Your favourite Techniques and Plugins/Hardware for distortion on vocals?

[perx]

How do you use distortion/beef up/add grit to vocals?
Do you make preamps distort? Do you use plugins, dist pedals.. what?? ;-)

All I usually do on vocals is treat them with reverb/delay, or maybe some filters, etc.. Never really used distortion on vocals or even tried making them more "gritty".. Would be nice to get some tips on plugins or hardware along with some of your favourite techniques on how to use it on vocals.. Either in a subtle way or something really upfront.

Im working with a female singer right now where I feel I really want to dirty things down or add something extra to her vocal..

Thanks!

[nicksu]

I have one singer who loves D-Fi so I use that all the time for his vocals. I add delay and he's happy. I also use a avalon 737 for distortion but not as much.

[dhiltonlittle]

sherman filter bank is awesome on everything. as well as the sansamp. bombfactory has a sansamp plugin that is actually really good.

[robot gigante]

I like to overdrive a Neve pre, and/or an 1176.

[FatStudio]

I have 3 favorite analogue ways.

1.Culture Vulture mostly in T mode bias 0.6.
2.1176 all buttons in shortest attack and release.
3.Korg MS-10 .

[thenoiseflower]

re-amp through Fender Twin with a 421 in front of it.
Sans Amps GT2 or AC3,
Fender Blender into germanium.
Massey Tape Head thumbsup

[amanitas]

Personally I don't really like Amplitube on guitar, but with enough tweaking it sounds great on vox.

However as of late my MO has been to run the vox through a 70s Yamaha Mixer I have sitting around (EM 100 II) with a Metasonix TM7 hooked up to the reverb send (and the verb level somewheres around 50%) and then run that through a Silverface Fender Champ with a ribbon mic in front of it. Incidentally this same signal chain works great for guitars as well to get something approximating 70s country rock guitar tone of life (esp. when the guitar is a tele with a Fralin P-92 Twangmaster in it)... Definitely dirty sounding...

[perx]

thanks guys! :-)

anyone else?

[miqer]

The best plugin I have is Tritone Hydratone EQ... it has the Blast function, and Fire dial. It adds harmonic distortion... sounds fantastic. Very vintage sounding.

[Benmrx]

Sansamp PSA-1 on a Mult is one of my favorites for a nice blendable distortion. For something a little more esoteric/unique, try overloading a cheap preamp or line input.

This is one of the few times where having a shitty (Mackie) mixer can come in handy. Especially if you run 2 channels in series, with both of them cranked.

We've also got one of the PAIA "tube head" kits here that one of the guys built that can do a great job at ****ing things up.

[Matteran]

Reamping into a tiny 50s marshall tube amp is awesome. It's one of the one knob types (volume... that's it). Turn it all the way up. Mic with something like a 57, gives you a good lo-fi distortion.

If I need something more biting for heavier music, either reamping into a distortion pedal, or instancing one of the Waves GTR3 amps/stompboxes does me good.

[Royer121]

+1 for the 1176 in Nuke Mode....(using UAD Card)

[ITJ]

Software......SansAmp
Hardware.....ADR Vocal Stressor

[basho]

Blast vocal through a crappy computer speaker till it distorts and record it. Adjust for latency. Or get the singer to scream into a tube/metal pipe and mic the end of it. Physically messing with the sound always feels better to me than throwing on a stompbox or plugin.

[gabehr]

I've always either run vocals through a guitar amp (fender tube amp for more lo-fi, mesa/randall for something edgier) or through a distressor with the brit-mod (so, basically a cranked 1176 with all buttons in) to get distortion. I'm gonna have to try screaming through a metal pipe, though... that sounds like fun

[Holy Grail]

Ibanez TS9 (tubescreamer) with a Reampkit on a second channal on the SSL, adding comp an Eq on the channal.....blend in about 20% to the "dry" channal. Got very good results with that.

Or have also got good results using a Germanium into an LA3A. Also in parallell on it's one fader on the board.....

Have used Ampfarm an Sansamp plugins......but are getting better results with hardware....

[Reptil]

I've been using my BL-40 for that. For strong female vocals.
Or my Kultube, using the tube amp output. That gives it a more "classic" stature.
Going to build a DIY 525 (with attack controls) this summer, see how that works out for strong vocals. Anyone else using the 525?

[Dowda van Ded]

All these are good suggestions I think.. I would suggest sending to a parallel channel and doing what you want there - for something more subtle I will often smash a compressor such as Waves RenComp, or use any sort of tape sat. simulation.. I also really like the distortion on the Yamaha SPX900 on vox. Sometimes it works well to send to the reverb from this as well.

[picksail]

One of the cooler things that I've done was create a ridiculous effect for a lead vocal.

Not even sure what to call it so I'll just describe it:

I created a mono buss in ProTools and placed AutoTune on the buss first.
I manipulated it to function more as an effect than pitch correction (the vocal had already been tuned)

I then inserted SansAmp after AutoTune for some radio fuzz.

Then I put on another AutoTune after the SansAmp so that it would be affected by the added harmonic distortion generated from the SansAmp.

Then I just ran it in parallel to the vocal and rode it "around" the lead vox.

Silly erroneous effects. Sometimes they work and sometimes they just suck.

[af_analog]

reamp to a big muff (green russian one). Blend in parallel...super dirty

[macleodgrant]

what about ozone trash - i've tried it before and it has some incredible distortion algos and it's multiband

[Chris G]

check Ohmforce.com site. real nice dist plugs

[Sigma]

amp farm with a dual rectifier simulation on overdrive

[TheBluesBrother]

Something I did to add a little bit of grit on a vocal recently was this chain.

Mil Origin (overdriving the tube and using the transformer) -> GML compressor (for transparent compression) -> Distressor (1:1, but with 3rd harmonic distortion and the input cranked) -> api eq

All this nicely colored and probably saved an otherwise questionable vocal. I really like the Distressor/tube combination.

[Fabi]

For a softer distortion I ran too much level (you will need a lot) into a SSL 4000G+ and liked it a lot.

I also like Logics Bitcrusher, but it comes in quite heavy

Also Amplitube for a realy drastic change.

Just overdrive every analouge equipment you have and choose your favourite

[audiomichael]

Izotope Ozone is great for it, so is the Camel Phat and Camel Crusher.

[kcmoonshine]

I recently got great results with the Massey THC, blended in parallel.

[morebutter]

+1 on Sansamp PSA-1 hardware for this (and many other things.) Great effect for vocal distortion, and recallable by MIDI which is a big plus.

[perx]

Some great suggestions! Thanks! Gonna get that amp farm plugin.

Keep´em coming folks.. ;-)

[Pfhuck]

The PSA-1 hardware is waaaay cool for distortion effects. Never tried the plugin....

A Green Bullet or any other HI-Z microphone into (ANY stompbox distortion) can be GLORIOUS!!!!

Sometimes....

Or maybe just reamp after the fact?


Also, try the Sonalksis TBK. Click on FIERCE and crank that big 'ol knob clockwise.

MMmmmmm.....

Please and thank you,
Pfhuck