Reaper Monitoring

[Avis71]

Hi, I would like to ask the question below, I am quite new with reaper and tried to read the manual for as far as that is possible on this but couldn't find much.

My Goal was to create different monitor channels derived from the master just to adjust the volume with a VISIBLE fader for each device in the mixer which i can control ALSO from the faders of my midi keyboard. I am coming from Cantabile and there this is super easy to setup. I checked the routing matrix and saw it's not possible to send master output to a track.
So the first question is, is it really not possible to send the master fader audio to a track ?

As a workaround i wanted to setup 'my own master fader' by sending all source channels to this track and then send this to my device output channels. I did this for each of the three amps, it works fine but now there is no fader where i can adjust the volume of all three outputs at the same time.
So i thought i make a folder above these 3 tracks where i collect all the sources and then send this audio to the 3 children below the folder and then from each of these tracks i can balance the volume plus i have one total volume in the folder.
The problem is that i can't send audio from parent to child, somehow this doesn't work, the routing table shows it should work but it doesn't.
Does somebody know how to do this ?

Then i tried to group the parent and the children volume, this works but then i can't individually balance between the 3 outputs, they all go only strictly together.

If somebody can give some advice on this i would appreciate it.
Thank you
Avis71

[James HE]

REAPER has a MONITOR FX section that you can use for post master processing.

I wrote a JSFX to handle non-hardware based monitor switching.

Video is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCP_QcI8Ifg

link in description. I go into detail, and the video is quite long. hopefully this helps, and you can get this setup for your needs.

Currently working on a new version, so any features you'd like to see added, let me know.

[ashcat_lt]

I can see where this almost makes sense in a visual/organization way. You'll need to turn off the parent send on the children and then make explicit sends from the folder to the individual child tracks. Otherwise, it's a feedback loop and by default Reaper will not let that happen. There's an option to allow it, but you don't want that since it will be real actual audio feedback and not at all what you want.

[emarsk]

As far as I can tell it's simply not possible to send signal from a parent folder to its child, or from the master to a track.

But you can just make your pseudo-master ("mistress"?) a regular track instead of a folder. If you still want a folder for visual organisation you can make one and not use it for routing at all (by unticking the "parent send" for all its children). The "mistress" bus can be inside or outside of the folder, as you find it more visually convenient. Some themes allow using a blank strip with just the track's name instead of the regular fader etc., which could be nice here.

You could still keep the regular master for rendering, so you don't accidentally alter the rendering volume by lowering you global monitoring level (and for convenience), just remember to untick the "master send" for each of the new busses in that case.

[ashcat_lt]

Originally Posted by emarsk

As far as I can tell it's simply not possible to send signal from a parent folder to its child, or from the master to a track.

Horse hockey!

Edit - Not from the Master itself, but from a folder parent it should work fine.

[emarsk]

Originally Posted by ashcat_lt

[…] from a folder parent it should work fine.

"Should"? Why don't you try and see? I tried and couldn't make it work. Yes, I disabled "parent send".

[Avis71]

Thank you James,
That's exactly what i was looking for. I am a bit surprised that it's not possible 'out of the almighty box' but hey that's why i appreciate all the more the gadget you made, it's really an amazing piece of work !!!
Also the video is amazing and very much appreciated.
Ideally a reference would be made in the manual for other people who like me where just looking for some basic monitoring functionality.

Thank you again.
Anno

[ashcat_lt]

OK. It actually does require "Allow feedback..." to be enabled. Turn off the parent send first! Then allow feedback routing. Then it works.

Sorry. It should probably catch that, and I thought it did.

[emarsk]

Ah, here it is! Project settings, not the preferences…
Yes, now it works, thanks.

[James HE]

Originally Posted by Avis71

Thank you James,
That's exactly what i was looking for. I am a bit surprised that it's not possible 'out of the almighty box' but hey that's why i appreciate all the more the gadget you made, it's really an amazing piece of work !!!
Also the video is amazing and very much appreciated.
Ideally a reference would be made in the manual for other people who like me where just looking for some basic monitoring functionality.

Thank you again.
Anno

Welcome! glad to hear the video helped. I made it so that newer uses could hopefully understand how to set something like this up. It's a lot of steps to get going, but thankfully it's always there everytime you open REAPER once you set it up.

[Avis71]

Thank you Emarsk and ashcat_It as well.
Indeed it's working when you switch off the feedback prevention.

Thank you.
Anno

[ashcat_lt]

Originally Posted by Avis71

Ideally a reference would be made in the manual for other people who like me where just looking for some basic monitoring functionality.

To be fair, this is not exactly "basic functionality". You kind of chose to do things in a bit of a roundabout almost backwards way. That requires some thinking and some working around to make it work, but at least we have ways to make it happen. In many other DAWs the answer would just be plain NO.

Please don't take this as criticism or saying you're doing something wrong. It's just not really basic or standard. Honestly, also not the way I would probably do it. The real issue is that you're trying to pass "down" the folder hierarchy.

BUT! Here's a way to keep that folder structure and do it without feedback routing:

You'll have to send all your tracks to each of the child tracks individually (this will let you create different mixes for each of those monitor outs if/when you want). But you're not putting the Hardware sends on these child tracks. Instead, you set each of these tracks to receive on a different pair of track channels or else use a plug on each of those tracks to reroute the 1/2 in to different pairs. Monitor Track 1 will pass audio up to the folder parent on channels 1/2, Monitor Track 2 on 3/4, etc.

Actually, you might just have one more track (which could just be hidden, but also a child of the folder) that all your tracks send to, and then it sends to each of the Monitor Tracks on different channels.

Either way, though, we've now got basically the same thing on a bunch of different channels on the parent, each pair controlled by its own track fader, and then ALL of those are also affected by the parent fader. Then make Hardware Sends on that parent folder which send those pairs to the appropriate physical outputs. There's no feedback, so you don't need to "Allow...".

That setting, BTW, kind of breaks PDC. Tracks with feedback routing will not (can't) compensate correctly for plugin latency. I don't think that's an issue in this kind of situation where you're just passing things through, but if you start putting FX on those tracks, it might get ugly.

[hopi]

nice James... thanks