Reaper Guitar Effects and Amp Modeling Tutorial

2.) Browse to the extracted effects, select:

guitarright_grungyguitartone.RfxChain

Select “open” and then click x to close after adding the effects.

Do the same for the left-panned guitar, select:

guitarleft_grungyguitartone.RfxChain

This is how the effects chain would like when added:

Reaper Effects Chain implemented

Reaper Effects Chain implemented

3.) At a start, set the master volume, track 1 and track 2 levels to 0dB. And then try to play; there should no clipping from start to end of both guitar riff tracks:

Level adjustment

Level adjustment

Once this is OK, you can further adjust the levels in the fader of both tracks or the master fader for proper gain staging during mixing so that the overall master level should not exceed -3dB.

Take a listen at the resulting guitar effects:

Of course, the effect settings used in the above example can be further tweak according to the guitar tone you need in the mix.

Tweaking further the guitar tone in the mix

To help you tweak the current guitar effect settings, refer to the following guidelines below:

1.) The Reaper effects chain simulate an actual guitar live setup. The electric guitar is connected to an effects pedal (overdrive/distortion) and then the output is then feed to another effect (like a chorus). Finally the effects output is then connected to a guitar amplifier.

You can experiment adding more effects in the signal chain. You can put them in between the distortion and the chorus. You can even remove one of the effects, it’s up to you.

2.) The default guitar amp used in the model is Fender Bass man (Tweed champ for right channel). See screenshot below:

Preamp model settings on Guitar

Preamp model settings on Guitar

You can try changing the amp model, e.g. changing to Marshall Amps.

3.) When tweaking the settings, observe the input and output level meters. If the output level meter is clipping; slightly lower down the preamp gain until it’s not anymore clipping.

4.) If the input level meter is already clipping, lower down the output level of the previous stage (which is either chorus or distortion effect).

5.) You can adjust the tone of the guitar by EQ.

Those are the only settings you need to tweak first. Reverb and delay can be left untouched.

Content last updated on July 24, 2012