Let's Produce Ambient Music in REAPER (Livestream tutorial, Stock plugins only)

Okay, today we're making ambient music! I've had a few people ask about this, and since I always talk about how great of a tool Reaper is for sound design, we're going to make some soundscapes with it! I usually lean into harmony as my primary writing tool, so today's approach of exploring texture is somewhat outside my comfort zone. Let me know if you have questions and as always please send me your music if you learned something from my tutorials or livestreams!
To follow along or make your own music in this style, the software I'm using can be downloaded here:
reaper.fm/
And some expansions and add-ons I sometimes use are available here:
www.sws-extens...
The best ways to support my music and streams are with Super Chat/Stickers, or by checking out my music here:
francisroberts...
astralcauldron...
oldmanwizard.b...
kinggorm.bandc...
open.spotify.c...
open.spotify.c...
open.spotify.c...
For all other inquiries, go to my website:
francisroberts...

[@bcalenda2609]

Great to see yoir process and learn a little more about reaper and using MIDI

[@CaioRamonMusic]

Damn!! I've lost this one! I hope I can catch the other!! Hail Francis, good friend!!

[@f_c_r_]

I'm trying to be consistent with my livestream time again, around 11:00 PST on Saturday :D Hope you can catch one at that time

[@CaioRamonMusic]

@@f_c_r_ Yeeeeah! Wonderful bro! I'll try to be present in the new broadcast!! Have a good weekend!!

[@f_c_r_]

@@CaioRamonMusic You too!

[@critiquedard]

Viva Reaper !

[@empinchen]

Amazing tutorial. Thank you very much!

[@Moruial]

Very nice ambient work, lot of good tips! Thank you very much Francis!

[@f_c_r_]

Thanks for watching! Jeez I haven't been on in a few weeks, gotta get back to it!

[@GhostsOfJenova]

This video is great! In addition to learning about Ambient, I learned a lot just about Reaper in general!

[@f_c_r_]

Rad! Love your account name btw

[@vladcau1field]

god, for me the greatest happiness is to find channels like yours and the greatest sadness is to see that so few people know about them! thank you for this video!

[@f_c_r_]

Hey, at least you found it! I haven't been putting a huge amount of effort into growing the channel so that second part is partially my fault 😅. Thanks for watching!

[@vladcau1field]

@@f_c_r_ by the way, i didn't really understand what kind of pitch shift mode "rreaa" is.. where can i get it?

[@f_c_r_]

@@vladcau1field It's one of the pitch shift algroithms native to the latest versions of Reaper. If you double click on an audio item, the second section in the dialogue that opens is called "Take pitch shift/time stretch mode" and in that menu you can change from Project default to other modes, including the one I use. It's a feature native to Reaper, so it won't be available in other DAWs, though I'm sure something similar may exist elsewhere.

[@my-spinning-wheel]

Awesome, very interesting to watch compositional ideas that go into ambient!

[@f_c_r_]

I don't think there's a right or wrong way to approach this style, but I also love seeing other people's approaches.

[@my-spinning-wheel]

@@f_c_r_ For sure, it is interesting seeing your approach versus for example Hainbach who also makes ambient music but using totally different methods.

[@f_c_r_]

@@my-spinning-wheel Hainbach always has such interesting methods! I love his channel

[@my-spinning-wheel]

@@f_c_r_ Agreed, he is a huge inspiration! I have been making some mostly-hardware ambient using techniques I haven't seen before and have been considering making something on the methods just because it is such a niche area and I wonder if others have used similar techniques. Hope you get to release some ambient stuff, it would be awesome to hear a full album

[@f_c_r_]

@@my-spinning-wheel I plan to do so eventually! I actually want to try using more hardware in my workflow next time; I have some great synths and samples that would be awesome in ambient music. Maybe one of my next streams.

[@paperwings8673]

Hi, I'm very new to music production and find your channel very interesting! I'd find it very helpful if you could give me a quick explanation what exactly the "freeze" button did at 46:35 and how it made the sound stretch like that. Thank you!

[@f_c_r_]

The freeze button is a shortcut to one of the "apply track fx to take" functions from the right click menu, which changes the sound to audio. That lets you stretch it (hold alt while clicking and dragging the edge) using the time stretch algorithm (I change it just before stretching). This creates a very different effect from just stretching the midi note, because Reaper has to try to figure out how to extend the sound instead of just playing it longer. Hope that helps, and thanks for watching!

[@paperwings8673]

@@f_c_r_ Revisiting this video after 3 months and suddenly everything makes so much more sense! Also, thanks for the reply and I learned a lot from watching this a second time :)

[@f_c_r_]

@@paperwings8673 amazing, glad to hear it!

[@NathanaelPittman]

I can’t get rid of that staticy click at the beginning of each note no matter what I adjust. It disappeared on yours pretty quickly. On mine it’s still there.

[@f_c_r_]

Can you give me a rough timestamp of the part of the video you're referencing where the click happens? If it's in the reasynth stuff you could try setting the "attack" to a larger/longer value

[@303Georgo]

Anyone knows where i can get some plugins for reaper ?

[@f_c_r_]

Reaper will load any third party plugins in VST format (as well as a few other formats) so most developers make stuff that can work in Reaper. If you're looking for free stuff, my approach is to just do a web search for "free vst plugins" or if you want something specific, more like "free flute vst" or "free reverb vst" and you should be able to find tons of great stuff. Good luck!

[@303Georgo]

@@f_c_r_ thank you Francis, that’s very kind and helpful. I will do that. Any ones you recommend or enjoy working with ?

[@f_c_r_]

@@303Georgo I really like sforzando by plogue for snes type soundfonts, Valhalla DSP has a few excellent free signal processors, and kontakt player is a great free sampler.