RECORDING
Creating Project Templates in Your DAW In an earlier article I covered the basics of using Reaper. This article will cover how to setup a project template to streamline the recording process. Project Templates have the following benefits: * Pre-built project folder organization * Consistent look and feel * Pre-setup FX routing * Color-coded project folders (with SWS Extension add-on) When I setup my project template I organize it in the following folders. I explain how folders work in Reaper below. * SCRATCH Beat - MIDI Drum Click Track * SCRATCH Song * DRUMS FOLDER * Kick in * Kick out * Snare top * Snare bottom * HH * Toms (1-3) * Floor (1-2) * Crash * Overheads BASS FOLDER * Bass 01 * Bass 02 GUITARS FOLDER * Acoustic 01 * Acoustic 02 * Electric Clean * Electric Distort * Lead OTHER INSTRUMENTS FOLDER Keys Synth VOCALS MAIN * VXM01 * VSM02 VOCALS BACKING *VXB Low *VXB Mid *VXBHi FX FOLDER * Compression * Reverb * Delay XTRA TRACKS FOLDER * Unused or old tracks as archive
30 APRIL/MAY 2020 PERFORMER MAGAZINE
An example project template (fig. 1) Template Pre-requisites While we are not covering in full the folder/ track color coding included in my images, these are accomplished via the Reaper SWS Extensions - which can be download for free from: http://www.sws-extension.org/ Naming Conventions I name my folders and the items within the folders using the following nomenclature. SCR = Scratch Tracks. For example: SCR Beat is my MIDI Drum Beat that I use as a scratch track. SCR Song is my scratch track where I record the song - usually guitar and vocals, recorded to the beat in my SCR Beat track. DRM = Drum tracks BSS = Bass tracks OTH = Other instruments. This includes keys, shakers, etc. GTR = Guitar tracks VXM = Main vocals VXB = Backing Vocals FX = Effects busses XTR = Extra tracks I’m not using but do not want to delete yet. I move them here to get them out of the way and make navigating my project easier.
An example of this is using a DRUM folder for all the drum tracks. Once you’ve mixed the drum levels to each other, you can increase or decrease volume of all the drums in your mix with a single control, or apply reverb to all the drums at once using the same parameters. The following images show the effect of adding tracks and clicking on the folder toggle. Two tracks, no folders. (fig. 3) Folder track with indented sub-track. (fig. 4) New track added, automatically indented. (fig. 5) New track, indent removed by click prior track folder toggle twice. (fig. 6) Starting with a blank project Click in the track area and add two tracks. Name the first, SCR Beat and the second, SCR Song. I add a MIDI drum beat to the SCR Beat folder. I use this instead of a standard metronome click to add more feel when I am recording. I have a video online that demonstrates how to setup a MIDI drum beat as a click track.
While outside the scope of this article, I use the above referenced SWS extensions to define track colors and icons. The colors and icons defined are based upon the track name prefixes listed above, making them even more useful as an organizational tool.
Click to add a new track and name it DRM Folder. Add a track below it named DRM Kick. Now on the DRM Folder track, click the folder toggle once. You will see that the DRM Kick track indents, indicating it is a sub-track within the DRM Folder.
The following image shows the SWS Extensions Color & Icon Layout setup (fig. 2).
Now when you add a new track below it, it will automatically be indented and inside the DRM Folder. You can add tracks named DRM Snare, DRM Crash, etc. for any drums you may have mic’d up or will at a future date.
Once this is setup, I can add a track in the appropriate folder, name it, and select “Apply” on the above shown screen and the appropriate color and icon is added to the new track. Let’s discuss folders and then create our folders and their tracks. In Reaper, there is no difference between tracks and folders. Any track can be turned into a folder by clicking the folder toggle. Folders are tracks that have tracks indented below them. The folder serves as a master file for any audio tracks it contains. This allows you to apply fx, volume, and panning to an entire set of tracks in the folder, all at once.
Add a new track for the Bass folder and name it BSS Folder. This will be indented because we are still adding tracks to the DRM Folder. Click twice on the folder toggle on the last drum track before the BSS Folder. The first click will cause the track to be indented below the final drum track demonstrating that you can have folders inside of folders. The next click will cause the BSS Folder track to stop being indented, preparing it to be the next folder track.
