I would definitely be interested to hear your alternative method. I use Samplitude, which is surely capable of multitrack grabs. What do you have being sent from C3 to enable track names are already there? That is an interesting feature!
How are you shunting the audio from C3 to Reaper? Virtual Audio Cable?
Terry
By the way, I was glad Cantabile could record within itself as I already am running 6 keyboards and at least 6 plugins (sometimes 9), and OBS is sending out a 720p live stream with two cameras all from the same machine. (Cantabile feeds Voicemeeter via an ASIO ADAT TOSLINK loopback channel in my MOTU 828 mk3 hybrid to generate an OBS-acceptable audio stream in WDM/KS.) So, I was hesitant to tax the system further by adding another piece of software to the burden!
(Sometimes I feel like I am abusive of my poor CPU!)
Terry
I found Reaper made almost no difference to the CPU load whether it was loaded and recording or not.
ok, key points as follows
MOTU
Cantabile
Reaper
In Use
Whenever I change to a different song in C3, Reaper stops recording, moves the cursor to the start of the correct song, and then starts recording again. It doesnât matter which order the songs are in, either in Reaper or C3. It doesnât matter if the song overruns or we play it twice. These are just recorded on the timeline, or as 2nd takes.
I did experiment with sending the C3 auto record binding to Reaper to start and stop the recoding, but found that I was sometimes missing the start of songs.
The nice thing is that once the songs are in Regions then Reaper can then render each region as an mp3 stereo mixdown, and wav stems all from one screen.
I use the same recordings to play along to as practice in between rehearsals with my keys track muted. With Record Arm disabled, then reaper simply plays the tracks back on song change. Really easy.
I will say Iâve only just set it up like this - first recording rehearsal will be on Sunday. Before, I recorded all songs in one long session in Reaper. I then used to have to take the 30 to 60 minutes after rehearsal to move all the regions around into their correct places. This way I have a rough recording ready to play back or export straight away, which is often good enough for our purposes.
Playback - MOTU Ultralite MK4 specific
I mentioned that I can play back from Reaper instantly through the SAME mixer channels we just recorded from. I like this because we can go to FOH and check levels and mixer fx from the audience perspective.
To do this means rerouting the specific instrument mixer channels on the MOTU so that the audio comes from the PC audio channel, and not from the physical input jack.
I have 2 batch files assiged to a button that do this rerouting for me using the MOTU API, so that to play back a song we just recorded takes about 5 seconds.
The batch files contain commands like this. Each line changes a mixer channel routing.
curl --data âjson={"value":"0:0"}â localhost:1280/0001f2fffe006030/datastore/ext/obank/6/ch/0/src
curl --data âjson={"value":"2:2"}â localhost:1280/0001f2fffe006030/datastore/ext/obank/6/ch/1/src
How are you routing your VSTi instruments to Reaper?
I only have four hardware synths that are only used for certain songs (though the Wavestation SR seems to be ever-present). I have at least four VSTiâs going, plus the reverb(s) and limiter. Iâd have to get those to Reaper somehow, and all my 828 inputs are in use. (Wait, I take that back - I can do a loopback with the ADATs and use those⌠I already do for some things: ADAT 1/2 feeds Voicemeeter to feed the OBS stream. OK - I have seven stereo outs left, but I often require nine.)
Iâll mess with this a bit also. Probably Samplitude also doesnât make much of a CPU hit when recording. After all, it was originally written to work in Windows 98!
The 828 doesnât have the network capabilities of your box, but it does have the ability to be controlled by a remote controller and by TouchOSC. However, I have checked CueMix and it is a real CPU hog, so I would have to simply operate âblindâ unless I can hook up my Behringer BCF2000 to it.
But aside from needing to separate out all the stems using Audacity (which isnât hard and lets me convert to stereo tracks AND name the tracks before exporting stems), Bradâs recorder is working plenty adequately. My only issue was that Audacity only exports in 16 or 32 bit, not in the original 24-bit Iâm recording at, so I get inflated file sizes unnecessarily.
Terry
The MOTU ASIO driver provides all the audio channels. C3 sends to a couple of these channels called "From Cantabile I have named the channels from the MOTUâs perspective. There can be 48 ins and 48 outs between the MOTU and the PCâŚ
Within the MOTU routing I send those channels back straight out to Reaper via another couple of channels called âMix Keysâ. This routing does not go via the Motu mixer, it is simply in and out. Not shown, but further down this matrix screen I also send this same audio coming from C3 into the MOTU mixer as 2 channels.
Then I connect Reaper to those 2 channels, as well as to the other MOTU channels that are routed from the ADAT input. I actually ALSO connect C3 to all these channels simultaneously with Reaper, as at one point I was recording with C3 and Reaper at the same time from the same channels.
Does this make sense?
The 828 lacks this routing matrix, though it can be âtrickedâ by using a TOSLINK fiber cable sending the ADAT outs to the ins producing up to 16 loopback channels. I do that now with a single fiber optic loopback for eight channels (of which Iâve only been using two) but I have another fiber cable to employ the second ADAT port set.
This certainly makes sense and seems feasible - removing the need to extract stems at all! Iâll try it this week, for sure.
Terry
