Folders vs Busses vs Groups vs VCAs in REAPER

Folders vs Busses vs Groups vs VCAs in REAPER

[@trewgodell]

0:56 Folders 11:14 Groups 15:40 VCAS 22:40 Busses

[@halimdrummer777]

thanks

[@rp3316]

6:26 Busses 10:40 Temporary Group 21:59 resume to all

[@timetree4155]

The more i use reaper the more impressed i am with it as such an affordable and versatile DAW

[@miguelfranco9655]

Thanks Kenny! Some help for those rewatching this (like me!) TABLE OF CONT. Folders 00:55 Busses 6:25 Groups 10:35 VCAs 15:45

[@WillayG]

Thank you for that. I'd love if this comment was pinned at the top of the comment section.

[@mellowords]

I busted out laughing after I saw what "Temporary Groups" are (using track selection lol). This guy sees things in a really cool different way

[@rasbelix6413]

After this video, I said in the same day, "VCAs are useless" and 2 hours after, "VCAs are awesome, let's use them". Thanks Kenny, keep up the good work ! Your videos are life and time saver !

[@drutgat2]

My brain hurts a bit - but that is sometimes a necessary price to pay for learning things that do not necessarily come naturally to me. Thanks Kenny.

[@kurtotto1994]

thanks Kenny, this is a really useful tutorial. I've kind of gone on a "Tutorial Comparison Mania" myself in the last month, mainly for Reaper, but I've been lured down some pretty obscure trails by interesting titles, too. Most of the youtubes I've seen were just painfully dull, even when the teachers were talented engineers, they weren't necessarily talented TEACHERS. Your are different, man, and since I found your work, the effect on my work is ridiculously beneficial. some people are looking for it... I've found it. :) thanks again. I'm even watching certain lessons 2 and 3 times, your attention detail and the fast pace is superb. I'm from Texas, so the sound of your dialect is different and every time you say "tutorials" it cracks me up. Don't take that wrong, sir, I can't wait to hear it again. Keep it up, please.

[@REAPERMania]

thanks

[@greenprpl3996]

@@REAPERMania xD

[@OurgasmComrade]

Your videos are absolutely fantastic man!

[@chezchezchezchez]

Great video Kenny! Clears up a lot of questions.

[@marcusschultz-reynolds2857]

Thanks Kenny, another amazing video. Super grateful as usual

[@thiagofirewire6695]

No other DAW gives us as much freedom as the reaper and you with all your information set us free even more. Thanks Kenny. I'm Brazilian and your name Gioia in Portuguese is pronounced Jewel and you really are a jewel. Here you really are Kenny Jewel.

[@NHail]

thank you for making this. your delivery is very clear. appreciated!!

[@2mGamma]

you nailed it again Kenny !!! Thanks man !

[@TommyMarcinek]

Kenny, I can't thank you enough for all your videos. Reaper is just too complicated to attempt to use it without TRAINING....and THAT you provide so well. Many, many thanks!!! Tom

[@bigbassjonz]

Thank you so much for these videos.

[@CedricPamalio]

Thank you Kenny, your tutorials are so great, well and deeply explained, just what I needed. Reaper is such a good software !!

[@MrDark-tp5rt]

Kenny I love your videos. I've learned so much and each video is extremely thorough. There is so much information in this video I feel like I should be taking notes. I'll have to watch this a few times to get everything. I've used Ableton, FL Studio and Reason. And out of all them I still prefer Reaper. No other DAW comes close to the power or plugin support this one has. I will continue to learn. Really great stuff.

[@kwikwilamour9203]

Clear and concise, exactly what I needed to hear - powerful DAW.

[@alibaba9071]

Your videos are excellent quality and very intuitive as well so I have learnt a lot each time I watch. As a result of watching your video, I am now using Reaper as my main daw. I would be very happy if you could continue your videos as these methods you outline would help me and others in their learning.

[@Manisono]

I´m working with reaper since six years now, still there´s so much to dive into... thanks!!

