Reaper Audio Capturing / Archive

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*Audio Capturing, EXPERT MODE:

2021 UPDATE: Due to recent sound checks with some artists over Discord we will be trying a new method for capturing audio using Reaper and Ninjam. Reaper is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) which is actually a great recording tool. I have been using it for the last 10+ years for all of my recordings. Reaper comes with a plugin called ReaNINJAM, which allows people to connect their recording sessions with others over the internet and jam together using a synced metronome.

2022 UPDATE: this method has become a TAD cumbersome and makes things a bit too complicated. Streaming a set is already very complicated.

I will be running a Ninjam server which the performer will connect to. During our stream, I will capture video from Discord and Audio from Reaper/Ninjam with OBS.

Here I will break down what you will need to do on your end.

For additional reference, here is a YouTube video that goes over configuring NinJam.

If you do not already use Reaper, please download and install Reaper for your operating system. When you first launch Reaper please be sure to have your recording interface hooked up to your computer and powered on because Reaper will try to locate the supported hardware.

  1. Create a new project
  2. Create track one and label the track NINJAM. This will be the track that will connect to my NINJAM server.
  3. Click the FX button to add effects and search for ReaNINJAM
  4. Add additional tracks and select inputs from your audio interface
  5. Convert the NINJAM track into a folder by clicking the folder icon on the bottom left of the track
  6. Example:
Ensure that the audio tracks are armed by clicking the red buttons. You should see meter activity if there is audio present. Notice that tracks 2 and 3 here are indented in comparison to track 1. Track 1 receives everything that will be happening on the tracks below.

Also make sure that record monitoring is turned ON for the channels, otherwise no audio will be passed through to the NINJAM track.

Next we will configure Ninjam to connect to my server

  1. Click FX to open the FX window for Track 1
  2. With ReaNINJAM selected, click the “Show ReaNINJAM Console” button
  3. Mute the metronome as we will not be using it
  4. In the ReaNINJAM console window click the “Connect” button on the top left
  5. I will provide the server connection information when we meet for sound checks.

On my end I will confirm if I am receiving audio. This Reaper session can be saved as a project. Please save this layout so we will not have to go through the steps again at the time of the live performance.

I am new to NinJam but I can see where there is a lot of opportunity to link recording sessions together.

During the live performance the performer will stream their video over Discord and audio over Reaper and I will capture both on my end. There will be latency so the audio and video will not be synced. This is to be expected, however capturing audio this method provides a better quality and does not receive the compression that Discord or Zoom does.

And if there are other complications where Reaper and Discord cannot be run together from the performers computers we will solely use Discord for capturing both video and audio and tweak the settings to get as best of results as we can.

Here is a basic diagram of the hardware and software setup by how I’m describing it above: