Reaper Love

Well, if I have to launch Reaper to use it, so be it. I’ll just deal with it.

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Yes it can but Piano One needs to be installed as part of Reaper as a virtual instrument plugin first and then controlled by the Midi controller.

The M-Audio Oxygen is a midi controller and only takes the form of a piano keyboard.
The M-Audio Oxygen can also play Guitar, Bass, Saxaphone, Drums, Organs Stand up bass or any other musical instrument BUT the particular instrument you wish to play needs to have the virtual instrument installed as part of Reaper first..

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That’s interesting! You mean I can use it to emulate the bass when I’m trying to identify tones? How would I do that?

You are correct because Piano One will be part of Reaper because you install it as a plugin virtual instrument.

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YES You need to find a Bass virtual instrument plugin and install it as part of Reaper.

Do you still regret your purchase? :slightly_smiling_face:

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I don’t regret it at all. I just wish I had done more due diligence prior, but I’m learning more as I go along.
My vision was that I could just simply use it with Crescendo when writing bass scores, but it appears to be more complicated than that.
I DO like the idea of generating bass tones rather than piano tones, as that would make the job so much easier. Where does one get this bass plugin of which you speak?

Check out this Bass guitar plugin:

This was just the first one I came across.
Just do a search on YouTube for - bass guitar vst free

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@PamPurrs
Here’s another one you may like that is directly discusses use in Reaper:

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Thanks for all the YouTube links. Where does one obtain one of these bass emulation plugins though?

Just search on YouTube and they usually include a link like this one.

Here’s one based on a Fender P Bass.

Here is a Kenny Gioia Reaper video on this plugin.

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Nevermind, I found a free one

Gawd, what a rabbit hole I’ve stumbled into LOL

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That’s the exact same plugin I downloaded (haven’t installed it yet). Very helpful video, thanks.
When my keyboard arrives I’ll install the plugin and hopefully can get it to work for transcribing. I didn’t want to have to launch Reaper just for transcribing, but it looks like I haven’t any choice.
Hopefully this well be apparent when I install that plugin, but how to I get it into Reaper? Does it do it automatically?

cough

:slight_smile:

I recommend PluginBoutique because of their points and all the free stuff they give away. And remember, never pay full price for plugins. The sale prices are the actual prices, and they go on sale regularly.

Watch some kenny vids on this or something first.

Plugin installers will need to know the path of your VST folders when you do the install. These are configurable in Reaper’s options, you just need to install the plugins where Reaper will look for them. They will be available in any DAW that knows the plugin directory location.

Install both the VST and VST3 versions of all plugins. You can optionally not install the audio units and pro tools formats if you like.

Then to use them in reaper, you need to add them to the track FX of a new track and set it up for MIDI. Reaper has a shortcut for this (Insert new track with virtual instrument).

I’d watch some “using virtual instruments in reaper” vids first.

And yes, there’s virtual instruments for all sorts of instruments; most common are drums and synthesizers but there’s also piano, guitar/bass, sitar, harp, harpsichord, whatever. Most synthesizers will have multiple patches emulating instruments as well.

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Many synthesizer instrument patches are great, too. For example, the chorused bass here at the 25s timecode:

is actually me playing it in Phase Plant using a guitar/bass patch, then chorused.

The rest of the bass in the song is bass guitar, but I was doing the pads and I thought I would try the synth for that part, and it worked great. Sounds just like a heavily chorused bass.

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This is the path for the Bass in Kenny’s tutorial on my WIndows 10 64bit machine.

C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VstPlugins

@PamPurrs Just make sure this path is listed in your Reaper preferences.

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That’s a common one. VST is a Steinberg spec so it’s fine to use that path even if not using Cubase; lots of DAWs will check that automatically.

Other things to look out for, VST and VST3 typically go in different directories, and you still occasionally see 32bit VSTs that need to be installed separately from the 64bit VSTs.

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I went ahead and installed the Ample Bass plugin, and it went without a hitch. It works fine in Reaper. I look forward to using it with the keyboard when it gets here.

EDIT: I also installed the Piano One plugin with no problems, and it works fine as well.

Anyone know how Kenny got that keyboard to appear at the bottom of his Reaper workspace?

In Reaper select View and then press Virtual Keyboard.
You can resize it and pin it from there.

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