Getting Started with Convolution Reverb Video Lecture - Reason Tutorials

all right
it is slide show time artificially added
reverb has been around the recording
studio process for nearly as long as
recording music has even been around
Studios like Abbey Road have legendary
reverb chambers that are little more
than a tiled room a speaker to pipe
sound in and a microphone to record the
resulting reflections over time
engineers worked out ways to simulate
reverb without building an entire room
for the task they've tried spring coils
massive metal plates like the emt 140
released in 1957 and weighing a half a
ton and by the 1980s studios had moved
on to digital reverb which offered
flexibility even if it sacrificed a
little realism in process now as
computer technology has matured a new
type of reverb is hit the scene
convolution reverb works by analyzing a
recorded sample of a real-world space or
object doing complex pointy-headed math
computations to understand how the sound
waves are reflecting and behaving and
then applying that analysis to any other
signal you've got making it reflect and
behave the same way you can think of it
like physical modeling for reverb and
the results are unbelievably realistic
emulations of real-world objects whether
that object is a Cathedral a small
speaker cabinet or even your own living
room the RV 7000 mark 2 takes the
digital reverb you've always loved in
reason and expands on it to include a
new convolution engine so with our
history lesson over let's see how that
works and more importantly let's hear
how that works we'll start with the most
basic and probably the most common use
for convolution reverb and that is
adding a real-world physical space to an
instrument to make it feel more live and
what can benefit from big spaces more
than drums so here i've got multi tracks
from record drum takes volume 1 the
recording is very cleanly captured but
it's actually to clean on its own I'd
like to give the snare a little more
crack much like it sounds in a good live
room I could of course add this older RV
7000 digital reverb preset called Oak
Room on aux one of the make
sir like this and while it sounds nice
and we've heard this on recordings for
decades it just doesn't sound real so
let's put some convolution on the snare
instead the quickest way to try out some
great convolution patches is by
downloading the RV 7000 mark to refill
available for free in the propellerhead
shop in that refill you'll find RV 7000
mark 2 presets and a ton of raw
convolution impulse responses we'll get
to that in a minute the name of the
preset will give us some indication of
the sound we can expect so based on that
I'm going to load up the Studio B patch
here's our drums dry and here's our
snare drum now coming to you live from
Studio B you can hear that the effect is
a little less pronounced than our
digital Oak Room which sounded like this
but it's also a million times more
realistic sounding it adds the live
quality and the crack that I wanted in
the snare without sticking out and
calling attention to itself as a reverb
effect and that's perfect for me this
process of setting dry signals into
real-world spaces works just as well for
other instruments
in this piano piece by producer Justin
Williams he has used a convolution
preset called my roommate won't stop
listening to music to take his piano
track from a very clinical MIDI sounding
piano
to something that feels like it's in the
same room as you and I are
you can hear in this example that the
convolution reverb isn't just about
reflections in the way that typical
digital reverb is it's doing more
advanced processing that is rounding out
sharp transient notes and even adding
some tonal shaping to mimic the space
our piano now sits in the secret of this
wizardry lies in something called an
impulse response remember when I told
you that convolution reverb works by
analyzing a sound file
well impulse responses are those sound
files here's an example of what one
sounds like that is the sound of a
starter pistol being fired in York
Minster Cathedral in England believe it
or not that recording tells a
convolution reverb like the RV 7000 mark
to everything it needs to know about how
to recreate that exact space inside
reason so if we load a different preset
which has a different impulse response
we'll get a completely different result
someone has recorded a sample of a short
transient sound coming out of a loaf I
radio speaker the impulse response
sample doesn't sound that exciting when
you listen to it but it means we can
take our piano and through the magic of
convolution we can send it out of the
same mono radio speaker
I mean the possibilities when it comes
to the sound design are just incredible
and the good news is that the free RV
7000 mark to refill doesn't just come
with several device presets it comes
with even more impulse responses that
you can play around with an experiment
with yourself want to try a different
impulse response of a different speaker
simply drag and drop one of the speaker
impulse responses on to the RV 7000 mark
2's waveform viewer to load the new
impulse response we've included a
collection of impulse responses from
around the web of not just physical
spaces or speakers but also some classic
hardware that now comes into reason you
remember that half-ton plate reverb the
EMT 140 from 1957 well here it is in
many flavors for you as an impulse
response
and if all that's not enough for you the
Internet is awash in people creating and
sharing their own impulse response
recordings as WAV audio files and any
sound file impulse response you get your
hands on can be loaded in just the same
way but why let other people have all
the impulse response fun using the new
live sampling button directly on the
front of the RV 7000 mark 2 we can
record our own impulse responses of our
own favorite spaces my living room has a
pretty cool ambient sound
in fact I've previously recorded
acoustic guitar in there to capture that
live sound specifically but now let's
record an impulse response of my living
room and apply it to a virtual guitar
using a list acoustic guitarist sampling
the impulse responses is just a matter
of putting up some mics in my living
room I'm using a stereo microphone
technique to record a stereo impulse
response to ultimately result in the
stereo reverb when I'm ready I'll click
the live sample button and make a loud
transient noise which I can do by just
clapping my hands once I've recorded the
full tale of the room sound I can click
the edit button to fine tune my impulse
response in the sample editor I'll trim
the silence off the top and do a little
fade at the end and now we can hear a
list acoustic guitarist a virtual guitar
mind you playing inside my own living
room which is a real space
any sound can be used as an impulse
response if you're willing to forego
realism for futurism try loading up
handclaps cymbals or even guitar samples
to create new surreal reverb effects
good luck experiment and welcome to the
convolution revolution