Any ideas on how I can make the waveform bigger on Reaper or increase input volume on interface?

WiresDreamDisasters

Jonathanthomas83 said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

You might want to consider monitoring through the mixer instead of Reaper so you can monitor with zero latency. It's a tricky concept to get your head around, but basically you can turn off software monitoring for the tracks in Reaper and just monitor what is coming into the card using the RME mixer. Then you're not having to deal with the extra latency coming from the ASIO driver.

@WiresDreamDisasters ;That seems like the correct way to do it and it's always something I've felt I need to do but never understood how.

Couple of things:

• I add cabs through Wall of Sound plugin in Reaper
• I add FX (delay and reverb) and a VU meter through plugins on Reaper

Are these going to hinder that process? I guess not.

I'm having a hard time understanding the concept...do I mute the signals in Reaper and just look at the levels on RME Total Mix?

I use the whole thing as a way to practice and record. So when I turn my amp/pedals on, I also use the DAw for delay and reverb. So it all needs to work seamlessly, including if I monitor through RME Total Mix. This is why it's difficult for me to detach from Reaper and just use Total Mix.

Okay I get it now. So in that situation you do actually want to monitor through Reaper, because you're using plugins on the signal coming from your Suhr to add a cab+fx to the signal. You can't do that in TotalMix, so yeah do it the way you're currently doing it - keep the buffer low in the DAW, disable the monitoring in TotalMix, and monitor through Reaper.

Jonathanthomas83

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

You might want to consider monitoring through the mixer instead of Reaper so you can monitor with zero latency. It's a tricky concept to get your head around, but basically you can turn off software monitoring for the tracks in Reaper and just monitor what is coming into the card using the RME mixer. Then you're not having to deal with the extra latency coming from the ASIO driver.

@WiresDreamDisasters ;That seems like the correct way to do it and it's always something I've felt I need to do but never understood how.

Couple of things:

• I add cabs through Wall of Sound plugin in Reaper
• I add FX (delay and reverb) and a VU meter through plugins on Reaper

Are these going to hinder that process? I guess not.

I'm having a hard time understanding the concept...do I mute the signals in Reaper and just look at the levels on RME Total Mix?

I use the whole thing as a way to practice and record. So when I turn my amp/pedals on, I also use the DAw for delay and reverb. So it all needs to work seamlessly, including if I monitor through RME Total Mix. This is why it's difficult for me to detach from Reaper and just use Total Mix.

Okay I get it now. So in that situation you do actually want to monitor through Reaper, because you're using plugins on the signal coming from your Suhr to add a cab+fx to the signal. You can't do that in TotalMix, so yeah do it the way you're currently doing it - keep the buffer low in the DAW, disable the monitoring in TotalMix, and monitor through Reaper.

@WiresDreamDisasters ;Thank you, mate, your help has been very much appreciated. And you've got me thinking about a life where I'm not reliant on plugins for guitar stuff...that could be a good way to go and use TotalMix. But until I'm 100% happy with delay and reverb pedals and a better version of the CAB M (the ability to add more cabs/mics in stereo, like Wall of Sound etc), I'll stick with what I have for now. Thanks again :-)

WiresDreamDisasters

Don't ever expect to be 100% happy. It wont happen, too many toys out there to play with!  

Jonathanthomas83

Ha, very, very true mate!

Jonathanthomas83

Well I've learned a shed load from this thread and very glad I asked. Thank you to all who helped out. Things are starting to sound really nice now that I've got a few of the issues sorted and am recording at good levels. I'm really pleased. Thank you again, I've 'wiz'd' you all by way of thanks! :-)

Jonathanthomas83

I like to monitor in real-time and use lots of plugins in the DAW, so I tend to run my buffers reasonably high... so... no monitoring through an IR plugin. Could certainly use the Helix for it though.

@wiresdreamdisasters could you explain why it's a good thing to run your buffers high, please? I expect that introduces a lot of latency? You've got me thinking about having all outboard gear for IR's, Delays and Reverbs now, instead of plugins in the DAW. What's the benefit?

PolarityMan

high buffer does mean high latency but also reduced CPU load and less liekly to encounter jitter / drop outs. If you are using zero latency monitoring on the built in mixer then the increased latency doesnt actually matter because you arent dependent on the round trip time through the DAW plus plugins in roder to play your part. 

Jonathanthomas83

PolarityMan said:

high buffer does mean high latency but also reduced CPU load and less liekly to encounter jitter / drop outs. If you are using zero latency monitoring on the built in mixer then the increased latency doesnt actually matter because you arent dependent on the round trip time through the DAW plus plugins in roder to play your part. 

Thank you, @PolarityMan, that's very helpful. Man, I'm thinking that I need to get everything out of the box now! It'd be a good position to be in anyway, but life would be a lot simpler if I could just use the mixer without relying on the DAW! Hmmm!

Starting to get my head around a lot of things now, thank you very much guys!

WiresDreamDisasters

Yeah it's just a stability thing. Less drop-outs, more plugins possible in the mix, etc.

Jonathanthomas83

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Yeah it's just a stability thing. Less drop-outs, more plugins possible in the mix, etc.

Thanks, mate, sounds like a sensible thing to aim for, I think. It's also an excuse to get more gear! ha.

Thanks again.

PolarityMan

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Yeah it's just a stability thing. Less drop-outs, more plugins possible in the mix, etc.

speaking of drop outs. BFD has been giving me sever hassle on a particular project recently...crashy as anything...I think it might be because of all the other amp sims im running as I have about double what I would usually use in this track (4-5 helix natives, a couple of STL tonalities, a couple of brainworx vh4s). 

