How to soften distortion?

[jrisreal]

Use less distortion

[sunny_b_uk]

You can put an eq before the distortion and add some notches in frequency ranges that get too harsh.

this^^

[Artie_Fufkin]

Don't turn it up to 11

[ehbes]

Rappone the sooner you stop talking the sooner this thread can move on...we're waiting

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

loving how Rappone's dropping some harsh opinions and arguing with all the old time dogs, you're gonna come a long way on here mate /sarcasm

In terms of free < paid it simply isn't that black and white. There are some free vsts's out there that are actually miles better than some payware. Doing a bit of research into the freeware scene will take you a long way. It actually astonished me a while back when it began to dawn on me that paying for something is usually much more about bundled functions than sound quality. Meaning you can string a few free bits together and you've essentially got the same thing, not to mention a hell of a lot of slightly older payware being released for free as promo and big time vst developers releasing various free stuff for promo reasons. The thing is. There is shit freeware, but there's also shit payware. Conversely, there's also great freeware better than some of the stuff someone's tryna get you to pay for, which is the point. More importantly I think it's more about an industry maintaining it's self by constantly regurgitating things that do a pretty small number of processes. You only need one of each thing, really, so 'x </> Y' becomes so circumstantial as to be irrelevant. any two chorus plugins do pretty much the same thing and sound very very pretty much the same. As do various compressors e.t.c. There's slight coloration involved but that isn't exclusive to payware, once you spend the time to actually critically listen to plugin colouration (once you've actually become good enough to do that properly), do a bit of comparing and you'll notice a lot of the freeware standing true.

To think that you couldn't make a track worthy of print from entirely freeware is pretty full on naive imo. As the old adage goes "it aint the size of ur dick..."

Anyway. Subtle distortion, try messing with saturation. afaict it's essentially very soft distortion (try saturating a sinewave). stack a few saturators on your thing and tweak to taste, see how that fairs.

[snappy]

freeware vsts are great. its becoming a hobby of mine to search for hidden treasures on freevst sites.
most of them are created by students who want to get discovered.
tip: put a limiter on your master so you wont blow your ears and your speakers.

if you want to soften something. use reverb

[hasezwei]

im not sure if anyone already mentioned this but

lower the input level

i repeat

lower the input level

its like a hidden extra knob on all (most?) distortion plugins

[ARTFX]

A lot of time the grit comes from very high frequencies, sometimes lowpassing your mid range bass can bring out the sound a lot!

[Sliverdub]

A lot of time the grit comes from very high frequencies, sometimes lowpassing your mid range bass can bring out the sound a lot!

Ive thought about this as the problems I'm getting seem to be high up, Ive not got any multi band plugin and splitting the frequencies is not realistic for me at the moment (every time I do it I create more problems). Its basically this high crackly effect like high pitched grit that sounds rubbish. Ive listened to loads of music by other "real" producers and they seem to get their stuff tearing without the fizzy shit that comes with it.

So for a mid bass how much do you low pass? I know this all depends on the mix etc and what sounds good but there must be some piece of advice that is good as a guide. And what gets the best results? is it actually low passing or can you sometimes get away with a high shelf cut?

The other thing is people have mentioned cutting notches out, how are you finding these harsh frequencies, are you scanning around to find them and then cutting because when I do this I feel like using 3 or 4 notches and it seems a bit overkill, intact its is, once I've cut out all the nastiness I've very often am left with something with no character.

1 last thing is there a distortion that doesn't have a harsh crackly top, I've got sausage fattener, logic stock plugins and that free camel distortion. they all do this crackle thing :/

[mthrfnk]

If it's crackling you may be pushing it too hard. What wet/dry levels are you using?

[outdropt]

I would adjust the drive/input/output volumes first.. If that is an option on your vst/plugin. High drive amounts will definitely harsh up the high end.

Also i like to Low pass to take out alot of the high end (maybe .8-2khz). And then add distortion. It gives the sound a whole new character and if you modulate the cutoff you get a whole new depth to your sound.

[Rappone]

Rappone the sooner you stop talking the sooner this thread can move on...we're waiting

Aren't you a doll. I feel so important and loved right now.


Maybe from what I've used, and I haven't used much, I noticed that freeware wasn't giving me the sound I liked. Hence I jumped to that conclusion. I'm gonna start digging in to some freeware, if that's the case, mr. turnip (thanks for the insightful essay I appreciate it). If I can get something for free and it would do the job, why pay for it?

I'm glad to have sparked such fiery controversy. This has been informative, seeing as to how I have my facts wrong, apparently.

Dubstepforum.com, you are my true love. Insulting as you may be, harsh, sarcastic, mocking, maybe from 'i still don't cut paychecks' syndrome, maybe coz you just don't care, you sure are driving me forward. < This wasn't sarcastic. < Neither was this.

I really like this place. I humbly bow out of this thread.

[Sliverdub]

Ok dont laugh at my crappy production this is why i don't have a soundcloud at the moment, you hear this growl effort I've done well that is the problem, but tomorrow it will be the same problem on something else lol

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/71326780/eeorr ... 0thing.mp3

You can hear the fizz on the growl and the sirenish sound.

its only a few seconds not a whole track

[Sliverdub]

Can I get away with low passing them kinds of sounds? ^^

[p12]

hm, u could try sending it through some amp or smth

please do something about the bells though, thats the real prob imo ;D

[Electric_Head]

hm, u could try sending it through some amp or smth

please do something about the bells though, thats the real prob imo ;D

So he could send it through a banana?
Seems legit.

[Sliverdub]

Ha ha the bells, lol it's just a loop from vengeance future house, I've only been at it since I started on here, couple of months at most so not to clever with my production yet lol I just posted it to find out what you guys would do to combat that harshness, I do know there is plenty of other stuff wrong its just one thing at a time for me. I needed to make sure it's clear the issues I'm having. I think we are singing from the same sheet as I've had some cool suggestions so thanks!

