Jahudka's Reaper Scripts and JS Effects

Installation

Available via ReaPack - simply import the following URL:

https://github.com/jahudka/reaper-consolefx/raw/master/index.xml

Then download all the scripts from this repository. If you can't or don't want to use ReaPack:

• Download the FX/*.lua files and put them in the Reaper Scripts directory
• Download the Utility/*.jsfx file and put it in the Reaper Effects directory

d'Arpagnan Arpeggiator

I created d'Arpagnan because I wanted a simple-to-use, predictable, and still powerful arpeggiator, but I couldn't find anything that works and does what I need. So I rolled my own. Please beware that I put this together in an afternoon, and it works for me - it may not work for you, or you might not like the way it does.

It doesn't have a fancy step sequencer. It just takes whatever you play and makes a sequence out of it using a deterministic algorithm with only a couple of parameters. You can play it live. You can use it in the studio. You can print out the source code and make an origami. Your imagination is the limit.

See the package description in ReaPack or the extended description at the start of the plugin source to find out more about the parameters.

Airwindows Console utilities

These ReaScript utilities make it easier to create and manage proper routing for the Airwindows Console plugins. As you probably know, the Channel versions of the plugins should go on individual tracks post-fader, which isn't something we can normally do in Reaper. To simulate this, we can route each of the source tracks through an auxiliary track with the Console FX on it. But managing these auxiliary tracks manually can be tedious, which is why I made these scripts.

Important

Since v2.0, some utility functions the scripts use have been extracted into a separate library script file called jahudka_consolefx_utils.lua. The scripts won't function without this file, so please don't forget to install it as well, whether you're installing manually or through ReaPack.

Dependencies

Since v2.0, there is a GUI config script you can install to configure some aspects of what the utilities do. To use it you'll need to install the Scythe v3 GUI library, which is also available from ReaPack and included in the standard repositories. However, you don't need to use the GUI to configure the plugin: if you're comfortable getting your hands dirty, there's an INI file you can edit to achieve the same effect.

Configuration

As mentioned, since v2.0 there is a GUI for changing the configuration of these utilities. To open the configuration dialogue run the jahudka_consolefx_preferences.lua script from your Actions menu.

The configuration dialogue itself is pretty self-explanatory. There's a list of Console plugins that you wish to use with the utilities, there's the option to select which Console type should be enabled by default when creating a new routing construct, an option to switch whether the scripts will use the VST or AU versions of the Console plugins (this is mainly useful on Mac because on Windows and Linux your only option is VST) and there's an option to enable the Linked Gain Utility integration explained below. The value in the textbox under this last option is the local path to the Linked Gain Utility JSFX, relative to your Effects folder; you'll only need to modify this if you didn't install the scripts and the JSFX via ReaPack.

If you don't want to install the GUI, you can still set all of these options manually by creating a file called jahudka-consolefx.ini in your Reaper resources folder (that's the one that contains reaper.ini, Scripts, Effects and so on). Inside this file you can specify the following options in the form <option> = <value>:

• console_types: Comma-separated list of Console types you wish to use. The Console type is the part of its name before Channel or Buss, so for example Atmosphere, Purest or Console7. The one special case (which will be mentioned again) is Console7Cascade, which doesn't include Channel in the name - if you want to include it, you must specify the full name.
• default_type: Which Console type should be enabled by default when creating a new routing construct. The script doesn't check it, but it would probably make sense to use one of the types listed in console_types.
• plugin_type: VST or AU, pretty self-explanatory I would think.
• use_linked_gain_utility: Whether to insert the Linked Gain Utility effect (explained below) on newly created routing constructs. 1 or 0.
• linked_gain_utility_path: The local path to the Linked Gain Utility JSFX, relative to your Effects folder.

If you don't configure the scripts using either of these methods, they'll still work - they'll just fall back to a sane(ish) set of defaults. But configuring the scripts will give you the ability to use them with new versions of Console as soon as Chris releases them - you won't have to wait until I update them.

