as neccessary and then do the synths, bassline, etc... It may sound like too much for you but this is what works for me. I just made that first beat in my signature like a half hour ago using this method. Actually all of the beats in my signature were made using this method.


Interesting...I have never tried to create soley in Reaper. Been looking at going with a "lightweight" mobile setup i can carry along with me when away from my home setup. Had settled on Reason (despite my not liking its sampling workflow...im a bit spoiled with chopping on my MPC and jjos NDC). But this is something i might try out...Battery 3 for samples/drums with reaper. This might be cool combo laptop+Reaper+Reason rewired+axiom25.
By dmarz45 Thu Aug 18, 2011 12:36 am
faze1 wrote:Interesting...I have never tried to create soley in Reaper. Been looking at going with a "lightweight" mobile setup i can carry along with me when away from my home setup. Had settled on Reason (despite my not liking its sampling workflow...im a bit spoiled with chopping on my MPC and jjos NDC). But this is something i might try out...Battery 3 for samples/drums with reaper. This might be cool combo laptop+Reaper+Reason rewired+axiom25.


Yeah man that would be a nice setup. You can do all your chopping in the Reaper multitrack and then just load samples\drums right into battery. Just use Reason rewired for sounds. Definitely cant go wrong with that. My workflow is 3x faster with Reaper. I love using Reaper to layer my drums because it allows me to actually line up the waveforms properly so I can get nice chunky drums..
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By cyrus Thu Aug 18, 2011 2:50 am
faze1 wrote:
dmarz45 wrote:
cyrus wrote:ok, so i want to see your guys reaper workflows and how you pull off complete beats with reaper.

ive made like 2 beats with reaper and although there were somethings i liked..........there were some things I also couldn't stand, but maybe I'm just not on same page as the rest of you with reaper.

lets say you got a drum loop, and song sample from vinyl.....i'd like to see you make a beat by chopping up drum loop, chopping sample, laying down your own groove, pitching up the samples, and finding the key and dropping in bassline to your chops......................


I record my sample into Reaper. Chop up the main parts I'm going to use(Pressing "S" splits the file). Right click --> render as new take and it makes wav files of your chops and saves them to the folder where u saved your beat. Open up battery and load the chops and then fine tune all my chops. After I do this I usually open up FL Studio and find some drums and layer them. You can even chop and layer your drums in Reaper and then just right click and render as new file. Then Ill just open up another instance of Battery and just drag all of my drum chops from FL studio into Battery. Then once I have my sampled chopped up and my drums loaded up Ill make the beat. Go into the piano roll editor and move around my drums\sample as neccessary and then do the synths, bassline, etc... It may sound like too much for you but this is what works for me. I just made that first beat in my signature like a half hour ago using this method. Actually all of the beats in my signature were made using this method.


Interesting...I have never tried to create soley in Reaper. Been looking at going with a "lightweight" mobile setup i can carry along with me when away from my home setup. Had settled on Reason (despite my not liking its sampling workflow...im a bit spoiled with chopping on my MPC and jjos NDC). But this is something i might try out...Battery 3 for samples/drums with reaper. This might be cool combo laptop+Reaper+Reason rewired+axiom25.


yeah, thats sort of why i was exploring it, some kind of mobile setup. I'm trying out poise http://www.onesmallclue.com/poise.php - its mpc like vst. I guess battery could get the job done too. but im liking poise. the problem so far for me is that i really need a portable pad controller. at home i could use my mpc as controller, but out and about i need something portalbe. and i cant use the mouse, there is no way.

we are spoiled with NDC. its so fast. I guess in reaper using markers will work then just split on markers and render as new take - but seems like there should be a faster way. the reason i really like NDC is because you can preview differant chop points quickly. I guess on reaper you can use keys to jump from one marker to the next, but still, seems like there should be a better way that im missing.
By dtaa pla muk Thu Aug 18, 2011 4:38 pm
any and all slicing in reaper is nondestructive, so as you split new items out of an original sample you can always grow or shrink the edge after slicing.

you could get an jjos2xl-style NDC with POISE by dragging the same sample onto every pad and then adjusting the start/end point in POISE per pad.

for me the real power of DAW work is as a macrosampler
taking those big chunks that would be unwieldy in the MPC.
also i like doing additional percussion (big complicated fills) that would also be inconvenient or difficult to do in the mpc.

a last trick is to alt-drag (timestretch) a sample til it's grainy and horrible sounding, then apply Amplitube Fender to it...it smooths it out and creates some fantastic atmospheric tones to fade in and out. if you use the sample you're working with you know it'll fit the key and it invariably sounds awesome.
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By cyrus Thu Aug 18, 2011 4:47 pm
Nym wrote:any and all slicing in reaper is nondestructive, so as you split new items out of an original sample you can always grow or shrink the edge after slicing.

you could get an jjos2xl-style NDC with POISE by dragging the same sample onto every pad and then adjusting the start/end point in POISE per pad.

for me the real power of DAW work is as a macrosampler
taking those big chunks that would be unwieldy in the MPC.
also i like doing additional percussion (big complicated fills) that would also be inconvenient or difficult to do in the mpc.

a last trick is to alt-drag (timestretch) a sample til it's grainy and horrible sounding, then apply Amplitube Fender to it...it smooths it out and creates some fantastic atmospheric tones to fade in and out. if you use the sample you're working with you know it'll fit the key and it invariably sounds awesome.


