16.1 What Are Plug-ins?
There’s a wonderful assortment of plug-ins supplied with REAPER - over 200 of them!
Kind: concept (user-guide-section) Chapter: 16 REAPER Plug-ins in Action Source: REAPER User Guide v7.70
There’s a wonderful assortment of plug-ins supplied with REAPER - over 200 of them! These include the Jesusonic and the VST Rea plug-ins from Cockos. This section will introduce you to some of these, to give you a feel for what plug-ins are and how they work. Beyond this, you can explore for yourself. Plug-ins are software that are used mostly to control and shape the sound generated when you play back the media items in your tracks. Some simple examples of when and why you might want to use a plug-in are:
- To make a vocal recording sound better, more lifelike. Plug-ins can add body, warmth and sparkle to such a track, not by working magic, but by bringing out qualities that might be buried in the recording.
- To smooth off peaks and dips in the volume of a track, making the overall track sound more even.
- To add a “live” feel to a track or even a whole mix, making it sound more as if it were recorded in a church or a concert hall, rather than in a boring old studio. When working with plug-ins, keep these three guiding principles in mind:
- It is better not to use a plug-in at all than to use it badly. A badly used or overused plug-in is likely to make your mix sound worse, not better. If in doubt, underdo the use of plug-ins, don’t overdo them. 2. Never judge the quality of a plug-in by how much you like its presets. Presets reflect someone else’s idea of how something ought to sound, not the quality of the plug-in, nor its potential. To get the best out of any plug-ins, be they EQ, compression, reverb or anything else, you will need to take the trouble to understand their various parameters. That takes time. 3. You can’t judge the quality of a plug-in by its cost. Some free ones are pretty awful, some are great. Some plug-ins costing hundreds of dollars are quite ordinary. Others are excellent.