Digital Distortion

[nddhc]

Ive always been under the impression that digital distortion is a VERY BAD THING and should be avoided at all costs.

However, recently ive found that a little clipping on certain tracks makes them sound much better to my ears (Even better than some effects could give)

I still agree that recording something TOO LOUD (resulting in distortion of the whole track) sounds horrible, but I think a little sounds really nice.

Especially when im doing a bass track... I find that letting the inital pop or strum of the bass line clip adds a nice sound. Maybe its just me?

Today I was recording an organ sound from my keyboard and every few seconds it would clip off and it gave it a nice crackling sound. I know it sounds crazy, but I liked the sound of it haha.

Do any of you ever find yourself letting stuff purposely clip because you like the way it sounds? Or am I way off here...

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Just to make it clear, I am limiting my discussion solely to the use of digital clipping as a means of shaping the character of the sound, not as a means of squeezing extra volume out of it. The former is somewhat defensible, the latter is not.

Of course distortion can sound nice; why do you think everybody loves analog? Because it's accurate and distortion-free? No, because the way it distorts sounds is pleasing to some people.

There's really little difference in concept between pushing a signal into digital clipping for the sake of the sound and pushing a tape or a tube into oversaturation for the sake of that sound. A nice trick intended for special effect. However, I'd put that in the same class as bandpass filtering a vocal to make it sound like AM radio; a good technique to have in the toolbox for when it's needed, but not something I'd like to use all that often.

Sometimes there's a fine line between "crisp" and "harsh", and the less trained the ears, the thinner that line gets. Digital clipping, to my ears, tends to sound brittle and harsh, much like many of the first generation CDs produced with the early 16-bit converters that had that cold "digital" sound that so many hated early on. If I'm looking for a brittle attack sound, digital clipping on the attack an be a nice easy way to accomplish that.

If, however I want a crisp, sharp attack that doesn't sound like it's being clipped (which is what I'll prefer 48 out of 50 times), I'll accomplish that through EQ and compression and keep the FS below zero, thank you very much .

And I think after your ear gets more training and sophistication under its belt, you'll refine your sound in much the same way and wind up using clipping for that rare special effect but using unclipped techniques for a more "polished" sound most of the time.

G.

[Micter]

I said "Nah, you're crazy" not that I think you're crazy but that was the closest match.

I don't like to hear digital clipping myself. It's too harsh.

[VomitHatSteve]

I can see how it would have its uses, but using distortion like that is something you'd have to be very good at to get it to sound good. I voted that you're crazy just because there is no way that I would try to distort something at my current skill level. Maybe if you ask again in 5 years or so, my answer will change.

[David Katauskas]

YES...I use it sometimes as a noticable effect on vocals.

[chessrock]

Well, if the goal is to make something sound cheap and shitty, like it was tracked by a total shit-head amateur ... then I would say that there are several ways of accomplishing this. Judicious use of digital clipping being towards the very top of that list of things. Congratulations for stumbling on to that one. If I should ever need help making something sound like complete and utter shit, I will keep your name in my rolodex for just such an occasion.

.

[BRIEFCASEMANX]

I clipped the converters on my keyboard BADLY as an effect once but that's kind of different. Pure digital distortion sounds stupid.

[David Katauskas]

Originally Posted by chessrock

Well, if the goal is to make something sound cheap and shitty, like it was tracked by a total shit-head amateur ... then I would say that there are several ways of accomplishing this. Judicious use of digital clipping being towards the very top of that list of things. Congratulations for stumbling on to that one. If I should ever need help making something sound like complete and utter shit, I will keep your name in my rolodex for just such an occasion.

.

I always enjoy your colorful diatribes that describe your opinions. However, making things sound like “shit” as an effect (not just by using clipping) have been used by bands from Pink Floyd to Pantera. So keep your rolodex handy.

[Harvey Gerst]

There is another factor called "emotional impact", where you want to give the impression of raw power. Something so powerful that no equipment can capture the entire range of emotion. So on really loud portions, you introduce some clipping to give the impression that the singer or whatever was too powerful for the equipment to handle.

