Optimal Reaper

By Markus Rehbach

 An Optimal approach to learning and teaching how to 'Reap' the harvest of your musical potential with the TROONATNOOR Digital Audio Workstation of choice, 'Reaper'. We make 'Reaper' as 'plug and play' as possible. The 'Optimal Reaper' configuration is as pretty and functional as we could make it. This book is a companion guide for 'Sound Foundations', specifically targetted at people who have not yet decided which DAW to use, or those who have joined the Reaper community, but wish to take full advantage of the massive flexibility and power of Reaper, in the quickest time possible. Jump in the deep end and swim with the pros. Find ways to do what you want to do, in a hurry, and then when you have the time, gain that 'deeper' understanding that is the 'halo' on the heads of the pros, when supplicant musicians and mixers approach them for their 'intercession'. Five Star Rated.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sound Foundations
• Release date: Jul 16, 2019

Book preview

Reserved

Where to get the ‘Optimal Reaper’ configuration zip file

I will send you a link to download the ‘Optimal Reaper’configuration zip when you email me at [e-mail]

Or if the inquisition has imprisoned me, or worse, just ‘google’ ‘Optimal Reaper Configuration file’ and you will soon find a link to the google drive page where you can download the configuration file, and other ‘goodies’.

Download the file to your desktop.

Install Reaper on your computer.

Then open Reaper, and hit ‘Ctrl+P’ on your computer keyboard to open the ‘Reaper Preferences’ dialog.

Use the vertical scroll bar to scroll up the Left Hand Side (LHS) list to ‘General’. Click on ‘General’, to open the ‘General settings’ dialog in the Right Hand Side (RHS) window.

Go across to that window and click on ‘Import configuration…’.

Now go to the Left Hand Side of the window that opens and click on ‘Desktop’ to open your desktop, and find the ‘September 2016 ‘Optimal Reaper’ configuration.zip’ file.

Simply click on it to load it. You do not have to unzip it first.

You can use this guide without using the ‘Optimal Reaper’ configuration, but I think you will be missing out on a lot.

For I have set up the ‘Optimal Reaper’ configuration to make ‘Reaper’ as ‘plug and play’ as possible.

You will be able to load, and then play around with, Track Templates and FX Chains that reinforce the instructions given in this guide.

Apart from that, I couldn’t bear to go back to using the dull, uninspiring, grey and depressing, default ‘Reaper’ configuration. The ‘Optimal Reaper’ configuration is not just functional, it is pretty.

I will also try to offer a ‘bundle’ of the ‘FREE’ FX plug-ins I used in ‘Optimal Reaper’, with the ‘Optimal Reaper’ configuration zip file.

Each folder containing plug-ins will either contain an installation file, or a lot of .dll files.

Each of these folders will have a .txt file explaining what to do.

On my computer the file path to this folder is: ‘This PC’ > ‘Local Disk (C:)’ > ‘Program Files (x86)’ > ‘Reaper’ > ‘Plugins’ > ‘FX’. This means you click on ‘Local Disk (C:)’, then click on ‘Program Files (x86)’, then click on ‘Reaper’, then click on ‘Plugins’, then click on ‘FX’.

In Reaper you plug-ins will end up in the Reaper ‘Plug-ins’ folder, in which there is a folder marked ‘FX’. [The ‘FX’ folder is in the ‘Plug-ins’ folder].

Some .dll files have to be pasted into this ‘Plug-ins’ folder, [alongside but not inside the ‘FX’ folder].

Other files need to be pasted in the ‘FX’ folder itelf.

Some other files seem to need to be pasted in both.

[This is the only way I could get them to work, but please explain if you understand this stuff better than me. All I can say is that I have spent hours of frustration trying to get this stuff to work, so ‘just do it’ as described in each folder’s .txt file. It works].

I have loaded commercial software and still had to copy the .dll file and paste it in the Reaper ‘Plug-ins’ (and then in some cases also in the ‘FX’ folder within the ‘Plug-ins’ folder), to get it to work.

