Week 153: SONAR's “Secret Weapon” Convolution Applying convolution to sounds can do a whole lot of interesting things, and yes, SONAR has the ReMatrix Solo convolution reverb. But there’s another “secret weapon” that can do all kinds of weird, wacky, and sometimes wonderful convolution tricks: The Cabinet IR module in TH3 Cakewalk Edition. It even makes a fine pseudo-vocoder for drums.
The Cabinet IR doesn’t allow for very long impulse responses, so it’s more like a truly unusual EQ. But it offers several “accidental” features that are extremely useful. So insert TH3 in an audio track, drag the Cabinet IR from TH3’s components browser into the main window, and let’s go.
IMPORTING IMPULSE RESPONSES TH3 comes with useful amp samples, but why be normal? Grab some weird WAVs and see what happens. Any .IR or WAV file will work (REX need not apply); click on Import New IR, create a new destination group, then navigate to the file you want to load. Note that you can also import multiple files—just click on the first one in a folder, then shift-click on the last file in the folder. The SONAR Audio Library has a lot of one-shots, so you can load up a ton of ‘em to find out what works. (To delete the duds, you can delete the impulses one at a time via TH3, or go to the folder location with the imported IRs at C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Roaming\Overloud\TH3\IR, and then delete the ones you don’t want.
TWO PRACTICAL EXAMPLES Here’s how to do a pseudo “drumcoder,” i.e., modulating a chord with drums. Drag the file LNL_DrumLp91_100 from SONAR’s audio library (Loops > Loopmasters > RNB Hip Hop > Late Night Logic) into a track, and loop it. For an impulse, if you downloaded my Chord Library when it was available, the chords are excellent for this application. Otherwise, load the file dth_chord_bigdub (One Shots > Sample Magic > Deep Tech-House) into the Cabinet IR.
Choose High accuracy for the Cabinet IR module. In general, High accuracy will give the most nuanced filtering but that doesn’t mean it’s always the best for a given application; sometimes lower accuracy will produce an effect with less of a sense of pitch, but which is ultimately more useful. The Balance A-B control varies the prominence of the “vocoder” effect. Kewl!!
Here’s another example. Load dth_kick_deepfat from the same folder. This is a kick one-shot, and as you vary the balance, you’ll be able to really accent the kick in a loop with an otherwise not very deep kick.
But wait!! There’s more! The Balance A-B control has a MIDI Learn option, so you can do some expressive tweaking and add rhythmic variety to EDM-type loops. Have fun!