Like everything else, it's a tool. Use it if it fits the context of the music.

[chessrock]

Originally Posted by David Katauskas

I always enjoy your colorful diatribes that describe your opinions. However, making things sound like “shit” as an effect (not just by using clipping) have been used by bands from Pink Floyd ...

Well, if you're talking about the Final Cut, then you definitely have a point there. But then we're not just talking about Roger Waters' songwriting going down the tubes, either.

I forgot that everything after Adam Heart Mother was recorded to Pro Tools HD pegging the digital converters in to the red.

My mistake. Carry on.

.

[noisewreck]

I have absolutely no problems with any form of digital distortion, as long as it's done for sound design purposes and like SSG said "not to squeeze extra volume". A lot of electronic musicians use digital distortion at sampling stage. For example clipping an 808 kick can add certain quality to it, and because it decays naturally, at first you get a square wave, which then gradually morphs into the sort of dirty sine that the 808 is. Had great uses in gabba, but it's still being used in edgier electronica.

But why limit digital distortion to just clipping? Any sort of mathematical transfer function can be used for some sort of distortion. For example, I like the waveshapers on my Kurzweil K2600, so much so, that I wanted to build an emulation of it in Reaktor... luckily for me one of the geniuses at the NI Reaktor forum was able to figure out what the hell was going on with it mathematically Putting an 808 kick or tom through a sine shaper turns it into a very playable and dynamic electric bass

I have also built a replica of the Kurzweil VAST WRAP (wraparound distortion) DSP in Reaktor as well. You think clipping is harsh? HA! Try wraparound distortion. It's so extreme that it literally obliterates any semblance of the original, at it's extreme turning everything into white noise. Not everyone's cup of tea. However, it can be put to some very effective use, not only as distortion, but--because of the way it works--to coax musical tones out of LFOs and stuff that's tuned below the audible range. I routinely take drum sounds such as timbales, or congas (acoustic drum sounds work best because they are more complex), tune them down by about 5-6 octaves and loop them... this definitely puts them beyond the audible range. Then I pass them through extreme amounts of wraparound distortion. The result is semi-random pops, clicks, short and odd musical phrases... great for layering below some atmospheric sounds. Used in conjunction with other synthesis methods such as filtering and waveshaping, it can have many many uses.

Then of course there are the granular deconstructive methods used so effectively by people such as Fennez, Autechre, and for more...uh... "pop"... BT.

I am a firm believer in non-apologetic use of given equipment. You got some noisy analog gear? GREAT! Play with the noise instead of fighting it. You got a digital sampler that has a nasty habit of aliasing? GREAT! You can get some tones that are akin to ring modulation, yet have a life of their own. You have sampled drums? GREAT! play more hits than a human drummer can possibly manage, machine gun those damn kicks while pitchbending and filtering them

Just use your head, and excercise some judgement

[Fishmed]

I said, "Nah, you're crazy ". Digital clipping drives me crazy. If I hear it in and of my mixes, I will hunt down the guilty track. I the past when I used my PC for recording I would sum several tracks together and the combination of the levels might clip. The only time I experince that now is if the mic-pre clips during a sound check.

[kahuna]

Analogue distortion is one reason really old recordings sound cool. One of my favs is the Disney Fantasia recordings.

[Fletcher]

I've heard a couple of people getting excited about 'digital distortion' on things like snare drum hits... the unfortunate fact of the matter is that the sound gets very tiresome very quickly and actually distracts from the emotional impact of the overall presentation.

The one thing I've found about effects is that they should sound good on a universal level... the effect should always sound good no matter whether or not it is appropriate for the overall presentation of the song.

There are times when that effect will be appropriate for the presentation of the music and times when the effect will be inappropriate for the presentation of the music... it should just never sound awful when it exists on it's own. Digital distortion will often sound like complete ass when its on its own which means it is probably not a good idea to try it in application as it may very well become a distraction to the presentation somewhere down the line.

As always... YMMV.

Peace.

