Sound Design Workflow | A Quick Reaper Workflow For Creating Sound Effects With Lots Of Variations

Hey there! In this video, I’m going to show you a quick sound designer workflow that I use in Reaper to generate sound effects with lots of variations.

Part 1

The workflow I’m going to demonstrate has two parts – generating sound effects and creating variations for them.

I’ll be using the nvk_Create script, which is a paid plugin, to quickly generate sound effects. I’ll start by typing in “gunshot,” “explosion,” or “kick” and setting the number of items to three. I’ll also set the offset to 0.2 and enable the “trim” option to ensure they all line up perfectly. Once I click generate, it’ll create 50 sound effects for me to choose from.

Part 2

Now, if I’m on a tight deadline, I can listen to the sound effects and choose the one I like the best. Once I find a sound effect I like, I’ll copy and paste it four times to create four different variations. To create variations for the sound effect, I’ll use the LKC Variator script. I have a preset that I like to use, which randomizes the pan, pitch, tape, stretch, rate, and position.

Once I have my locators around my sounds, I can click mutate, and it’ll generate a different variation. I’ll start with a preset that only makes minute changes, so they all sound quite similar. Once I’ve done that, I’ll try to make some changes that are a little more extreme. I have another preset for that, which will switch out the file with another file in the folder. Once I’ve created the variations I want, I can export them individually or as a whole sound effect.

I hope you found this workflow useful, especially if you’re on a time crunch and need to generate tons of sound effects quickly.

Thanks for watching, and if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below.