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4. Processing a drum loop with Snap Heap

1 As well as their standalone plugin functionality, all Kilohearts effects can be employed as Snapins – that is, modules that load into the free Snap Heap or notfree Multipass modular host plugins. Let’s see how Snapins work by transforming a couple of drum loops using Snap Heap. 2 When you installed Reverser, Pitch Shifter and Trance Gate, you also were given the option to install Snap Heap and its six bundled Snapins: 3-Band EQ, Chorus, Delay, Limiter, Gain and Stereo. We start by loading the Snap Heap plugin into a DAW track playing back a drum loop. 3 Snap Heap centres on four lanes, into which you can load as many Snapins as you like, for serial or parallel processing, or a combination of the two. To load a Snapin, click in the lane and choose from the menu. Move them around within and between lanes by dragging and dropping. 4 By default, Snap Heap is set up for serial processing – ie, the input signal simply passes through the effects in each lane, from top to bottom, and left to right. This mad setup, then, has the input passing through the first Pitch Shifter, then the EQ, then the Reverser, and so on, ending at the Limiter in the fourth lane. 5 The volume, Pan position and Mix blend of each lane is adjustable, and of course, changing any of these directly impacts the input into the next lane. Lanes are muted and soloed using the M and S buttons at the top, and both individual Snapins and full lanes can be deactivated by clicking their blue power buttons. 6 Clicking the routing button between two lanes switches them from serial to parallel configuration, so that each lane processes the input signal simultaneously, with their outputs mixed at the end, rather than one lane feeding into the next. Check out our tutorial video to see and hear the possible routing combos. 7 The Mix knobs set the processing ‘depth’ of each parallel lane, and adjustments made to a lane’s Volume and Pan have no bearing on its partnered lanes. By loading the 3-Band EQ into two, three or four parallel lanes and filtering each one down to a unique frequency range, we can turn Snap Heap into a makeshift multiband processor. 8 Snap Heap also has a full-on modulation system built in, comprising two LFOs, two envelope followers, a pitch detector, a MIDI controller section and eight Macro knobs. Any and all of these are assignable to every parameter of every Snapin in the Heap. 9 To make an assignment, click the

Link icon you see when the mouse is moved over a modulator’s display, then drag on the orange modulation knob for your target parameter to set mod depth. Clicking the down arrow on a Snapin reveals a Randomise function – great for inspiration.