Item / Take Volume envelopes before Item FX

thehitlab

New member
We're a mastering house trying out reaper and liking a lot of things about it! One question though that we haven't figured out yet though...

In our workflow we often do volume envelopes before item FX (not track FX) but from what we've seen so far, we've only been able to adjust volume envelopes post FX.


Any tips??

Nathan
 
There's volume automation available right in the item. Double click the item, click button labeled Take envelopes, click box for Volume.
 
We're wanting to master like many do in Sequoia, wavelab, etc. Where all songs are on the same track but each has its own insert chain (item FX). Often times we need to do a pre-insert volume envelope to adjust levels of a section before the chain. Take envelopes seem to only be post Item FX, is there a way to make those come before Item FX?
 
Yep, I didn't read your post carefully enough.

How about putting items on different tracks, putting plugins on the track inserts and putting all the tracks in a folder. Have you tried out folders?
 
Unfortunately that won’t work for our workflow or we wouldn’t have enough CPU. On a typical 12 song record label album release we’ll have at least 5 versions of every song and we use pretty CPU intense chains, Item / take FX are great because they don’t use CPU when that track isn’t being played. A lot of pro mastering engineers use the same workflow we’re trying to do, but in other DAWs. It’s a bummer if that’s not possible, might have to keep DAW shopping.
 
If I understand your desire correctly, it can be done on the track itself.

The envelope choices include a pre-FX option.

pre-fx envelope.jpg
 
So for instance, if we’re mastering a song and we want to raise the level of the verse a little going into the (item fix) insert chain with a limiter at the end, the “prefx” envelope will be after the chain, causing those sections of the song to clip rather than push into the insert chain and limiter harder.
 
Well that would work for some projects, but for instance.. sometimes we'll get a mix where we want to do volume envelopes before anything in the chain, not just limiting.
Sometimes that'd be a section of a song and sometimes its intricate volume envelopes so that we can control how hard the mix hits the whole chain, not just final limiting.

In wavelab, sequoia, pyramix, etc, the take envelope curves happen before take FX. Thats one of only 3 things holding us back from moving to reaper for processing.
 
I'm not sure that I understand why Reaper's pre-fx track envelope won't work. You've mentioned 'item' and 'take'. To my way of thinking these are both bits of WAVs that sit on a track.
 
I'm not sure that I understand why Reaper's pre-fx track envelope won't work. You've mentioned 'item' and 'take'. To my way of thinking these are both bits of WAVs that sit on a track.

He wants the plugin on the item so it's not using CPU when the item isn't playing, and he wants volume automation before the plugin, which doesn't seem to be allowed on an item in Reaper.
 
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