Analog gear that sounds like Hedd pentode?

[Saturator]

I'm the proud owner of a Hedd192 and have been known to yank the pentode knob pretty far clockwise - I like it like that!

I'd be interested to know if any of you slutz have a suggestion for getting that same sound out of analog gear - duh, a pentode, i guess!

Does anyone have a suggestion for a piece of gear that overloads like the pentode knob on the Hedd?

cheers

[nlc201]

Well, if you're searching for more of that same sound, you could always try.......another HEDD 192!!!



Sorry....I'm an ass....

[djui5]

Originally posted by nlc201
Well, if you're searching for more of that same sound, you could always try.......another HEDD 192!!!



Sorry....I'm an ass....

That's hillarious...

[product description snip]
HEDD gives any user who works with digital the ability to sound less digital and more analog.[/product description snip]

With that being said I'd say just about anything in the high end analog range should do it. Overdriving a lot of analog stuff has it's own charictaristics (however you spell it) and varies from piece to piece as much as a U87 sounds different from one of those crap Cascade mic's. Overdriving a API pre will be quite different than overdriving an SSL board pre. To be honest you probably won't find a piece of gear that sounds the same...but the analong distortion might sound nice and work for the project.

My suggestion is to find some analog pre on e-bay or something that you can bash the hell out of and not worry about wasting $2000 on....

[Saturator]

thanks djui5,

Is this something that is commonly done? Running a mix through a mic pre? The pentode knob on the Hedd has a sort of fattening effect. Something I haven't heard before from overloading analog gear. Maybe I haven't been trying the right stuff. Or is the Hedd pentode a sort of "idealized"distortion which is unattainable in the analog world?
Any suggestions for hi-end analog gear (pre's?) that overload in a "phat" manner?

cheers

[robot gigante]

What you'd probably want with a colored mic pre is not to run the whole mix through it, but the cumulative effect of several tracks each tracked through one mixed together imo.

Is the Hedd effect better than or unattainable with good analog gear? Of course not. It is a different color, but simply that. I'm finding myself rolling less and less on lately to tell the truth, depending on what the track needs. Though I do love it.

One well known way among many to get color (that I like to do) is by running something through a Manley Vari-Mu, compressing very little or not at all, and turning up the input knob until you find the right amount of saturation.

[Ted Nightshade]

I put a little piece of tape above the "pentode" knob on my Hedd, reading "shimmer".

Sold the Hedd though because I could get higher resolution versions of the sounds I was after using fussy puriste minimalist techniques during tracking to a nice analog tape machine, that does ample harmonic generation on it's own. Shimmering nicely thank you!

[Boogle]

Yeah Ted I kinda agree-sent mine back and went with Lavry. The DSP on the HEDD just didn't grab me.. felt kinda left out as everyone was raving about it. But it was a really good convertor though.

[Saturator]

Thanks so far. Getting hold of a great tape machine isn't really an option at this point. Would love to in the future, though. Any other suggestions for making stuff thicker (analog)?

[Ted Nightshade]

Originally posted by Saturator
Thanks so far. Getting hold of a great tape machine isn't really an option at this point. Would love to in the future, though. Any other suggestions for making stuff thicker (analog)?

well what I found was this- I was using the Hedd to repair damage done to the sound from the mixer (a custom MOSFET one- actually quite a good one compared to many), some funky connections, etc. This is even with the tape machine. Really going to very high quality purist path and making sure everything was tracked really well and stayed healthy is what began to make the Hedd unnecessary. That and the tape machine! But keeping it all really healthy is key to preserving the good harmonics you generate, with nice tube mics, great pres, whatever you use.

I've heard Fatso and/or Distressor (can't remember which) is working for some people, as far as getting it so lively that when captured to digital it sounds great.

