Overloud TH-U Users Manual
USER MANUAL
v. 1.0.0
OVERLOUD
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USER MANUAL
INTRODUCTION 1 __________________________
Thank you! 1 ________________________________________________
Cool Features 1 ______________________________________________
Disclaimer 1 ________________________________________________
ABOUT TH-U 2 ___________________________
The User Interface 2 __________________________________________
Tools 2 ____________________________________________________
Tuner 2
Looper 2
GETTING STARTED 3 _______________________
Create your User Account 3 _____________________________________
Authorize TH-U 3 _____________________________________________
De-Authorize TH-U 4 __________________________________________
Authorization Limits 4 _________________________________________
Run TH-U 4 _________________________________________________
Presets 4
The Sound Chain View 4
About TH-U Components 5
Components 6
TH-U Top Panel 7 _____________________________________________
Input Level Adjustment 7
Master 7
Live Mode 8
Tuner 8
BPM 9
Input and Output Level Meters 9
Looper 10
TH-U Top Bar 11 _____________________________________________
SETTINGS 11
MIDI 13
AUTO (Automation) 14
MANUAL 15
INFO 15
UNDO/REDO 15
How to work with TH-U 16 ______________________________________
Insert a component 16
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Move a component 16
Remove a component 16
Create a new setup from scratch 17 _______________________________
Inserting a Stomp Box 17
Inserting an Amplifier 19
Tweaking an Amp head 20
Inserting a Rig Player 21
Inserting a Cabinet 23
Inserting a Rack Effect 28
Parallel Sound Chain 29 ________________________________________
Splitter 29
Mixer 29
TH-U Component List 31 _______________________________________
Technical Support 31__________________________________________
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INTRODUCTION
Thank you!
We’d first like to thank you for
purchasing. Our goal when developing
TH-U was to create a flagship
application even more powerful than
the previous version: TH3.
TH-U incorporates modules with the
best emulations of real guitar rig
elements achieved with top quality
software DSP.
Cool Features
TH-U has the following main features:
•
Comes in the following formats: VST,
AudioUnit, RTAS, AAX and standalone
for macOS, and VST, RTAS, AAX and
standalone for Windows;
•
Provides an interactive virtual guitar
rig where you can add modules like
pedals, amplifiers, cabinets and rack
effect units and trim their controls;
•
Adds control to amp head sound
permitting access to amp tweaks;
•
Also lets you use a special
component, the rig-model player,
which allows to play rig model files
that Overloud will provide collected
in libraries;
•
Can be loaded as a plug-in effect in a
DAW application like Logic Pro,
Garage Band, Sonar, Live, Cubase,
Pro Tools and the like;
•
Supports MIDI communication with
foot controllers or other MIDI devices
to load presets and to adjust effect
parameters;
•
Includes a built-in licensing manager
letting you to authorize and deauthorize TH-U on your computer(s)
autonomously;
•
Includes a huge collection of factory
presets letting you to start
immediately after the installation
with great sounding setups covering
a large range of musical genres;
•
Works with the lightest DSP engine
on the market to obtain the best
tones with minimal CPU load and
shortest latency;
•
Supports retina display graphics
natively with gorgeous high
resolution interactive modules.
Disclaimer
Overloud is an independent software
development company. Any use of third
party trademarks, logos, mentioned
brand names, products and services is
only referential and Overloud hereby
disclaims any Sponsorship, Affiliation
or Endorsement of or by any such third
party.
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ABOUT TH-U
With TH-U you can replicate your own
real guitar rig by adding effects and
modules and trimming their
parameters like you do in reality. Or
either you can reproduce a certain
sound by using the reproductions of
specific Amps, Cabinets and Effects.
Moreover you can play a rig model with
the dedicated Rig Player component.
The User Interface
The user interface of TH-U is organized
into three main sections: Presets,
Sound Chain and Components.
The Presets section lists all the allowable
presets. Presets are grouped in Banks.
The number of banks is unlimited,
while each bank contains 128 presets.
The Sound Chain is a view over the current
guitar rig which actually looks like a
chain of modules so that it’s easy to
follow how the sound is processed
between the TH-U input and output.
