Reaper routing matrix.

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RFR

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Been scratching my head on this.

I want to take 16 tracks in reaper and route them to my interface as 16 seperate analog audio outputs for the purpose of mixing on a desk

Interface has 16 analog i/o .

On the routing matrix there seems no place to route these to other than the standard channels 1 and 2 for L/R.

Anyone had any experience?
 
On the mixer panel, above each track is a stack of sends. If you click on one of those, it should give you the option of adding a new send to a track (like if you wanted to do a reverb aux send), or to send to a hardware output. I've never tried this, but this would be where I'd start. See if the "add new hardware output" allows you to send a specific track to a specific hardware output.

Reaper sends.webp

Reaper hardware sends.webp
 
Ahh. So through the sends, eh? I'll have to play around with that.
I imagine I'd also have to disable my channels 1&2 on my interface. Currently they are routed as the L/R monitor off of the master.

I'd need these as outputs to the board, because all monitoring would be from the desk rather than interface.
 
I'm sure that you can use the routing matrix for this purpose, but I've just never been much of an expert on using it. I've checked it from time to time when I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting a signal from one place to another, but it's really abstract and esoteric for me. I think that using the sends achieves the same end, and I'd bet that the results would be reflected in the routing matrix display if you used the send menus to route signals.

The only other way that comes to mind is to use something like ReaInsert on each channel, and only pay attention to the send, and ignore the return, maybe routing the return to some dummy channel.

ReaInsert is what I use to loop in my hardware compressors. Up until a few versions ago, ReaInsert was a major pain in the ass. They finally addressed some of the hokey behavior recently. It's still weird when you want to use it on nested folder tracks, but I've learned to work around that. Plus I only have 4 channels of outboard compression, so I'm getting used to doing a lot of stem rendering during every project.

One thing you can mess with is the little check box on each send menu that says "Parent send". That's a powerful little checkbox that tells each track whether it goes through the master bus or not. It's handy if you only want "wet" signal from some track that's sent to an aux send. But you could also use it in your case to disable it from going through the main hardware 1/2 outputs to your monitors.

Here's a good video on Reaper's routing options, from a dude that gets Reaper on a whole higher level than I do:

 
Tadpui said:
ReaInsert is what I use to loop in my hardware compressors. Up until a few versions ago, ReaInsert was a major pain in the ass. They finally addressed some of the hokey behavior recently. It's still weird when you want to use it on nested folder tracks, but I've learned to work around that. Plus I only have 4 channels of outboard compression, so I'm getting used to doing a lot of stem rendering during every project.
Click to expand...

I'd be curious to know your setup. This is something I've thought about doing though I haven't been sufficiently motivated to figure it out. And I'd probably need an interface with more ins and outs than the one I have at present.
 
Tadpui said:
I'm sure that you can use the routing matrix for this purpose, but I've just never been much of an expert on using it. I've checked it from time to time when I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting a signal from one place to another, but it's really abstract and esoteric for me. I think that using the sends achieves the same end, and I'd bet that the results would be reflected in the routing matrix display if you used the send menus to route signals.

The only other way that comes to mind is to use something like ReaInsert on each channel, and only pay attention to the send, and ignore the return, maybe routing the return to some dummy channel.

ReaInsert is what I use to loop in my hardware compressors. Up until a few versions ago, ReaInsert was a major pain in the ass. They finally addressed some of the hokey behavior recently. It's still weird when you want to use it on nested folder tracks, but I've learned to work around that. Plus I only have 4 channels of outboard compression, so I'm getting used to doing a lot of stem rendering during every project.

One thing you can mess with is the little check box on each send menu that says "Parent send". That's a powerful little checkbox that tells each track whether it goes through the master bus or not. It's handy if you only want "wet" signal from some track that's sent to an aux send. But you could also use it in your case to disable it from going through the main hardware 1/2 outputs to your monitors.

Here's a good video on Reaper's routing options, from a dude that gets Reaper on a whole higher level than I do:

Click to expand...


Watched that one. He's pretty good and knows his shit. But its all internal routing.

Ive found some videos where they are running digital boards.

Nothing however about a good old fashioned analog board.

I want to use it, dammit! :D


I got two music computers. One with Reaper and an A&H 16 channel interface. The other has protools with a Focusrite Saffire pro40.

Output routing is easier on the PT rig, but the saffire is only 8 channels.


Ah. Further down the rabbit hole. :D
 
I'm whipping up a video demonstration. It might be morning/afternoon tomorrow before I get it edited and posted for you guys though. I think I can help.
 
WTF just happened?!?

Tadpui was right to begin with. Add a hardware send to each track. Disable Master/Parent Send. Done. You don't have to mess with ReaInsert or any other fancy crap. As long as you've got all 16 of the outputs enabled in Preferences|Audio, you should be good to go. Though honestly I thought you should see all of those in the Routing Matrix. I never use it, but I thought that it did that.
 
OK I can't say that I did a great job, but I hope this help you both with a) looping in hardware, and b) outputting a track to a hardware output. I'm not a morning person, and I was up late last night, so I'm still struggling to get my thoughts straight, and its nearly noon :)

 
Hey thanks for the video! Watched it once and will probably repeatedly watch it.

I stumbled on a vid last night that mentioned 'preferences'. But where the fvk is it??? This morning i saw one that showed how you right clicked on the top right side. Doh! Stupid place. It should be in the other menus. :)

Anyway, I got in there and my output was still set to the computer sound card! I thought as soon as I set up my interface it would switch. The confusing thing was that my interface WAS working but just on chan 1&2.

So, set that up for all 16 channels. Next checked the routing matrix, and I now had more destinations than before.
Set it up 1 to 16 and disabled All the master/ parent shit.
Lo and behold it was now routing stuff through the board. On the reaper mixer it magically shows as hdw sends as well.

So I guess there's two ways to skin that cat.

I still got some issues, cause in the console I have vocals in with the bass track. I mean, really? How the fvk do you get vocals in a DI bass track?????

So, still got some routing issues to sort.
But I'll play around some more and study your video.

I liked the idea of creating another track. Wirh this, I could record back into reaper a track with the sonic qualities of the board as well as outboard effects.

Hey! Im jealous. You have 2 distressors.
:D
How do you like those?
 
Hey, it sounds like you're most of the way there!

Re: bass + vocal on the same track. I'd check your interface's routing software and make sure that there aren't any unexpected routings set up in there. I manage to inadvertently pull pranks on myself every time I fiddle with sending one output to another input and then forget. Next time around, I'm going crazy trying to troubleshoot slapback echoes and instruments showing up on unexpected tracks.

As for the Distressors, I love 'em. They're way out of my league, but I'm slowly getting better at using them. They're so versatile, they can do a lot of things, and I think they sound great. I scoped Reverb.com for months and ended up finding each one used for great prices. I'm probably overusing them, but I can't help it :)
 
Ive heard nothing but good about them, but they do seem a bit pricey. I do hope that they end up becoming a classic unit like the 1176 and keep the value. But a little rich for my blood right now.

Anyway. somehow I got it all working through my console! whoo hoo! like being reunited with an old friend! Its nice to be able to have the faders and physical knobs, but still be able to use plug ins.
 
That's great news man! Nothing better than getting things to feel familiar while sounding great.
 
Thanks for the help and words of encouragement. However, we're a long way from being out of the woods.

The fun I've been having was short lived the moment I realized I couldn't just render the mix I was listening to.

What's in the daw and what I'm hearing in the monitors are two different things.
:D

Still have plenty of routing adventures left. Gotta get stuff back in the box.

Welcome to the hybrid world.

:D
 
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