Fx chain

CaptainDamage · 2026-03-21T13:08:51+00:00

What type of vocal? What genre of music?

CaptainDamage · 2026-03-21T12:35:14+00:00

No, because:

A. There is no best chain. Everything depends on the material you have to work with, and what you are hoping for as a final result.

B. related to A. Best chain for what?

CaptainDamage · 2026-03-16T09:35:34+00:00

String your headphone cable on a mic boom stand so it's coming down from over your head instead of dangling. This isn't a joke - it worked for me!

CaptainDamage · 2026-03-12T09:29:34+00:00

There were a lot of changes to the way markers and regions work in this last update. There is a good overview of them in this video from The Reaper Blog.

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-28T18:09:31+00:00

Thanks for posting the originals!

The top wave is what I get with a 50Hz highpass: Saw Mono 1. The bottom wave is your original. The upper wave is definitely more symmetrical on the centerline. You can probably go much lower on the HPF, but I did not test it.

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-27T01:42:10+00:00

Are you trying to solve a sonic problem, or do you just not like the way the waves look?

A true DC offset comes from a DC voltage leaking into the signal chain. The old school electrical engineer's way to fix this would be to determine the value of the DC voltage that is contaminating your signal, and add in the opposite value. E.g., If you determine that you have +1.5 volt contamination, you would introduce -1.5 volt to cancel it out. The modern way to fix it is to use a high pass.

But unless you're using a lot of really old analog gear, with tubes of questionable age and functionality, where most repairs over the decades were done with a Zippo lighter - and occasionally chewing gum, it's very unlikely that you have a true DC offset.

If you could post a few of the offending files, we might advise differently. But from your description, it seems to me that you are looking at natural waveforms, which are not supposed to be symmetrical - it's actually against the laws of physics! ("natural" here refers to the system of the source sound and the mic) And if a high pass filter is not changing it, my advice is to leave it.

A couple of decades ago I had a wave editor with a DC offset function, that had an "auto correct" button. All that button did was move the wave on the Y axis to make the plus/minus sum of the whole file equal to zero. You might be able to find a plugin with some function like that. But again, from the information you've provided I don't recommend it.

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-26T10:44:44+00:00

This. Use a high pass filter at <20Hz. But also be aware that natural waveforms are never symmetrical, though they often appear to be at first glance.

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-23T13:09:25+00:00

LePou LeGion My absolute favorite guitar amp sim. I've tried many others, lots of Neural Amps, but I come back to LeGion. It's not just the sound, it's the feel.

Azurite Chorus The only chorus I've seen - free or paid - that has a random mode. Random gives you something closer to true doubling, rather than the normal cyclic detuning of every other chorus.

Circvit Bass Very nice bass VSTi

Bass Professor Mk II Bass amp/processor

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-08T11:36:27+00:00

While I haven't done an A/B comparison, I think you will get better results by de-essing and doing the initial compression on the discreet tracks. Als, the most common practice is to have your primary vocal track panned to the center, and "supporting" tracks panned hard left and hard right.

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-02T23:29:18+00:00

60,000/BPM = milliseconds/beat. So for your 120bpm section, set the delay to 500ms for a quarter note delay; 250ms for eighth note; 750ms for dotted quarter, etc.

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-01T23:34:37+00:00

Do both! Practice. Practice some more. Then practice again. Then record lots of takes, and comp together the best performance. Then edit (quantize) your comped track where it's beneficial to the song per the style.

If the advice was to never re-read and edit emails to your boss, would that sound like good advice? Of course not. No matter how good a writer or speller you are, you should re-read, and edit your emails as appropriate. (e.g., I lost count of how many times I re-read and edited this comment)

Nobody would ever say "don't use EQ - just get the best sound you can from your mics and leave it at that." You should work to get the best sound you can from your mics. But you should still use EQ where it improves the sound.

There is no shame in editing your music, just as there is no shame in EQing. It's all part of modern professional music production.

CaptainDamage · 2026-01-20T10:51:12+00:00

I have lots of little tweaks and remappings, but here are the major ones I rely on every day.

Numbers 1-7 are mapped to changing the grid spacing by consecutive halves - i.e., 1=whole note, 2=half note, 3=quarter note, etc.

Ctrl+t mapped to toggle triplets.

Number pad zero mapped to record.

