Gain matching made easy!

[poetnprophet]

I'm just sharing something I discovered this week about how to easily see both pre and post fader meters to make gain matching easy. It's probably nothing new, but I haven't seen it anywhere. I think Reaper should have this as a native function, it's really helpful to see level differences and help to match them so that A/B comparisons make more sense.

using the JS router (combiner?) plugin as the 1st plugin to send 1/2 to 3/4, then have to open up the channels in subsequent plugins to pass the audio through (I think??). Pre fader is then displayed on channels 3/4, and post fader/post processing on channels 1/2. Using this on every single track and buss now (except FX returns and parallels), and I'm wondering why this isn't just standard practice??

[Greg Savage]

Nice work around.

[ashcat_lt]

That should not actually show pre-fader levels. The extra channels are affected by the track fader exactly the same as 1/2. It will skip any plugins in the path, which is probably close enough. The one thing is, though, that 3/4 is pretty much universally used as the sidechain channels for anything that uses that. That's only really a problem if you actually are doing sidechaining, but it might be best to keep that particular pair clear and default to 5/6 or something.

[poetnprophet]

Originally Posted by ashcat_lt

That should not actually show pre-fader levels. The extra channels are affected by the track fader exactly the same as 1/2. It will skip any plugins in the path, which is probably close enough. The one thing is, though, that 3/4 is pretty much universally used as the sidechain channels for anything that uses that. That's only really a problem if you actually are doing sidechaining, but it might be best to keep that particular pair clear and default to 5/6 or something.

True, I tend to keep my faders at unity anyway as much as possible, and even still it's relative, and that's what's important to gain match. Prefader is probably not technically correct, but you get the idea.

As for 3/4 and sidechaining, I thought channels were track independent? If I send from THIS track to 3/4 of THAT track, and send from THIS track to 3/4 on ANOTHER track, aren't they processed in their respective tracks independently? In fact I do it all the time with delay and reverb separately, sources coming from the same tracks.

[ashcat_lt]

Not sure what you’re saying there. If you’ve got this set up on a track, and then decide you want to sidechain this track from some other track, you’ll have to do some switching around. I think it’s easier to leave 3/4 open just in case.

Edit - also I was just reading another post where somebody figure out “the hard way” that extra track channels pass up the master/parent send chain just like channels 1/2, so your folder tracks will actually show the sum of all the child tracks, which might not be desired. For safety and convenience you should probably add something at the end of each track’s chain to “eat” or block those extra channels.

[poetnprophet]

Actually I do want that exact behavior so I can also monitor the folder track the same way, as I do more processing on folders.

But I get what you're saying, do you have any suggestion how to terminate them? I thought that by not passing them through on the next plugin terminated the signal.

As for sidechaining this track From another, I get that but 99% of the time I would never for vocals, but I get it for things like drums for sure.

[ashcat_lt]

I’m completely not trying to discoursge you, and maybe you already know, but it’s things that weren’t mentioned that others might not consider, and I just want to make sure.

If I want to stop channels, I just inset any low cpu plug that doesn’t generate its own sound - usually ReaEQ for no real good reason - and set up the inputs pins to take from nothing and the output pins to overwrite whichever channels with silence.

[poetnprophet]

Dont' worry I'm not discouraged at all, appreciate the insight. Sure this might not work for all, but just something I stumbled on that's working really well for me.

Can you explain this part? "set up the inputs pins to take from nothing and the output pins to overwrite whichever channels with silence."

[ashcat_lt]

Well like if you’ve got something on 3/4 that you don’t want to pass up to the parent, you literally untick all of the inputs, so there’s nothing being fed in, and tick for the outputs to go to 3/4. It’s taking in nothing, therefore putting out nothing, and that is “overwriting” whatever was on 3/4 so it doesnt keep going up the chain.

[poetnprophet]

Originally Posted by ashcat_lt

Well like if you’ve got something on 3/4 that you don’t want to pass up to the parent, you literally untick all of the inputs, so there’s nothing being fed in, and tick for the outputs to go to 3/4. It’s taking in nothing, therefore putting out nothing, and that is “overwriting” whatever was on 3/4 so it doesnt keep going up the chain.

Nice! this will come in handy, thank you

[poetnprophet]

2 things I discovered:

1) the extra channels "die" after the folder track. They aren't passed on to, say, the buss tracks. In this case, since folder tracks aren't going to the master directly, the channels 3/4 just die, for lack of better word. So in this case that's good.

2) panning child tracks will affect the preFX level relativity. I'm sure changing the pan law could make this useful again, but then I would have to get used to a new pan law. It's not a huge affect, but enough to notice.