A Guide to FX installing and organizing for Reaper

Suggestions for installing and organizing FX

There are many ways to install and organize FX Plugins in Reaper. The ideas discussed here apply only to Windows systems. They may be helpful on a Mac but I don't use a Mac so if you do, you will have to adapt them for yourself. First, let us look at a few ways to install FX Plugins that might give you better control of what Reaper scans for and sees in the long run. What I will be describing applies to a Windows 7 64 bit system, but is easily adapted to a 32 bit system such as XP or Windows 7 32 bit. Installers for FX come in many varieties.

• The most simple is where there actually is no installer, and you simply copy the .dll file to a VST folder.

• The next most simple is where the installer only installs the .dll files to a given directory.

Usually, but not always you can specify what that directory is.

• There are installers that install the .dll file(s) and other data files, presets, user manuals etc.

• Then there are installers that install both a Standalone .exe of the plugin, as well as both 32 bit, 64 bit, RTAS, AXX, etc. versions.

I have adopted ways to handle each of these that work well for me even though it is not the normal 'one shot’ way to install. I simply run the installer more than one time! I might install just the Standalone and the 32 bit VST first and then run it again and install only the 64 bit version. I have found this safer than letting the installer just toss things wherever it decides. For complex installers I might even take screenshots of each stage of the process, for future reference.

A different way of making VST folders Most often, an installer will look for and default to some 'VST' folder that exists (or will be created by the installer) on your system. The VST standard was defined by Steinberg and the default folder is often similar to: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\VstPlugIns. I do NOT let that happen. I never install to whatever the default folder is (although some poorly-written installers do not offer me the choice).. I prefer to set up and organize my own VST folders first and then use them. Why I do so will become clearer as this guide continues. I actually have more than one VST folder. I have several on my C:\ drive and at least one on my D:\ drive. Here is what I do and how I name them. On C:\ drive I create these folders:

@ VST 32 @ VST 64 @ VST

On D drive I have at least:

@ VST - D I use the “@” character to force those folders to the top of the C:\ drive or D:\ drive list in Explorer. I always use Details view and I always set folder options to show file name extensions. That makes them very fast and easy to browse or navigate to during installs. Inside those folders, as needed, I make subfolders, one for each FX or at least for each family of FX. So there might be a subfolder called PSP, or Voxengo or there might be many subfolders for each PSP or Voxengo FX, such as PSP Old Timer, PSP Delay, etc. You might create subfolders for Synths, Samplers, Reverbs, EQs etc. How this is done is up to you. Why I do it like this is as follows: My main DAW that uses plugins is Reaper. In the Reaper preferences for VST paths, you can add or remove as many specific folder locations as you wish. Let us imagine I have both a 32 bit Reaper and a 64 Reaper installed. And further, that I don't want the 64 bit Reaper to even look at the 32 bit VST folder. Even further, imagine there are some plugins that I don't want Reaper to bother with at all. You see? I can add ONLY the paths I want Reaper 64 to scan to its preferences rather than pointing it to an entire VST folder. I do the same for Reaper 32. A little more about how I organize those @ VST folders: In the @ VST 32 there might be a sub folder named Guitar-Rig 5 - 32, while in the @ VST 64 folder there might also be a sub folder named Guitar-Rig 5 - 64. This makes it very easy for me to know what is where and to let a particular version of Reaper look there or not look there.

Other audio applications handle their plugin paths differently. Some do not let you specify more than one directory. Even so, this method still works well for me. Before you install any plugins, it is best to make sure that you understand how your audio application handles plugin folders and design your folders and subfolders accordingly. In the Reaper preferences for VST, I include the folder, “@ VST”, so inside that folder go only plugins which I definitely want Reaper to always scan. If I am configuring a 32 bit Reaper, then I don't let it look at the “@ VST 64” folder at all. Also, I may only let it look at selected subfolders inside the “@ VST 32” folder.

How to Organize FX inside Reaper There is no 'one way'... you have the choice of many ways and many ways in combination with each other. I will show how I do it, and suggest what is possible and leave it to you to choose what works best for yourself. For starters, let's take a look at the FX Browser. Below you see it with 'Cockos' typed into the Filter field, so that only FX with Cockos in their name show up. Also, you can see that All Plugins is the main selection. If you use the filter on other folders it will only deal with what is inside those folders.