[p12]

hm, u could try sending it through some amp or smth

please do something about the bells though, thats the real prob imo ;D

So he could send it through a banana?
Seems legit.

http://gadgetgangster.com/news/56-jeffs ... synth.html

[mthrfnk]

If it's crackling you may be pushing it too hard. What wet/dry levels are you using?

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

A lot of time the grit comes from very high frequencies, sometimes lowpassing your mid range bass can bring out the sound a lot!

Ive thought about this as the problems I'm getting seem to be high up, Ive not got any multi band plugin and splitting the frequencies is not realistic for me at the moment (every time I do it I create more problems).

For splitting freqs I use FreqSplitter it's surprisingly clean and straight forward. It has 4 outs and you can turn each band on/off as well as change the filter pole for each band.

Its basically this high crackly effect like high pitched grit that sounds rubbish. Ive listened to loads of music by other "real" producers and they seem to get their stuff tearing without the fizzy shit that comes with it.

That sound you're after is literally down to hours upon hours of practice. There are a few 'tips' though like resonant filter sweeping > distortion > eq > compression, in that order. You do it in that order because you want to sweep the filter resonance through an area of the sounds timbre you'd like to emphasize, then the distortion adds content as harmonics of those particular frequencies making them more prominent. The EQ is then used to remove and harshness or otherwise unwanted stuff and also to colour/alter the sound a little more to your liking. Finally the compression is used to tame any peaks, even the dynamic range and bring out subtler areas of the timbre into the foreground. Doing this in very small amount a couple of times yields the best results it seems.

It's a dark art man, it really is that annoyingly vague in some respects. Keep in mind that about 90% of the time (and I can confidently say that) the sounds you are making are far more usable than you might think. we're incredibly prone to becoming used to a sound, having worked on it on repeat for so long. We lose perspective of what it might sound like in a composition, surrounded by other elements, used melodically and/or with a different rhythmic nature. It's one of my closely held opinions that this point raised is in fact one of the fundamental defining differences between a producer worth their salt and a struggling and frustrated artist - Creative Context. As hard it is to create and settle on a sound you like, is knowing when (and how) that sound can work within a mix. I think the art isn't so much about the skill of synthesis, but of the act of taking a collection of relatively boring sounds and making them relate in exciting ways. So don't get so hung up on sound fidelity so much it hinders you. The steps after that are often much closer than you think and require looking at your current noise on the workbench in a different way. Food for thought.

So for a mid bass how much do you low pass? I know this all depends on the mix etc and what sounds good but there must be some piece of advice that is good as a guide. And what gets the best results? is it actually low passing or can you sometimes get away with a high shelf cut?

I think you're a little confused here. A low pass filter as another terms for a high cut filter (and visa versa), they progressively reduce frequencies above the cutoff point add infinitum at a rate proportional to the pole count. A high shelf filter is a shelving filter and simply reduces/boosts all frequencies past the cut off point by the same amount you are raising/lowering the cutoff point in a comparatively linear manner (no steepness).

Try a 6 or 12 pole low pass filter (very smooth) with resonance to taste (be restrained, less is often more with these things) set so the resonance is peaking at around the top end freqs of the signature pocket of freqs for that sound. By that i mean where the growl sounds most defined, this is situational. The smooth filter will pull off the high end just a little allowing the lower harmonics through. You can then add subtle distortion to bring them back in a controlled manner.

The other thing is people have mentioned cutting notches out, how are you finding these harsh frequencies, are you scanning around to find them and then cutting because when I do this I feel like using 3 or 4 notches and it seems a bit overkill, intact its is, once I've cut out all the nastiness I've very often am left with something with no character.

Again this is down to a dark art and lots of practice while putting a lot of effort in to thinking about that sound in a wider context. I think we all often fall victim to what you're talking about, so when it hits backtrack and try a different more subtle approach. Have a think about what exactly the character of the sound is that you're working on, having gained insight from how what you did altered the sound in a negative manner, you can go back and have more of a grasp on what frequencies are giving that sound it's character and apply creativity in a more informed manner. Replacing the freqs you cut, or maybe just reducing them less than you did before, try boosting them maybe, or something completely different. Before you have your head round this fiddly subject it can be annoyingly counter intuitive. The simple answer to solving this problem is in doing what I've said thousands of times over a long relationship with music production. You will slowly gain an intuitive knowledge of sound sculpting; with all its very small and exact, mutually interdependent and situational aspects. Some things you just can't teach, the higher iteration aspects of processing 'your' sound at your point in time can only be truly explored by yourself, and that is the great barrier

1 last thing is there a distortion that doesn't have a harsh crackly top, I've got sausage fattener, logic stock plugins and that free camel distortion. they all do this crackle thing :/

Again I'll mention saturation plugins. Baxxpander - Ferox - FerricTDS - XBass4000L - Are all free and should get you started with saturation. It's much much subtler than distortion. Play about with it with isolated sounds as it's sometimes much harder to hear what it's doing in a full mix. Also keep in mind that if you're trying to add saturation or distortion onto a sound thats already got a lot of high frequency content, you're essentially adding sprinkling sugar onto a sugar cube, you're not going to be able to hear what it's doing, or it's just going to sound shit.

Start off with pretty warm/dull sounds and experiment with saturation/distortion in small amounts and several stages. Messing with a sine wave, the aforementioned and a spectrum analyzer will teach you a lot.

Have patience, try and keep a clean ear, take regular breaks and approach this with an inquisitive mind and keen ear, pay attention to what happens and be creative with it. There's nothing stopping you from eventually being a growl king.

Hope this helped. Peace.