I cannot provide you with the .dll and ‘application’ files myself, in a download, I will write up a list of the URLs where you can download them from, in that download. In either case, open the folders (usually after unzipping or unraring them) and copy and paste the .dll files, or click on the ‘Application’ files, to install them.

Then click on the ‘FX Browser’ Tab at the bottom of the Docker Window at the bottom of your Reaper screen (assuming you have installed the ‘Optimal Reaper’ configuration), and RHMC on ‘All Plug-ins’ at the Top Left Hand Corner (TLHC) in the FX Browser window, and then click on ‘Scan for new plug-ins’ and they will be added to the FX Browser.

Then simply click on the plug-in name in the Right Hand Side list of the FX window, and drag the plug-in over the ‘fx’ icon of the Track Controls Panel (TCP) of the track you want to load the plug-in onto, and release it. Then click on the ‘fx’ icon to open the ‘FX window’. Make sure the box for the plug-in is checked, to enable it. [To bypass it, click on it again so the box is now un-checked]. Then ‘Double Click’ on the plug-in in the ‘FX chain’ list, to open the Graphical User Interface (GUI) for that plug-in.

Or drag the plug-in into an open ‘FX window’ and release it.

Download Reaper from the official Reaper website. You can use it on ‘trial’ at least long enough to go through this entire guide, and then decide if Reaper is for you or not.

Please do not post the Configuration zip file anywhere. It took me at least as much effort, time, and stress to configure, as it took me to write this guide.

And please contact the people at Cockos Reaper and get them to take me seriously, and work with me. My ambition for Reaper is to make an ‘Optimal Reaper’ version of it that is as ‘plug and play’ as possible. If they would work with me, I could realise this ambition. I am not a programmer, so I cannot do more than I have, without their help.

And if you know anyone who can source me genuine 1000 Ohm guitar inputs, and help me build a cheap audio interface with it, then please contact me.

Any feedback I get on this version of the guide will contribute towards making the next version better.

There is no guarantee, though, that I will be free to work on this guide much longer. Writers like me are considered ‘enemies of the New World Order’, and they are all powerful, and ruthless. So I did what I could while I could. I doubt anyone but another writer could understand just how hard I worked. Working through migraines. Working through exhaustion. Working without any real prospect of reward.

The reward I really seek is a vegan world. The rest is silence. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

At least with my guides that ‘sound’ might be just that little more musical. Nietzsche remarked that the only thing that ‘justified’ this world was music. So he’d approve.

And Carlos Castaneda’s ‘Don Juan Matthis’, and the authors of ‘The Bhagavad Gita, would approve of the goodwill, the ‘impeccable intent’, that motivated me to write this guide, and configure ‘Optimal Reaper’ for you.

Please take a look at my other books also. Especially ‘Sound Foundations’, this guide’s companion guide. That guide covers Audio Engineering principles in detail.

Markus Rehbach

In exile

2019

Contents

Preface

Before you turn anything on, or plug anything in

In quest of perfect guitar tone

Where to get the ‘Optimal Reaper’ configuration zip file

‘Auto-mute’ and two other ‘Kill Switches’ in ‘Optimal Reaper’

Preface

Introduction

Some Reaper-specific, and Digital Audio Workstation-specific, use of language

The ReaperTrack Manager

Finding Reaper ‘folders’

Starting a New Project

The Reaper Project Settings dialog

Audio Device Settings

The ‘Optimal Reaper’ Configuration

Track and Project Templates

Customizing Reaper Toolbars and tools

The Main Transport Controls bar

The ‘Optimal Reaper’ customized Toolbars and Tools

The Reaper ‘Actions’ dialog

Screensets and Layouts

Reaper Project Templates

The Main Reaper Window

The Reaper Workplace: Track Controls Panel (TCP), Arrange Window, and Mixer Window

The Reaper Routing Matrix

Zooming Horizontally and Vertically

Track Colors

Snap to Grid

The Reaper Metronome

Recording Modes

VSTi’s: Virtual Software Instruments

The extremely appetizing ‘ReaSamplomatic5000’(RS5K)

Gain Staging

Reaper’s MIDI Editors and Notation Editor

MIDI record modes

SWS Track Notes

Adding ‘notes’ tracks

Item Groups

Track Grouping using ‘Folders’

