How to Properly Export Multi-tracks for Mixing - Render tracks, Glue, & Consolidating in REAPER

[@TadDoylemusic]

I was going to make a video to send to my clients about pre-mix preparations but here it is! I will be sending this video to clients who want me to mix their songs. Although specific to REAPER, the principles and practices apply to any song/session project(s) in any DAW. Thanks again Jon! And I learned a couple of things in your tutorial. It's a good day!

[@kantosina9962]

Seemed like a such a simple solution but I didn't even think about recording a little audio track to glue all the takes together to line up was very helpful in rendering my tracks. Thanks for the tip!

[@misaanofficial]

Thank you for this helpful video.

[@juddem]

Thanks Jon! Can you tell, how to color only wavefom, like on this video?

[@twinpumpkin]

whats the difference between rendering with ''STEMS (SELECTED TRACKS)'' and ''SELECTED TRACKS VIA MASTER''??? If i have for example: A limiter on my master track and I want to render the whole project for mixing (all the separate tracks)? What's the best option???

[@greenguitars72]

Great video ,Jon! Another way to glue tracks with empty space in front,back or between clips is to make a time selection of the whole thing ,right click on the items you need to glue and use "glue items within time selection"' function! Reaper will fill in the blanks for you! ;)

[@lemauvaistemps]

When you consolidate stems, does it not add the 'silence' clips automatically to the blank areas of the stems? I thought that was one of the purpose of consolidating...thx

[@boldbearStudios]

Thanks Jon, very helpful. What about exporting tracks for mixing if you are the composer, arranger, ..., mixing engineer in one person (like many of us are)? After the creative phase I often find myself with a project structure that contains a lot of FX and automation. Actually many of my sessions are mixed almost up to 50-60% at this stage. This can sometimes be helpful BUT most of the times NOT. Especially if want to start mixing with a fresh set of ears! :-) How do you deal with that? Clear all the FXs and automation and start over again? Commit to the FXs and automation? Thanks!

[@TheREAPERBlog]

I would freeze virtual instruments, save as, pull all faders to -inf and rebuild. Clear automation if it gets in the way.

[@boldbearStudios]

OK, that makes sense and sounds like a pragmatic approach. Most of the times I would do it that way - except for "all fadest to -inf". But I guess that's a crucial point. I swear, next time I'll be brave enough to pull all faders down, haha :-) Cheers!

[@rob550]

This is super helpful! Thanks again for your awesome videos!

[@AtteKym]

Nice video! Few questions about your theme: 1. How can you enable folders to show up in mixer like that? 2. How can you enable those width-knobs in tracks?

[@TheREAPERBlog]

this was in reaper 5 so I used the Sidebar layout on my folder tracks. In reaper 6 you'd configure layout B in the Theme Adjuster with another style and assign to folders. Width knobs appear in "Stereo Pan" mode. Choose your pan type in Project settings: Advanced

[@keithd.6712]

Does it matter if on my MIDI drum sends track, all my sends are post fader when exporting?

[@tobiasruther4520]

A bit offtopic: How do you deal with the import of video projects? Im using reaper for years but when it comes to video postproduction i find myself renting protools after struggling hard to import omf/aaf to reaper. I know there is omf support, but its not working properly at the most of the times and today you should better go with aaf for several reasons. AATranslator is reading about 20% of the aaf´s I get properly, so it was a waste of money in my opinion. Its hard to believe importing aaf is such a problem after so many years, even if the video engine has been improved that much and there is spectral reapair introduced......

[@TheREAPERBlog]

For video projects I've had the most success (really only 1 out of 3 films) with Vordio to convert XML from Premiere to a reaper project. The other films have been with consolidated wavs and it was a big pain because voices jump around on tracks for every video cut!

[@duncandavies1966]

This may be a stupid question, but why does the mixer need DI renders as well as wet ones?

[@TheREAPERBlog]

the mixer can use the DI with their own real amp collection or other fx. Its a discussion to have with your mixer.

[@duncandavies1966]

@@TheREAPERBlog ah ok, thanks for the quick response. Excellent channel btw, has been invaluable.

