Last year I made the switch to Reaper as my preferred DAW for podcast editing. But Reaper is also a great DAW for creating and mixing music. And even more so since Reaper introduced oversampling in version 6.54.
Previously you needed a plugin like the DDMF Metaplugin for this, to wrap your effects in a chain running at much higher sample rates. This functionality has now been added to Reaper in a flexible way: you can oversample just the effects you want to oversample or you can oversample the whole chain of effects.
Dan Worrall has created a useful video for it:
I decided to try it out myself with the Reason rack and was impressed! Almost all native Reason devices lack oversampling. Some Rack Extensions like the Kuassa amps do offer oversampling though. In my opinion guitar amp simulators need oversampling to prevent the signal from creating aliasing overtones. By bending the strings you can notice these aliasing tones which sound simply ugly.
Aliasing is often not a problem though when processing non-tonal stuff like drums. Simply because these tones are noise-like, with no harmonic overtones, so added overtones will simply disappear in the chaotic spectrum.
When I first tried the Reason rack in Reaper using oversampling on the chain it complete blew me away. Switching between no oversampling and Reaper’s highest setting, 16 times oversampling, is like day and night in most cases. Reason’s Thor synth with it’s lovely Shaper device can create smooth sounds on its 16 times oversampling setting which are simply not possible in native Reason. With no oversampling the overtones Thor produces are harsh, unmusical and clicky sounding. With 16 times oversampling Thor suddenly starts to sound musical and warm.
I’ve created a short video in which I switch between no oversampling and 16 times using Thor:
I also had a lot of fun using Reason’s Scream 4 as guitar pedal without any noticeable aliasing. In general it’s fantastic that I can now use all the Reason saturation devices for creating analog sounding guitar sounds.
To be continued…