VCA ‘Masters’ and ‘Slaves’

Media Items Manager

Reaper Media Explorer

Media Item Properties

Normalisation you can see

Locking Media items and Track Controls

Takes (Loop recording) and Comping

Paramater Modulation and MIDI automation modes

Amplitude and LFO modulation of a parameter

More forms of Paramater Modulation

Automation Envelopes

Drawing and editing automation envelopes manually

ReaGate: noise-gates, ducking, and gated reverbs

Gated Reverbs

A great ‘strobe light’ audio effect

Side-Chaining Triggers using ReaGate & ReaComp

ReaVoice, ReaTune, and ReaPitch

ReaTune for tuning guitars, vocals, and MIDI triggering virtual instruments

ReaPitch

Side-Chain inputs in Reaper Plug-ins

Routing versus Sending

Parallel Compression

Drum Triggers

Recording the MIDI output of FX plug-ins (Using ‘ReaArpeggiator’ as an example)

Freezing and Rendering MIDI tracks

Rendering a project a.k.a ‘bouncing to disc’

Tempo and Tempo Mapping

The ‘Ripple’ tool and merging items

Stretch Markers

Track Markers

Region Markers

Fades and Cross-fades

The Reaper FX Window

Mixer Channel Strips

Saving and reloading FX chains

Adding FX controls to the Track Controls Panel (TCP)

Copying FX from one track to another

FX Busses: Routing Vs Sends

Freezing tracks to free up CPU resources

The Reaper Video Editor

Tone is in the fingers, and size matters, only not in the way you might think

Guitar effects

The ‘Sound Foundations’ Companion guides to ‘Optimal Reaper’

Preface

There are so many other reason I chose Reaper as my DAW of choice. Both for personal use and for teaching the Audio Engineering principles outlined in the companion guide to this book ‘Sound Foundations’.

I strongly recommend you learn on Reaper, and unless you are already completey fluent in your current DAW, switch to Reaper, as a great long term, strategic decision.

I have no association with Reaper other than as positively surprised user. But if they ever wanted to hire me to produce learning materials, themes, templates, instructional videos, and even to ‘trouble-shoot’ Reaper, I would jump at the chance.

That said, I think this book, and its companion, are the optimal learning and teaching tools available today for anyone who wants not only to know ‘how’ to do something, but to ‘understand’ what they are actually doing.

There is a lot to be said for the ‘hit and miss’, ‘try and see’ that belongs to any creative process, from evolution to music production.

But if you understand what you have done, when you experience those wonderful ‘hits’, those chance outcomes that are so deliciously tasty, you can reproduce them, and similar, over and again. And develop the ‘hits’ further. To really ‘reap’ the harvest of your creative process.

You can also ‘predict’ the outcome of certain interactions, and actually visualize in your minds eye, in your minds ear, possible interactions. Like Mozart hearing an entire orchestra in his head, long before actually putting notes to paper. It means you can do ‘mind experiments’ like Einstein or Freud.

The real ‘optimalisation’ I have offered is the ability to jump in the deep end, then paddle between the shallow and deep ends, while you gain a deeper understanding of what you are doing, so you can spend more time in the deep end.

In practical terms, this means I have constructed templates of the most musically important and useful ‘actions’ in Reaper.

From the simplest templates for recording your voice and guitar, a pre-prepared ‘drum machine’ in ReaSamplomatic500, templates for ‘free’ piano, organ, and other ‘vritual’ instruments (VSTi’s), right up to templates for side-chain compression, side-chained gate-triggering, and fun stuff like side-chained EQ modulation (similar to ‘Wah Wah’ guitar effects).

Our program here focusses on the most important actions that will provide you with the greatest value. You can jump in right at the deep end by simply replacing the template tracks with your own tracks, and then playing around with the controls to see what happens.

