Dog watching TV, I mean, Reaper

[unimogbert]

2023 EDIT - Folks tried to help but it just didn't work. No MIDI drums.

Some folks are helpful. Some, very few, are not. I'm not going to ask questions here any more.

[MikeBmusic]

Originally Posted by unimogbert

It's been a month since I started out feeling like a dog watching TV.
After a lot of reading and immersion as much as I had time for in the world and language of recording and Reaper I've reached a milestone.

I have 10 covers completed in adequate quality to burn a CD for my 80 year old mother.

Along the way I've learned about starting with a scratch track, panning the scratch track hard left and right so it can be split and each part used separately.
I've learned to add some reverb to "thicken" my vocals. I've used EQ to notch out a nasty tone on my GXi. I've used volume envelopes to start and stop the parts I want to be heard.

And today I used copy and paste followed by slip editing to fix a vocal timing problem by moving the vocal to the correct spot and thereby saved a 7 track song from the recycle bin.

At this point I've probably used 5% of what Reaper is capable of. Wow!

See, old dogs CAN learn new tricks! Reaper has a lot of shortcuts (1 or 2 keys to do something that would normally require using a drop-down menu, etc), but there are also techniques that work with any DAW, such as creating templates - saving time setting up new sessions or inserting FX chains always used.

[unimogbert]

2023 EDIT - Folks tried to help but it just didn't work. No MIDI drums.

Some folks are helpful. Some, very few, are not. I'm not going to ask questions here any more.

[MikeBmusic]

The only things I added immediately after d/l-ing Reaper were the impulse files to use with ReaVerb. That's all I needed to get started. I've added more plugins and virtual instruments since then, just put them in the same 'VST Plug Ins' folder in Window's Program Files.
I think you're over-complicating things.

[unimogbert]

2023 EDIT - Folks tried to help but it just didn't work. No MIDI drums.

Some folks are helpful. Some, very few, are not. I'm not going to ask questions here any more.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by unimogbert

Maybe. Or maybe I'm just dumb.

I have yet to figure out drums. Took another run at it yesterday. Even had an example project template with drums in it. They played just fine but the rest was alien technology.

I'm still working on the user manual but it reads more like unix help files - if you know what it means it'll help clarify. If you don't - it probably won't.

My big accomplishment for the weekend was to safely change colors of my tracks. (and fix a few mistakes in vocals by punching in copies of other better takes)

I tech supported for Digidesign during the earlier releases of Pro Tools. For 8 hours a day I would hear and endless stream of continuous frustrations. It was a difficult job to say the least. That and truth be told, in the early days, there probable as some legitimate reasons to be frustrated.

That said and setting aside all the legitimate frustrations (of things that just didn't work in the early days) the single biggest problem was folks getting frustrated, angry and in doing so making things much more complicated than needed. Even terms from your last post like "extensions", "add-ons" and "scripts" seem to be overly complicated descriptors. Honestly in all the years I've had my nose in DAW's 60 hours a week I don't know what your describing.

I know this is only a hobby for you but I'm thinking maybe someone in your general area might be able to sit down with you and show you around Reaper a bit. I'm bettin' an hour or so with someone who's familiar with the program would shed light on just how easy Reaper can be?

[unimogbert]

2023 EDIT - Folks tried to help but it just didn't work. No MIDI drums.

Some folks are helpful. Some, very few, are not. I'm not going to ask questions here any more.

[MikeBmusic]

Ok:
VSTs are plug-ins, these can be compressors, equalizers, effects; VSTi's are virtual instrument plug-ins (meaning you tell them MIDI info, they play sounds - synths, drums, etc.). Reaper comes with a lot of plug-ins (but not VSTi's).

Extensions - you don't need them. Reaper's got everything you need already. You need to learn how to use the built-in features and not worry about MORE shortcuts to remember, or scripts to do oft-repeated tasks more quickly.

Add-ons - de-essers, compressors - these are just more plug-ins, VST's. You don't need any more now. Really.


How are you trying to add drums to tracks? I'll tell you that if you are trying to create MIDI tracks from scratch, using a built-in wave table or VSTi plug in, you're going to get bogged down. Starting out, you'll do better to 'play drums' on a simple keyboard with built-in drum sounds (like most inexpensive Casios) and record the audio-out from the keyboard. Alternately, there are programs that run as a VSTi plug-in. Some are more complicated than others. EZDrummer (now version 2) is pretty easy to use - you audition the built-in loops, modify them if/as needed, then drag and drop them into a track in Reaper - but there's still a bit of a learning curve associated with this that I'm not sure you're ready for.

[unimogbert]

2023 EDIT - Folks tried to help but it just didn't work. No MIDI drums.

Some folks are helpful. Some, very few, are not. I'm not going to ask questions here any more.

[unimogbert]

2023 EDIT - Folks tried to help but it just didn't work. No MIDI drums.

Some folks are helpful. Some, very few, are not. I'm not going to ask questions here any more.