[slidey]

it all depends what one is after, as an effect it can be alright sometimes in the shaping of the sound, but if it's to get more volume

personally I hate the sound of digi clipping/distortion & try to avoid it all costs

[noisewreck]

Originally Posted by Fletcher

I've heard a couple of people getting excited about 'digital distortion' on things like snare drum hits... the unfortunate fact of the matter is that the sound gets very tiresome very quickly and actually distracts from the emotional impact of the overall presentation.

One word: DeEsser Does wonders when you want to take out the "irritation" factor from them. Also, one can take a distorted snare, maybe low-pass it, and layer it below another snare hit. There are many ways one can use a digitally distorted snare...

Originally Posted by Fletcher

The one thing I've found about effects is that they should sound good on a universal level... the effect should always sound good no matter whether or not it is appropriate for the overall presentation of the song.

With all due respect, I have a major problem with blanket statements like this. What the hell does "Good" sound mean anyway? "Good" for what? "Good" as in "pleasing"? What if I want to irritate the hell out of the listener, just because I want to induce that kind of an emotional state? Obviously it's not going to work for Pop, but some underground Industrial acts certainly like to explore such so to speak "negative" emotional states

Originally Posted by Fletcher

There are times when that effect will be appropriate for the presentation of the music and times when the effect will be inappropriate for the presentation of the music... it should just never sound awful when it exists on it's own. Digital distortion will often sound like complete ass when its on its own which means it is probably not a good idea to try it in application as it may very well become a distraction to the presentation somewhere down the line.

Well, if someone just clips the entire mix bus, yeah it gets irritating, tiring and for most situations, musically questionable. However used as punctuation, or even as part of an overall sound design process, digital distortion is as valid a tool as filtering, IMO (of course) Take for example some dark D'n'B acts such as Cause for Concern, Tech Itch and the like, and listen to their evil twisty basslines. In many cases, at some point of the sound design process something has gone through some form of digital distortion, and has then been resampled, recombined, detuned, filtered, resampled, redistorted, refiltered and so on and so forth to get to the end result.

Like I mentioned in previous post, clipping is not the only digital distortion, although it seems the most prevalent. Have you ever taken a drum loop and done FM on it? NI FM7 VSTi is great for this kind of mayhem when used as an insert. What about aliasing and quantization? I love the sound of aliasing, specially when sweeping the sample divider, and believe me, I don't think it sounds like ass at all!

[killmachine]

I wouldn't do it in the digital domain, not only for the fact that if you do get a full on clip it sounds like complete ass, but for the fact that it's so hard to control. You can always find away to add some overdrive type sounds after the fact. I wouldn't risk ruining a good take trying to find just the right level of clip, especially not for bass when all you need to do is hook up a pedal to it somehow and dial in the perfect amount....

[TexRoadkill]

If you're talking about clipping the convertors or DAW mix buss then I'd have to say it usually sounds like shit.

Clipping an analog preamp or effects unit can sometimes sound cool.

[Garik]

I hate digital distortion period,its bad enough that its digital...dont make kill you

[noisewreck]

Well, I will challange all of you wussies to tell me that this sounds like ass

[xistenz]

Originally Posted by noisewreck

Well, I will challange all of you wussies to tell me that this sounds like ass

hey man, that's pretty slick! is it me, or does something about one of those loops sound familiar...?

[noisewreck]

Originally Posted by xistenz

hey man, that's pretty slick! is it me, or does something about one of those loops sound familiar...?

Thanks!

The first break that comes in is a mangled Amen (there is a bit of waveshaping, ring mod and frequency shifting going on on it), then there is the the Answer break which I use in a sort of "melodic" way.

Is that what you're referring to?

[Garik]

Noise...good job tastefully done

[ocnor]

Originally Posted by noisewreck

Well, I will challange all of you wussies to tell me that this sounds like ass

What in the hell was that noise? Did you leave the tape rolling while you were doing your laundry?

[noisewreck]

Originally Posted by ocnor

Did you leave the tape rolling...?

Think digital, think digital