Perfect, well let me ellaborate a little further on the topic, 'Distortion', and ways of applying/utilising Distortion w/ Dance Music.
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*A Little Background/Something for your Brain*
Distortion, is often considered an amplification tool, but it is also considered a texturing tool.
The difference being
Amplitude - Relates to - Power - Which is Interpretted as - Volume by Humans
Texturing - Relates to - Feeling - Which is Intepretted as - Harmonics by Humans
What i want to emphasise here, is that you need to balance the Amplitude, and the Textures, to provide the Ideal Volume & Harmonics to both the Dry signal & the Wet Signal of your distortion chain.
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*Some Examples*
Moving forward; here's a little liveset of a whole heap of Thrash/Trash Electro i made between 2010-2011 in my project Against Time & Kaos; this is merely 1 of 6 of my projects, and has only be provided to give a bit of Distortion background; please feel free to scroll through these for some ideas of textures; most of the original Thrash i made, was through multi-processing/chained distortions on very simple waveforms.
https://soundcloud.com/againsttimekaos/ ... e-releases
Since the post yesterday, i started a few new concepts, entirely unmix'd, but you can hear how i'm going at the distortion chains overboard, just to assist in explaning textures.
None of these of course are released as of yet; so please do not share beyond this forum's viewers.
https://soundcloud.com/againsttimekaos/ ... rt/s-RAlr5
https://soundcloud.com/againsttimekaos/ ... ed/s-Q5oYY
https://soundcloud.com/againsttimekaos/ ... ct/s-KzI9j
*Some Later Examples*
Since the arise of plugins such as Ohmicide, certain productions have been given a ridicolous edge by Distortion, its amazing what you can really do with such plugins now, texturing is a whole new ball-game and often its about choosing why you want to distort something, rather then distorting it just for the sake of it.
For Example yet again, in Dubstep, you will see a lot of artists reducing Distortion, increasing Grit, to ensure that the low frequencys are not interpretted as rough, however smooth and whole.
You may not like this particular comment, but "David Guetta" is a Round Man when it comes to his mixing,mastering and sound use, goodluck seeing him use anything other then some mild hi-distortion.
Then on the other side of the spectrum, you get artists such as Skrillex, you almost always tube distort the bass, as the crunch is directly interpretted as power, which people loose their shit to on drugs.
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Distorting & Creating a Bassline
*When Distorting a Bassline, it is first important to check the following off your list
- Midi Track
- Bass Patch (*Example, Massive VST Bass Patch*)
- Check Monophonique/Polyphonic Voicing; [Research Monophonique and Polyphonic, mono - not mono in layman's terms]
- In Checking the Voicing, you want to understand that you will probably be working with heavily mono sounds, settings such as Polyphonic - 1, Unison - 1 are not uncommon in Bass Synthesis, i would recommend however almost always going for a Monophonique Bass (Regarding Dance Music) as it will have more of a Bassy feel.
- When dealing with Distortions, you almost always want some waveform that has a SAW WAVE property, to then base your bass patch on. Its important to understand no one is ever going to hand this to you, so your best of learning from the bottom up, how to get some really nice long sustained SAW-like Bass, because you can apply the logic to most convention EDM nowerdays.
*Oscillator 1 - Saw Property*
*Oscillator 2 {If Avaliable in Synth} - Harmonics* - Try looking for a Oscillation/Waveform that has a good Harmonic to it, this means that when your turn off or mute oscillator 1, you want to have a nice tonal feeling to whatever you choose to run on your Oscillator '2'. Several large sound designers in the world swear by a method of (MOVEMENT - HARMONIC - PUNCH) Which is my direct interpretation of the way they prepare their patches, but to keep this from being a rant, simply play around heaps with your 2nd Oscillator to try get some cool textures to your sound.
- If you find that at more then '1' point it sounds good, perhaps applying an Envelope to the Oscillator, to go between the two WT (Wave Table) positions would be correct.
*Oscillator 3 {Optional} - Tear it up! - Trying to give your Bassline some extra sub? Maybe run a Sine Wave here on a lower octave? You really want to fill this up, with whats missing, if anything feels its absent.
Obviously when you get to FM Synthesis like FM8, i'd be looking at 4+ Oscillators to achieve a similar spectrum of sounds, however i would need to spend more time on the above to get it all in check.
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Spreading Distortion
*Its important when dealing with Distortion to split the frequencies, use Abletons Multiband Dynamics plugin to do this, or simply ask me for a patch for your Ableton*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtNT44GFA7c {This guy will show you also}
If you are not using Ableton, there are plenty of alternate solutions to this, including some plugins with pre-built in frequency splitting such as "Ohmicide".
NOW!
That you have your frequency's split, lets discuss
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FREQUENCY Processing
*To give you a starting point with Frequency Processing, think of the following for each band.
First Band Processing (0-250hz) Low Band, Sub Band
My first band, is my baby, this area is incredibly sensitive to tearing effects such as Overdrive and i would not suggest such distortion in this area. The Distortion effects that tend to work in this field are more "TUBE" Orientated, so there's a stronger sense of amplification, rather then a sense of texturing, however the outcome can be quite warm.
- Use Tube Distortion units in experiments, apply in large amounts and go backwards, always use a Spectrum on the channel, specifically if you have no idea what your doing frequency wise.
- Play around with "Phattening Plugins, more then Distorting Plugins" though i dont recommend this for every single track, the "Sausage Phattener" Plugin works on some more conventional dance music as a quick 2 knob bang for your buck approach to phattening.
- Compression in Band 1 is incredibly important, in my productions plays as more of the texturing/amplification tool then the distortion units ever will.
- DON'T FORGET TO EQ! Even if you're working with split frequency's, run an EQ Unit on the channel, and between 0-250hz, find the nice points, test and apply distortion knowledge.
2nd Band Processing (250hz-1.5k) YOU WANT TO MAKE THIS LOVE TO THIS AREA!
My second band, is my prince, this area i normally treat the most, and often work with incredibly small increments. Lets remember that a flooded mid range is going to completely ruin your track, so you need to treat this area with extreme precision! Whislt also having a good time.
- Use Overdrive like is candy in this area, you can really find a lot of power resides in the second band, this is often linked with the 2nd Octave, as you will fine E2 relates to blah blah blah of the frequency spectrum.... But for the sake of this exercise, Band '2' is your prince, make it happen.
- Use plugins like Saturators and run hard curves to try amplify the punch elements
- EQ and find your resonant point
- Probably dont compress this area, or if you do, use an Effect Plugins Compression like Camelphat, as oppose to analog compression.
- Try using Exciting plugins, these are plugins that treat haromincs and treble frequencys, but also do quite well between 1-3K.
3rd Band Processing (1.5K+)
My 3rd Band, is my princess, i don't normally go here too often, unless its to make some sweat bassline love, in this field i am working with Exciters, Inflators, plugins designed to bring up the true resonance in the upper treble, and in some cases, to absolutely buck the bip out of the princess ^_^ re0w.
Plugins such as Oxfords (Inflator) are insane here, they really just brighten or air up the top end so that its got this ridicolous crunchyness to it. Distortion is sensistive to Exciters, so layering these two together can be freaking awesome.
4th Band Processing (10K+)
My 4th Band, is too easy...
Once you have all the other bands, the upper most treble really just needs to be polished to fit the others. Tune to taste baby! But remember the Hi-Hats love this area, so dont try to stretch your band too hard after 13K
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Anything more specific i can help with guys?
