One of the most overlooked features of Reaper is the use of JS plugins. Most are have a plain interface with little description of what is being tweaked. Don't let this put you off.

I have personally been pleased with the included Reaper VST plugins when no additional coloration is being sought (clean digital signal). There are also some very useful and affective JS plugins with the added bonus of low CPU usage while giving very usable results.

I would recommend the Raspberry Pi 4 8GB Desktop Kit

• Raspberry Pi 4 Model B with 1.5GHz 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU
• 2 GB, 4 GB or 8 GB RAM
• Official USB-C Power Supply (5-foot cable)
• Official Raspberry Pi White/Red Case
• Official Raspberry Pi Keyboard and Mouse
• Official Micro HDMI to HDMI Cable (3-foot cable)
• 16 GB MicroSD Card w/NOOBS
• Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide

The following video shows a mix being done on a Raspberry Pi 400 using Reaper VST2 & JS plugins.

Does this $50 computer really run Reaper

 

what js plugins do you recommend ?

 

Start with EQ, Compression & Limit. You can narrow the displayed plugins by using the search/filter function of the Add FX window.

 

Only a fool would say Reaper is not CPU friendly. I mean that not as a ding dong but as a compliment.
I love Reaper I am so glad I dumped Cubase ( Bloatware ) for it.
I have to say it was the best $60 I have paid for anything.

 

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=229983

 

something I recently discovered also is airwindows plugins , they have no gui and very light on the cpu but I was amazed at how they sound
https://www.airwindows.com/

 

Been using the BusColor4 and Mackity for awhile now. check em out.

 

Some exploration of functions is required with some of the JS plugins. Also wish there was more readily detailed info available.
That said, some the best documented plugins have some hidden & unique application use cases.

 

1) JS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
desc: -20dB Dim
author: The REAPER Blog
about:
No controls needed, shift-click the plugin from the mixer to disable.
Insert on master as a secondary monitor reference level.
Insert after a particularly loud plugin to get closer to sensible levels.
version: 1.0
changelog: Initial Release

@sample

spl0*=0.10; spl1*=0.10;

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) JS

desc:Stereo to mono vitalker

@sample
spl0=spl0*0.5+spl1*0.5;
spl1=spl0;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
3) JS

desc:Stereo channel SWAP FLIP
//tags: utility processing stereo channels
//author: Fabian 2009
@sample
// Do the swap
left = spl0; // Save left channel
right = spl1; // Save right channel
spl0 = right; // Write right to left
spl1 = left; // Write left to right
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assign actions for Monitoring FX slot 1, 2, 3,...voila.

 

these are probably some of the most finely executed ReaJS plugins yet https://geraintluff.github.io/jsfx/

 

My favorites are all of the Stillwell JS plug-ins, especially now in 6.27/6.28 when he fixed the 1175 after Dan Worrall made the video about the ratio problem. If you count the ones that are not installed with Reaper but are available through reapack I can strongly recommend everything from Sonic Anomaly (Stige T. please come back to us ) and Saike.

I also made a thread a few weeks ago about MacFizz's Reaper Contest - Channel Strip, which uses a bunch of different JS plug-ins tied together in a single channel strip with a simple GUI. It's in every project I've done since I found it. I feel like all Reaper users should know it exists
https://forum.cockos.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=43266&d=1607354142

 

Last edited: Apr 27, 2021

The Reaper plugins are also available as VSTs (Windows only though), so there's no excuse not to try them out: https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/

ReaJS is a fantastic starting point for people who want to get to signal processing and/or creating plugins, also for aimless dicking about (which is my method for writing audio code anyway...)

 

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 27, 2021

I never know how to set the RMS size (time) for the compressors. All the plugins I use do that automatically, so how to know the right amount of time for the RMS ? They didn't explain about it in the manuals the last time I checked.

RMS SIZE = RMS (root mean square) is calculated according to a formula based on the square roots of a moving series of values. Think of it as being conceptually similar to a moving average. If RMS is set above 0 ms, the higher the setting the more extreme peaks and troughs in the audio signal will be smoothed out in determining the compression that is applied.

EDIT: Found it, it's on another "manual".

https://user.cockos.com/~glazfolk/ReaEffectsGuide.pdf

 

Last edited: Apr 27, 2021

I am absolutely fascinated by saikes jsfx. They are used in almost every project I do.

https://github.com/JoepVanlier/JSFX

 

Yeah, they're amazing. But I wonder how compatible ReaPlugs(JS) is with latest Reaper's native. They have been discontinued for quite some time.

 

JSFX with generic UI always work in ReaJS as far as I know. Some graphically or functionally more complex JSFX might be problematic.

 

yeah, that make sense, the longer the time it needed to calculate the average, it will certainly returns with lower value that would translate to lower amount of compression.