Good Distortion for Synths

[lerone]

Hi mate!

I'd check out some of the electro harmonix stuff. For what you have specifically mentioned, using the 'English Muffin' as a parallel distortion unit is f*cking wonderful. Blend to taste and voilla! This thing is actually a godsend for me. Check out the promo vids on you tube or something, you'll see what I mean.
I often use it along side Refined Audiometrics CLAS on the parallel signal of the muffin' to bring certain things gently forward in the mix, but with a bit more 'bite'. Its a free tool, but the company pedigree is about on par with Algorithmix. For me, parallel processing is the key 99% of the time.



Good luck mate!

Toby

[bbow73]

some of you must be rich as $#it, I can't believe some of the high-end recommendations being made for some friggin distortion.

I used to play with a lot of vintage fx. There is so much tone control in synths that the tone of your distortion is either secondary* or completely dominates the tone.
Ex, anything running through a max'd Big Muff will sound like a Big Muff.

I use an overdrive on set on 1 or 2 on some things to add a bit of color or a bit of crust (boxes in the tube screamer family). To totally destroy a sound I use a DOD digital distortion or an Acetone Distortion +. Before the boutique explosion those were the ugliest distortions I could find.

*Things that will help the distortion are the synths cutoff&res, ring/cross mod, reverb and noise. Tweek that stuff and you can get more screech out of a distortion. Also, opening up the release will give you some good inharmonic chaos.

Having said all that, I love the distortion that I get from my super expensive tape delay ,
and I've been drooling over the Metasonix boxes since the day I saw them.

[mutilatedlip]

Hi Folks

First post, so don't be harsh

I use the Crowther Hot Cake to drive my Moog Little Phatty. Sounds incredible.

Failing that, I second the Ohmboyz Predator vote.

[choice_of_meat]

Pedals - Pedals a great for this... so many flavors... just take a peek at the guitar forums to quickly see how subjective it all is..seems bass distortion pedals might work better than pedals voiced for guitar, but most mentioned ahve anly been for guitar. I have found the Blackstone pedal to be great (buffer engaged) for all sorts of seriously good distortion.
so in your budget: 2-3 pedals...

Then theres other dedicated devices, culture vulture, preamps, console etc.. I use various things with tubes that can be overdriven, but also A real guitar amp is nice, something like my THD bivalve is great as you can swap tube and it has a line level out.. you can pick up a UNivalve for about what you are asking or another of the small wattage tube switching amps.... Again a great guitar voiced distortion thing and it doubles as an amp!

I think distortion on one level or another is a really really important element to much of what our ears like to hear... I mean look at all the boxes over $1000 that offer that "special sound" of iron, or tubes, of tape, etc.. etc.. The synth world is not as obessed with distortion tone like the guitar guys... but maybe we should be.

[lerone]

Yeah definitely. Anyway, i suggested the English muffin, different kettle of fish. I would regard that as a mix trick not a way to drastically alter the sound as an effect. capiche?

[choice_of_meat]

Agree with lerone on the parallel thing.

+1 Blend to taste!

[Carey M]

Holy crap! I want one of these!

- CM

[Sensorychaos]

c'mon guys...

[Batchainpuller78]

One more for the Sherman Filterbank!

[vibralux]

One more vote or Sherman –*badass box**– and Yes*it can be subtle –*WET/ DRY knob is the secret here. I use it for heavy dirt with my drum machines and synth and for vox – just a tad on input and fiddle with the Wet/dry knob – so wheb You take it off something is missing*–*just like with reverb. I also second the Ohmicide –*the interface is bloody mess and some of the parameters tiny , but it sound mighty good*– and it is flexible*–*I mean f l e x i b l e

Peace

M

[Mantik]

since i own a very cheap tube amp for my recording synth chain i stay away from every plugin and came to the conclusion that non-analog distortion sucks realy bad.

get yourself a tube and just overdrive the input. get yourself more tubes to have some more possibilites but for my case i will stay away from software in the future.

[Mantik]

i realy think that a nice tube is the key for realy good distortion.
i use a mic preamp for this needs. its cheap, the tube is from china. it sounds so much better compared to all the (expensive) software and even some distortion-pedals (without a tube). marketing is one site of the coin, how it sounds is the other.

[aeonlux]

Originally Posted by Mantik

...non-analog distortion sucks realy bad.

Often true. Good-sounding distortion is easily had from a myriad of analog devices, tube, solid-state, and otherwise.

That said, IME, not all digital devices are poor as it concerns distortion, even if most are. The Kurzweil KSP8 can do some amazing distortion in the digital realm. The Eventide rack units from the DSP4000 onward can all do some great-sounding distortion (if not "classic" in tone). Some amp emulators, both hard and soft, can generate musically-pleasing drive tones.


cheers,
Ian

[bbow73]

Originally Posted by Mantik

since i own a very cheap tube amp for my recording synth chain i stay away from every plugin and came to the conclusion that non-analog distortion sucks realy bad.

get yourself a tube and just overdrive the input. get yourself more tubes to have some more possibilites but for my case i will stay away from software in the future.

well, not all digital distortion is software. Like I said before, my DOD digital distortion (DigiTech PDS1550) blew away all the vintage distortions that I had (not for guitar, for industrial synths). I know that DOD is generally sucky and not one of the 'cool' manufacturers, but maybe they accidentally struck gold with that one.