I think that part of the issue is playback volume- when things are played back at real-life performance levels, which are very high indeed, and require truly massive and powerful playback systems, harmonic generation is not really necessary. But when things are played back more quietly (almost always), you need the extra harmonics to let you appreciate the tone colors in a way similar to the real thing live. That I think is why we need to exaggerate the harmonics a bit- at lower playback levels, what was evident live now gets lost in the background. Getting the harmonics hyped makes it sound more like it did live, at a lower volume of playback.

I do wonder what tube gear in particular gives the harmonic generation like that "pentode" process- you'd have to run the real tube kit pretty dang hot to get that kind of zing, I would think...

[Saturator]

Ted, I'm a little confused by what you're saying. We're talking about making stuff thicker (through adding distortion), but you're then saying you think you don't need it if you can capture stuff more cleanly! Or do you mean, capturing the original warmth (distortion) rather then "fake" Hedd-i-ness?!

The other thing you mentioned (low-volume playback) is an interesting and (i think) oft neglected issue. I normally think of it more in terms of compression. People tend to mix fairly loudly on small speakers, so they're actually listening to a healthy dose of (speaker) compression. But the compression is not actually "in" the sound. That's where a 2-buss comp comes in handy (IMHO).

Anyway, back to the issue at hand - fattening strategies!

[Ted Nightshade]

Well it's interesting. The Hedd acts as a compressor in the sense that the average volume becomes louder relative to the peak volume as a result of the harmonic generation. A goodly amount of the "compression" of tape is really harmonic generation, until you really slam the tape.

There are different vibes of distortion and different reasons for seeking distortion- One reason is to make it sound more like the real live article! Which is probably amply fat in person, but may not come off that way on playback. With digital things tend to sound a lot tidier recorded than they really do in person... one way to use distortion is to get things "untidy" like they really are, live... is it "distortion" if it sounds more like the source than it did "undistorted"?

There's distortion that adds the desirable harmonics, and distortion that kills the harmonics or adds the kind of harmonics that make things sound harsh and cold rather than fat and warm. Digital distortion tends to be of the cold and harsh variety...

The pentode knob adds a great deal of brilliance as well as fattening things up. Actually in my experience the fatness comes later in the higher settings, the brilliance comes first. Really good monitoring is necessary so you are not compensating for harmonic loss in the monitoring chain...

There are plenty of ways to fatten things that do not get you the kind of shimmer that the pentode knob on the Hedd provides. Really well-implemented tubes help for sure, but equally important is capturing the fatness that's there in the room and not losing it- it's easy to have things get thin on you! Digital issues kill the fatness fast... Mediocre D/As make things sound a lot thinner and colder, and may lead to all kinds of unnecessary corrections...

[Saturator]

Originally posted by Ted Nightshade
Well it's interesting. The Hedd acts as a compressor in the sense that the average volume becomes louder relative to the peak volume as a result of the harmonic generation.


...

That's exactly the way i think of the Hedd.....like a compressor......what i like about it is it adds fatness "from below", rather then trying to rein in louder parts so you can turn up the volume like a traditional compressor. With the Hedd, WYHIWYG (because the peaks stay the same), whereas with a normal comp, it's hard to judge if it sounds better 'cause it's louder.

Originally posted by Ted Nightshade

The pentode knob adds a great deal of brilliance as well as fattening things up. Actually in my experience the fatness comes later in the higher settings, the brilliance comes first. Really good monitoring is necessary so you are not compensating for harmonic loss in the monitoring chain...

...

you've got my number! That's how i normally use the pentode mode. Past midnight.....sometimes way after bed-time - but then you need to eq like crazy between 200-600 to correct for the excess energy it creates in this area.

Re live: I'm still confused. You're not talking about live gigs, are you (normally horrid sound)? - you're talking about a guitarist with an amp in a studio (for instance)?

[Ted Nightshade]

Right, what you're hearing in the tracking room. Not like on a typical gig...