‘Sound Foundations’, the companion book to this one, contains all the technical information you might like to ‘refer to’ on a ‘need to know’ basis,, for example when you really want to understand what ‘compression’ really is, why some guitar cables cost more than others and why they are worth that premium, how to set up your home studio, and when planning your audio gear purchases, planning your recording sessions, setting up mic’s for different pre-EQ and stereo mic’ing purposes, setting up your guitars, setting up your guitar effect signal chains, and finally working on arrangements and final mixes.

If anyone is offering a better guide to audio engineering, if anyone has managed to explain the concepts and tools better than that guide, well I don’t know about it. If you do, please send me a copy of anything you think explains the foundations of sound production, recording, and mixing better than I have managed, and I will be the first to congratulate the author, and make the appropriate changes to my own guide.

In Reaper there are several ways to ‘chose’ an action. I have set up my ‘Optimal Reaper’ toolbars and tools, and short-cuts, and provided them for you as a complete package in one ‘confiugruation.zip’ file. I have presented Reaper as I wish someone else had presented it to me. In the most user friendly, creativity inspiring, frustration free way.

‘Optimal Reaper’ reverses the usualy learning curve. Rather than going really slow, then ramping up after years, I drop you off halfway up the mountain, from where you can, at your own leisure, go higher, or just enjoy the view.

You will be high enough up the learning curve to get stuff done. And then when you decide you are ready to go deeper, I offer you the map that will take you higher.

Just call me ‘Meta-fer’.

This ‘Optimal Reaper’ guide, is for those of you who just want to record and mix a demo as quickly as possible, to then pass on the production baton to someone else.

Taking the next step and getting into its companion guide, ‘Sound Founations’, is for those of you who want to become that someone else. That producer. That recording engineer. That live mixer. That mastering engineer.

I challenge any 4 year degree course that costs tens of thousands of dollars to do a better job at preparing you for a career in the Music industry. In the voice-over industry. In the Sound production industry. Of course, like any Zionist, they won’t answer my challenge. They will just smugly and complacenty dismiss it.

I will of course explain how you can set up and save your own complete track templates, FX chains, toolbars, tools, and short-cuts, once you know what you are on about. Once you know what would suit you best. Once you understand Reaper a little better.

I would be pleased to hear from you. To see what you have come up with. Remember that the Reaper forum is full of people exchanging templates, FX chains, pre-sets, and the like. You probably found my ‘Optimal Reaper’ Configuration.zip file on there, or on Pirate bay. If so, maybe you will consider sending a few dollars my way via my paypal account… markusrehbach AT yahoo.com.

You can not imagine all the sorts of deprivations I have endured to write my books and guides. I am talking about real physical pain. Nausea. Migraines. Cluster Headaches. Not just the loneliness. The social exclusion. The financial poverty. The sexual and emotional poverty. Being poor, and working really hard all day and night, are not the ideal lifestyle choice. Few people would choose this lifestyle. If I had free will I doubt I would have chosen it for myself. I certainly would not want to inflict it on anyone else. That sort of malice is foreign to my nature.

So enough trying to ‘guilt’ people into paying a fair wage for fair labour. For rewarding effort, sacrifice, and risk, proportionately. And keep in mind I am speaking about my 20 or so books. These include guides like this one, novels, and a host of philosophical works.

So back to Reaper. To my own ‘Optimal Reaper’.

Another of the real joys of my ‘Optimal Reaper’ is that it is prettier than the ‘default’ Reaper download. Not just easier to use, more functional, and accessible for beginners and intermediate users. But more pleasant to interact with.

You can really do stuff after a few minutes reading and setting up. And doing often leads to immediate understanding.

And doing, in my experience, nearly always leads to a deeper understanding than just ‘reading about something’ does. And most importantly, in terms of practicality, it produces ‘muscle memory’. Your fingers will remember how to ‘perform’ ‘actions’ like magic.

With my ‘Optimal Reaper’ you can iterate between doing and reading, between theory and practice, fluidly, without frustration.

You won’t be left spending days trying to find the ‘missing piece’ of the puzzle that most Youtube videos, even the most expensive ‘ professionally prepared’ teaching materials, often leave out of their explanations. Something they assumed you already knew, because the presenter, instructor, or materials writer has been doing this for years, unconsciously, by pure muscle memory.