Also, some tubes produce a good sound and others don't. Some distortion boxes have a tube that doesn't do anything but capitalize on the folks that assume anything with a tube is going to sound better.

[fragletrollet]

One more thumb up for the Ohmforce stuff. Ohmicide rocks, and so does Quad Frohmage! 4-band distortion with lfo/envelope follower on each parameter

[cosmos]

MEK/PEK can put out evil distortion, any cheap console pre driven to the max could sound very nice, my soundcraft spirit ch pre sound freeking @$%@# pushed all the way up on TB303.. and of course like i mentioned, S H E R M A N S H E R M A N S H E R M A N ..

[ignatius]

Originally Posted by Sensorychaos

c'mon guys...

+1 for ohmicide. this plug is the shit. really. so much you can do with it but i think the OP is looking for hardware. but yeah, ohmicide is one of the most interesting plug ins of the last several years.

i picked up a pigtronix 'disnortion' from analogue haven a while ago and really dig it. great on drums too.

[m.nash]

Originally Posted by Carey M

Holy crap! I want one of these!

- CM

I have this combo. And let me tell you - incredible! Completely phattens up the sound. Beautiful harmonics, rich low end. Neat mid range boost effect which you can sweep. It also has thid natural drift in conjunction with the Moog. Love it.

It also has a perfect range for me, from a subtle phat blown tubes effect to blarin vortex kind of feel with just the right amount of grit. One thing it doesn't do is screaching overkill, so if thats what you want, look somewhere else.

I use it on my Voyager RME and MicroKorg. I promise to post some clips for you guys when I get back to the studio next week.

[jchadstopherhuez]

the thermionic culture vulture is insane...and can give you a wide variety of distortion from subtle to simply sick.

i've had great luck using it on boring synth parts, drum loops, vocals...etc...etc.

cheers,

jchristopherhughes

[floyd atema]

The Ibanez Supertube works as good on synths as it does on vocals. Of course is originally was designed for guitar but it's a great little box. They're quite cheap as well.

[tekara]

D16 Devastor does it for me.

Can be as subtle as you want, or as in our face as you want.
3 filters to adjust levels of distortion.

Quite brilliant if you ask me. They sound especially good on drum kicks for some reason.

[bugs]

iZotope Trash

[Ankherias]

I often use the d16 plugins Devastor and Decimort, both work really well for synths and are also capable of producing subtle effects.

I've also tried Ohmicide but found it unwieldy and even though it sounded nice by itself it didn't sit well in a mix IMHO. Guitar pedals for synth are in my opinion a bit unpredictable, sometimes they work, sometimes not.

In the future I hope to get a Culture Vulture though.

[gregwar]

My main arsenal includes a eh micro synth, metal muff (top boost is sick for leads), boss ds-1 keele mod, mt-2 lofi mod/broken, seymour duncan twin tube (good for guitar terrible on most synths without a noise gate), highly recommend the adrenalinn 3 really great digital sound and amp sim, fuzz face, etc.

Most of these are 1 trick ponies but I'm picking up a Sherman tommorow hopefully! Don't have any experience with it but it's not a distortion it's a really aggressive filter that resonates and overdrives. The boss od-2 pedal is great if you don't need filters. My synth has low and high outputs so I blend the driven (no bass) with the clean and eq that sounds great for $40

[ignatius]

i posted an mp3 in the schippman thread of an elektron monomachine going through the e/f. there's a bit of distortion dialed in and some verb/delay on it which i drop out of the path about half way through so you can hear the schippman/elektron on its own.

i like the distortion in the unit a lot and it works well w/the filters/compressor.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/4038088-post63.html

[Stiff]

Plug-in: Ohm Force Ohmicide.

Hardware: Culture Vulture or a guitar rig (amp, pedal etc.).

[Greg_KPX]

Originally Posted by Mike Tholen

You might wabt to check out a Sherman Filterbank.
Sherman Productions

definitely

[gregwar]

Picked up a Sherman filterbank last night wicked unit, highly recommend it does a lot more than distortion and sounds thick especially on bass

[Doktorfuture]

I've found great distortion tonight using two schippman's into two ibanez analog delays almost dry (sort of cuts some of the intensity the schippmans can do).

Originally Posted by ignatius

i posted an mp3 in the schippman thread of an elektron monomachine going through the e/f. there's a bit of distortion dialed in and some verb/delay on it which i drop out of the path about half way through so you can hear the schippman/elektron on its own.

i like the distortion in the unit a lot and it works well w/the filters/compressor.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/4038088-post63.html

[sweetmojo]

Had some very interesting results a while back running the keys through the Epiphone Valve Junior (or you could use any other "baby" amp, I guess).