A thing I read in an Audacity tutorial, that I just tried with Reaper, is to copy your dry track, add a very wet signal to the copy of what ever effect you are using and use the fader on the FX track to adjust the level of effect. That way you can play with the intensity of the effect real time like I would back in the analog days. I pan the dry and wet signals left and right some to add some depth. I use this with reverbs and delays. It seems to work well. Thoughts? Comments? I didn't try, can you adjust the FX levels while the track is playing in Reaper? Maybe this ins't necessary in Reaper. I'm a Reaper noob. In either case it was neat to be adjusting FX on individual tracks as the whole song played.
OK, so I checked and I can do real time adjustments in Reaper. Nice feature. So ...... Probably don't need to double the tracks then except for the stereo image thing. Is it worth doing?
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
Yes, there's a lot to be said for keeping an extra track of the dry signal. I did read somewhere a few years back of a big name producer who insisted on being sent an extra copy of the dry guitar track so he could play around with re-amping and stuff like that.
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There's a faint, dry guitar signal that comes in with my Eleven Rack if I want it. I never seem to do it, but I should Ya never know, right?
I've done a few double track things and have had some success. Low signals getting a bit more body and dynamics coming out. Sometimes maybe a second track and lopping off a whole bunch of low just to make it bite through a bit. I kind of mess around and try everything once just for fun and hope to retain.
My most recent double track is taking a rail-road type of drum pattern I found in Band-in-a-box. I ended up doing a mono straight down the pike, a mono all the way left and a mono all the way right. It - for whatever reason - sounded better than using a plain stereo panned 100% L&R and another right down the middle. It was one of those, "I don't know why it sounds good, but I'll take it." moments. I think the left side mono track got some extra EQ work to get the high end from hi-hats or something to come through.
All in all, I think it's just one of those 'in the bag of tricks" thing that can be used, but you never have to? It sure does sound nice when done right, though.
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
I've recently been playing around with recording a dry guitar track and running it through sims. My Line 6 Floor Pod hasn't been powering up, so I haven't been able to quietly record tracks. It's worked ok, but it's definitely better throwing a mic in front of my amp.
The only effect I've done what you are talking about is with reverb. I always use a single reverb track (well, sometimes 2, 1 for vocals and 1 for everything else) and send all my instruments to it. I can adjust the amount of each instrument going to the track (I always turn the bass down), then I have 1 fader that controls the amount of reverb on the track. Never tried it with anything else, but it makes sense, especially if you are experimenting. I'd maybe use it til I found the level I want and then set up the effect on the actual track so I don't have a bunch of extra tracks laying around.
The only effect I've done what you are talking about is with reverb.
I do this as well. I have the reverb track and use to sends from other tracks to it via bus. I adjust the signal strength going into it using the individual bus faders from the instruments.
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
OK Cool! Like I mentioned, the only advantage I see to doing it my way in Reaper is that the reverberation on a track panned to one speaker will come out of the other. Say pan the guitar right, I pan it's reverb track left. Stereo reverb. If I put reverb on both guitars and the vocal that is 6 tracks. Add the bass and drum tracks and I have 8 tracks. If the drums need reverb then 9 tracks. If I use background vocals and punch in lead guitar parts I can see where this would add up to a lot of tracks. Reaper does seem to be able to handle a lot of tracks but I'm not sure how noticable this stereo effect really is.
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