[MikeBmusic]

Yes, you're trying to create drum tracks from scratch via MIDI. I honestly don't recommend this method for a beginner. After 4+ years with Reaper, I'm still a MIDI amateur - I don't create drum tracks that way.

What do you think about 'playing' drums on a keyboard? Most Casio's have sounds built in - play a C note for a snare, for example, and a low E is the kick drum, hi-hat open is a high A, hi-hat closed is the B next to it. Go to a music shop, and play around with a demo keyboard and see if it might be something you could work with.

Alternately go to the EZDrummer page here and check out what it's like.

[unimogbert]

2023 EDIT - Folks tried to help but it just didn't work. No MIDI drums.

Some folks are helpful. Some, very few, are not. I'm not going to ask questions here any more.

[KevWind]

OK at the risk of complicating things I would say that while Mike is trying to be helpful (as per his own experience) IMO Honestly except for "feel" there is no fundamentally no difference between inputting midi notes via physical keyboard or virtual keyboard. And arguably if you have no prior physical keyboard experience using the virtual keyboard and or simply drawing midi notes into the grid may in fact be simpler

Some quick midi basics:
midi notes are usually displayed in a grid with horizontal and vertical lines The lines that run horizontal and divide the grid into up and down increments and actually relate to the individual keys (notes) on a keyboard (virtual or physical) that has been rotated 90 degrees with the low notes at the bottom and going higher as you go up.

The vertical lines of grid (do as you suspected indicate time increments) and usually the spacing is adjustable in increments relating to note lengths = whole notes , 1/2, 1/4 ,1/8 and 1/16th notes.

midi notes (usually indicated by little rectangular boxes for individual notes, or long lines the height of the individual notes, and indicate a a loop of of a combination midi notes. For example a loop of an entire drum kit playing a pre determined pattern)

Ok so there 4 basic methods for inputting midi notes into the grid.
1. by clicking on the mouse with the cursor over a particular key on the virtual midi keyboard
2.by depressing a physical key on a physical midi keyboard
3. by placing the cursor in the graph and double clicking the mouse
4. by drawing in (usually with a pencil tool) by clicking the mouse with the pencil cursor in the grid.

(Note) once you have a note or set of notes, say perhaps a One bar set of kick drum notes (you can with most DAW's) highlight that bar and copy and paste in successive bars in the time line to have the same kick pattern for an entire song.

With drums the usual "mapping" (which actual key triggers which drum instrument) i.e. kick drum, snare drum, tomtom, high hat symbals , crash , ride etc.

kick drum is usually C .

So with that in mind perhaps this tutorial will help a bit (even though its about inputing a synth instrument ) it is using the ReaSamplomatic5000 and many of the basics will apply. Hope this helps

[unimogbert]

2023 EDIT - Folks tried to help but it just didn't work. No MIDI drums.

Some folks are helpful. Some, very few, are not. I'm not going to ask questions here any more.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by unimogbert

Thanks Kev.

The grid is, I presume, the "piano roll" that the crowd refers to?
(I've actually seen and loaded player piano rolls on a player piano when I was a kid so it's a good analogy)]

Yes basically. For example in the youtube screen pictured in my post (before actually clicking on the the play button), the piano roll is on the left and defines the corresponding notes vertically and relates to the the horizontal grid lines (as if you took that virtual keyboard at the bottom and pivoted it from the lower left corner 90 degrees )

I briefly made an excursion to the virtual keyboard and the grid and a synthesizer (documented in this thread) and even got it to make sounds. They were ugly simple synthesizer sounds but - they made sounds.

What's missing for me are the parts that relate to drums.

Setup involves getting sampled sounds of a drum set, putting them in the right place (not named), then hooking them to the sampler somehow then mapping the samples thru the sampler to the keyboard then tap the keyboard to make drum sounds and punch holes in the roll? Right?

Correct now in the tutorial she goes through the process of locating a WAV file and loading it into the sampler NOTE there are two different kinds of files you can load into a sampler a multi instrument loop (like she does in the tutorial) which already has a predetermined pattern. Or you can load single note (sometime called one shot) sample of things like a single kick drum hit or snare or cymbal etc. Map it to a particular key (some times it will do the mapping by default for you. Then you then produce your own pattern. Which I believe is what you are trying to do correct ?

Or alternatively you punch holes in the paper roll with your mouse button? Also right?

Yes essentially the same concept

If those are the building blocks I get the concept. It's the naming of the pieces, their locations and the connections between them that I can't bridge because these are assumed to be obvious by the reaper forum folks.
They aren't obvious to me. I'm too ignorant to even be a newbie there.

(even though I'm still reading the User's Guide as best I can)

Yes your beginning to get it Yes the lingo is hard to get at first but that will come.
You said you have a ReaDrum sampled drum set I am presuming it has one shot samples
I can't do it right now but this evening I will review that tutorial and see if I can figure how to load an map for multiple single samples