[@unusualengineer]

Awesome as ever Kenny - you've got a gift for getting things over simply and clearly - as others say, Reaper is fantastic - with Kenny it's 10x better!

[@jalimansaharunakuyateh1932]

Kenny is the best he explains everything you need to know in few minutes very simple and easy to learn

[@PapaMuse]

Thank you. What a fantastic tutorial. You explain this very clearly and demonstrate and even review at the end. Great job. I'll probably need to watch it several times when I am ready to use each feature, but this was very helpful. My goal right now is to increase the overall volume of my final mixes, so I am going to try creating a master bus track while keeping the originals in tact. You mentioned that this will basically amplify the overall volume, and seemingly without causing clipping on any individual tracks. Gonna experiment.

[@zicmanislord]

I finally understood what are VCA's. Thank you :) .

[@78thandSynth]

Best description of all of these functions yet.

[@alanrodzz]

Is gonna take me more hours to said how much I love you and your content, than the time it takes you to teach me music production with reaper :'3

[@MoveUpMedia]

Phenomenal video. Thank you!

[@zblip22]

Man,... Thank you so much. You are the best teacher out there.

[@renekaaij6236]

Excellent tutorial!! Great explanation! I'm actually using them the same way when doing my mixes!!

[@C0D3O]

btw to route a group of tracks with one drag select them and drag a send to where you need holding SHIFT

[@moidage]

Can you do this if you don't smoke? Hehe thanks good tip

[@WillayG]

@@moidage This is an awful joke. But it made me laugh. So maybe it's the best joke ever. Thumbs up

[@grayter1]

Awesome video. I think it's time for another 'mix series' from you where we can see these techniques put to use in a real world setting. I'd pay for that.

[@REAPERMania]

Coming really soon. Thanks

[@MrDark-tp5rt]

I have a song I put together and my mix is all over the place because all I know how to use is groups and only vaguely understand busses. Just learned about sidechaining and it's a lot to get my head around. Ive got vocals fighting with other vocals; leads fighting with everything else. I would totally send you my project as something you could use for your mix series just PM and let me know your thoughts. Cheers!

[@zicmanislord]

Very good idea. I'd pay for that too.

[@icarusi]

I've started using 'track manager' for shuffling track orders. It looks primitive but, there's much less mouse movement involved, and less chance of creating folders in error. If you position it away from the track controls & mixer views, you can check the results there in 'real time', to double check your moves.

[@riccardopucci2764]

Brilliant video dude 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@ronaldboykin9755]

Lots of options but I think when you figure out how you want to use this stuff you can just create a template so you don't have to always set this up!

[@WillayG]

Kenny is the best. Always learn something from his videos. Wondering do people ever use vcas for gain staging before mastering? Like if you had a vca that linked to all the tracks on a project. Would that be a bad way to control the volume and why? Is it just better to use the volume control plugin on the master bus?

[@rickblackers88]

Well done!!!Great job!!!

[@KoolKatRecordingStudios]

Thanks Again Kenny

[@greenprpl3996]

Neat! Thanks Kenny

[@kurtotto1994]

great job, Kenny Mania is the shit

[@vincentguarino4262]

Thanks Kenny! I'm sure I'll be watching this several times to learn how to use all these different things. Question, how do you know when is the best time to use folders buses or VCA's? This video had a ton of information, trick is knowing when to use it.

[@moidage]

Mind blown. That got pretty complex near the end. Just need to watch watch another 5x to sink in!! Thx for the video

[@markthompson7491]

Nice one mate. I suddenly realized that you could actually do 3in1. Folder track also configured as VCA Master and contents as VCA Slaves...everything covered with one track. Magic! You would need 3 tracks in other DAWs for the same thing!

[@abbasalshafai6175]

Hmmm ... But if we do that, aren't we affecting both the input and the output of the VCA master?

[@alucard2542]

@@abbasalshafai6175 i also have the same doubt.

