#convolution reverb

I wrote this song in 2019 + it’s coming out on streaming tomorrow. The context is really important to me and I wanna share it with you. <3

lyrics:

𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠

𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐢𝐧 𝐈 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬

𝐀 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬

𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐞 

𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐬

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐤𝐲 𝐢𝐬

𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫 

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬

𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 

𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐬𝐭?

𝐔𝐧𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 

𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐞 

𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫

𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫

𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐲𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫

𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟏𝟔 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐢𝐬

𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬

𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 

𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫

𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐰 

𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐡𝐞’𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐞

𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬

𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞

𝐒𝐡𝐞’𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫

___________________________________________

This song is about inherited trauma, how lineages of women hold onto shame.

My body knows horrors I haven’t seen, is so intimately familiar with pain I haven’t touched but is mirrored back to me

This is what I know: I come from a long long line of Catholics. The catholic church prohibits pregnancy outside of marriage.

So when my biological great grandmother became pregnant with my grandmother, she conveniently went missing.

When her child (my grandmother) was born after 9 months, she was given up for adoption immediately.

Her mother and her husband left town and her other children and family members had no knowledge of my grandmother

A few years ago my mom and aunt did a lot of digging on ancestry.com and found my grandmother‘s entire family despite very little information on her birth certificate and other documents (which was absolutely insane btw)

At 80 years old, she now has several new family members including half siblings (who are all the sweetest people who have been so welcoming)

I wonder how many women went missing, who are still missing

How many families slip through time?

This tutorial uses internal sampling in Reason. Click here for my previous tutorial on how this works.

Propellerheads delivered a free update to Reason this week and with it came the RV7000 mkII Reverb which now has convolution capabilities.

In mkI, all the reverbs were being synthesised but in mkII it’s now possible use recorded audio as a source. Propellerheads are giving out a free Refill for Reason 8.3 users which has a huge collection of recorded spaces. You can download it from the Propellerheads Store.

Convolution reverb is great for times when you want to reproduce the sound of a real environment but because it uses recorded audio, a lot more can be done than that.

As my reverb source, I’ve created a fairly basic Thor patch that decays over time and uses two wavetable oscillators with some modulation. Here’s how it sounds:

http://www.producertech.me/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ThorVerb.mp3

  Thor patch as reverb source

Next, I loaded up an instance of the RV7000 mkII Reverb, reset the device and selected Convolution as the Algorithm.

As my internal sampling routing is already set up, I could then record straight into the reverb unit. After recording, I opened the editor and made sure that the beginning and the end of the sample was cropped so that there is only one hit and then normalised it to bring the volume up to 0db.

I pulled out a nice sounding percussion loop from and added the new reverb to it.

Here’s the dry loop:

http://www.producertech.me/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Bongos-Loop-Dry.mp3

and here it is mixed with the reverb:

http://www.producertech.me/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Bongos-Loop-Wet.mp3

Rex congas with new reverb

That’s kind of cool in itself. A resonant vocoder kind of sound that could work well for a buildup.

However, by playing with some of the RV7000 mkII’s settings, I was able to turn the reverb into a percussive counterpoint:

http://www.producertech.me/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Bongos-Loop-Percussive.mp3

I did this by increasing the reverb’s Pre-Delay time, shortening the Length and increasing the Size (which lowers the sample’s pitch):

RV7000 mkII percussive reverb

So there you have it. A quick, easy and unique sounding percussion part. If I wanted to go further, I could turn the Dry – Wet mix all the way to the right and export the loop to use in it’s own right. Alternatively, I could use the reverb as a send effect and process it further with Reason’s many other effect units.

Have you come up with anything cool using the new reverb yet? Let me know in the comments.