To distort or not to distort, that is the question.

[DannyBlack]

I just started working on something with the tribal stuff in mind. Now for the first time I started working with distortion on the master to try and sheer of the plasticcy sound. to dirty it up a bit.

So I was wondering, with or without?? Or what do you guys do?

Im using Camel- cant remember the name of it... My own tweeks rather than the preset.

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[The_Laughing_Man]

why distort the master?
Why not distort the sounds at mix, then you can control the mix much better.
Distortion on the master is like extreme compression, it will flatten out transients, smear the mid range, dull the bottom end, reduce brightness, or make it over brittle.
Overall a very bad idea.

[DannyBlack]

I used distortion on the percs alone but it doesn't seem to tie in as much as the master does. have a listen to the loops and you'll see what i mean. I also have a multiband compressor on the master to bring out the bass and the kick thus brightening the bottom. the dist is crunching the toip end, which is what i want. I dunno. im getting lost i think...

[SlavikSvensk]

danny, why don't you use that multiband compressor as a send effect instead of putting it on your master channel?

[The_Laughing_Man]

thats even worse, multi band compression and distortion on the master, especially if you don`t really know what you are doing with the multiband (which most people don`t, if you are not careful it can really change the groove, as well as other things).

You`re being lazy, go back to the mix and apply distortion with post distortion EQ on the tracks you want distorted. Then you could apply compression to the whole mix to bring it all together a bit.

It`s the long way, but you`ll learn a hell of a lot more about controlling distortion with EQ, your mix will end up tighter, clearer and more punchy, and things can still be done at the mastering stage.

The reason it all ties together at the mo is basically the compression effect that the distortion is having, as it pulls everything together. This can be done, much more controllably with, well, compression.

[DannyBlack]

cool, right- point taken. I disobeyed my own rules a bit and jumped the gun by applying the dist and the comp this early on. Experimentation.

I think I may need to invest in new distortion any way, camel is very limited.

Cheers lads, back to the drawing board.

[SlavikSvensk]

danny, what DAW are you using?

[DannyBlack]

fl9 for the time being. saving money for ableton. believe it or not. haha

[The_Laughing_Man]

Good man, didn`t mean to sound patronising at all by the way.
Just a little slap on the wrist for your shortcutting.

here`s some links to some nice freebie distortion/overdrive untis

AcmeBarGig | Affordable High Quality VST Plugins
AcmeBarGig | Affordable High Quality VST Plugins
AcmeBarGig | Affordable High Quality VST Plugins

AcmeBarGig | Affordable High Quality VST Plugins just check out acmebargig anyway, they are amp fanatics.

Atom Splitter Audio - Distroyr VST

DARKWARE: THE LEGACY (this is Jack Darks site, he has a bit of a reputation for extremely ****ed up noise stuff, it`s sick and I love it)

[BloodStar]

i've came across many stupid ideas, but would never put distortion on master buss. :D
the main problem with majority of free distortion plugin, or at least the ones I've tried during the years, they act more like fuzz, than kind of overdrive/saturation. Fuzz adds plenty of noise to the source material, which personally I dont like,.

For subtle distortion I ammainly using all kind of tube saturation plugins. It servers well for the purpose. I got much better results than if I would use distortion plugin.. When you twist them hard, you got very nice distortion edgy sound, but it doesnt break up, and doesnt turn into brittle noise all over the place as it is very often with free so called distortion plugins.

Just came to idea, what happens if you would add slight amount of distortion, as send fx on you master buss or just subtle amount during mastering, but only on Side part of signal.

[DannyBlack]

i've came across many stupid ideas, but would never put distortion on master buss. :D
the main problem with majority of free distortion plugin, or at least the ones I've tried during the years, they act more like fuzz, than kind of overdrive/saturation. Fuzz adds plenty of noise to the source material, which personally I dont like,.

For subtle distortion I ammainly using all kind of tube saturation plugins. It servers well for the purpose. I got much better results than if I would use distortion plugin.. When you twist them hard, you got very nice distortion edgy sound, but it doesnt break up, and doesnt turn into brittle noise all over the place as it is very often with free so called distortion plugins.

Just came to idea, what happens if you would add slight amount of distortion, as send fx on you master buss or just subtle amount during mastering, but only on Side part of signal.

haha yeah I guess. all a learning process innit. I love the crunchy sound, I just got to figure a way aorund I think.

Good man, didn`t mean to sound patronising at all by the way.
Just a little slap on the wrist for your shortcutting.

:lol: not at all Steve, your opinion and advise is highly appreciated. same goes to any one with input!

I will check out the plug ins later at home. Cheers!