Sunvox and Reaper?

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El Nino
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Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by El Nino »

I want to be able to layer guitar solos over a song made entirely in sunvox...Would reaper be a good option for this?

Has anyone on here made a track using sunvox with a live instrument (or vocals) layered over it? I'd love to hear it and to hear some recommendations about what software is good for doing that. Ive heard reaper is a good option...

dont want anything amazingly professional, maybe even auria, cubasis or garage band?
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samrai katt kovboy
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by samrai katt kovboy »

I do think that Reaper is a very good option. I use it for laying Vocals and other instruments on top of the music I make with SunVox.
It is easy to get started with and it can get as deep as you want. It does not come with any synthesizers but it comes with a good selection of effects that may not
look to fancy but in general are very good.
The price is really low for what you get and it is very solid.
Best of all it is not so demanding on your system as some other DAW's are.
Another thing that I like a lot is that you can have the main window with al lot of takes in it and then cut them up and just drag pieces of audio to any other track
and in general just move things around.
Some people do not like the look but it is not to hard to change the look to whatever you want... Sometimes I get the impression that because it so configurable people do not like it for that reason as it gives them too much choice. But it is only if you want to change things. Of course that it is so configurable is what fans (I am one) of Reaper like as you can set it up exactly as you want.
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MANY CIRCLES
El Nino
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by El Nino »

Thanks for the information. I think I will go with reaper. the price is reasonable, many people recommended it and it looks good and reasonably simple.
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The Handle
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by The Handle »

samrai katt kovboy wrote:I do think that Reaper is a very good option
You can do the same thing with Audacity (which is free), so if you're on a budget that may be a better option for you (I know it's pretty similar to Reaper as well).
organic io
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by organic io »

Audacity is nothing like Reaper. It's a straight WAV editor whereas Reaper is a full multitracking DAW. Though it would be technically possible in Audacity, I wouldn't recommend it. You'll have a much finer level of control in Reaper... Putting multiple vst effects on each track, automating parameters, etc.

Also Reaper has a fully functional demo version which never expires (as long as you don't mind the nag screen).

I've actually used the combination of Sunvox/Reaper for lots of my songs:

https://soundcloud.com/organic-io/2013- ... -thomas-on
(Reaper for Vocals and Guitar, Sunvox for everything else)

https://soundcloud.com/organic-io/organ ... led-garden
(Reaper for acoustic drum, Sunvox for everything else)

And several others where I used Reaper for vocals, for example this one:
https://soundcloud.com/organic-io/2012- ... -feat-cami

On that last one, listen to the filter effects on the vocals, I was able to automate the cutoff/resonance of the filter effect easily with Reaper's automation lanes, something that would have been a pain with Audacity.

Oh, and most of the other Sunvox stuff of mine I mixed down in Reaper, even if there aren't acoustic instrument tracks :)

So that gives you an idea of what can be done. Yeah, I definitely recommend Reaper :)
organic io
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by organic io »

organic io wrote: Oh, and most of the other Sunvox stuff of mine I mixed down in Reaper, even if there aren't acoustic instrument tracks :)
P.S.. To elaborate on what I mean: I take each source instrument in Sunvox, whether it is a generator or sampler or whatever, and solo it. Then I render the entire song to WAV with that instrument solo'ed (Effects are still active, conveniently, and don't need to be solo'ed separately). I do that for all the instruments, usually convert all the WAV to flac (saves a lot of space, especially on sparse tracks like hi-hat or something that has a lot of silence in between). Then I import each flac into Reaper as a separate track. The power of this is that I can look at the levels of all my instruments on an easy to view mixer and adjust accordingly. It's also easy to do automations, so for example if I want an instrument quieter or louder during a certain section, I just change the volume envelope. And many times I'll add more FX in Reaper as well.

Then I bounce it all to a final WAV, maximize, and finally encode to mp3 before distribution.

Maybe I've rambled too many words here, but maybe it will be helpful to someone in the future. :)
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samrai katt kovboy
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by samrai katt kovboy »

Ramble on my friend!!!
Also wanted to add another thing that I found very good with Reaper when using in conjunction with Reaper is that it opens very fast...
Meaning that I render a wav file from SunVox and open Reaper lay some instruments vocals chop them up close Reaper and import into SunVox and it does not feel like a hassle...
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MANY CIRCLES
El Nino
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by El Nino »

reaper sounds sweet
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jph
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by jph »

If you don't want/need real-time vst effects and just looking to do a edit/mix of a few tracks Audacity works great.
Reaper may be more detailed,. however Audacity will do multi-tracking just fine. :wink:
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cube48
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by cube48 »

@organic io: Thanks for your Reaper elaboration. After one of your previous posts I thought "He, is there a way of syncing Reaper and Sunvox and routing audio between them?" :roll:
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The Handle
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by The Handle »

What he needs depends on several things: budget, how often he'll need to use the software, and how intense he wants his control to be. If he needs something cheap that just gets the job done (even if it does take a bit of time to learn the program), Audacity certainly is an option. You'd be surprised what it can do if you take the time to learn it.