[@fivedoors4631]

Kenny ROCKS

[@AbrahamRomney]

Thanks, Kenny. Really helpful

[@keyboardheuvelrug]

This video is very educating. Thanks. A question: how did you achieve the colored corners in the track buttons indicating the grouped tracks?

[@offthebooksmusic]

i've been using reaper for nearly a decade and i'm still learning new things about it lol

[@danycowwashere]

You sound like a MOB guy givin' instructions for a big heist. Loved the video man. Thanks!!!!

[@BecomingEugen]

well, Reaper is a steal :D

[@ARE_YOU_SICK_OF_YT_CENSORSHIP]

it's not by accident, his surname is Gioia

[@leesillery7099]

a super informative video, many thanks

[@amdenis]

Great video! Very clear and extremely useful. I assume that you can also combine Folders and VCA approach using modified routing, etc- correct?

[@whackamole5893]

great video!

[@timnordberg7204]

Kenny, what do *you* do when you have a bunch of tracks you want to buss together that also use FX sends? Let's say I wanted to do a big Phil Collins-style drum kit, with a gated reverb on a send to get the snare really thundering and maybe just a smidge on the toms and kick. But I also want to route all the audio to an "ALL DRUMS" track to apply some compression and saturation and set the volume (post-compression!) in the mix. All of the techniques touched on in the video either work really well for the former or the latter, but not both. Curious to what you'd do in this situation. Thanks again for these great tutorials--keep 'em coming!

[@fuckcensorship69]

bus your fx sends to a new track. then buss all your tracks plus you fx to a track you create called "all drums". turn off all the master sends except for the "all drums"

[@gabrielneves4960]

Hi man! Really nice video. It helped me a lot to understand the diferences. Can you answer me other thing about the same stuff? I'm trying tu use amp simulators (guitar rig/amplitube) as busses channels. Routing my guitar tracks to the buss channel with guitar rig + EQ + Comp and more. But the sound is very diferent if I put those plugins direct to the guitar tracks. Is there an explanation to this? Thx!

[@SteveKitch]

Excellent video

[@DjClimamusic]

Thanks a lot Kenny Gioia. :)

[@alkazaryyy]

Tip: If you want to route quicker to an effect receive, hold SHIFT while dragging multiple sends.

[@WillayG]

Ahhh... that's going to save a lot of time and stress

[@alkazaryyy]

@@WillayG I know right!

[@williammangus5526]

You are one smart guy. Thanks

[@MayAllSentientBeings]

awesome tutorial. really well done!

[@ArmanGrim]

Fantastic Vlog , So useful , thanks a lot 👍

[@zmfwlife]

Really nice and helpful... Thanks!

[@nikitam.4126]

a lot of options, but you can't make simple routing( if i want create drum bus to compress/eq/etc whole kit but not mess with fx sends & balance - it's not possible. if i create a VCA and send all the drums to it and then VCA goes to folder, so when i lower the VCA - compressor on a folder receives less level of drums and the balance is changing. small things like such makes me go back to the slow & CPU unfriendly Pro Tools which, beside these disadvantages, i really enjoy.

[@AudioReplica2023]

Thats one of the downsides about Reaper. The daw has been so overwhelmed with options that gets confusing. And im guessing this is due to the communication between the community and developers. Its a great idea to have the input from the community and please them...but when the community starts taking the place of the developers thats when it gets messy ...thats whats happening to Reaper.

[@JMnyJohns]

extremely helpful, thank you.

[@reacherstudio]

Hey man, love your videos... do you know if you could setup VCA's or Folders for the Behinger BCF2000? I'm having all kinds of issues trying to get it to page up and down and figured it might be best to just assign faders individually. Rough support on this unit :/

[@chokewholeddotcom]

What I do is Put all drum tracks in a Folder that goes to the Master Track; and then I create another track to use parallel compression on and run the Folder through that track and have that track go to the Master Track. This way when I adjust the volume on the Folder, it also adjusts the volume coming into the compression in order to keep the volumes moving together. Not sure if this is the best way or if there is something I am missing here, but this bypasses the signal coming into the compression track without first going through the Folder. I suppose since the volume is changing on the Folder I would have to adjust any compression on the compression track but it sounds fine. I might look into using VCAs .