There are more options within the FX Browser. If you turn on the Show VST folder, you will then see a listing of the folders on your hard drive for whatever installed VST paths you have told Reaper to scan.

And there is more

If you right click on the My Folders you can create a new named folder of your choice. You can make as many as you wish. And then as shown below, you can copy whatever FX you want into those folders. You just drag any FX from wherever is exists to one of the folders you have made.

There are limits to what you can create in the My Folders section. You cannot create subfolders inside the other folders you have created. However, you can use some variation of a naming trick as shown below to create your own ‘sub divisions’.

When you create a new folder in this manner, it will be placed at the bottom of the existing list. Then if you right click on it, you can move it to where you want it in the list with the ‘Move up’ or ‘Move down’ menu options. Sadly, this takes repeated, tedious menu clicking… hopefully someday Reaper will provide a more expedient method!

Let’s select the two Cockos EQ’s in the Cockos folder and put copies of them into our own created folder, “+------ Track EQ’s”. You do this simply by dragging from any location to any other location. This will not remove the items from the original location, it will only copy them. If you do want to remove an FX from any folder, right click on the FX and use the Remove from folder choice in the menu. This will not remove the FX from your hard drive, only from this list.

Now those will also be available from the right click on the FX button of a track.

The FX Chains Trick for Single FX

There must be at least one FX loaded. If there is more than one FX loaded, you must select only one at a time!

Then left click the “FX”, as shown in the red box, to get to this menu.

Now save it with a name of your choosing to your FX Chains folder. [See next page]

OK, but where IS this FX Chains folder???

Where this FX Chains folder is actually located will depend on your version of Windows or Mac OS and on how Reaper is installed. In a portable install, the FX Chains folder will be in the same location as the Reaper.exe. In a full Reaper install it will be elsewhere. For example on Windows 7 - 64 bit it will be here:

C:\Users\”your user name”\AppData\Roaming\REAPER\FXChains

Now find that FX Chains folder, and you might even like to make a shortcut to it on the desktop so you can get to it quickly and do more work inside it.

If you did save that EQ to it, you will see some file like this inside it. Understand, even though this is technically called a 'chain' it is actually just that single EQ plug-in!

Let the fun begin!

The FX Chains folder is just a normal Window's or Mac folder, so inside it you can make whatever you wish. For example you can make subfolders, such as EQualizers, ReVerbs, COMPressors, etc. So you can build whatever kind of organization you wish. You can, at any time, rename that file but do not change the extension. [.RfxChain] Because the 'single plug-in FX Chains files' that you save, are just normal Windows or Mac files, you can copy and\or move them into any of the subfolders you have created. Why would I want to have a file in more than one subfolder you ask? For example, some compressors are also limiters, so you might want a copy in both your COMPressors folder and also in your LIMITERS folder. You see?

Now consider this please. Besides using this trick with single FX Chains, you can of course save real FX Chains that include several plugins. Such as a Mastering Chain that might include both a Compressor and an EQ. I call these 'real chains' and I make a folder named @@@ REAL CHAINS inside the FX Chains folder. Again, I use the @@@ trick to force it to the top of the list. Inside that folder you can again have as many subfolders as you wish.

Yeah sure, but why bother with all this?

Because back in Reaper's tracks you get to see this when you right click the FX button.

And that gives you a very fast way to load either single FX or real chains of FX, all of which have been organized exactly as YOU want them.

Here is an example of the FX Chains folder. Of course what you choose to create will be different. I am only showing the root folder. Inside each of these may be other subfolders. Remember, these are normal file system folders so you can create, and structure them, and alter them however you wish.

Credits and other thoughts:

A veteran Reaper User, Ngarjuna, deserves the credit for the FX Chains Trick method. He is the kind person that first showed me the way to use FX Chains to create and organize single plugins. I remain very thankful for his help! There certainly are more features than mentioned here to the FX Browser itself. Since those have recently undergone even more changes in the more recent pre-release versions of Reaper, I'm not going to deal with them at this time. Please refer to the User Guide and the forum for anything more.

“Everything is a Work in Progress”