Reaper is Cutting Up My Takes!

Hey, Robus. I usually set up a track with my usual delay and verb. Then I set up a track for recording, you know, select the input, maybe gentle comp to make it easy, and then I go to I/O, and take this channel out of L/R (top left of I/O dropdown page) and add a send to my playback channel. Then I duplicate it three or four times, so I don't have to do any more set up changes as I add tracks. Use the mute to control which one is playing, CPU friendly, and also since the input level and any VST on input are duplicated, completely consistent. Follow???
 
I also use this trick on guitar, so I can do lots of takes without eating up CPU, as most of my guitar VST uses LOTS. When I figure out which bits I am going to use, I just slide them into the playback channel and voila, done....
 
Seems like itd be way easier to just use the take system. It only uses up 1 track, low cpu usage, and way way simpler than duping tracks and routing them here and there. Keep recording takes on one track, split anywhere you want to change takes, click on the take you want active for any given section. I guess that I don't see the point in making it more complicated.
 
The take system is fine if you go from start to finish, but every time you stop it creates a split on every take, at least for me and the OP. I also find that it is easier for me to keep which take is which when they are clearly visible. Different strokes, etc....
 
Okay, so it sounds to me like you are putting the effects on a separate channel and treating it like a bus, then sending your other tracks to it for processing. I assume by "playback track" you mean this track that has the effects? I do that as well. I'm curious about the advantage of taking the recorded tracks off the master bus. Then you would be getting 100% of their sound through the effects track/bus. I take it your are balancing the levels of clean/effected signal on that track/bus. Why is that preferable to setting the effect to run at 100% and then controlling the amount of signal that goes to it from the recorded tracks, as in a normal send/return setup?
 
There is alot of words in here hurting my poor Canadian brain. I guess my question should have been simpler (and maybe even asnwered at this point)

Is there a setting somewhere within reaper that i can toggle so that when i am using the "take system" when i stop recording a part of take it doesn't split all my other takes up in the same track?


This would be the ideal. I don't want to make more work for myself. I have a work around. It works. But if i could turn this stupid feature off it would be EVEN BETTER!!!!
 
As far as I know there isn't a way to turn off the auto split on lanes in takes. It's part of the function and how it works. (I maybe wrong but I can't find an answer.)

One of the things I always found annoying about the Take System and why I don't use it. I much prefer recording multiple takes on separate tracks and comping them manually. Less of a cluster fuck mess and easier to work with.

If I find an answer to the question, I'll post back. :thumbs up:
 
Mr Clean said:
One of the things I always found annoying about the Take System and why I don't use it. I much prefer recording multiple takes on separate tracks and comping them manually. Less of a cluster fuck mess and easier to work with.
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Same thing for me. I've found teh Take sytem messy to work with when I've got more than 3 takes in a track. Always regret not using a separate track by the time I've realized it.
 
Mr Clean said:
One of the things I always found annoying about the Take System and why I don't use it. I much prefer recording multiple takes on separate tracks and comping them manually. Less of a cluster fuck mess and easier to work with.
Click to expand...

Yep, same as mjb above.

Set up a parent track with all the assorted effects and stuff on it, then create a bunch of childs underneath for multiple takes if necessary.
 
I found Reaper's take system bizarre at first, but I've grown to love it. It's way easier for me than comping from multiple tracks. The thing that makes it look odd is actually what makes it so useful. You see takes broken up into tiny snippets seemly at random. But the genius is that no part of any take overlaps any part of another take. That makes a huge difference when comping. Putting together the best bits of different takes is just like pushing buttons. You click all the parts you want, and they come together seamlessly. When you're sure you've got what you're looking, select the whole track and hit glue. That deletes all the unused parts and leaves you with a single, continuous clip.

I was doing this tonight for backing vocals on a song I'll be posting at the Clinic, probably tomorrow. The workflow goes like this: I go section by section, setting up the track to loop. Then I just hit record and let it loop repeatedly while I keep singing takes, one right after the next without a pause: Usually three high harmony takes, three low, and three singing around the third of the chord. Then I move on to the next section. I'm done before my voice even gets tired.

Then I'll go through and slice the clip into pieces between the phrases. Then I'll copy the whole thing to five or six new tracks. Then by comping the appropriate parts as explained above, I've got five or six harmony tracks. A couple of hours from start to finish. Harmony used to be a major pain in the ass for me, but it's almost become the easiest part of the recording process.

Doing all that from multiple tracks would be more more of a chore.
 
