[jakanz]

Hi everyone! I'm mostly active on DIME, though I think I'll become a bit active for technobabble like this and general questions.

As of recently, I've obtained a lot of soundboard [pre-rack multitrack, not mixdown!] and audience recordings from local shows, and unfortunately Windows and file organization has become a bit of an obstacle when it comes to exporting audio, tracking, and write ups. I mean, it's really bad. My backlog is so big it expands into April, so there's still 60-something individual torrents needing processing!

I am planning on switching to Linux as I already have experience with it and use it on a separate machine, but this mandates that I begin using a Linux-compatible DAW, of which I believe REAPER is my best match. [REAPER users, how is it? ]

That being said, before I even begin with mixing, I'm unsure how to begin a proper good-sounding mix. I'm quite inexperienced with audio processing; my best torrents used Adobe Audition [which I've found is a pain in the ass], but that was when I was only working with 1 or 2 tracks, AUD with maybe a mixdown from the soundboard. However, I've upgraded my taping setup significantly and I have multitracks for a lot of recent shows. This means I'm dealing with kick, toms, snare, cymbals, guitars, vocals, and even miscellaneous instruments far into the 32-channel files.

This leaves me to ask... what are some basic recommendations for effects [EQ, compression, stereo expansion, panning, etc] and presets I can create in REAPER [or otherwise!] that would be good for quickly processing each track and exporting for tracking? I don't mean to create a whole new studio album out of these recordings, I don't really need the most professional sound, but it would certainly help to know how I can enhance my sound and workflow simultaneously. I'm not in any conversations with audio engineers, as I don't know any personally lol, but this seems like just the place to inquire.

I know this post is quite broad in its reach, so you're free to just give me pointers. I'm not exactly looking for the answers handed to me, but something to give me the right direction would be nice. Forgive me if my technical terms aren't quite up-to-date either, I'm just a mere local archivist who's trying to get their foot in the door.

TIA