thor filter modulation routing

O

of zedsupreme

New member
Thor's sound when stood side by side with another synth such as sculpture is sorely lacking. Its sound is fairly one dimensional lacking depth and impact. Ive found that by routing filter 1 through to filter 3 its possible to make up for thors deficiencies. Just route filter 1 to filter 3 left and right in with the mod matrix and scale with the amp envelope. Discover the possibilities!
 
Thor has a lot of possibilities yeah. Usually , to get a professional industry sound out of it, you have to eq it, layering, processing, running it through filters, etc. Imo it's not lacking itself so much. It lacks having those mastering/dynamic filters being incorporated in thor itself. Which I don't think is a shortcoming. Rather happy it doesn't limit my possibilities by pre filtering and all of that. It does what it says, it synthesizes polysonic sound. If you want to have a kick ass sound out of it , you gotta do extra work to make it fit right in your mix. Just like you'd do in any other production studio setup. Only thor has a million ways to synthesize sound itself as well and you could try to master and eq like that as well. I'd rather use those to get a sound I like and after that work on getting it to sit correctly in the mix.
 
Last edited:
cosigned - but all the same I think that a synth like sculpture has far more going for it behind the curtain. The idea of string modelling for instance produces sounds that thor is incapable of producing without extensive mods. The filter trick seems to layer the sound in some profound way. My guess is that it doubles the sound up and the then superimposed layers fit like a glove. Its probably similar to vocoding in the sense that the output for filter 1 is your modulator and filter 3 is your carrier.
 
Proper string modelling would be nice to have. For now you can combine a lot of stuff to be able to do things that are impossible in other DAWs as well.
For the ones who are working in Reason solely, the rack extensions are an outcome though. If your using other DAWs it seems limited not to get a VST that works in more than one DAW.
I understand the business commerce behind making rack extensions that only work in Reason but how awesome and consumer friendly would it have been if they just made Reason able to work with VSTs?
Luckily I mostly use Reason and am perfectly happy with REs, made by the same manufacturers as popular VSTs.
 
Last edited:
Im still using reason 5! With extensive flipped rack tweaking its more than a match for the likes of logic. I find that its possible with a little jiggery pokery to produce just about anything in reason. The other day I created a granular delay using the combinator. Working on producing a modular synth. Basically im hooking filters delays and oscillators (nnxt since I can load any sound as oscillator) together in a vast beast like configuration. The end result is essentially a new synth with advanced sequencing a la redrum vocoding etc etc. Thor's mod matrix allows you to actually route oscillators out to external sources and then route them back through to filter 3. This creates a new signal path. I can take the oscillators round every device in the reason artillery and back to filter 3/global envelope. Things like that just arent really feasible in other daws. You'd need to basically become a max pro to get anywhere near that level of complexity. Reason allows you to create vastly complex new effects units. I think of it like lego. Reason is musical lego. All the devices are simply building blocks.

Just occurred to me that routin filt 1 to 3 creates a new signal path. Im not sure if it actually maintains the old one - im guessing it must since the sound is routed through 1 to 2 to amp to 3. Its not impossible however. If you actually have oscillators routed to 2(using the buttons beside the filters) there should be no problem routing 1 straight to 3. My guess however through observing things like the amplitude efectively being doubled is that it creates a parallel signal path which combines a pure version of the oscillators with the modified signal.

---------- Post added at 01:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:23 AM ----------

Reason is just a hardware aficionado's dream! Try routing the oscillators out to 2 destinations: First route through to a reverb RV700 then route to filter 1. Add Midi gate to step sequencer switch the sequencer on (using the slider place on step mode) reduce it to one step and maximise gate length and step duration. This basically opens up the voice gates to allow the oscillator signal to be diverted through the new signal path opened up.
We now have two signal paths runnning concurrently. Sounds phenomenal! Theoretically I imagine you could have infinite signal paths by using multiple thors and audio mergers/splitters.
 
Last edited:
I think you have missed the point of thor - it is meant to be a sonic source, not a mastered loop playback unit....... and as such will require certain tweaks and twiddles to get a thick, in-yo-face sound
 
bandcoach said:
I think you have missed the point of thor - it is meant to be a sonic source, not a mastered loop playback unit....... and as such will require certain tweaks and twiddles to get a thick, in-yo-face sound
Click to expand...

I was never under the illusion that thor was anything other than a semi modular polysonic synth. Like any synth it has its limitations. Im using operator at the moment to get fm synthesis under my belt. The sounds require exensive layering before theyre ready to be premiered. I dont think ive ever come across a synth that can produce harmonically rich evolved and polished sounds right off the bat.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top