Let’s take a shallow dive into routing audio through Thor. The beauty of modular environments is that you can take a thing then turn it into a lot of different things. Often, these things bear little resemblance to the thing you started with. Also, the work required to make something good happen is often quite minimal. The example we are going to look at today could definitely be considered a quick win.
When looking at routing, text descriptions can quickly become confusing. So with that in mind we’re going to stick largely to images, with a little adjoining text. For this example, we are going to route an NN-XT instrument through a formant filter in Thor.
Learn How To Route Audio Through Thor:
Step 1: First things first, we are going to need a sound source. We went for a simple stereo cello sound from the factory sound banks.
And here’s what it sounds like:
Step2: Then we need to shift/drag our Thor into the rack and route it as shown below:
Out of the NN-XT, into Thor and then into the Input of the track. Simples.
Step 3: Next we need to use the modulation matrix to tell Thor what to do with the audio we’ve routed to its inputs. The image also shows the LFO modulation we will put in once we’ve sorted the formant filter.
Step 4: Now we need to pick our filter (below) and add our LFO 2 modulation to Thor’s Matrix (above).
Aside from choosing a different waveform for LFO 2 we didn’t do much with the filter. Any changes were just small adjustments for taste, have a play until it sounds good to you.
Step 5: This is where you get to add your goto effects, reverbs, delays, and all that good stuff. I ran this through an EchoBoy and a DR-1 reverb and called it done. With a bit of EQ it will tidy up nicely. Here’s what we ended up with without any EQ applied;
If you want to save it, you can pop it into a combinator. You’ll then need to make sure thor’s oscillators don’t add their voice too. Either remove the oscillator, turn off the oscillator button between it and the filter or use the combinator programmer to stop Thor from receiving notes.
You can have a lot of fun with this one. Why not let us know what you came up with, in the comments below.