Convolution Reverb

From Garritan Wiki

One of the greatest additions to Kontakt Player 2 is the inclusion of a convolution reverb. A convolution reverb is a process for digitally simulating the reverberation of a physical space based on the mathematical convolution operation using a pre-recorded audio sample of the impulse response (IR) of the location.

There is some bad news and some good news for users of GarageBand. The bad news is there is a bug in the AU plug-in that stops the importation of the impulse response wave. Without this wave, it is useless. The good news is, there is a work around that is pretty easy to setup and use. I will show you this process so you can use it in GarageBand.

Step 1

Start by finding the standalone Kontakt Player 2 application in your Applications > Kontakt Player 2 folder. Launch the application. After your application has launched, go back to the folder and open the "presets" folder, then the "Impulses" folder. You should see a list of Wave files. Keep this folder open to access later. Return to the newly launched standalone Kontakt Player application.

Step 2

Click the "Outputs" button at the top. This will bring up your player mixer.

Step 3

In channel 1, choose the first sound effect channel and select "Convolution". After the selection is made, you may need to click it again so that it is highlighted with a light grey.

Step 4

Now click the "Edit Effect" located at the top of the channels. This will give you the effect editor window.

Step 5

Here is where we return to our open "Impulse". Drag the first Wave file onto the Kontakt edit window that says, "Drop Impulse Sample Here".

Step 6

To the left of this window is a small button called "Preset". Click this button and then select "save preset". A window will popup.

Important! Make sure you click the radio button that reads "patch only"!

Save your preset as "Impulse Load". If you wish to change settings and load them as different custom settings, you can do this. However, for now, just stay with this first custom preset. Make sure you save this preset in the default "convolution" folder or else the effect editor will not know where to find it and you will not be able to select it later.

Step 7

Quit the standalone Kontakt Player 2 application. Now launch GarageBand. Choose a Garritan preset instrument such as Steinway Lite and make sure any reverb on the preset or the Master Track are off. You should now have a pretty dry sounding piano. Click the Instrument Generator edit button (the pencil icon) to edit the instrument settings.

Step 8

Repeat steps 2 through 4 above. Only this time, rather than dragging an Impulse onto the edit window (which does not work on the plug-in version of the player), click the "Preset" button and choose "Impulse Load". You now have focused the player's location of the waves needed for the Convolution Reverb. You may want to save this as a custom setting in GarageBand.

You can now work with the settings of the Convolution Reverb as you play the piano. But what if you want a different impulse response such as a recording studio? Well, luckily all you need to do is click the little left or right triangle buttons at the top center of the edit window. This will cycle through all the impulse response waves located in the "Impulses" folder.

The rest is just adjusting your settings and saving them as custom presets in GarageBand. Note also that now you are also able to save the Convolution Reverb presets as well.

Rick Schneblin

www.Schneblin.com