[@funknoodles]

Wouldn't "Tracks with mono media to mono files" take care of which files are stereo and which are mono automatically?

[@TheREAPERBlog]

+A.K. Ratul I haven't tested it but I assume because there is no media on the selected tracks that it wouldn't work. Will check

[@popriffmusic]

how do you render individual tracks simultaneously with all the fx from the bus?

[@TheREAPERBlog]

"selected tracks via master" was added in V6.x

[@thrashnator1469]

Really helpful. Cheers!

[@HimanshuSharma-vt8ke]

Hey John just one question. I am working with midi drums on a project. Now if I export the individual pieces of the kit at the same velocity (i.e, all the snare hits at the same velocity and all the kick hits with same velocity and so on) and send the drum tracks for mixing, then how will the mixer humanize the velocities of the drum tracks???

[@TheREAPERBlog]

YOU should be doing that before the mixing process. get the performance right.

[@HimanshuSharma-vt8ke]

@@TheREAPERBlog oh. Exactly. What's what I've been working on right now. Humanizing the velocities before exporting for mixing.

[@daviddahl8562]

I'm going to have the basics they will be all audio like from Guitar pro 8 I'll export as wave file. So I'll have a rhythm guitar, bass and drums on wavfile. all audio on separate tracks into reaper. How do I get those 3 tracks exported to one wave file. to my mac mini ventura os desktop. I do got the license key registered now to so I'm not on the free trial anymore

[@TheREAPERBlog]

File Menu, Render. Master mix, entire project, and pick a format.

[@Eichro]

Hello Jon, there's something in my mind these days. Say I have a multisampled round-robin soundfont with... not enough samples. Is there any technique where I can pick the samples I do have and manipulate them to create more samples? Of course without it sounding bad?

[@TheREAPERBlog]

slight pitch, time, volume and filter changes. Layering something to increase the attack for hard samples.

[@Heafyshiu]

My reaper daw only render one track even if I select master mix. I haven't even selected one track either :( need a fix for this.

[@cabreramigoya]

Hello, when trying to render a Reaper project, it closes on its own and I can't render anything. Do you know what it may be? Can you help me? Thank you.

[@cryptonios]

hey jon, a little throwback here....i have a session with multiple takes on drums. is it possible to export it and give it to someone with protools to comp and edit the tracks?

[@TheREAPERBlog]

Sure, if its unedited takes I’d just copy from the project media folder. Wouldn’t send all the takes, just best two or three.

[@cryptonios]

@@TheREAPERBlog so if someone imports in protools or any other daw the media folder he should be able to distinguish takes like in reaper or he will have to sort it out?...thanks for the reply really

[@TheREAPERBlog]

the file names and creation dates and the lengths of the files should make it fairly clear. You could also use the consolidate function for the drum tracks, once for each take so that you have specific names and take numbers.

[@cryptonios]

​@@TheREAPERBlog thanks for your time jon, also thank you for your really usefull app

[@punkfreak1414]

How to do send a text file in reaper?

[@bloodfromastone]

To be clear, consolidating does not render the tracks with any panning, EQ, effects, etc?

[@djabthrash]

exactly

[@santinhoww]

Isn't a problem that the drums get rendered in different instances? The virtual drums is suposed to be "played" all tracks in the same moment, when you render the close mics separated from OHs and Rooms, It's like the drummer recorded 2 performances, and the first one you saved the close ones, and the second performance, you saved the Ohs and rooms. Or not? Thanks in advance.

[@TheREAPERBlog]

That's a really good point and I hadn't considered that. Not sure how to get around that or if it is actually a problem.

[@ElectricPhase]

This is not a problem; Its the exact same performance on drums, you're just rendering different parts of the take at different times. If you listen to the OH and Room mics, they are obviously completely in sync with the isolated close mics because they are the *same performance/take*. If you need some comfort and can't quite believe it, feel free to render them altogether as stereo tracks - same sounding result, more data on the close-mic files.

