MuCol-Description

Background

In a common music production project the recordings of all instruments and vocals are included in the same project file. But when it comes to comfortable collaboration, it is inevitable that all participants can work independently on the same material. Each musician must have his/her own version of the project because he/she must be able to change the mix to his/her taste and work with the preferred plugins when recording and arranging.

Process Automation

MuCol provides a couple of Reaper-scripts which automate the following processes:

  1. Copy specific tracks from a "main-project" to "instrument-projects" - if the respective instrument-project does not exist, it is created.

  2. From the main- and instrument-projects backtracks can be created from any recordings. Mixdowns (so called "stems") are generated, which makes the respective tracks independant from any used plugins. The backtracks are distributed to all other involved projects so that the work results from all musicians are available to everybody.

  3. Eventually the musicians decide which of their recordings shall end up in the final mix. The respective tracks can be collected in the main-project with a single click.

Requirements

Three things are required in order to get you going:

  • Cockos' Reaper in the current version (which you can get from here)

  • A cloud storage solution such as Microsoft's OneDrive, Google-Drive, iCloud etc.

  • The MuCol-package that can be downloaded on this website which provides the automations described above

Setup

The MuCol-package consists of

  • Scripts which control the automations

  • A toolbar used to launch the scripts

  • A couple of track templates

After having downloaded the package, it is unpacked and the MuCol-components have to be copied to the corresponding locations in the REAPER-data and -configuration area.

In Reaper the toolbar and the scripts need to be loaded:

  • In Reaper open the action list (from the "Actions"-menu) and load all scripts which are found under Scripts\MuCol

  • Open toolbar 16 and position it to your liking (which is hopefully not being used yet)

  • From the context menu of the toolbar choose "Customize toolbars" and import the toolbar which is found under MenuSets\MuCol

Rules

There is a couple of rules which must be obeyed in order for the MuCol-scripts to work properly:

Main-Project

  • Project location and name of the main-project are not restricted in any way.

  • Tracks that are to be processed must be within a folder tracks named "*REC" or "*MIX".

Instrument-Project

  • The name and location of the the instrument-projects must not be changed.

  • Tracks that are to be processed must be within a folder track named "*REC".

General

  • The sound-files must be stored in the project directory (which is the default). Whenever tracks are copied by the MuCol-system, the underlying sound-files are automatically copied along.