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07-06-2022, 10:05 AM
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#1
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 104
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Embarrassing Newbie admission
Bought Reaper a very long time ago but never really used it much. Now retired and enjoying videoing myself playing guitar and singing. I want to manipulate the sound track to my videos and have dug Reaper out and it looks to fit the bill exactly. Unfortunately, it is so long since I used it it looks to be a massive overkill but I would like to spend some time learning the software, especially now I'm retired. Can anybody recommend the best online course for me to learn the software (including the video options) and then use it it mix/master vocals and acoustic guitar tracks.
Many thanks.
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07-06-2022, 01:17 PM
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#3
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 104
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That's great, thank you so much for the prompt response and the information. I'll give those links a go 😃
Thanks again
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07-08-2022, 05:55 AM
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#4
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: UK, in and around London.
Posts: 408
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Not embarrassing!
Quote:
Originally Posted by dhj
That's great, thank you so much for the prompt response and the information. I'll give those links a go 😃
Thanks again
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Hope you get on well with Kenny's videos -- there are fifteen in the Reaper 6 series that kind of walk you through everything. Kenny's a superstar, and as if Reaper's not brilliant enough, to have him on board making calm, easy to follow, simple yet deeply enjoyable videos is excellent icing on a top-notch cake. I am an experienced producer but I've sat through many of Kenny's Reaper 6 videos just because there's something deeply reassuring and calming about them (and, anyway, they gave me clues to help someone I'm teaching myself).
The real reason I've just swung by here, though, it to say NOT EMBARRASSING. It's great to want to try something out, have a go at learning something new. I applaud it. And "Newbieland" is patrolled by friendly people who will want to help, so I hope you really enjoy getting going. Don't be worried about asking a stupid question even for a moment. Everyone is somewhere unique on their music journey and it's a positive thing (especially in what can sometimes be a crappy world, TBH) to try to help each other. Good luck -- let us know how you get on.
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07-09-2022, 04:22 AM
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#5
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Scribe
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Van Diemen's Land
Posts: 12,201
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SiddieNam
And "Newbieland" is patrolled by friendly people who will want to help, so I hope you really enjoy getting going. Don't be worried about asking a stupid question even for a moment.
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Quite so. And remember that every single person here started knowing precisely nothing.
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07-10-2022, 05:06 AM
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#6
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 2,705
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nicholas
Quite so. And remember that every single person here started knowing precisely nothing.
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Indeed - and now I know twice as much as that!
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07-16-2022, 01:36 AM
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#7
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 104
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Ok, a few days have passed and can I just pass a big thanks to Kenny for some great, informative videos. First class! And thanks to those who very kindly replied.
As an aside, I'm trying to "thicken" my weedy vocals on single guitar/vocals tracks. Tried a lot of things but not really getting it. Any pointers would be much appreciated. I'm currently messing about with eq, reverb and compression but I'm still sounding 'thin'
Thanks again to all.
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07-16-2022, 03:13 PM
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#8
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2020
Posts: 71
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dhj
Ok, a few days have passed and can I just pass a big thanks to Kenny for some great, informative videos. First class! And thanks to those who very kindly replied.
As an aside, I'm trying to "thicken" my weedy vocals on single guitar/vocals tracks. Tried a lot of things but not really getting it. Any pointers would be much appreciated. I'm currently messing about with eq, reverb and compression but I'm still sounding 'thin'
Thanks again to all.
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Double tracking….the old school method. And welcome aboard. I concur with your assessment of Kenny’s videos.
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07-17-2022, 01:58 AM
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#9
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: UK, in and around London.
Posts: 408
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Lots of things...
Quote:
Originally Posted by dhj
Ok, a few days have passed and can I just pass a big thanks to Kenny for some great, informative videos. First class! And thanks to those who very kindly replied.
As an aside, I'm trying to "thicken" my weedy vocals on single guitar/vocals tracks. Tried a lot of things but not really getting it. Any pointers would be much appreciated. I'm currently messing about with eq, reverb and compression but I'm still sounding 'thin'
Thanks again to all.
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FWIW, you might get more response to this re-posting as a separate thread, as other people who might have good ideas won't know this question is buried in here. However, a few things to start you off...
- Recording environment: If you can de-echo the room as much as you can, it makes getting rich, up-front sound vocals much easier (it's a lot easier to put echo on that take it off!). Lots of clothes, cuddly toys, blankets and random fluffy things around you will help absorb some echoes in lieu of proper sound proofing. Oh, and sing close to the mic, but not so close that you get the proximity effect (I'll let you Google that ). On average being around 15 cm (6 inches) away from most studio condenser mics will be about right.