A few of these ideas are making me think of Bob Katz's new book, Mastering Digital Audio. He discusses harmonic generation and analog tape, speaker compression and how that makes it hard to guage use of compressors, and he discusses a fascination technique called upward compression. Upward compression makes things louder, not quieter- I'd have to look it up in the book to give an accurate synopsis, but it's done by combining a compressed version with the uncompressed version. Never tried it, but it sounds like a really useful technique. A good book too.

[Saturator]

Originally posted by Ted Nightshade
A few of these ideas are making me think of Bob Katz's new book - he discusses a fascination technique called upward compression. Upward compression makes things louder, not quieter- I'd have to look it up in the book to give an accurate synopsis, but it's done by combining a compressed version with the uncompressed version. .

That's parallel compression - where you compress a mult of the source (possibly with slow attack/release and very low threshold) - then you mix it very soft (or maybe not so soft) under the original. I've tried it and it works like a MF! I'd be interested in trying it with some analog saturation instead - distorting the mult then mixing that in underneath very soft - maybe with some eq.

[Ted Nightshade]

From smoothmoniker to saturator...

Good ideas I think. Sounds like a lot of fun!

[jdunn]

Any suggestions for hi-end analog gear (pre's?) that overload in a "phat" manner?

Being an original HEDD owner, I would say try a Chandler Ltd TG2, the Abbey Road pre that everyone is raving about. I have one, and it does overdrive quite nicely. Chanlder recommends this use for it on their website actually.

[Saturator]

Sorry, this may be a dumb question, but can you run a whole mix through the TG2? If you've got your mix coming out of the Hedd at a pretty hot level (say RMS at around -13dBFS), isn't this going to be waaay too loud for the Chandler? I mean, isn't it supposed to amplify very quiet signals? So wouldnt you need to really turn down your source first?

[WunderBro Flo]

ever considered running stuff through a SPL charisma? cheap and easy to get, would not hurt buying one just to try it out! you can adjust the distortion/saturation curve, very neat feature...
Rock on, Pat

[jajjguy]

Originally posted by Ted Nightshade
I think that part of the issue is playback volume- when things are played back at real-life performance levels, which are very high indeed, and require truly massive and powerful playback systems, harmonic generation is not really necessary. But when things are played back more quietly (almost always), you need the extra harmonics to let you appreciate the tone colors in a way similar to the real thing live. That I think is why we need to exaggerate the harmonics a bit- at lower playback levels, what was evident live now gets lost in the background. Getting the harmonics hyped makes it sound more like it did live, at a lower volume of playback.

Great post, explains a lot about the many tricks we play in recording and mixing. Thanks.

[CV7]

If you try to run your mix thru the Chandler you will need a PAD to do it. Although some people do it, I've heard people running their mix thru GR 2NV's, though I personally wouldn't.

Maybe something like a Fatso would work for you?

[Scott Peterson]

Originally posted by CV7
If you try to run your mix thru the Chandler you will need a PAD to do it. Although some people do it, I've heard people running their mix thru GR 2NV's, though I personally wouldn't.

Maybe something like a Fatso would work for you?

What gear are you running there at CV7's studios?

[CV7]

Dude, not your rant again! Crawl back home. Pick a fight with someone thats on your own low level.

[Scott Peterson]

Originally posted by CV7
Dude, not your rant again! Crawl back home. Pick a fight with someone thats on your own low level.

Well geez man, that's not very nice. Just asking a question - you seem to know so much! Please share!

[CV7]

Hey, take your pussy rant back to the Gear Page Daycare center! you provoked me before, but with due respect to the GS's and Jules I won't bow down to your level again.

Apologies to the thread starter.

[Scott Peterson]

Originally posted by CV7
Hey, take your pussy rant back to the Gear Page Daycare center! you provoked me before, but with due respect to the GS's and Jules I won't bow down to your level again.

Apologies to the thread starter.

Wow, such hostility.

You don't have any experience with the FATSO then? From your post it seemed you did. Hmmm. Oh well!