Have you seen that before and do I jsut have to either live with it or start bouncing some tracks or do you think it could be something wrong with BFD (its always BFD that dies first).

Jonathanthomas83

@PolarityMan @WiresDreamDisasters sorry to drag this out, but with the dynamics of things I'm finding that I'm peaking around -14db but at quiet times falling around -24db-ish. Is this acceptable or should I aim to stay consistently above -18db? Sorry, just learning best practices.

andy_k

I think you'll be fine, is that a DI signal?, it's easy for DI guitar to be very dynamic, but you still want the peaks at -12 -18, so you're perfect.
If you compare it to a signal that is recorded with any saturation, or distortion, that will show a much less dynamic signal due to the compression that clipping introduces, but you don't want your peaks to go over 1, in the digital realm, as this will sound nasty.

Jonathanthomas83

andy_k said:

I think you'll be fine, is that a DI signal?, it's easy for DI guitar to be very dynamic, but you still want the peaks at -12 -18, so you're perfect.
If you compare it to a signal that is recorded with any saturation, or distortion, that will show a much less dynamic signal due to the compression that clipping introduces, but you don't want your peaks to go over 1, in the digital realm, as this will sound nasty.

@andy_k perfect, thank you so much :-)

WiresDreamDisasters

Jonathanthomas83 said:

@PolarityMan @WiresDreamDisasters sorry to drag this out, but with the dynamics of things I'm finding that I'm peaking around -14db but at quiet times falling around -24db-ish. Is this acceptable or should I aim to stay consistently above -18db? Sorry, just learning best practices.

Yeah, the measurements we're giving are for peak values.

WiresDreamDisasters

PolarityMan said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Yeah it's just a stability thing. Less drop-outs, more plugins possible in the mix, etc.

speaking of drop outs. BFD has been giving me sever hassle on a particular project recently...crashy as anything...I think it might be because of all the other amp sims im running as I have about double what I would usually use in this track (4-5 helix natives, a couple of STL tonalities, a couple of brainworx vh4s). 

Have you seen that before and do I jsut have to either live with it or start bouncing some tracks or do you think it could be something wrong with BFD (its always BFD that dies first).

Could be an issue. Ping me on Facebooks.

Jonathanthomas83

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

@PolarityMan @WiresDreamDisasters sorry to drag this out, but with the dynamics of things I'm finding that I'm peaking around -14db but at quiet times falling around -24db-ish. Is this acceptable or should I aim to stay consistently above -18db? Sorry, just learning best practices.

Yeah, the measurements we're giving are for peak values.

Perfect, thank you mate!

Freebird

PolarityMan said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

@andy_k normalising worked, thank you. I'll remember that for later. How do I choose the setting for that?

Although...

@polarityman I managed to figure out how I can up the input gain on that channel on the RME Babyface Pro. I'm using Balanced XLR from the Suhr Reactive Load and into an XLR input on the interface. So I'm unsure what's line level and what's mic level. I hope I'm not doing anything wrong.

The reactive load has line level outputs and it sounds like you are plugging these into the mic pre's. I would have thought you would get better results using the line-ins on the babyface which look like they are the jack connections on the side. 

The instrument line-in inputs on the side are unbalanced. To use the XLR line-in you engage the pad and set the gain to zero, and then you set the level on the the device you are recording from. I am recording a Kemper via its XLR balanced outs at 96k and the results are fantastic through the Babyface XLR inputs, and it's impossible to clip a healthy signal when set correctly. The Babyface Pro is an impressive piece of gear, and the FS update is an even better proposition.

Jonathanthomas83

Freebird said:

PolarityMan said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

@andy_k normalising worked, thank you. I'll remember that for later. How do I choose the setting for that?

Although...

@polarityman I managed to figure out how I can up the input gain on that channel on the RME Babyface Pro. I'm using Balanced XLR from the Suhr Reactive Load and into an XLR input on the interface. So I'm unsure what's line level and what's mic level. I hope I'm not doing anything wrong.

The reactive load has line level outputs and it sounds like you are plugging these into the mic pre's. I would have thought you would get better results using the line-ins on the babyface which look like they are the jack connections on the side. 

The instrument line-in inputs on the side are unbalanced. To use the XLR line-in you engage the pad and set the gain to zero, and then you set the level on the the device you are recording from. I am recording a Kemper via its XLR balanced outs at 96k and the results are fantastic through the Babyface XLR inputs, and it's impossible to clip a healthy signal when set correctly. The Babyface Pro is an impressive piece of gear, and the FS update is an even better proposition.

Thanks mate, much appreciated. It's (the Babyface) impressive but when using Logic or Reaper it likes to go silent randomly, for a second or so and I can't figure out why.

Freebird

Jonathanthomas83 said:

Freebird said:

The instrument line-in inputs on the side are unbalanced. To use the XLR line-in you engage the pad and set the gain to zero, and then you set the level on the the device you are recording from. I am recording a Kemper via its XLR balanced outs at 96k and the results are fantastic through the Babyface XLR inputs, and it's impossible to clip a healthy signal when set correctly. The Babyface Pro is an impressive piece of gear, and the FS update is an even better proposition.

Thanks mate, much appreciated. It's (the Babyface) impressive but when using Logic or Reaper it likes to go silent randomly, for a second or so and I can't figure out why.

I use Reaper and everything is running smoothly. Silly question, are your drivers and firmware up to date?