[@kris_gorski]

Invaluable, as usual :)

[@daddyslittlejunkies]

Hey Kenny Thanks for all of your awesome work. I am a fan for sure. However at 13:44 where you muted the Master track, I was under the impression that the slaves should also mute. That is how it works here on v5.62. In your video, the little red triangle on the Master and Slave mutes indicating a Grouped track function seems to disappear just before you hit mute on the Master. Sorry if this was mentioned in the previous comments. I did a quick look at the old comments and did not see anything. I did go back in the video to confirm that Mute Master and Mute Slave were selected accordingly.

[@RTCLR123]

Rn i am struggling with mixing in FL...gona try Reaper. Thank you for great info!

[@sanumusic007]

Awesome man, thanks

[@1duncanhogg]

Is it possible to have the best of both worlds? Folders (To organise) and VCA's to not mess with wet signal? Ive tried putting a VCA into a folder and not changing the folder fader but the sound changes? Lastly Thanks for all the vids Kenny your the man!

[@Stormchaser189]

Hey Kenny, Boy did this tutorial came at the right time and it was well explained. I'm still a little bit unclear on how to create submixes. Do you have a tutorial on how to create a submix to send all tracks to and then how to send the submix to the mixbus when mixing, the easy way ? Thanks

[@soundcrafter]

Hey Dazzy, what you're after is basically an application of how he explained Busses here. Create a track that will be your 'submix buss', send the desired channels to that buss (and remove their send to the Master buss), then ensure that the submix buss track is sending to the Master buss.

[@javcortes]

you are my reaper guru. thanks for all you do! now, i have a question: i'm coming from protools and eucon avid mixer. what controller is better for me in your opinion? i'm open to use usb or eucon. any top 5 or better you can name in your experience? thanks! JAvier.

[@iamhandsome4291]

0:57 4:15 Folder & bus 6:23 7:06 bus 11:17 group 15:45 vca master 22:04

[@DavidSmith-ne1zp]

Another great one Kenny. Only thing I was left wondering is how these three things work together? Can you put busses and VCA tracks inside folders?

[@dionmonti9397]

Hi, They actually don't need to be separate things. You can make a folder and a VCA in one track. Just assign the Lead/master VCA functions to the folder and the VCA following/Slave functions to the tracks inside the folder. This way it can be both.

[@victorhaland5474]

christ thats why my mixes sound average (did not realize the folder fader did not affect send level). Thanks Kenny! vcas here i come:D

[@boldbearStudios]

As ever in your videos: brilliant explanation! So, if I want to stay organized AND control FX send levels of the whole folder "correctely" I could use a VCA track inside the folder (let's say just below the folder track) and then adjust/automate the levels of the individual tracks via tha VCA!? Or is that too complicated? Right now I prefer using just folders (with their faders at 0 dB) and adjust levels via the faders of the individual tracks. I have to admit that automation is a bit cumbersome doing it that way... Thanks, Kenny!

[@xaosnox]

I was wondering the same and similar thing. How do these work together. Perhaps that would make a good follow up video.

[@reiniervanzwieten7092]

can't you create a track inside a folder and use that track for the aux fx like reverb, so you send your kick and snare to that track and send that track to the reverb. downside is that you have to worry about an extra track, upside: you can EQ your reverb and control volume of reverb easily and with the folder track.

[@jazzbeats8168]

thanks Kenny!

[@jazzbeats8168]

Is is possible to put the individual audio tracks with VCA and Busses in the same folder ? Like what you mentioned in your video, you like to use FOLDER to organise tracks.