[@santinhoww]

@@ElectricPhase some vsti like ezdrummer have a feature that notes are triggered randomly, called "humanize function" , so snare, kick etc have different layers to make the performance more natural

[@javying]

very thanks

[@michaeljvandyck]

Trying to work with a musician using reaper, im using logic. Just need him to export all tracks as audio, to a folder i can import to logic. There has to be an easier way to do this. I can do this in logic in under 5 minutes

[@osi9567]

A weird thing I noticed, you mention at around 11 minutes in it's a good idea to turn down your master. However, if you do that, it'll render as if the master is set to 0db, even if the project is minus or plus db. Unless I'm doing something wrong.

[@TheREAPERBlog]

at 10:50 I say "Just scale down your master volume…" I referring to the master volume in the virtual instrument, shown at 6:30.

[@osi9567]

Oh, sorry my mistake. Misheard that part.

[@ageshero]

Reaper has something called "Wildcard" that lets you specify the detail and naming titles

[@TheREAPERBlog]

yes and they've improved a lot in the couple years since the video came out. I show the wildcards at 8:58 If you're exporting with the $track wildcard, the actual track still needs to be well named.

[@Recordingstudio-uk]

Hi when you say look in the finder what are you meaning

[@TheREAPERBlog]

Finder is the file explorer for OSX.

[@christopherheadcase6886]

Can you include the track tempo in the render matrix wildcard? Or have the track tempo update to the correct tempo when the tracks are imported?

[@TheREAPERBlog]

You can put $tempo in file name. Exporting tempo with MIDI file is best.

[@scottrance2818]

I have a question that is really annoying me and I can't find anything on how to fix it I'll try to explain the best I can. When I go to render my track everything goes well . My issue is with midi . When I export my midi drums and then open the file for mixing I'm noticing certain sections have velocity issues. So for example the value will be set at 100 then it drops of to say 60 for a section of it then back up to 100. I tried manually setting the values up to 100 for the section with drop off but it still does it. even though it says it's fine on the piano roll. I use drum files converted from gp5. Anyone have a fix for this? It would be greatly appreciated.

[@TheREAPERBlog]

guitar pro can put a lot of extra junk in the MIDI CC lanes. I'd check there

[@scottrance2818]

Ya I checked all that, I noticed my EZ Drummer master track had volume "pre FX" turned on. I clicked it off and it may have solved the issue . Thanks for the advice though. I do appreciate the response.

[@TheREAPERBlog]

that will do it. pre-fx volume or item volume adjustments translate to MIDI velocity scaling.

[@rickellis811]

will this work if it goes from reaper to FL?

[@djabthrash]

AFIK, FL doesn't load up audio tracks, so i would say no, but you can double-check it.

[@TadDoylemusic]

@3:42 SnrTop_sm57_API_What'sForLunch?_HowDoYouLikeYourCoffee?_WeAreF'd_10b. Pure comedy genius!

[@TALKATIVE_CARTOON]

I thought I was buying this so I didn't have to send it off. I prefer Audacity now that I have bought REAPER. In Audacity, I add an effect, it quickly loads and my wave is changed and that is that. locked and it plays that way without lag and no live happenings. the wave is adjusted AND I CAN export breezily, I do not even know what "consolidate" is or what the files are doing after cus my mp3 doesn't have my vocals affected by my plugins from ~ wave" I brought in. It is nerd ish, i am not having fun. I was with Audacity. I just wanted my voice cool so I bought a wave plugin so i needed a daw and that daw needs a sound card or audio interface cus I am getting latency And I didn't know any of this i saw windows 10 requirement down load. and was foolish enough to fork the cash.

[@michaelanthony9068]

No “glue” selection. Screw it.

[@michaelanthony9068]

I’m a 66 yr old noob. Trying to do the work, achieve my life dream of recording ideas. It’s never going to happen. Videos never match my own experience. Arrrgh !

[@davethomas6318]

B

[@The7nUp]

the least amount of trouble? ♀♫♫ would have been more like a 30 sec explanation.. NOT 20 minutes..◙

[@TheREAPERBlog]

Now that you've seen the 20min video, feel free to summarize it and I'll add it to the description and article. Thanks!

[@djabthrash]

@@TheREAPERBlog haha