Generating Gain Riding Automation with SWS Loudness tool (Rapid-Fire REAPER Tutorial 101)

[@docshadrach]

If you do this on "Volume (PreFX) envelope it shows the changes in the audio visually in real time.

[@bobless5517]

Wow! Super! Fast, simple, brilliant! Thanks!

[@jefffogle1288]

Genius

[@snrmark1042]

This is definitely a time saver, I had to.vocal ride few days ago, lol. The parallel trick is really cool definitely gonna try that. Thanks so much for the shout out, really appreciate it.

[@IDDQDSound]

Dude the song is incredible! I wanna do a remix :)

[@snrmark1042]

@@IDDQDSound wow , yh sure. I'd love that, yaay

[@leafac]

11:38: 😁 So, I looked into this briefly and it seems like SWS doesn’t expose “Create short-term/momentary graph in selected envelope” for scripts. Not via actions; not via Lua functions. We could do most of the heavy lifting ourselves and sort of recreate this feature in a script, but it would probably be slower than SWS (which is in C++), so not worth it. Maybe the best answer is: This could be a feature request for SWS itself.

[@IDDQDSound]

Putting it in the slack :)

[@bodanerius]

This is the best day in a very long time. Thanks for the shoutout + doing this tutorial. Watching it gets me thinking! Why isnt there a plugin that does this automatically? A LUFS pilotsignal that ducks the volume + 300-ish ms look ahead...?

[@IDDQDSound]

Someone on Reddit mentioned this plugin. The tutorial is a bit hard to understand (I for one can't even read the name) but check it out. Still realtime though. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJOTmp6gdrt6obMm11s

[@CaeSharp]

Best solution right here! Tho I guess it's decades until it finally can be fully automated. Does anyone know of tv shows, series, movies, or serious podcast or radio stations that use any form of gain riding?

[@IDDQDSound]

Every podcast and film I worked on ever! Maybe not syllable-by-syllable riding but yeah in film you have standards for dialogue loudness, so a whispered lines comes up, shouted line goes down. For podcasts, same thing, people tend to start quiet then warm up and get excited and start shouting, or they move away from the mic, so all of those things require riding the gain. If you want something more automated than that you can use a gain riding plugin, or a very soft compressor with the threshold somewhere that it's always attacking or releasing.

[@newmorningrecords]

This kind of tricks are great! Thank you

[@IDDQDSound]

My pleasure :)

[@martijnvandongen]

This is really amazing ! Thank you so much!

[@IDDQDSound]

My pleasure!!!

[@kelvinfunkner]

this is an insanely cool trick! Thanks!

[@bobcabrera3080]

This is a game-changer for me. Thanks! When using Waves Vocal Rider, the biggest issue I have had is that when I want the dynamics preserved, specifically when I want the end of a phrase to naturally fade a bit, Vocal Rider wipes out the natural fade by bringing up the level. With your version of Kenny’s method, do you fix that by editing the automation to change it from “riding up” when you want a fade down?

[@IDDQDSound]

If I want a fade down then yeah. I usually do like the fade up (or at least in this track I felt I needed it.) Tbh Vocal Rider is what I use and like, and I can have it write to the volume envelope and edit that! Because it has range sliders I tend to find it more practical :)

[@boyreporter]

you just blew my mind

[@IDDQDSound]

*BOOOOKJDSHBTVTGH*

[@danthegeetarman]

You are amazing!!! This saves even more time!!

[@Mariosyjp]

Wow! You just beat Kenny..... no small feat!!

[@IDDQDSound]

I dunno about beat haha. He was the inception of the idea so he's like Mozart and I'm just someone who plays Mozart, but thanks :)

[@codycreepcore]

I think the Scheps trick is called a Rear Bus or something similar

[@IDDQDSound]

Yes exactly! Looked it up once I was finished shooting, too lazy to re-shoot haha :)

Great tip !

[@DThompson55]

BRILLIANT! I know what i'll be doing this weekend.

[@IDDQDSound]

Did you do it? :D (post-weekend police checking in)

[@DThompson55]

​@@IDDQDSound Yes! Working with a singer who was not always on the mic, this was just the trick to get consistent vocals and a nice volume swell at the ends of her words that were getting lost otherwise. I would have done this by hand previously. I have a couple projects coming up where it might come in handy as well.

[@EqDior]

what an amazing tutorial!

[@IDDQDSound]

Thank you!

[@colinkyffinmusic323]

Great stuff . . . as usual. :)

[@vasiliymelnikov590]

Smart!!

[@angelomustaine777]

Any way to use this on drums?

[@eikegermann7469]

I was wondering about this with Kenny’s video and you’ve definitely confirmed it for me - The loudness is based on the clip, not the output. That confuses me, because it does not do what I’d do when I ride a fader to record automation, listen after the FX. Is there a reason for why that is? I would expect a loudness envelope that doesn’t consider my plugins, especially compression, to have exaggerated level differences compared to the compressed signal. Or am I overthinking this?

[@IDDQDSound]

yeah it's based on the clip, because to process and calculate loudness offline it reads the file, and doesn't read the fx. The kenny method will read the output if it's last in the chain. So it does have that benefit. ie you can put it as the last fx on your master, or as the last fx of any track, etc.