[@AudioReplica2023]

I prefer using folders. More organized and straight forward . I dont use a dedicated fx track for everything. I like my drums using a chamber or small hall reverb, guitars a spring or plate, piano a hall...ect. So I just put the fx track inside each group of instruments and thats it. Has work for me for years so...im good.

[@voodoochili12]

Legendary

[@johngraham9878]

Very enlightening. So if I understand correctly, when you're using sends to FX that aren't under a folder I may create balancing issues when I'm mixing the folders against each other. This sounds like it sort of defeats the idea of mixing with the folders grouped to the left in the mixer. Would I avoid the problem if I have an instance of each FX (reverb / delay, etc.) under the same bus as my sends? I realize it may increase my computer resource use, but I typically only have seven or so folders in my mixes for Drums, Bass, Vocals, Guitars, Keys, Strings/Pads, etc. And then, as you do - would I have to adjust overall volume of the folder by selecting all its tracks (including the FX return tracks) and moving their volume up/down together, but leaving the Folder level at 0/unity instead of mixing them grouped to the left in the mixer? Or would the relationship with the FX now be OK since they're under the folder? Thanks, John in Seattle

[@reiniervanzwieten7092]

can't you create a track inside a folder and use that track for the aux fx like reverb, so you send your kick and snare to that track and send that track to the reverb. downside is that you have to worry about an extra track, upside: you can EQ your reverb and control volume of reverb easily and with the folder track.

[@emperor3743]

Hi Kenny, your channel is a goldmine for reaper users. Just wanted to know, Is it technically possible to use Folders as Busses by routing the child tracks to parent folder? If it does, it compliment each other and eliminate the disadvantages, I guess. Thanks for your time and effort for making these tuts.

[@MartinJovanovic]

Kenny, when you create a folder, all tracks still go (physically) direcly to the master. So, when you add FX onto the folder track, what exactly happens? Is a separate instance of that FX chain being added to each of the member-tracks (with the settings always in sync with the settings you make on the folder track)? Like exact copies of the folder-track FX chain? And if the answer is yes, where are these FX chain instances added to folder member tracks? I assume their own private FX go first, and then after them the folder-track FX chain is added... am I getting this right?

[@SyntheticFuture]

This is probably going to be a question that I might have been able to find the answer for if I knew what I had to google :x What I was wondering is: Is it possible to route several channels to one channel, have an FX on that channel and have that channel output as many channels as you put in and process each channel individually? So for example I can run all my drum parts through the same saturation VST with the same settings for each part but still be able to to run the snare to a reverb but the rest of the kit not? I assume it will always sum if you route it through one vst right? Reaper can't run "shadow copies" of a VST to maintain individual channels?

[@lucassamsmusic]

Question if anyone can answer. Could you just group the folder track with fx send track so as you change the volume of the folder it changes the volume of the fx return?

[@ksanavengsar4050]

Thank you

[@RickNance]

quick question: The routing matrix shows the VCA sending audio to the main mix. Is this just 'symbolic' in some way? I know it doesn't matter in practice. Additionally: if I want to use the visual group metaphor from the folders, but want the routing stability of using sends/busses to subs, will there be any surprises if I just turn off the "F" (folder or follow?) in the child tracks and use the busses to send them to the parent? It _seems_ to me, at first glance, that I'll get a normal submix at the folder track, but I my routing won't be subject to their positions in the track order.

[@birdhub-uk]

how can i use vca's which seems a good method as explained for grouping plus fx sends but then incorporate parallel compression also ?

[@mikebee888]

Hi Kenny, I have problem with panning each channel when I route to busses. If I want one guitar of three, in the guitar-buss panned hard left, it doesn't work? Even if I use the pan in the routing. I can't see what's wrong... =(

[@TylerHNothing]

soooooo helpful thank you

[@tomh9487]

couldn't you use master and slave VCAS from your folder group parent to adjust your wet effects track to maintain the dry/wet ratio?

