Producing basic imaging

You now want to continue to setup your tracks.

On the VO track ad the:

VST: 10 Band Graphic Eq v1.3 (x86) (Marco Nelson)

make sure your VO track is selected, so up arrow to it. Then hit f to ad fx, and type

EQ tab to the list view and find

VST: 10 Band Graphic Eq v1.3 (x86) (Marco Nelson). Press enter.

It will pop up in a bridged window that we can’t use, so hit escape on this to get back to the fX window. Tab over to the presets. You will see your own presets in the first combo box and the stock ones in the second combo box. You want Blank1. which is a flat preset in the second combo box.

Shift+tab to add as we are now going to add compression. Press space on this button and type Comp.

Tab down to the list view and find

VST: ReaComp (Cockos)

press enter. This will not pop up in a bridged window, and you can tab down to the combo box to find the preset, stock – Aggressive Vocal. Press enter then shift+tab to ad. Press space on this

In the edit box type

lim

and find VST: Limiter No6 (x86) (Vladislav Goncharov). Press enter on this

This will pop up in a bridged window so hit escape on this and tab down to the presets combo box. You want to find Master1.

Press enter then escape twice to get back into the Reaper tracks main window.

EQ is going to let you curve or set the frequencies heard in your recording if it is sounding to bass heavy, to much mid range or not enough highs. Compression is going to start to even out volumes of the audio. Making soft passages louder, and turning down louder passages. Limiting is going to increase the overall volume of the audio without clipping.

You now have a basic template setup to EQ and make your Voice punchy/loud. You can always ad more compression after the limiter to make it even more punchy if needed.

E.Q-ING your vocal:

This isn’t a one size fits all so please don’t just follow my EQ directions here and think you are good to go. It depends on your headphones, are they flat? Your mic, what does it sound like it’s freq response, how close you are to it, the room etc.

You want your voice sounding some what thin and, like it’s in the middle of your forehead, vs very midrangy in a box..

I use though as a starting template the following:

32 HZ: drop down to 0 %

64 HZ: drop down to 0 %

Leve

120 HZ

256 HZ

set for now you may or may not have to play with these.

500 HZ: drop it down to 20%

1KHZ: drop it down to 20%

2KHZ: drop it down to 20%

4 KHZ: drop it down to 30%

8 KHZ: pull it up to 70%

16 KHZ: pull it up to 60%

6-12 DB boost put it at 100% it’s an on/off slider so 100 or 0 % will cause a change

Mix slider: this will thin out the vocal with these settings, I normally have it at 70% for a condenser mic, and 90 for a dynamic.

Now down arrow to the FX track. You want to ad compression to this track. Hit F and ad the VST: ReaComp (Cockos), much as you did to the track above. In this case we are going to want to use the preset, stock – Master Bus NY Comp.

Then ad the same to the bed track.

Now we want to lower the volume of the fX and bed tracks -9 DB. In my version of Reaper, when I am in my list of tracks, select the track I want and tab to get to the volume slider. I page up until I reach -9 DB.

You are now going to need to preview work parts/FX to find what you want to kick off your imager with. I use the preview feature in Gold waves open file dialogue for this. You will most likely want a start fx, which will be short and punchy. Your goal is to grab your listeners attention with the FX and the VO. When you find your first fx work part, copy it with control+c from the files list view of Goldwave.

Alt+tab back over to reaper and make sure you are on the FX track. Press alt+p until Ripple mode editing is off. Hit w to make sure you are at the start of the project. Hit alt+i to invoke the insert menu. You should be on insert media file. Hit enter. Paste control+v into the file name edit box and hit enter. You should land back in reaper on the FX track and there now should be 1 item which is the fx you have just inserted. You want the first part of the fx to play and then your VO to start. Listen to the audio examples to get a sense of what I mean. Play the fx until your where you want, and press control+space to pause. Press control+1 to set your marker

Now we are going to down arrow back to the vOTMP track and mute the track with f5. When you need to hear Vo on this track solo the track with F6. Cut the first item or items you want. Up arrow to your VO track and hit 1 to move back to where you set your marker, and paste the items. Hit w and space to play. How does it sound? IF the fx are to loud you can turn the fX track volume down another 3 DB so it’s -12 DB.