[@eikegermann7469]

@@IDDQDSoundThat clears things up, thank you!

[@grotteko]

That's great!! Thx! Is it possible to add this to the pre fader volume as well?

[@IDDQDSound]

Yes! Actually I probably should've done that since there was a compressor on the track! You can select pre-fx envelope from the envelope window. It'll be pre-fx too!

[@MrMockigton]

just a heads up, reaper has a built-in 1 button function for that. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qpvRo3qLbZiDeJY This tutorial is from before the update, they streamlined it since.

[@IDDQDSound]

My method is faster and not in real time :)

[@lordgraga]

The only thing I'm missing here is to be able to print the envelope in a render instead of doing it realtime, because this is nice but it's not gonna cut it as a workflow for levelling a 1.5 hour podcast.

[@IDDQDSound]

not sure I understand. If you write the envelope then render it will be in the render

[@lordgraga]

@@IDDQDSound yes, what I meant was that instead of playing through the track in realtime to write the envelope, I should be able to do it at 100 X speed or whatever.

[@IDDQDSound]

@@lordgraga That's what the SWS feature does though. Apply it offline, render it offline. The Kenny Gioia method is realtime, but the SWS method is offline at a very high speed. For a 90 minute audio file I bet it wouldn't be much more than a few minutes.

[@lordgraga]

@@IDDQDSound oh gosh, apologies for missing that details! Thanks a lot for the correction, look much forward to using this then.

[@IDDQDSound]

@@lordgraga haha no worries! I think it took me longer to explain this than it takes for the feature to do the task lol

[@JuanMotta]

Hi, thanks for teaching this, i have a problem using this action, the volume automation is all down and only have some minimal pics. Thanks

[@IDDQDSound]

Your source audio may be too quiet. Since values are logarithmic, boosting your volume will give a more detailed graph, but even if you don't, you can adjust the amplitude after you make it an automation item to scale it up!

[@JuanMotta]

@@IDDQDSound thanks, but the volume is ok after plugins, how i can increse the input volume?

[@IDDQDSound]

@@JuanMotta when you select envelopes on a track, you can choose pre-fx volume envelope!

[@JuanMotta]

@@IDDQDSound thanks!!! I'm going to trie it

[@elderozone]

Awesome! And what's the song? It sounds great

[@IDDQDSound]

Thanks! It's one of mine. I was mixing it on livestreams until my OBS gave up on me :(

[@elderozone]

@@IDDQDSound Cool! I'll keep my ears open for it. I really like the vibe since it reminds me of the We are Born-album by Sia

[@4huge4]

Something not very close to this content ,is there any way to use folders like cubase ? To hide in one track all the content?

[@IDDQDSound]

Heyy! Yeah I think so, I'm not a cubase user but look at Free item positioning?

[@cityofscreams]

does the parallel compression create problems with your gain staging?

[@IDDQDSound]

Haha yes it does :) In reality, I shouldn't have put the automation on the volume envelope, but the pre-fx volume envelope. That way it would adjust the gain before they feed into the compressor and then no problems. I did it quickly and didn't notice this :)

[@cityofscreams]

@@IDDQDSound ooh, thatd probably work nicely but idk, tbh this is kinda above my current skill level lol, Ive wanted to try parallel comp on my drums but idk how to compensate for the added volume

[@IDDQDSound]

@@cityofscreams What I do is get the compression right by turning it way up, then I turn it all the way down, and gradually bring it up as I mute and unmute, until it's at a place where, if it's not there I'll miss it, but when it is there it's adding some extra RMS but not any extra peaks at all, then from there I try not to touch the compressor, and just go to the bus level and turn it down a bit if needed, but ideally, you should not really be getting higher peaks, just a higher RMS :)

[@MattyB3]

Hi Arya, just wanted to ask you, do you have any great videos on recording midi bass or writing in in the MIDI Editor I want to create a track using Moto bass. Thanks. Matt

[@IDDQDSound]

Hey! I have lots of MIDI stuff, nothing specifically on bass, but check out the channel playlists and there's one on MIDI editing. You should find lots of useful stiff therea

[@IDDQDSound]

But also I'll do one on bass too!

[@MattyB3]

@@IDDQDSound 🙏

[@MattyB3]

@@IDDQDSound thanks I’ll look for them… for some reason I’m having an issue creating a downward slide 😬, it’s still trying to figure it out. Thanks as always

[@lmusik2417]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[@IDDQDSound]

🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@goody8321]

awli awli ! :)))

[@IDDQDSound]

chakerim :)

[@chinpou]

I just A/B'd it with Kenny's video method, and this way results in much less detail (fewer envelope points) FWIW. Would love to have a quicker way to do write the vocal ride envelope, though... Tried raising the rate to 4x and doing kenny's method. No such luck 🥸

[@IDDQDSound]

Ah shucks. Try A/B ing drawing graph with short term and momentary, that could help. FWIW I feel like less detail is better cuz I hear too much up and down and my preference is a straight forwardish curve. Or could be an sws feature request to add support for rms based envelopes where you choose the size