REAPER Folder behavior

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REAPER Folder behavior

Postby Andy Hamm » Wed Aug 01, 2012 12:50 am

continued from this derailed thread:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=277&start=40
When I came home late last night.....
The wife left a note on the fridge:
"It's not working, I can't take it anymore!!
Gone to stay with my Mother."
I opened the fridge, the light came on, and the beer was cold.........
What the hell is she talking about??????
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Re: REAPER Folder behavior

Postby gdougherty » Wed Aug 01, 2012 2:04 am

Nothing more to be said. Richard's test proves Folders in Reaper exhibit no DCA behavior except for what you're erroneously implying out of it from Reaper's fancy solo bus behavior. Solo functionality means squat. What matters is how signal is affected in a non-solo'd state. Reaper's folders are consistent in their behavior as a subgroup rather than a DCA. Understand what a DCA is and how it behaves and I'm pretty sure you'll come around.
http://softwareaudioconsole.wikidot.com The start of a wiki. It's slow going and there's a ton of info that should be in there yet.
Biggest item is the Command Reference on how to do most actions within SAC. It's 90% of what you need for UI proficiency.

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Re: REAPER Folder behavior

Postby Andy Hamm » Wed Aug 01, 2012 11:11 am

OK, So there is some debate over the functionality of folders in Reaper. I'll be using this thread to show how I use folders on my mix racks and how they operate to manipulate audio.

To be totally clear, I'll be posting screenshots as I go so if anyone wants to follow along they are welcome to do so. You can call this an experiement, tutorial, or just a look at folders in Reaper.

Step 1: Setting up Tracks

Open Reaper, create a new project. Create 5 Tracks in that project. Label Track 1 as SUB1, track 2 as VOX, track 3 as Track, track 4 as DDL and track 5 as REV. Now go ahead and set up your rev and delay on the two appropriate tracks, and configure your vox track to accept your mic input. You can add an audio track to the Track track at this time if you wish as well. You will want to have the inputs of the SUB1, DDL and REV track to be set to 'none' as you don't want them to accept any external input from your interface. Now add sends from your vox and track tracks to the rev and ddl tracks, make them post fader and send them a strong, audible signal. When you are done, you should have a mixer view that looks something like this:

Image

At this point there are a few things that you should verify. Firstly, make sure that the rev and ddl from the mic input (or track if you are using that) are indeed post fader. If you pull the Vox fader down, the ddl and rev should also fade as you do so. When you have the vox fader all the way down, take note that the fader on teh vox channel is still showing you your mic input in a pfl fashion, meters on track channels display the track input. You will notice that the meters for the ddl and the rev have both faded down as you pulled down the vox fader, and this is because you have essentially faded out those tracks inputs. The meter on the Master output is post fader, so the meters will fade as you pull the Master fader down.

OK so, we have verified that everything works as we expected it to.

Step 2 Setting up the Folder:

I don't have empty folders set up in my theme for my mixer, and they are not common in most mixer themes, so you need to go to the tcp view to se up your folders.
Go into TCP view and click on the folder on the SUB1 track, making it the first folder in the group (the Folder Master) and then go down to your DDL track (track 4) and make it the last folder in the folder group. This will leave track 5, your REV return, outside of the folder group.

In TCP view you will have something that looks like this:
Image

Now go back to your mixer view. Turn your VOX track down and you will see that there is no input to the DDL or the REV as the meters (PFL) will not move and you won't hear anything. Adding the tracks to the folder made no difference, as you would expect. So the mixer and meters look like this:

Image

Now, put the vox fader back up and the ddl and rev inputs will return as expected. Now grab the SUB1 folder and pull it down, but before you do so take a second and think about what you would expect to happen. I expect that when I pull the Sub Group fader down, I will see input to my MIC channel, input to my DDL channel - but I won't hear either of those. I should however, still see input to my REV channel and I Should hear it as well, as it is outside of the Subgroup.

Go ahead and pull down the Group fader and see what happens:
Image

I hear nothing. The inputs to the Rev and DDL have been faded out and there is no output from any channel to the Master fader.

Why would this happen? The only logical explanation I have is that the Folder fader is acting like a VCA and it is turning down the output of each of its child tracks. Allthough the fader for the child track does not physically or virtually move to show this action, it is the only logical explanation I can come up with to explain this behaviour.