You can always nudge your items with numlock on using the numpad, 6 to move the item forward by a very small amount, and 4, to move it back. This way you can get things locked in and sounding very tight.

As you listen to your voiceover, either moved to the main VO track, or back on the vOTMP track, which as you have muted it you will solo with f6, find the next section you want to highlight with fx find your next fx in Goldwave and repeat the above steps to drop them in.

IF you hear two fx that you want to use the woosh or other fx from, and then use the impact from another work part you can also edit these in Reaper, soloing the fx track, playing the peace of the fx you want first, pausing, hitting s to split the item, pressing control+1 to set your marker, deleting the rest of the fx, dropping the next fx in, splitting and deleting what you don’t want from it, and then cutting the last item from the second fx, hitting 1 to move back to your marker and pasting. Do the fx line up as one? Nudge the item until they do. You can also adjust volumes individually if you need to. When an item is selected by control+left or right arrowing to it, tab down to the volume of the individual item and page up or down several 3 dB to get it sounding appropriate.

Beds

Music beds will be the underlying energy to the imager as fx are the high energy items. Low energy though can play into high energy. A music bed may be at the start of the peace and may just be a beet, or include musical elements such as melody. Don’t use recognized songs as beds. As we don’t know what someone will recognize, use royalty free music tracks as beds. You can find royalty free in nearly every genre these days.

I use beds a lot in top of hour legals, but drop them promptly when I am saying the final tag line such as,

The Nest DB, is a Weber broadcasting Variety station.

This way, the timing can be set so the next song if it has an intro may ramp over this section of the imager, also, if the bed drops out a bit early, there won’t be noticeable key matching issues between the bed and the next song if it includes musical elements. Never! Use an end of a bed to finish out imaging, you don’t hear it in commercial radio. To be clear the end of a bed can match up with end of VO that’s fine, but don’t fade it back up loud, as you might use fx to finish off an imager.

There’s a lot of times that I use different beds or small pieces of beds through out an imager especially if the imager is a few seconds longer. I always try to key match if I’m going directly from one bed to another, or drop and fx in when I cut the bed and use this to pull the listeners attention as I highlight a peace of the voiceover and then start another bed.

Beds as well should be -12-15 dB under the voiceover so, set the bed track volume accordingly. I like beds just a couple DB under the fx. You must listen for this as everything is mastered at different volumes as far as work parts go. The compression should help to take care of slight volume differences without so much tweaking to items.

You will use similar techniques, previewing in Goldwave, then importing into Reaper, and editing the bed in reaper. Solo the bed track so you can get precise edits. IF you are cutting a bed and it’s the end of it, fade it out quickly so you don’t have clicks and pops.

Sometimes you don’t just want to cut the bed but you want it to fade out, but not change the melody as it’s doing so.

You may use Goldwave, and the delay effect. Set your start and finish marker over the final end section that, is in the same note and have it end right after a kick drum or snare of the bed. Fade this out right as the drum hits. Then again select the last passage with the start marker starting on a kick or snare, and set your delay to match the beet this way you have a longer fade out but it doesn’t change melody. You may check the stereo checkbox in the delay option so it bounces left right left etc.

You have to play with the delay timing numbers to find what you want make sure it’s in time tempo to the rest of the bed as it bounces. An easy way to do this is to play the bed and start tapping your foot or set a metronome in Reaper and play it and do your best to start the bed in Goldwave on the click. You will set time tempo by tapping h 4 times. Remember to set your project tempo back to 120 at the end or your entire project will be fast or slower than it should. Then back in Goldwave, set the volume to probably -6 or -9 before you hit ok. Listen to the last part of the passage back does the delay work? Do you need to select the delay and do a volume fade out before you save? Save the entire bed or peace of the bed you are using as a new file so you don’t overwrite your main music file, then if need be reimport it into reaper. Remember you may always set your marker at the start of the bed item before you delete the item and import the new one to keep the same positioning.

Audio example of setting delay below.

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