Welcome to the Reaper user’s group. The purpose is to provide information, tips and possible troubleshooting for any LibriVox narrators using or considering using Reaper for their primary recording software. There is no plan for full tutorials; you can find them on YouTube and Reaper groups on Facebook. Anyone should feel free to submit questions about Reaper or post tips, hints or descriptions of how they use Reaper for audiobook recording.
Reaper isn’t for everyone. Audacity is a perfectly good recording app. But if you have heard of Reaper and think you might try it, this discussion may help you decide, and if so give you a jump start.
For reference, here is the Reaper workspace from the Reaper manual.
Last edited by sjmarky on March 17th, 2025, 11:24 am, edited 16 times in total.
Like most new narrators, I started out straight-recording and then editing afterward, a tedious and time-consuming process. I think I first learned of punch-and-roll recording from an ACX tutorial. I wanted to try it, but at the time that meant using ProTools, an obscenely expensive app intended for use by engineers in professional recording studios. Then I looked into Apple Logic, which came pre-installed on my MacBook and which I’d never used. Lo-and-behold, Logic can do punch recording. Once I tried P&R, I was sold and never went back.
The only problem was that Logic is not a good app for long-form recording. Editing was excruciatingly slow, and rendering an MP3 was real-time only, that is a 30-minute chapter took 30 minutes to output. And then during an ACX webinar one of the leaders suggested Reaper, which I’d never heard of. I tried Reaper out and have been using it ever since.
Reaper’s advantages:
Only $60 one-time purchase. No subscription.
Excellent punch-and-roll.
Non-destructive editing.
High-speed rendering.
Easy FX stacks.
Superb automation, saving me huge amounts of time.
Disadvantages:
Not free.
Less of an advantage if you don’t punch-and-roll.
Not an upgrade if you don’t use FX.
Probably not for the very occasional narrator.
Complex at first. There is a learning curve.
No built-in noise reduction.
Not worth the switch if efficiency isn’t a concern.
For me, what counts is what I do in front of the mic. The less time I spend in post, is more I can spend actually performing. Reaper has reduced my post-recording process to almost zero. I spend all my time getting the best narration, not hours of post.
Here is how I set up Reaper initially. Before launching Reaper, plug in the USB interface.
When you first launch Reaper, the default features are for multi-track music recording. The basic setup changes I did first:
Choose my preferred appearance in Options>Themes. I like Default_5.0.
Change the track timeline. Go to View>Time unit for ruler and select Minutes: Seconds
Make the recording track larger by clicking on the bottom of track header on the left and drag it down to expand the track height. About double is good.
Open Reaper>Settings. Scroll down to Audio>Device. Choose my input device, such as a USB mic or USB interface, from the Audio Device menu.
With Settings still open, scroll down to Recording. I changed in the Recorded Filename box to $track. This will automatically give my saved WAV files the same name as my track, rather than a bunch of gobbledygook. Not essential, but helpful. Close the Settings window.
Go to File>Render. In the Render menu select Format>MP3, and Bitrate 128 kbps. In the top right click Presets and select Options and format>Save as preset. Gave it a name, such as LibriVox. In the future all I need to do is select this and all my render options will be loaded. Close the Render menu.
Go to File>Project templates>Save project as template and give it a name. Reaper will save all my appearance options as well as render prefs and load them automatically when I launch a new project. In the future as I add new options I can just re-save my template and all my new options will be there.
Now Reaper is ready for basic recording and output.
In the bottom left, check Pre-roll before recording
In the bottom right, choose the amount of pre-roll you like. I prefer 2 measures, but others prefer more.
Save in the File>Project template
Now whenever hit Record, Reaper will roll back the number of measures you select, then roll forward and start recording at the playhead. You hear the pre-roll so you can pick up smoothly where you left off.
lightcrystal wrote: ↑October 26th, 2024, 5:55 pm
All great tips! I also like to have ripple editing per track on. I usually set it in the GUI.
I keep ripple edit off until I actually start editing. I use the icon in the track control panel (same as you?).
For those not familiar with ripple edit, it keeps all the separate clips together to the right of a deletion or insertion, which is extremely useful and time-saving. Being able to toggle right from the track control panel makes it easy, and the icon spins as well as highlights when toggled on to make it obvious.
I have found this out late in the piece. People may remember Booth Junkie [on YT, Reddit etc] had done a free guide to setting up Reaper for Voiceover. He had done it for Reaper 6. Five months ago he set up a free guide for Reaper 7. I already had an account and logged in for his website's Reaper 7 guide. BUT so far when I do this I get a spinning circle and it hangs and never opens. Maybe it is something at my end. Could someone else try and see if they can open it up? I log in and i get the reaper 6 that i did way back and the reaper 7 free course that i have not done. But I can't get the 7 course to open.
On his home page Mike posted two images with links to two tutorials. The "7" one goes to this page. Since I am not enrolled/signed up (nor do I care to, at this time), I can't verify the destination, sorry.
tovarisch
reality prompts me to scale down my reading, sorry to say to PLers: do correct my pronunciation please
One of the advantages of Reaper is the way you can easily create and edit FX stacks to master audio. Since FX are applied non-destructively during rendering there is no need to keep backups of the raw recording, since it remains untouched. But if you don’t use more than one effect, Reaper may not be for you.
Reaper will import all compatible plugins, such as Apple plugins and third-party plugins from iZotope and others.
There are two ways to use FX plugins in Reaper: While recording (Input) and when rendering (Output). I use both. Kind of.
To use a FX plugin while recording (Input):
In the Track Control Panel (the left of the track) under the track name window there is an Input FX button. Click it and the FX window pops up. Click the Add button and FX browser window opens. To add an effect, simply click on the name and then Add.
You can stack multiple FX, and re-order them by dragging up or down. They are applied in that order. You can open, adjust and save the parameters for each effect.
There are two downsides to using Input FX. First, you can’t undo the effect, since it is applied as you record. Second, it will slow your system down.
The only input effect I use is Apple Limiter set at 0dB, solely to prevent clipping if I get too loud while recording.
To use FX when rendering:
Also in the Track Control Panel, click the FX button (next to Mute and Solo). Again the FX window opens and you add FX from the browser the same way. These are applied when you output your audio (render) and can be toggled on and off with the FX button. I leave them off until I go to render the file to reduce the load on my system. The button to toggle FX on and off is next to the FX button on the track control panel. Since I’m not mixing live music I don’t need to hear the effects in real time.
Both input and output FX can be saved as part of a template, so the above is only needed to be done once.
sjmarky wrote: ↑January 28th, 2025, 12:14 pm
The only input effect I use is Apple Limiter set at 0dB, solely to prevent clipping if I get too loud while recording.
In that one line, you've just made an interesting case for using Reaper (vs Audacity) that I had not thought of or heard before. Nothing like this is possible in Audacity. Interesting selling point!