Creating Console Busses

The #1 script in this package is jahudka_consolefx_create_busses.lua, or Create Airwindows Console post-fader busses for selected tracks, as it should be called in ReaPack. This script can be run in one of two modes: either select a single folder track, or select multiple tracks (folder or otherwise). In the first case the plugin essentially creates a routing construct which replaces the summing of the folder's child tracks; in the second case it replaces the summing of the selected tracks into the master bus.

For example: Let's have the following tracks in our project:

1 Drums (folder)
   2 Kick
   3 Snare
   4 Hihat
5 Bass
6 Guitar
7 Vocals (folder)
   8 Main Voc
   9 Backing Voc

If you select the Drums folder track and run this script, the project will look like this (although you might need to peruse the Track Manager to really see it):

1 Drums (folder)
   2 Kick (parent send off, post-fader send to "11 [C] Kick")
   3 Snare (parent send off, post-fader send to "12 [C] Snare")
   4 Hihat (parent send off, post-fader send to "13 [C] Hihat")
5 Bass
6 Guitar
7 Vocals (folder)
   8 Main Voc
   9 Backing Voc
10 [C] DRUMS (folder, visible in MCP only, parent send off, post-fader send to "1 Drums", Console Buss effects added)
   11 [C] Kick (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
   12 [C] Snare (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
   13 [C] Hihat (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)

Now let's do the same to Vocals:

1 Drums (folder)
   2 Kick (parent send off, post-fader send to "11 [C] Kick")
   3 Snare (parent send off, post-fader send to "12 [C] Snare")
   4 Hihat (parent send off, post-fader send to "13 [C] Hihat")
5 Bass
6 Guitar
7 Vocals (folder)
   8 Main Voc (parent send off, post-fader send to "15 [C] Main Voc"
   9 Backing Voc (parent send off, post-fader send to "16 [C] Backing Voc"
10 [C] DRUMS (folder, visible in MCP only, parent send off, post-fader send to "1 Drums", Console Buss effects added)
   11 [C] Kick (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
   12 [C] Snare (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
   13 [C] Hihat (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
14 [C] VOCALS (folder, visible in MCP only, parent send off, post-fader send to "7 Vocals", Console Buss effects added)
   15 [C] Main Voc (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
   16 [C] Backing Voc (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)

It looks like a lot, doesn't it? Now we've replaced the summing of both the Drums and the Vocals folders. In your project you should really only see the [C] DRUMS and [C] VOCALS tracks in the mixer, otherwise everything should look mostly the same (except some routing indicators and sends). To finish things off, let's use the script's other mode to replace the master summing: select Drums, Bass, Guitar and Vocals and run the script. This is what your project should look like now:

1 Drums (folder, parent send off, post-fader send to "18 [C] Drums")
   2 Kick (parent send off, post-fader send to "11 [C] Kick")
   3 Snare (parent send off, post-fader send to "12 [C] Snare")
   4 Hihat (parent send off, post-fader send to "13 [C] Hihat")
5 Bass (parent send off, post-fader send to "19 [C] Bass")
6 Guitar (parent send off, post-fader send to "20 [C] Guitar")
7 Vocals (folder, parent send off, post-fader send to "21 [C] Vocals")
   8 Main Voc (parent send off, post-fader send to "15 [C] Main Voc"
   9 Backing Voc (parent send off, post-fader send to "16 [C] Backing Voc"
10 [C] DRUMS (folder, visible in MCP only, parent send off, post-fader send to "1 Drums", Console Buss effects added)
   11 [C] Kick (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
   12 [C] Snare (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
   13 [C] Hihat (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
14 [C] VOCALS (folder, visible in MCP only, parent send off, post-fader send to "7 Vocals", Console Buss effects added)
   15 [C] Main Voc (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
   16 [C] Backing Voc (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
17 [C] MASTER (folder, visible in MCP only, Console Buss effects added)
   18 [C] Drums (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
   19 [C] Bass (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
   20 [C] Guitar (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)
   21 [C] Vocals (hidden in both MCP and TCP, Console Channel effects added)

Note that unlike [C] DRUMS and [C] VOCALS, [C] MASTER doesn't have its parent send off and there is no post-fader send there - because the parent send is basically the post-fader send that we want there.