Robus said:
I found Reaper's take system bizarre at first, but I've grown to love it. It's way easier for me than comping from multiple tracks. The thing that makes it look odd is actually what makes it so useful. You see takes broken up into tiny snippets seemly at random. But the genius is that no part of any take overlaps any part of another take. That makes a huge difference when comping. Putting together the best bits of different takes is just like pushing buttons. You click all the parts you want, and they come together seamlessly. When you're sure you've got what you're looking, select the whole track and hit glue. That deletes all the unused parts and leaves you with a single, continuous clip.

I was doing this tonight for backing vocals on a song I'll be posting at the Clinic, probably tomorrow. The workflow goes like this: I go section by section, setting up the track to loop. Then I just hit record and let it loop repeatedly while I keep singing takes, one right after the next without a pause: Usually three high harmony takes, three low, and three singing around the third of the chord. Then I move on to the next section. I'm done before my voice even gets tired.

Then I'll go through and slice the clip into pieces between the phrases. Then I'll copy the whole thing to five or six new tracks. Then by comping the appropriate parts as explained above, I've got five or six harmony tracks. A couple of hours from start to finish. Harmony used to be a major pain in the ass for me, but it's almost become the easiest part of the recording process.

Doing all that from multiple tracks would be more more of a chore.
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You're copying everything to new tracks, so it would seem its extra effort in the end? I seldom just loop a section when recording multiple takes - more often I record the whole song. For example doing a backup harmony that only happens in the choruses, I'll start a new track, advance to just before the first chorus, record, stop the recording after the first chorus, advance to the next chorus, do it again, etc. So I'm left with one track with 2/3/4 parts in it. No need to automate volume down to zero between sections and if one of the chours parts is off/bad, I can just delete it or automate the volume off for it. Maybe its not the most efficient, but its quick.
 
Are you saying you can play back multiple takes from the same track at once? If so, I want to know how.

Yes, ultimately I have to mult out to several tracks if I want multiple harmony parts. I will have to comp each of those individually. But the advantage is, all the source takes were done in a single pass on a single track. No cutting and pasting needed. I can copy that track out to as many other tracks as I want, then pick and choose which takes to use for each one just by clicking on the takes I want.
 
Robus said:
I was doing this tonight for backing vocals on a song I'll be posting at the Clinic, probably tomorrow. The workflow goes like this: I go section by section, setting up the track to loop. Then I just hit record and let it loop repeatedly while I keep singing takes, one right after the next without a pause: Usually three high harmony takes, three low, and three singing around the third of the chord. Then I move on to the next section. I'm done before my voice even gets tired.

Then I'll go through and slice the clip into pieces between the phrases.
Click to expand...

OK, I'm totally with you through all of that. That's pretty close to how I do it. But I completely lose you when you then turn around and do this:

Then I'll copy the whole thing to five or six new tracks. Then by comping the appropriate parts as explained above, I've got five or six harmony tracks.
Click to expand...

You've already got the takes split. All you have to do is click on the take you want for each section and it becomes the "active" take for that section. Just curious why you copy all of your takes to new tracks and do further comping?
 
I didn't explain well. I'm copying the raw recordings out to multiple tracks because, in the end, I'm building a harmony pad that will consist of five or six individual vocal parts. Each of those vocals will need it's own track.

So I record all those parts as takes on a single track. Then I copy the whole shebang out to the different tracks. Then I do the comping of each individual vocal part within its own track. Reaper's take system makes that super easy.

Finally, I'll take the resulting vocal comps individually, tune each as needed, render them individually, then put the resulting stem tracks in a folder that becomes a stereo sub mix for the harmony.

I hope I did better with that explanation. If you're following me, give this workflow a try. It's quicker and more efficient than anything I've tried before, and way easier than trying to record the takes on multiple tracks from the start.
 
Robus said:
Are you saying you can play back multiple takes from the same track at once? If so, I want to know how.

Yes, ultimately I have to mult out to several tracks if I want multiple harmony parts. I will have to comp each of those individually. But the advantage is, all the source takes were done in a single pass on a single track. No cutting and pasting needed. I can copy that track out to as many other tracks as I want, then pick and choose which takes to use for each one just by clicking on the takes I want.
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But you're not doing it in a single pass! Every time you loop it's another pass. If this method works for you, great. How do you hear the previous takes' harmonies when you go to do a different note? All you hear is the original, right?
 
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That's true. You won't hear the recorded melodies until after you've copied them out to other tracks and comped them.
 
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