I've just noticed in preview mode that the images appear to be chopped, and you can't see the master fader and its meter. You can view the screenshots unchopped here: http://www.tourtech.ca/pub/ReaFolders/

If anyone else should decide to try this and they get different results, I'd like to hear about it. I have 2 Mix Racks, a Studio PC and the PC that I am writing this on, and they all behave in this way.
When I came home late last night.....
The wife left a note on the fridge:
"It's not working, I can't take it anymore!!
Gone to stay with my Mother."
I opened the fridge, the light came on, and the beer was cold.........
What the hell is she talking about??????
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Andy Hamm
 
Posts: 110
Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2012 8:24 am
Location: Southern Ontario, Canada

Re: REAPER Folder behavior

Postby Administrator » Wed Aug 01, 2012 11:25 am

I think the issue here is on the normal implementation of a VCA (think analog days) - any auxes that were tapped POST fader, would also be tapped post-vca effected fader. In that case, we would expect the signal going to both your DDL and Reverb to be taken away as you pulled the VCA back. It would not rely on the OUTPUT of the effect to be reduced, but the INPUT.

The practical application of this is consider I have only one vocal verb (hey - analog verbs are expensive!). I have 5 background singers, and a lead vocalist - all sharing that reverb. I put the backgrounds on a VCA, and let the lead run directly. Now, when I pull back on the VCA, I expect the backups to be pulled down AND expect their contribution to the reverb to ALSO be pulled down - WITHOUT effecting the lead vocal going to the effect.

Under your setup, that would not be possible. The backups would still be hitting the Verb at full power, making them quieter, but much wetter. Not really the idea we would want.
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Re: REAPER Folder behavior

Postby Andy Hamm » Wed Aug 01, 2012 11:36 am

This mix config is only to demonstrate that when I pull down the Folder Master fader, the post fader sends of the child tracks within that folder are attenuated. Normally I would have my Vocal effects all in the same folder, but having one effect inside and one outside of the folder was just done for clarity - because one wouldn't expect to hear the output of that effect with the Sub group fader that it is assigned to is pulled down.

If this folder acted like a subgroup then, yes they result wouldn't have been something that I would normally have done - vocals faded out with the reverb still recieving the send. Again just trying to clarify the operation, and this was the simplest way I could do so.
When I came home late last night.....
The wife left a note on the fridge:
"It's not working, I can't take it anymore!!
Gone to stay with my Mother."
I opened the fridge, the light came on, and the beer was cold.........
What the hell is she talking about??????
User avatar
Andy Hamm
 
Posts: 110
Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2012 8:24 am
Location: Southern Ontario, Canada

Re: REAPER Folder behavior

Postby Andy Hamm » Wed Aug 01, 2012 12:27 pm

I played with this for a bit to see if I could change the behaviour of the folder, and I was able to get it to perform as if it was a subgroup by simply clicking on the Record Monitor Enable on the folder master in the mixer:

Image

As soon as I click this, my post fader sends appear and I hear my reverb return through my monitors. So the folder can, in fact, have either behaviour depending on how it is configured.

I normally do not record Arm, Record Monitor and I apply an input of 'None" to all of my folders and return channels. Basically is it does not have a physical input I disable these features as they normally default to the first physical input on your interface, which is normally my kick drum.
When I came home late last night.....
The wife left a note on the fridge:
"It's not working, I can't take it anymore!!
Gone to stay with my Mother."
I opened the fridge, the light came on, and the beer was cold.........
What the hell is she talking about??????
User avatar
Andy Hamm
 
Posts: 110
Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2012 8:24 am
Location: Southern Ontario, Canada

Re: REAPER Folder behavior

Postby gdougherty » Wed Aug 01, 2012 5:24 pm

You have some option set differently from the default then, or there's an accumulated bug in your Reaper upgrade history. Or there's just a bug in Reaper.

That is not how Reaper behaves by default on my rig. I tried it with the vox both armed and disarmed for recording and my results are fully consistent with both what I've had in the past and what Richard did yesterday. I'm testing with a recorded track even though the live input is armed. Perhaps its a bug in the way Reaper handles live audio monitoring vs the way the normal recorded track signal works. When I fade down the folder master I keep the full wet signal from the reverb and lose the delay effect.

Maybe try doing a scratch portable install of Reaper into another folder and see if it continues to behave that way.
http://softwareaudioconsole.wikidot.com The start of a wiki. It's slow going and there's a ton of info that should be in there yet.
Biggest item is the Command Reference on how to do most actions within SAC. It's 90% of what you need for UI proficiency.

g is for George
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Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2012 5:10 pm
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Re: REAPER Folder behavior

Postby Andy Hamm » Wed Aug 01, 2012 11:54 pm

Yes, my installs are somewhat tweeked for live use, allthough I haven't ever seen anything that even mentions folder behaviour. I don't think it's all that uncommon that users get this behaviour, based on settings or whatever, as it comes up every now and then in the Reaper fourms.

I actually don't want to get rid of it, I'm used to it behaving this way!
When I came home late last night.....
The wife left a note on the fridge:
"It's not working, I can't take it anymore!!
Gone to stay with my Mother."
I opened the fridge, the light came on, and the beer was cold.........
What the hell is she talking about??????
User avatar
Andy Hamm
 
Posts: 110
Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2012 8:24 am
Location: Southern Ontario, Canada


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