The script can add multiple types of the Console plugins when run; by default all the currently released Console types are used if you have them installed. You can edit the script configuration as described above to choose which types you want to use. If more than one Console type is inserted on each track, all but the default type will be set to offline. See below for a script which will allow you to switch between them easily.

As of version 1.3, the script will skip any tracks that have their master / parent send off, so if you have some DCAs or samplers with complex routing that don't use the master / parent send, these won't be included in the generated routing matrix.

Important note

All the busses created by this script will have their names prefixed with [C] . The other two scripts rely on this prefix to find out which tracks they should affect, so if you change or remove the prefix, the other scripts won't work.

Linked Gain Utility

As of version 1.4 there is a bundled JSFX called "Linked Gain Utility". If it's available when the script is run, it is inserted on the generated auxiliary tracks as follows:

• On all the generated tracks with the Console Channel plugins the Linked Gain Utility is inserted as the first plugin in the chain (before any Console Channel plugins)
• On the generated summing track with the Console Buss plugins it is inserted last in the chain (after any Console Buss plugins)

All the instances of the plugin will be configured to have the same Link ID and the instance on the summing track will have the Invert flag on. What this means is that you can now adjust the Gain setting of any of the Linked Gain Utility instances to adjust how hard you're driving the Console summing it is a part of, without having to touch your faders at all. The Invert flag on the summing track's instance will make that instance apply the gain setting inversely to compensate for the gain of the channel instances.

Link IDs assigned by this script are computed as 200 + count(existing folder summing tracks), so for the first folder whose summing you replace by this script the Link ID will be 200, for the second it will be 201 etc. For the summing construct which replaces summing to the master bus the Link ID will be 255.

Switching the active Console type

If you're using multiple Console types, it might be useful to be able to switch to a different type easily. That's what the jahudka_consolefx_switch_type.lua script is for (in ReaPack it should be called Switch which Airwindows console type is active for the selected tracks). To use it, either:

• select a single [C] folder track in the mixer, or
• select any number of individual [C] tracks in the mixer, or
• don't select any tracks at all.

In the first case the script will affect the selected folder track and all of its children; in the second case it will affect only the selected tracks and in the last case it will affect all the [C] tracks in the project. The script will look within the first affected track for the first offline Console effect that is after an online Console effect; it will then set all Console instances of the same type on all the affected tracks to online and all the rest to offline. Well, effectively it will simply offline the current Console effect and online the next :-)

One known issue of this script is the Console7Cascade plugin: the corresponding Buss plugin for the Cascade version of Console7 is shared with the regular Console7Channel. The current switching algorithm cannot cope with this. When you switch the active Console type on a folder track and its children include both the regular Console7 and the Console7Cascade channel plugins, the Cascade plugins will be skipped. If you want to switch to them you need to select all the child tracks and then run the script as many times as required to toggle your way through to the Cascade plugin. But note that if you do this, the folder track won't synchronise its Console type with the child tracks, you'll need to do that manually. This whole issue might get fixed some time in the future if and when I come up with some behaviour that would be intuitive and at the same time wouldn't require hacks in code. It might take a while, but trust me, I'll figure it out ;-)

Enabling / disabling Console processing

Let's face it, we all want a simple button to toggle Console on and off, to try and see if we can hear it do anything! That's what we're all here for, right? To that end I present you the jahudka_consolefx_toggle_enabled.lua script (known in ReaPack as Toggle bypass for the currently active Airwindows console type for the selected tracks). This script works similarly to jahudka_consolefx_switch_type.lua. Target track selection works the same; but instead of bringing the active Console type offline and looking for a next type to bring online, it simply toggles the bypass state of all non-offline Console effects on the affected tracks.

Since this plugin doesn't care whether the currently active Console types on the target tracks are the same, it doesn't suffer from the same issue with the Console7Cascade as the previous script does.