The Components section lists all TH-U
components. Adding components to
TH-U is easy: just drag and drop them
from the list to the insertion point over
the sound chain.
Tools
Tuner
TH-U includes a useful Tuner with
optional Auto Mute function (not to play
through the outputs for example while
you are tuning your guitar in a live
performance).
Looper
Also, TH-U includes a complete multi
track Loop Station with which you can
record and overdub your loops.
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GETTING STARTED
Let’s spend a few minutes to get
acquainted with TH-U. In order to make
you feel confident in using TH-U, this
chapter will guide you through the
fundamental aspects of the application
in as few steps as possible.
We know you’d rather play than read.
Create your User Account
The first thing to do, if you haven’t done
it yet, is to create your own Overloud
User Account.
Browse the Internet to the Overloud
web page www.overloud.com. Create
your account by providing your personal
information, paying attention not to
mistype your email address which will
be the way to communicate between us
and the identifier that our servers will
use to deposit your licenses.
Authorize TH-U
After the purchase of TH-U you will
receive an email with the serial number
which represents your license of TH-U.
The serial number has the following
format:
TUBN-KH5K-00F5-RMWP
To authorize your license, just run TH-U
then you will see a dialog box warning
you that the application is not currently
authorized. You can choose one of three
options:
• run a short test demo of 10 minutes;
• start an evaluation period of two weeks;
• authorize your license.
Both demo options let you test TH-U
full working, for a limited time, so that
you can make an idea of the product
before possibly deciding to purchase it.
You can authorize your license of TH-U
by providing a couple of information and
choosing where to store your
authorization.
Click the Authorize button on the TH-U
Authorization dialog box and you will be
prompted to type in your account (the
email address of your User Account)
and the serial number.
Next, choose where to store the
authorization information:
• this computer;
• USB removable device.
Choosing this computer, you will enable
your computer to run TH-U. This is
usually the easiest and fastest option to
authorize TH-U and forget about
authorization.
Our licensing management lets you
remove your authorization by your own,
for example if you are going to sell your
computer.
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Choosing USB removable device you will
store the authorization on a USB device
and you’ll be able to move it by bringing
the USB key with you.
This is particularly suitable when you
are changing computer often, or either
if you use to reformat your system from
time to time.
De-Authorize TH-U
You can de-authorize TH-U in two ways:
from inside TH-U itself or from your
User Account online page.
To de-authorize from TH-U, click
SETTINGS and Manage your Authorizations…
You will see the list of all your active
authorizations, each with a Remove
button next to it. Just click that button
for the authorization to remove.
TH-U keeps a connection with our
online servers to update the amount of
authorizations in use.
Authorization Limits
You can authorize TH-U on up to 3
(three) separate computers plus 1
(one) USB stick.
You can de-authorize the same license
of TH-U no more than 10 (ten) times in
the last 365 days.
Run TH-U
Once the authorization is completed,
TH-U will be ready to use.
Presets
On the left side of the interface you can
see the Preset column. In the upper
side of the column you see the BANKS
list. Each bank contains 128 presets.
Click a bank of the list to select it.
Right below you see the PRESETS list.
Note: not all the 128 presets of the
selected bank have to contain a preset.
The empty ones are marked with:
<empty>.
To load a preset, select it and click LOAD,
or just double click it.
The Sound Chain View
The central area of the user interface is
the Sound Chain View, which shows the
current setup of TH-U.
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The view is zoomable. You can choose a
suitable zoom factor with the zoom
buttons.
The sound chain beginning (the input of
the TH-U sound processing) is on the
left end. Then the sound direction goes
towards right until the right end of the
chain where is the output.
Two types of sound chain
are available: linear and
parallel.!
The linear one is a straight
sequence of modules between the input
and output of THU.!
The parallel one is a little more complex:
in a certain point with a Splitter it splits
the sound into two parts, upper and
lower, where you can place your
modules, and then it mixes the two
parts together again with a Mixer.
This configuration of the Sound Chain
lets you to process the same sound in
two different ways and to mix the two
processed sounds together.
You can switch the type of sound chain
by clicking the oval button on the
bottom left corner of the Sound Chain
View. The actual behaviour of the
button changes depending on the
current configuration of the sound
chain. For example, you might be asked
for a confirmation before possibly
removing some components when you
switch from parallel to linear chain.