- Double (or multi) tracking: Rckrebs recommended this, and they're right: sing the same thing over and over on different tracks and treat it as if it's just one vocal. People have been doing this in old fashioned studios for decades, and it still works!
- Compression: vocals always, always need compressing in my experience, simply because dynamic range is inevitable with them. Squash them a bit -- to get you started quickly, try one of vocal presets in ReaComp then moving the "Threshold" slider on the left up and down -- see what happens.
- EQ: ReaEQ similarly may help. Lose any low end rumble with a High Pass filter on the left hand side. Then gently boost some of the areas where you can see the amplitude is higher, and (gently) drop some of the others. There are a few decent presets in ReaEQ as well to start from.
- There's a JSFX called "Pitch an Octave Down" or similar. Do some parallel processing: add an additional "Send" from your track to a track with that FX installed, and turn that up or down. You just need a hint of it in the background (too loud and it sounds silly), but it can thicken a vocal quite nicely. If you listen to lots of pop or contemporary music, you hear people do this all the time, so give it a crack. You still route the main vocal to the master as well as the output from that FX track.
Vocal processing is a massive topic -- these are just some pointers, and there not just one answer. Each track you've done might require different approaches. But good luck! As I say, posting this separately so that others spot the question might get you lots of other interesting things to try, too.
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07-17-2022, 07:45 AM
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#10
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: UK, in and around London.
Posts: 408
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SiddieNam
FWIW, you might get more response to this re-posting as a separate thread, as other people who might have good ideas won't know this question is buried in here. However, a few things to start you off...
- Recording environment: If you can de-echo the room as much as you can, it makes getting rich, up-front sound vocals much easier (it's a lot easier to put echo on that take it off!). Lots of clothes, cuddly toys, blankets and random fluffy things around you will help absorb some echoes in lieu of proper sound proofing. Oh, and sing close to the mic, but not so close that you get the proximity effect (I'll let you Google that ). On average being around 15 cm (6 inches) away from most studio condenser mics will be about right.
- Double (or multi) tracking: Rckrebs recommended this, and they're right: sing the same thing over and over on different tracks and treat it as if it's just one vocal. People have been doing this in old fashioned studios for decades, and it still works!
- Compression: vocals always, always need compressing in my experience, simply because dynamic range is inevitable with them. Squash them a bit -- to get you started quickly, try one of vocal presets in ReaComp then moving the "Threshold" slider on the left up and down -- see what happens.
- EQ: ReaEQ similarly may help. Lose any low end rumble with a High Pass filter on the left hand side. Then gently boost some of the areas where you can see the amplitude is higher, and (gently) drop some of the others. There are a few decent presets in ReaEQ as well to start from.
- There's a JSFX called "Pitch an Octave Down" or similar. Do some parallel processing: add an additional "Send" from your track to a track with that FX installed, and turn that up or down. You just need a hint of it in the background (too loud and it sounds silly), but it can thicken a vocal quite nicely. If you listen to lots of pop or contemporary music, you hear people do this all the time, so give it a crack. You still route the main vocal to the master as well as the output from that FX track.
Vocal processing is a massive topic -- these are just some pointers, and there not just one answer. Each track you've done might require different approaches. But good luck! As I say, posting this separately so that others spot the question might get you lots of other interesting things to try, too.
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I realise, reading this again, that you’re possibly recording everything live on one audio track while looking at a camera.
It’s gonna be a bit hard to improve this as you have to deal with the guitar at the same time. You could still do a multi-track (and some of the other things I’ve suggested) as an extra audio track a bit later, so the illusion of singing live is maintained. Another thing you might do is sing your vocal into a proper vocal mic, and line-in to the audio interface separately from your guitar. This will at least allow you to split the vocal and your guitar up for audio mix purposes, but is obviously reliant on you having an audio interface with two or more feeds.
If you can only record one track at a time, I’d definitely try to add a couple more vocal multi-tracks later in a separate pass. If you did nothing else you could still find this works wonders (so much so that you might then find you have to work on your guitar mix after that!)
Last edited by SiddieNam; 07-17-2022 at 07:47 AM.
Reason: Typo correction
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07-17-2022, 09:16 AM
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#11
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 104
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Yep,spot on. I am indeed recording the whole thing on one track but I will try the things you so kindly suggested and report back. I also took your advice and started a separate thread.
Many thanks again.
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