[@leonk6950]

Is it possible to set it up so that when dragging the Io thing to create sends no window pops up? And also, can you set it up so that when dragging while holding shift it automatically sends to channels 3/4 ( for sidechain)?

[@christopher.k.guitar]

Hi Kenny, thank you for all your great content - I learned a lot about Reaper. Right now I am struggling with one thing in specific: I created a submix for my guitars using folders. I know I can apply effects directly on the folder parent track and it all works fine. But as I am using it as an insert effect that way, if there is no mix knob inside a plugin I cannot fine tune the amount of effect as I could in a classic effects buss scenario… I tried just doing an effects send approach from my regular effects busses to the guitar submix, but then there is the problem that those busses also send to the master track, which adds volume. Which would be the correct way to approach this in your oppinion? Thanks a lot im advance, Christopher

[@rdmd]

As Kenny noted in the video, you can add an effects return track INSIDE the folder. For example, if you have guitars 1, 2, and 3 inside your "Guitars Submix folder." Then you would create an additional track called "Effects 1" in the folder and route guitars 1,2, and 3 to the "Effects 1" track and put your desired effect (for example, a delay) on the "Effects 1" track. From there, you have a few options, but the simplest is to use the fader on "Effects 1" to control the amount of guitars w/ effects in the guitar submix. This is very similar to the parallel compression track Kenny mentions in the video. While this is not technically the same as having a wet/dry knob inside the plugin, you should be able to achieve the desired result by adjusting the "Effects 1" fader inside your "Guitars Submix" folder to achieve the ratio of effect to dry signal that you are searching for. Once you have that ratio, it should remain constant when using the "Guitars Submix" folder fader in relations to your overall mix.

[@flowscreation5352]

This some good shhistuff!

[@shibboleth_without]

Does anyone know why my sands sound not like original tracks? And Buss too. Sounds like a little chorus fx + EQ. But folder sounds good, same like original. It's only on my system? Windows 8/64 Reaper 5.40 SWS 2.8.3.

[@Tuneman-iy8og]

Can somebody explain the difference between these 2 methods: 1: Drum Folder - put compression on the master folder and blend to taste using wetness dial. 2: Drum buss - put compression on buss and use volume on the buss to blend to taste. What is the difference here, what am I missing? Thank you btw Kenny for these videos, incredibly helpful

[@ivannikolaev2293]

The first idea I got after watching this video: I can send several tracks to a bus, then group them to apply individual automation and use a VCA to control FX level... SO why not use them simultaneously on one single track? Let call this thing a VCA Group Bus or Group VCA Bus or whatever. I send tracks to a bus1 (also remove them from the Master), set them, say, Volume Slave and Automation Slave and also VCA Slave. Don't forget to make bus1 a VCA Master. What about that? I didn't mention that I can also press a little Folder icon on that bus1 to hide all that tracks...

[@andrewbulhoes6420]

can you plz tell me how i can just make a simply group like how ableton groups its tracks plz which one of these ways is the closest to it

[@sonorityscape]

What if I wanted to do parallel compression on a drum bus, but then have individual reverb sends for each separate drum without messing up the wet dry relationship?

[@edwood7529]

Create another bus for reverb pre fader?

[@maxrepeckto9347]

If you use the law of panning (for example -3 dB), then tracks - folders will have a limit of -3 dB, which you cannot exceed. IT WAS NECESSARY TO SAY IMMEDIATELY !!! I accidentally noticed this, collecting my mix through folders, I put a limiter on my "master mix" folder and I was surprised by increasing the loudness of my track.

[@lemar_soma]

anyone know how to locate folders to the right of the track like kenny has? im looking in track control panels and cannot find it, any help plz?

[@leemendez7876]

Can anyone help. I've recorded a guitar track & duplicated it. I've then put them both in a folder with my guitar amp sim plugin on the folder FX. My plan is to pan 1 guitar left & 1 right but when I turn one of the track 100% to the right there is no sound. It gets more quiet the more I turn it. Any ideas? Never had this problem before.