Can someone explain how this setting is going to effect my tracks?

 

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's for some plugs rendering effects in real time, maybe some reverbs like altiverb or dyn like t-racks...( I don't even try that much reaper yet)

It can take more time to render this way, but the process must be better

 

From the wording, it seems that:

Normally (setting off), when you render selected track stems (not all stems or master), ONLY the tracks needed for the stems are processed/active. This should cause no problems for a 100% software FX workflow. R can figure out which sends to activate if needed.

UNLESS (setting ON), you have problems, in which all tracks areprocessed/active (but only the tracks/stems you selected are output to disk). This will take more time, but should eliminate any problems.

I have it off to save time btw.

 

Rendering stem track is bouncing. So bascially you have a track with some plugins on it and you want to 'print' that sound to a pre-rendered track.

What this option does is actually running _all_ tracks (playing all the tracks in your session) but only writing the selected track to a pre-rendered file.

As it says behind the option, some routing configurations or plugins based on hardware may need some other track to be running to work properly. Normally only the selected track gets 'played' and written to disk, with this option all tracks get played (and all plugins everywhere in your session) are running, but only the sound coming from this track gets written.


An example. You have track 1 with some vocals on it. You've set up routing that track 1 is put on some line-outs and gets routed through an external analog reverb device.
The output of that reverb device is connected to track 2.

So what now happens, is that track 2 needs track 1 to be running. If track 1 is muted, no audio is sent to the outboard reverb device, so no audio is received in track 2. What if you want to bounce track 2 to get a rendered copy of the reverb tail? Make sure this option is enabled and then bounce track 2.
Reaper now makes sure all tracks are running (so track 1 is still running and still gets sent to the outboard gear) and thus track 2 receives audio, which is bounced to file. If this option was disabled and you wanted to bounce track 2, Reaper would mute all other tracks.. so no track 1, no input into track 2, no audio to bounce.

Needless to say it's for the more specialised plugins and/or outboard routing, most of the time people would not need this.

 

Hardware-based plugins like hardware based compressors or tape machines are gonna use it ?
From your posts, it seems better to keep it off. Lots of mysteries in Reaper.

 

Are hardware plugins those which are run in DSP chips on the audio interface?

BTW this is a useful Reaper resource ... http://www.kennymania.com/reaper-videos/

 

Last edited: May 2, 2016

Didn't knew that Kenny has his website. His tutorials are great. Thanks Zen.