controlling distortion

[tracatak]

hi

sometimes my kicks(with reverb, rolling along nicely and such) get so distorted that i try an dcontrol with EQ and it seems too muddy any1 have any ideas on what i can do to make it really nice and heavily distorted but still not too crunchy and in control..otherwise i cant move forward with track....do i use limiter or something?

thanks

[loopdon]

put the distortion on a send channel 100% wet and then mix it it in with the original sound. Put a highpass after the verb on the send to gain even more control. There are also frequncy dependent distortions like tridirt.

[Barely Human]

What loopdon said, and also double check to see whether you actually need that much distortion on your kick to get the effect you want. Disto kills kicks. Try and back off to as little disto as possible while still retaining the result you want. Remember, very distorted kicks take up a lot of other freq's that kicks wouldnt usually cross into, thats why the kicks sound great on their own, but when other elements are mixed in, the track sounds muddy.

[loopdon]

You could also automate the disto-send levels to make the dist big when not much else is going on in the track and decrease when the mix is full-on.

[tracatak]

makes total sense

i will try all this and get back to you all with any problems that come about


happy holidays from NYC =)

[tracatak]

should i try verb>distort>high pass filter?

or
verb>high pass filter> distort

[BloodStar]

should i try verb>distort>high pass filter?

or
verb>high pass filter> distort

try both and you will hear what works better :-)

so many combinations. hi-pass>distort>verb>hipass ; distort>verb>distort>hipass and so on and so on ......

You can also try to not distort masivelly in one step, but try to split it into more subtle distortions, done in more steps. lets say: subtle distortion> verb> distortion again > hi pass >verb

It is same with verbs, it sounds nice when you put some early verb as a first in your chain and then some verb with more tail which gives it more space. hope it makes sense...

[tracatak]

yes totally helps..i always try different combinations..but its good to hear some combos others have tried as well =)


any1 recommend any good high pass filters or filters (plugins.)

[stjohn]

if kick into 3 parts....

the sub, the mid and the top...

the sub for the fullness..
the mid for the body
and the top for the sharpness...

anyway, here u can distort the the mid and the top accordingly, without effecting the overall fullness created by the sub.

[tracatak]

ty... i have been trying 3 kicks..high mid and low also been playing with stretching them to all different lengths

[BloodStar]

...any1 recommend any good high pass filters or filters (plugins.)

http://www.sonalksis.com/index.php?section_id=102

http://www.antarestech.com/products/filter.shtml

http://www.fabfilter.com/products/

[tracatak]

thanks again.. will try some of these

[rounser]

Another trick (which I'm yet to try, admittedly, but the theory seems sound):

Instead of turning just the one distortion plug up to 11, have several in series adding a little bit of distortion each.

EDIT: Ah, I see Bloodstar already mentioned this...

[tracatak]

yes i have tried that too ..

i think for now im gonna focus on getting 3 dif kicks

..one high
one low
and one mid

i dont think the problem is my kicks being too distorted cuz In my opinion schranz doesnt have distorted main kick the under part seems to be more distorted ..(i know its been on here before..)

so i try and focus on getting a good solid thumping/pounding kick over some distorted highs..and mids..i just gotta spend lots of time getting em all to sit right...andi have recently switched over to cubase because all my plugins make my fruity loops stutter WIZOVERB alone takes all the ram and memory in one shot and i got 2 gigs of ram ..LOL...so i just basically gotta learn a cubase now ..like another language..and ill be back with more ?'s..bravo so far though..every1 is very kind to help..


ONE LAST ?... i think i hear RIDES often enough in schranz tracks..am i hearing this correctly..and do they tend to have some verb on them as well..sometimes it sounds like just a plain ride on every kick...other times i cant tell..well either way im gonna go study some more..lol..

thanks again ..happy new year to you all as well (belated)