[Rwp] Setting value parameters within an effect

[Scott Chesworth]

Hi Chris,

What you'll find via Shift+P depends on what the plugin itself
outputs. Some output what I call real-world values (though I think the
correct techie term is probably formatted values), other don't. For
the plugs that do, you'll see things like attack times in MS, ratio in
numbers that actually mean something etc. For the ones that don't,
pretty much everything is represented by a number from 0.0 (all the
way off) to 1.0 (all the way on). The slider that gives values in
percentages is still working with that range from 0 to 1, so 55% on
the slider will be 0.55 in the edit field. That's useful to know if
you want to key in values quickly without faffing with the slider.
Experimentation is the key here, but yep, it's annoying. You'll find
you probably have the most consistent luck getting real-world values
out of the stock Reaper plugs. ReaComp for example should be showing
you values that you know how to work with.

There's one other technique that can come in handy when a plug doesn't
show you much useful stuff after you've hit Shift+P, and that's to try
running the plugin in bridged mode. Reaper does this automatically if
you try and run a 32-bit plug in a 64-bit environment, but you can
force it to bridge native plugs too, and sometimes that'll enable you
to access settings in a more meaningful way than Shift+P does. To
force a plugin to run bridged, before you open it, go to Preferences,
then Compatibility which you'll find just underneath Plug-ins in the
tree view. Tab until you reach the "VST bridging and firewalling"
combobox, and set that to "In dedicated process per plugin". Now when
you load Autotune, you'll find yourself in a separate window. You'll
need to use the virtual cursor of whatever screen reader you're using,
but you'll find that options for key, scale, voice type etc can be
clicked on and change there. Not everything is accessible that way,
for example to use the the humanize function of Autotune I had to go
back into the parameters in the Shift+P dialog and set the slider to
100% to turn that on, but between those two views, you can get a lot
done.

Yeah, I know, this is all a lot more of a headache than Pro Tools. The
one thing that keeps me sane about it is that between the two views, I
can usually get something usable out of most plugs, whereas in PT they
either work or flat out refuse to. The best thing is probably just to
try a boat load of plugins, and make the ones that expose good values
work for you. Over time I've built up a list of go-to plugins in both
DAWs, but due to the different methods of access on each platform,
they don't tend to be the same plugins across both DAWs.

Hth explain things a bit.

Scott

On 4/2/15, Christopher-Mark Gilland via RWP <rwp at bluegrasspals.com> wrote:
> So... I was playing around a bit with a few different plugins.  I tried a
> few reverb plugs, and also tried a few compressors.  They work well, but
> especially when dealing with a compressor, is this mainly just going to have
> to be a thing where I let my ears do the work instead of my brain?  When I
> go into the list of parameters with shift+P, I notice that most of the
> parameters are specified in percentage value.  So, say you're dealing with a
> compressor.  How do you know exactly what your attack and release are set to
> in terms of MS?  Also, take the ratio.  Say you want a 3/1 ratio, I think it
> would be.  (I always get the numerator and denominator confused.)  Anyway,
> point is, it's reading a really weird value that I don't even know what it's
> basing it off of.  It doesn't look like percentages.
>
> I don't wanna write a book, and like you all've said, keep it short.  Let me
> give one more practical example, then I'm done.  I promise.  Take something
> like say... Auto-Tune.  I know a lot of you all hate it, but it actually
> *can!* when used correctly, serve a purpose.  Anyway, you have different
> things in here like the type of voice, low male, tinner, etc.  You can set
> the key the song is in, the scale between major, chromatic, minor, etc.
> Though I can see these parameters when hitting shift+P, again, they're being
> represented with the value as percentage numbers, rather than the options
> within that parameter.  So, how do you deal with that?  Like, scale, you
> would see a percentage number, like 7 percent, instead of seeing major
> minor, chromatic etc.  So ultimately what I'm saying is, how do I know what
> X percentage value lines up with Y parameter?  Or, do you kind a not.
>
> Chris.