They are not even aware of some of the actions they have performed automatically. So they fail to ‘flag’ these actions. And this can lead you to months of mental anguish and frustration trying to work out what is wrong with your software, what is wrong with your brain. Hey, it worked for that guy in the video, why won’t it work for me.

Yes I’ve been there many times, learning all sorts of skills from marksmanship to Adobe After Effects to, yes, Reaper.

One day you too will do things so automatically that you won’t even be able to explain to anyone what you are doing.

Lucky I am not there yet, when it comes to Reaper. I am learning as much as I can as quickly as I can. Then trying to work out how to explain what I am doing so I really understand. And so I can really explain it to myself. If you can’t explain, you probably don’t understand. If someone was paying me to write this, as a copy writer, then I wouldn’t care half as much as I do. I’d bluff my way through. I could sound like I know what I am doing, without any real understanding.

Sadly I think most teachers find themselves in that situation at least a few times a week.

I make no compromises with understanding.

I am that kid you used to throw stuff at in class, or in lectures, because I asked questions. Because I didn’t just ‘let it slide’ and ‘hope to pass’ anyway.

I am still in a position to explain each and every step required to perform an action. I don’t do it unconsciously yet. Not from muscle memory. So I am aware of each and every step, mouse click, keyboard shortcut, and ‘Action’ I need to perform. Or had to perform. In realizing the final outcome.

And I am always on the lookout for a better way to do anything. A more optimal way. From saving water to performing a set of actions in Reaper.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve spend months learning something, only to find a really quick, simple way of doing it, after those painful months.

My books and guides will save you years of time. And many months, at least, of frustration.

I learned Reaper pretty much from scratch. After having tried out a whole bunch of DAW software from Pro-Tools, to Mobus, to Fruity Loops, and a whole lot in between. I chose Reaper. I think this marriage will work out. It is a long term investment that will pay off. And unlike other programs, I won’t have to pay every year for a few updates.

Yes friends, I finally found a DAW I could ‘commit’ to.

I have always said that the best teacher is the student who has had the most problems, overcome them, and is now both a master of the subject, and able to understand all the potential problems that new learners are likely to experience. Because they themselves, quite recently, experienced them. They are fresh enough in their minds to be a valuable resource.

And students who don’t ‘get stuff immediately’, as if by intuition, tend to take notes, and try to work things out on paper, and in their heads. The best preparation for designing teaching materials. They have a vast resource of their own notes, which show all the misunderstandings, the ‘missing pieces’ their teachers skipped over, and so on.

The best students often make the worst teachers. How can someone who found learning something so easy, so self-evident, so intuitive, hope to be able to see things from the point of view, from the experience, of the average student? Those of us who don’t just ‘get’ stuff without having it explained clearly, precisely, and completely. Without ‘missing links’ and ‘missing pieces of the puzzle’, and ‘oh that was so obvious I didn’t think I needed to explain it, let alone even ‘flag’ it for your attention.

Muscle memory is great when you are a power user, and want to be able to deal with the practical stuff almost unconsciously, without any thought or attention to it, so you can focus on the creative side of the process.

But muscle memory makes you a bad teacher, if you don’t force yourself to pay attention to the details of what you are doing.

This is why many teachers end up ‘square gaiting’ when they go from ‘doing’ to trying to teach. They stumble where muscle memory would normally have done the work without them thinking. And because they have not actually thought about what they are doing for so long, it is hard to break down their actions into steps, to explain what they are doing.

And of course true genius is often intuitive. Most invention, theoretical and practical, came in moments of ‘inspiration’. It often took decades for the ‘inventor’, or those trying to merely explain their ‘inventions’, to work out exactly how they had arrived at their ‘breakthrough’, and how that ‘breakthrough’ actually worked. The same applies to the highest levels of mathematical theory as it does to the cook who makes the best gingerbread cookies.

So there are bound to be ‘secrets’ out there awaiting our discovery. Brilliant sound engineers, producers, and technicians, who have stumbled upon deliciously tasty sounds and ‘magical’ ‘mystical’ techniques, but would not, if asked to ‘explain’, be able to precisely tell you how they got that sound, or what they are doing. It just ‘works’. It ‘sounds great’.