About TH-U Components
Right after using TH-U for a minute,
you will be tempted to touch switches,
turn knobs and so on. Well, just do it!
The Sound Chain View is totally
interactive and lets you improve the
processed sound at any time.
Knobs have some features:
•
drag up/down to adjust;
•
shift-drag to ne set;
•
cmd-click to reset to default.
Knobs have their value shown while you
move them.
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Components
On the right side of the user interface
there is the Components column.
The column contains a list of all
modules available: amps, cabs, stomp
pedals and rack effects.
You can add one of them to the current
sound chain at any time: just drag the
item from the list and drop it to the
insertion point over the sound chain.
On the top of the list you can see a drop
down list with the selected category of
components.
When All categories is selected,
components are visibile all together.
Otherwise you can select a category.
This will make it easy to focus on a
certain kind of effect and see all the
possible allowable alternatives.
Non licensed components appear
shaded, and if you drag one of them to
the sound chain TH-U will prompt you
about using an unlicensed component
allowing to either evaluate it (Demo) or
to authorize (you’ll get an authorization
code by purchasing it from our
website).
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TH-U Top Panel
On the top side of the user interface
there is a header band containing some
useful tools. Starting from the left side,
the first one is the Input Level Adjustment.
Input Level Adjustment
Click the LEVEL button to open the Input
Level Adjustment dialog window.
This dialog window supports you to
correctly set the volume knob on your
guitar and the input level of your audio
interface.
First, set the volume on the guitar to
the maximum.
Then play your guitar very hard to
simulate the highest level you will ever
reach while playing normally and while
you do that…
Adjust the input level of your audio
interface to keep the level shown in the
three colored bar in the green region.
Master
When you click
the MASTER
button, the Master
Controls panel
appears. Master
controls apply globally, independently
from the TH-U preset settings. This
allows you to adjust the overall sound
of TH-U.
The In Source area is where you select the
input channels for TH-U. You can take a
stereo couple as input, or only one of
the stereo channels: LEFT or RIGHT.
Sensitivity: changes input sensitivity as
much as it would be on a real amp. LOW
is best suited for single coils, HIGH for
usually works better with humbuckers.
Noise Gate: Noise Gate threshold level.
Works as a combined Expander/Gate
for maximum efficiency. Adjust to
reduce possible noise when present, for
example if the pickups are particularly
noisy, of if you are working at higher
gain levels.
Low & High: master EQ. Adjust the overall
low and high frequencies of TH-U. This
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EQ is global and independent from the
preset settings.
Reverb & Delay: Adjusts the overall amount
of these effects. Adjust them to
increase or decrease the effects
globally, independently from the preset
settings.
Live Mode
The LIVE button sets the Live Mode of
TH-U.
The preset management keeps track of
the modifications done to a preset (you
see that a preset has been changed
with the orange circle next to the preset
name on the top of the preset column).
And when you load a new preset with
some changes pending, a prompt will
appear asking you to confirm that you
really want to continue discarding those
unsaved changes.
In a live performance this could be
annoying, because you’d need to move
the controls (via MIDI for example), and
still be free to load a new preset
without being stuck on that prompt.
When the Live Mode is on, this prompt
is skipped (pay attention not to keep the
Live Mode on, for normal usage of TH-
U, because you’ll risk to lose your
modifications).
Also, when Live Mode is on, if you
change preset, some parameter values
will be preserved across the preset
change (the list of the preserved
parameter is the one of the GLOBAL MIDI
BINDINGS grid in the MIDI settings).
So, if you move from one preset to
another – where both of them have the
Volume pedal –
and you set the
pedal position via
MIDI (with a foot
controller)
halfway, then at the loading of the new
preset, the Volume pedal position will
be kept the same across the preset
change.
Tuner
In the central region of the Top Panel of
TH-U there is the TUNER.
You can activate the Tuner anytime. It
will process the clean sound coming
from the TH-U input.
This is a Chromatic Tuner, able to
automatically recognize the tuned note
which is closer to the one you play. The
Tuner shows you how much the note is
detuned respect to the tuned one.
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