Week 162: Here’s Your “Harmonic Tremolo” Some of the older, Fender “brown” amps used a variation on the standard, amplitude-oriented tremolo which the company called a “harmonic tremolo.” This splits the signal into high and low bands, and then an LFO amplitude-modulates them out of phase so that the while the highs get louder, the lows get softer and vice-versa. The sound is considerably different from a standard tremolo, and many players feel the sound is “sweeter.”
SONAR doesn’t include a harmonic tremolo, but it’s easy to build one! So let’s warm up our virtual soldering irons, and make an FX Chain. The following shows the recommended default positions for the knobs and buttons.
Insert three FX into an FX rack, in this order: TH3, Sonitus Modulator, and Channel Tools. Set the TH3’s Splitter controls as shown below (the Mixer defaults to the settings we want)
Next up – the Sonitus Modulator settings.
And finally, Channel Tools.
Now, we already have a pretty cool sound…but let’s make an FX Chain to bring the strategic controls out to where we can mess with them. So, right-click in the FX Rack, and choose “Convert FX Rack to FX Chain.” Double-click on the FX Chain to open its interface, and let’s add some knobs and buttons that turn this into an over-achieving Harmonic Tremolo. Here are the four controls:
Tremolo Rate. Assign to
Sonitus Modulator - Rate. Start = 2%, End = 75%.
Tremolo Depth. Assign to
Sonitus Modulator - Mix. Start = 30%, End = 100%.
Xover Freq. This sets the split point between the high and low frequencies. Assign to
TH3 – Splitter X-OVER FREQ. Start = 35%, End = 65%.
Width. Assign to
Channel Tools – Angle L. Start = 0%, End = 100%. Also assign to
Channel Tools – Angle R. Start = 100%, End = 0%. The center position gives the traditional Harmonic Tremolo effect; rotating increases the width, with opposite settings flipping the high and low channels.
Assign the four buttons as follows:
Sine/Peak. This controls whether the LFO waveform is a sine wave or peak wave). Assign to
Sonitus Modulator - LFO. Start = 25%, End = 45%.
Normal/Harmonic. Normal is a standard tremolo sound, but you’ll probably want to keep Harmonic enabled. Assign to
Sonitus Modulator - Phase. Start = 0%, End = 100%.
Norm/Band changes the filters to be more highpass/lowpass or bandpass. Assign to
TH3 – Splitter Mode. Start = 50%, End = 100%.
Mono Weird. With the Width set more or less to mono, this adds a sort of “underwater” effect. Assign to
Channel Tools – Invert Left. Start = 0%, End = 100%.
Don’t forget to save the FX Chain! Right-click on the UI and choose "Save FX Chain Preset."