I hope this work will inspire such ‘geniuses’ to ‘model’ their own actions for us. To discover the ‘algorithm’ of their greatness. But of course, more importantly, to keep doing what they are doing. Making great music.

That is also my wish for you. To inspire you, by making the learning curve as painless and swift as possible, to go from ‘zero’ to ‘hero’. To be making music as quickly as you can. To be able to take any inspiration that falls to you and to ‘reap’ its creative harvest.

Using all the available learning materials. I spent months of frustration trying to work out what ‘tutors’ and ‘teachers’ and ‘vloggers’ were trying, and often failing, to get at. What exactly had they done that they had not ‘flagged’ for my attention? What part of the puzzle had they skipped over without explaining? Whey didn’t my plug-ins work the way theirs did, in the videos or lessons?

This guide is for those of you, like me, who like to be able to go through things step by step. L Ron Hubbard is not the only person who believes that the best thing to do, when you get lost, is to retrace your steps back to the last place where you knew where you were. And then to start forward again.

Patiently.

Often it is hard to work out where we lost our way. So we have to go right back to the very start. Like I do with all my philosophy works. I go back further than others. And so when I get to the end of a line of logic I actually reach a practical solution. One not based on unwarranted, unjustifiable assumptions. I can trace my steps back to the very first principle. The most basic, fundamental, irrefutable, assumption.

So far I have not made videos of this guide. I am sure enough Vloggers out there will base their next tutorials on the content of this guide to make it unnecessary for me to start making videos.

Oh, as usual, I wrote this guide for myself. As my own reference.

I find I can quickly find what I am looking for in a book.

My experience with trying to use videos is that I end up having to go through the frustration of finding the right spot in a video, and having to endure constant repetitions of stuff I don’t want to watch again. That puts my brain in a very unreceptive frame of mind. When you are prone to frustration migraines like me, you learn to avoid frustration. You learn the worst impatience with people who just have not bothered to think their lessons through for me. A gram of anticipation is worth a tonne of frustration. Perhaps my first ‘famous quote’?

I have too little patience to deal with most educational instituations, training courses, and commercial training programs. They just do not live up to standards of ‘anticipating’ problems. They simply do not bother to find the optimal way to transfer the information and skills we are paying them to transfer to us.

But if people ask me to set up a school, I would do so gladly. I will also make videos, if there is demand for them.

But as I say, I wrote this book for my own use. You are lucky that I am such a bad, impatient, easily frustrated, and short-attention-spanned student. I need to clarify things perfectly for my little brain to comprehend. I cannot bear to not understand what I am doing and why. I get easily frustrated. Or maybe I am being too hard on myself. For most people simply’ switch off’, ‘give up’, and’ let it slide’ when the going gets tough. Most people just want a diploma and a job. They don’t really care about ‘understanding’ what they are supposedly ‘learning’.

I am’ that’ student in your classes, lectures, tutorials, and training courses who gets things thrown at them for asking questions, while others just complain that the lecturer ‘made no sense’ or the material was ‘just too incomprehensible’. Or worse, pretend they understand what they don’t. Philosophers are a humble lot, assuming they know very little, if anything at all. And they keep striving to understand despite this.

Many of my ‘assailants’ of course managed to pass their courses despite learning very little. Hey, I passed a diploma in Audio Engineering. I even passed University courses in statistics and mathematics with ‘Credits’. But hey, I learned very little, to be honest, and understand even less, when it comes to Statistics and mathematics. Like my fellow students in all the various public and private educational institutions I attended, I got the diploma, and the degrees. But I didn’t get what I really wanted. Understanding. Fluid skillsets. Mastery. That ‘magic’ dust called ‘comprehension’ that sets the master apart from the apprentice. Or is supposed to. How many supposed ‘masters’ really ‘get’ a.k.a ‘grock’ what they teach?