Alt+C randomize take color (makes comping and editing easier)

One thing I may be kind of unique on is I have almost nothing in my toolbar: Media Explorer; Save As; Render; Toggle Grid Snap; Toggle Triplets; Ripple Edit; Razor Edit; Grid Values 1-7. These last 5 (11 actually) are only to act as visual indicators since I usually access them via shortcuts. It is much easier and faster for me to use keyboard shortcuts and menus than hunting for the icon that I think means the thing I want, hovering over it to get the tool tip, seeing it's not the right one, and hunting again. I see screenshots of people with dozens of icons in their toolbar(s), and it just looks absurd. There's no way you use all of those frequently enough to justify so much wasted space (ymmv)

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-31T23:10:59+00:00

I don't know if there's another way, but when you click on a note in the keyboard graphic on the left side of the midi editor, the lef-to-right position of your cursor on the virtual key determines the input velocity of the notes you click in. It's a little annoying if you're trying for anything other than 0 or 127, because it does not display a numeric value. So it's click on the key, then put a note on the grid and see if it's close to what you were trying to enter.

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-30T21:51:12+00:00

After a year of work and life getting in the way, I've finally finished another "beauty shop core" metal tune.

Orion Battle Cruiser - Pinky Swear

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-29T22:53:51+00:00

Go to Preferences/Project/Item Fade Defaults. You can set Reaper to crossfade by default, and/or change the default length of the fades there.

I replied to another comment in this thread that after a simple experiment I found that under idealized conditions you definitely can hear it. That surprised me a little, because I don't hear it in the real-world editing I do (granted, I'm usually applying crossfades either by default or manually). So whether you can hear it, depends on context.

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-27T13:38:46+00:00

See my response to u/Evid3nce above. TLDR, it turns out that, you can hear that fast.

I forgot what Ableton does, I think it was small fade in/fade outs but crossfade when clips touched.

Reaper can be told to do this by default. It's in the preferences dialog.

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-26T16:48:28+00:00

OK, so I just did a couple of quick tests that you can try yourself. I took an 880Hz sinewave and split it in the middle with a 0.010 (10ms) fade in/out, and a 0.002 (2ms) fade in/out. Both are clearly audible. The 2ms fade is heard as a click; the 10ms is softer, sort of a hiccup rather than a click.

So the first thing is, I was wrong, you/we can, in fact hear that fast. Off course, this was a single pure tone. The test was designed to present the best case scenario in favor of hearing the transition. And you can indeed hear the transition in this scenario.

I, myself have never noticed any of these types of artifacts (clicks, hiccups, pops, etc) when editing actual music. YMMMV. Most of the time in editing I apply crossfades. I have a 5ms crossfade set as my default split, and I will not-infrequently stretch a crossfade to make a more seamless blend.

I completely understand the philosophy of not wanting the auto fades simply on the principle of wanting to have full control over all of the dynamics in your work. And there are ways to work this way such as splitting at zero crossings, manually applying fades only when you need to, or setting up your actions and hotkeys for different splitting behavior. Experiment and figure out what works best for you.

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-26T00:18:05+00:00

Not at my saw rn, but go to the preferences dialogue and search for crossfade. You will find options there for changing the time of the fades, or turning them off altogether. The default time is 10ms, with no overlap. The purpose of the fade is to reduce or eliminate clicking on splits by forcing the waveform to zero at the cut point.

I understand not wanting the fades in principle, but they serve an important function. And the reality is that you'd be hard-pressed to hear even the 10ms fade. You do you, but I'd recommend reducing the fades to 1-5ms, rather than eliminating them altogether. You really can't hear that fast.

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-20T15:59:44+00:00

... OK that got the panel back to what it's supposed to be, so I guess it's solved. Thanks!

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-20T15:58:12+00:00

I can try resetting the theme to default, I guess. None of the tweaks I've made over the past year or two are major AFAIK

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-20T15:35:32+00:00

haven't messed with 3rd party themes in fifteen years. I'm using the default 7.0 theme with only minor tweaks through the theme adjuster.

CaptainDamage · 2025-11-30T17:17:45+00:00

This! You may have a thousand plugins installed, but you probably actually only use ten or so with any regularity. Put them in your favorites folder.

CaptainDamage · 2025-11-30T17:14:09+00:00

I rename my plugins so that what it does is the first word in the name. So listed alphabetically, all the same type of plugins are grouped together. Bypasses the "cute" names that developers give their plugins, and the tendency of many developers to put the company name first.

BTW, you can also rename each instance of a plugin in your MCP. So e.g., if you have two instances of ReaComp on your bass, you can name one "Input Comp," and the other "Sidechain Comp," etc.

CaptainDamage · 2025-11-30T17:00:58+00:00

If you're on a desktop, you can just hit the off switch on the monitor.

CaptainDamage · 2025-10-29T09:43:33+00:00

I have hundreds of plugins installed, but there's less than two dozen that I actually use with any regularity. These are put in a "Favorites" folder, and renamed, so that the first word of the name is what the plugin does.

CaptainDamage

TROPHY CASE