Distortion plug-in

[TelePaul]

Hey guys, loving cubase SE 3 but im wondering about the 'distortion' and 'da tube' inserts...umm..is it me..or are they just bad?

[scrubs]

The only thing I've used "da tube" for is dirtying up vocals and keyboard parts. Most distortion plugs are pretty limited, imo. What exactly are you trying to do? For adding distortion to guitars, I'd look at the simulanalog plugs. They're free and they JCM900 plug sounds pretty good. MDA also makes a plug called the mdaCombo that has a few speaker simulators, which can be useful to put after a distortion plug, to make it sound a bit more "amp-like."

[Farview]

Most distortion and 'da-tube' type plugins are not for guitar. They are for putting some hair on an otherwise clean signal.

You are looking for a guitar amp simulator.

[TelePaul]

Originally Posted by Farview

Most distortion and 'da-tube' type plugins are not for guitar. They are for putting some hair on an otherwise clean signal.

You are looking for a guitar amp simulator.

oh cool, yeah i have some guitar combos which work well, ill try the distortion plugs for other things.

[noisewreck]

Also, you can get a lot of milage out of Quadrafuzz.

The other thing is, don't use single-band distortion plugs all by themselves. There is nothing that says you should just put DaTube or Antares Tube on a track, and crank it up to "11" and hope for the best. I routinely sandwitch those between EQs, filters, flangers, phasers, etc. sometimes even using more than one instance. Try using 2-3 of them with mild settings, sandwitched between EQs and other, rather than one instance cranked all the way up. This way you gain an enormous amount of control and soundshaping possibilities.

[TelePaul]

whoah thanks for that man. I was thinking of sketching out sum drums with the lm 7, mixing them down as an audio file then bouncing it back in and applying some drive...to improve on the fake sound. Yay or nay?

[noisewreck]

double post

[noisewreck]

Well, it depends on what plugs you're gonna use. Try Magneto for example, but don't push it too hard

Another thing you could try is make a copy of the track and apply the distortion/drive to the copy, then mix it in to taste.

When applying distortion to drums, I find that snare and sometimes kick benefit the most, with things such as cymbals and hihats getting too harsh and brittle. So, if you can, I'd suggest you bounce the snare and the kick separately, so you can have finer control.

Another thing you may consider is putting an EQ or a low-pass filter (2 pole, i.e. 12dB octave LPF usually works best) before the distortion plugin and rolling off the hights before the distortion. Just play with the cutoff frequency, until the irritating edge is gone. You may also need to follow the distortion with another EQ to control any mid-range honk.

Finally, experiment!