So I have written all manner of books as references for myself. Vocal training guides, Lucid dreaming guides, Philosophy books, a comprehensive investigation of ‘Religion’, and so on. Because my little brain cannot hope to hold so much information, I write books. Then decide that others should have the benefit of my effort, sacrifice, and risk, and put in the extra months and sometimes years necessary to produce books in formats that others can access. To perform that Alchemical magic of transferring understanding from my little brain to the hopefully bigger brains of others. To leave behind a legacy of benfits for you all, even if I get assassinated by the C.I.A / Mossad / N.A.T.O, or absent-mindedly walk into another bus or tram. (Are they putting stuff in the water, on the web, or in our food to make us so absent-minded?)

Oh, so I also went to great lengths to find out what ‘911’ was all about. What happened? Who did what, when, and why? And this trail led me to discover that ‘The Holocaust’ is a piece of propaganda, a hoax. So my efforts have made me public enemy number one for all the Zionists and their Golems. Anyway, I did all this to benefit YOU. I don’t know you. Maybe we wouldn’t get along in person. Maybe you’d even hate me. Want to harm me. But I was born full of good-will. Maybe an inverse reaction to the almost total lack of goodwill ever shown to me. Freud might have the answers to that question. But that’s it folks. I am motivated by goodwill. My little brain works pretty well, compared to most. So I employ it for the benefit of all sentient beings in the multiverse. Of course you cannot expect any good deed to go unpunished. So I work as hard and fast as I can to do as much good as I can before my good deeds catch up with me, and destroy me.

Happy next lives?

So now you know my dirty little secret. My nefarious end-game. The reason I am outcast and abandoned. Bereft of acceptance, approval, and probably, quite soon, any liberty or freedom. Let alone access to affection and love. All because I sincerely wish to be of service to my fellow sentient creatures. In the hope that that might result in some goodwill out there. Not just for me, but for the world in general. Especially for those creatures who need out goodwill the most. Because they are the least powerful. The least able to protect themselves. From us. Animals.

So I will ask you, as I always do, that if you feel any goodwill towards me for facilitating something good and positive in your life, please direct that goodwill towards the most helpless and powerless beings on this planet, animals.

Please consider going Vegan.

And if you can spare a few Dollars or Euros please direct them towards my ‘markusrehbach AT yahoo.com’ paypal account.

I promise the world that the best investment it could ever make would be in me. Any resources I gain access to will be employed with goodwill, and in the most enlightened and thus optimal manner.

As I will probably be dead, in prison, or worse, by the time you read this, please make a donation to P.E.T.A, and quote ‘TROONATNOOR’ in the ‘comments’.

I don’t expect any reward in this life for my sacrifice, effort, and risk, and genuine pain, misery and suffering.

But people like me are motivated by the need to achieve. I feel the need, the need to achieve.

So it would mean a great deal to me if you let the world know that you think I achieved something worth achieving.

You see P.E.T.A never took me seriously. No-one did. I would just like a little recognition. Even if I can’t benefit from it this life.

For you see, it is most probable, based on all the best scientific understandings we have, that each of us, in some form, is an eternal potential for awareness that will be randomly new-incarnated as any being in the multi-verse, over and over.

Buddha may be right, but he would respect that I continue to test his hypothesis, and compelling arguments, no matter how compelling they appear.

So rather than retreat to a cool forest to meditate upon the folly of all ambition, the vanity of all action, I will keep being that ‘fly’ that Socrates spoke of, that continues to irritate the powers that be, high and low, and challenge them to be the best ‘them’ they can be.

I would like a place at the feast of champions that Socrates demanded for himself, as his rightful, just, deserved, earned reward, but will settle for some nice Hemlock, as he did.

But until I am out of action, I will keep up my struggle for enlightenment as a true Luci-fer, a true Aqui-fer, a true Meta-fer.

Cia Bella and Bello !

Go Vegan !

Happy Next Lives :D

Before you turn anything on, or plug anything in

Please refer to ‘Sound Foundations’, this books ‘companion guide’ for a detailed explanation of the more ‘technical’ aspects of Audio. This guide is targeted specifically towards mastering the TROONATNOOR DAW of choice, Reaper.

However before you even start, please consider the following safety message.

Before you start a session, ensure any external amps are turned off. Then turn down any speakers