so nym, how are you finding your chops with reaper? is it more calculated? liek you chop in 16ths? or chop at every peak? or experimenting? when i chop on mpc i use NDC sort of to scour and find interesting things.........but depends on sample too, sometimes its all even or calculated....but i guess thats what im trying to discover with reaper, is how do i go about chopping a sample thats both fast, fun, and experimental......
like i have hard time saying.......im going to chop here, here, and here without comparing it to my drum sequence and trying things out. ya know.

any tips would be appreciated.
By dtaa pla muk Thu Aug 18, 2011 7:48 pm
if i chop in reaper i chop at the transient and then alt-stretch the chunk it into place
but i don't do conventional sample chopping in reaper at all, if i'm in reaper before i write a song i'm just bending a loop into a more predictable place so that it aligns better with the MPC grid.

for fast and fun, i built a macro that splits the item under the mouse cursor (instead of placing the edit cursor and hitting S)

that way you can just wave your mouse at a .wav file and hit the x button to place your slice points.

that's about as fast as you can get, and very accurate too esp if you zoom in.
By séance Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:00 pm
séance wrote:To each, his.



I second this.
By dmarz45 Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:54 pm
Yeah I just chop at the transients where it makes the most sense. I do it by eye and ear. The timestretch is so easy to use and if one of your chops just isnt long enough you can timestretch it very easily. This is why I love working in a DAW because it gives me so much flexability with chopping as well as editing audio and midi data.
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By SupremeSoulstice Fri Aug 19, 2011 1:39 am
Dope this is still going! Learning some new things! Big up dmarz45 for not letting clownish antics and behavior run you off!!
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By the cosmic pimp Fri Aug 19, 2011 4:11 pm
Well tomorrow it's exactly a whole year since gave my MPC-2500 to the Iranium nuclear waste program.

Spending a whole year in isolation ,quarantined because of all the muddyness and gamma-rays

totally sent me crazy.........so hopefully saturday i'll be able to join the human race again purged of my sinfull almost peadophilic ways with the pad bashing totally behind me dead in the past with lo-fi hip hop

viva la Ableton and Dance productions
By foodeater Fri Aug 19, 2011 10:11 pm
@Ibunshi
Slow clap.

Also, THIS:
mr_debauch wrote:again we have a fine display of people who cant rap their heads around using more then one piece of gear (in tandem).
"no, I am only allowed owning one piece of music gear... so this one MUST do it all for me"


Seriously, I'd get bored and start to hate gear if I couldn't spice it up. I own a few hardware and software sequencers and I love making them interact.

For me the MPC sequences hardware including my computer better than any DAW. It's funny, I think Reaper has by far the worst MIDI editing tools (I use Logic) and live jamming possibilities (I use Live), it is good for multitrack audio. I also dig the MIDI arp in Reaper and I either process the MPC's output or record the MIDI into the MPC.

Bouncing audio and MIDI between Numerology + MPC and finishing up in Logic has been the best combo I've found. Thankfully, it's cheap to experiment nowadays and anyone can find the exact right setup that works for them, given enough time.

I also think if you're working entirely in on a personal computer with say a maschine or something and aren't "wasting" time bouncing and freezing tracks you aren't going hard enough! :) There are so many creative opportunities on a computer that make your CPU hate you and you better take advantage of them.
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By Upright Sat Aug 20, 2011 2:04 am
Nym wrote:
for fast and fun, i built a macro that splits the item under the mouse cursor (instead of placing the edit cursor and hitting S)

that way you can just wave your mouse at a .wav file and hit the x button to place your slice points.

that's about as fast as you can get, and very accurate too esp if you zoom in.



This actually sounds like a pretty sick macro...seems like it would keep the workflow moving. Nice. :D
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By Upright Sat Aug 20, 2011 2:08 am
Nym wrote:
for me the real power of DAW work is as a macrosampler
taking those big chunks that would be unwieldy in the MPC.
also i like doing additional percussion (big complicated fills) that would also be inconvenient or difficult to do in the mpc.

a last trick is to alt-drag (timestretch) a sample til it's grainy and horrible sounding, then apply Amplitube Fender to it...it smooths it out and creates some fantastic atmospheric tones to fade in and out. if you use the sample you're working with you know it'll fit the key and it invariably sounds awesome.




These are straight gems right here and sadly I don't think these cats are paying attention. You are a thousand times right about the stretching a sample and it remaining in key but I've never thought to do this.....sick stuff Nym.
By Clint Sat Aug 20, 2011 9:56 am
If anyone fancies dropping some Reaper gems or tutorials there is a new DAW sub-forum.

Some existing threads have already been moved there...

viewforum.php?f=35
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By sirparksalot Tue Aug 30, 2011 1:36 am
When I switched from a 1000 to a 4000 I wasn't uncomfortable at all. It had all the same features, except x2. It was just a matter of finding it all. I wouldn't trade my mpc for anything....I suffer from chronic headaches though, so that is another draw. I hate editing tracked out stuff on a computer. Glad you found what works for you man, it's all good. I don't want to switch now though, I'm finally comfortable on my machine. No sense in learning an entire new process when all I'm doing is samples, drums, and bass. I don't need a computer for that. In fact, I'm way slower.