Don't forget that you could always just bring the solos into sunvox and edit them there :)
I'm currently working on a Neurohop track with vocals recorded by myself in Audacity. I brought the vocals into SunVox so I could tailor them to the rest of the mix.
jph wrote:If you don't want/need real-time vst effects and just looking to do a edit/mix of a few tracks Audacity works great.
Reaper may be more detailed,. however Audacity will do multi-tracking just fine. :wink:
^My point exactly.

I'm not saying he SHOULD use Audacity, I'm just giving him another option if Reaper is overkill for what he needs (see quote below)
El Nino wrote:dont want anything amazingly professional
That said, some things I wanted to bring up:
organic io wrote:Audacity is nothing like Reaper. It's a straight WAV editor...
What I originally meant (I should've rephrased it) is that in this situation both programs would be viable choices.
Also, "Straight WAV editor"? When's the last time you used Audacity? It has basic generators and currently supports VSTs (literally hundreds of them): http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/VST_Plug-ins
Yes it's not as fleshed out as Reaper, and yes creating sounds isn't its forte, but so what? Even if it didn't have generators, it would still get the job done.

And it doesn't just work with WAVs. It can import/export MP3 if you get the "LAME" plugin (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/fa ... i=lame-mp3), and also supports Ogg, AIFF, and FLAC. Hell it even imports MIDI files. Granted, the ui is different in Reaper (I can't compare ease of use since I've only used Audacity), but to say it can only edit WAVs is just incorrect.
organic io wrote:I take each source instrument in Sunvox, whether it is a generator or sampler or whatever, and solo it. Then I render the entire song to WAV with that instrument solo'ed (Effects are still active, conveniently, and don't need to be solo'ed separately). I do that for all the instruments, usually convert all the WAV to flac (saves a lot of space, especially on sparse tracks like hi-hat or something that has a lot of silence in between). Then I import each flac into Reaper as a separate track. The power of this is that I can look at the levels of all my instruments on an easy to view mixer and adjust accordingly.
Not trying to sound like a smartass, but Audacity can do that as well.

On a side note:
You can actually see the levels of your instruments in sunvox by setting up what I call a "Viewer" module: a compressor with an amplifier before it (to adjust for project volume). This way you can see the levels in the box under the compressor settings. If you set the amplifier's volume to 103 (when project volume is 20%), then set the compressor's volume and slope to 0 and its threshold, attack, and release to 0 (make sure the compressor is also set to "peak" and not "rms"), it'll show you exactly what you see when you export the wav. It won't show anything outside of that box though, so watch the bars by the project volume or use a hard limiter (to prevent clipping). Granted, you won't be able to look at the entire length of the audio, but it's useful for making adjustments during production in sunvox.

Input audio->amplifier->compressor
vichug
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by vichug »

cube48 wrote: Fri Jan 10, 2014 7:05 pm @organic io: Thanks for your Reaper elaboration. After one of your previous posts I thought "He, is there a way of syncing Reaper and Sunvox and routing audio between them?" :roll:
old thread but this topic is interesting to me so i'll add some things : if you're on OSX, i'd recommend heartily Soundflower. Linux or Windows, go with Jack. However there ain't something like rewire in Sunvox afaik, BUT if you are sufficiently profficient with MIDI i guess you could control Sunvox playback from a midi track inside Reaper ?...
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queries
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by queries »

I think there has been some effort by NightRadio to provide a VST/AU version of SunVox. No word on if this will be in the next release, or if it will happen at all, but I will continue to hope and wish! If SunVox were able to act as an instrument/generator and also as an effect, that would make for some very creative uses of SunVox indeed, not just in Reaper but DAWs in general. Especially if there is an AUv3 version for iOS. :D
El Nino
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by El Nino »

@ organic io : Thanks for the explantions and the examples, they sound great. I've been working on trying to get better on guitar a bit lately, definitely want to include some in a track with sunvox in future.

@ queries : I would be so happy to see sunvox as a VSTi. Just the whole of sunvox, but openable as a vsti. Completely synced to the BPM of whatever DAW in use. It might be an awesome combination to use sunvox vsti alongside redux inside reaper, cubase or ableton.

I think I will go for reaper in the end.
I have one more quick question about it.

If I do choose reaper but at some point I want to get a track mastered, will the mastering guy have problems because I'm not using cubase, protools or ableton? Or should I just focus on mastering myself? I heard a lot of mastering guys are baffled by electronic music, that they want you to remove all filter automation, compression, E.Qing before they even start the process.

Also, seems like quite a few musicians are doing their own mastering.
It will be a while anyway. Just interested to know what people think.
TheMonopluralist
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Re: Sunvox and Reaper?

Post by TheMonopluralist »

Mastering engineers should be able to deal with stuff produced in reaper just the same as protools, etc. Assuming you stick to whatever advice the particular engineer gives you (it may be: keep peaks no higher than -6 to -3db, don't put any "mastering" fx on the main output, including compression or limiters). You would usually provide them with a stereo track you want mastered, and whether produced or mixed in reaper or protools it is all just 1s and 0s. Any mastering engineer worth paying should be comfortable with almost all genres, although there are specialists who deal with certain styles, such as UK dubstep and deep bass for vinyl releases, for example, where specific experience and understanding is very useful.
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