I'm not quite sure where I should be putting the faders other than to assume the dry level needs to be at zero.
That’s all you really have to do. Changing the others could and probably will change the character of the reverb itself. I mean, mess with them and see what happens, but all you need to do is turn that dry send off.
I raised the reaper buffer from 1200 default to 1600 but it made no discernable difference.
Oh shit, I’m sorry! We often use the word “buffer” and “block” interchangeably, and even different manufacturers use them differently, so it can get confusing.
What you actually need to change is what Reaper calls “block size”, but we’d rather not let Reaper choose. Instead, we use the interface’s own control software to set it where we want it and let it just tell Reaper what’s happening.
In Reaper, at the upper right is an area that tells you about your audio device and settings. It tells you the sample rate and hit depth and latency and stuff.
Click that. It’ll often seem to “stall” while it opens to Options|Preferences|Audio|Device. You can navigate the menus to get there, too, but this way is faster.
Now all of this assumes you’re using an ASIO interface which is properly installed!
Near the middle of this window is a button that says ASIO Configuration. Above that is a check box “Request Block Size”. Make sure that’s UNchecked. Then click the button.
It might think about things for a couple seconds while it opens your interface’s own software. You can just find it on your computer and run it, but this is faster, and if Reaper is already open, I think it’s better to do it this way so that Reaper knows it happened. But at this point I can’t help you as much as your interface’s manual can. Again, different manufacturer’s use different terms. It’s often just labeled Latency. Sometimes they let you pick a number of samples or ms or it’s just some arbitrary scale from low to high.
Make that higher, do whatever that software needs to apply the changes, and close it to return to Reaper. Hit ok on the Preferences window, and see if that helps.
Probably put the Buffers you changed back to where it was. IDK what it does, but I’ve been told to only change it if you really know you need to, and you really shouldn’t need to.