unwanted distortion with distressor

[Phosphene]

Man, I'm listening to some guitar tracks I recorded a month ago or so and I didn't catch the distortion when I was tracking...not the good kind either. I remember I was using the Distressor as a limiter after the pre. I'm pretty darned sure it was the Distressor that is causing the distortion. I think it's when you use too fast of an attack or release, you can get static-y distortion (I'm not talking the 2nd and 3rd order distortion). Has anyone else had this happen or know what I'm talking about? I don't think there is anything wrong with the unit... yet.

 

[xstatic]

This is probably caused by bad gain staging. Especially with already distorted guitars its really easy to miss the fact that you might be driving your front end too hard. If you were using a limiter and it was actually limiting then you were probably driving your preamps way too hot at the tracking stage. This is exactly why I do not advocate the use of compression in tracking unless you are using it purely for gain staging. It is likely that you were hitting the preamps way too hard if there was a limiter in place, and then quite possibly driving the compressor with an already distroted signal into even more distortion. This is easy to have masked when you are tracking heavy guitars, especially if your control room is not isolated well enough from the amp cab itself. If you are hearing the amp cab in your control room and it is competing at all with your monitors, some of that extra distortion may not have been easily audible over the wash from the guitar cab. Upon playback however when there is not other sound to mask this it becomes more apparent, especially after you start pushing the guitars higher up in the mix. Try tracking with a much lower setting and if you really feel like you need more, allow the distressor to push the input up a little and keep the output a reasonable level. You should be able to get a pretty good output form the distressor even at fast attack and release times.

 

[SonicAlbert]

The Distressor is really not the best unit to use as a limiter in that application in my opinion. You must have really been slamming it, too! I've never gotten close to that kind of distortion with my Distressors.

One of the best units to use as an invisible gain rider and limiter is the Aphex Compellor 320A. It's also pretty inexpensive on eBay.

 

[pohaku]

+1 on the Compellor!

 

[Phosphene]

This is probably caused by bad gain staging. Especially with already distorted guitars its really easy to miss the fact that you might be driving your front end too hard. If you were using a limiter and it was actually limiting then you were probably driving your preamps way too hot at the tracking stage. This is exactly why I do not advocate the use of compression in tracking unless you are using it purely for gain staging. It is likely that you were hitting the preamps way too hard if there was a limiter in place, and then quite possibly driving the compressor with an already distroted signal into even more distortion. This is easy to have masked when you are tracking heavy guitars, especially if your control room is not isolated well enough from the amp cab itself. If you are hearing the amp cab in your control room and it is competing at all with your monitors, some of that extra distortion may not have been easily audible over the wash from the guitar cab. Upon playback however when there is not other sound to mask this it becomes more apparent, especially after you start pushing the guitars higher up in the mix. Try tracking with a much lower setting and if you really feel like you need more, allow the distressor to push the input up a little and keep the output a reasonable level. You should be able to get a pretty good output form the distressor even at fast attack and release times.

I was recording clean guitars with a Jaguar going to a Great River, being very careful not to get anywhere near clipping on that, and then to the distressor, which I just turned up the input enough to get it to gently ride the signal (a little leveling). I made sure that when it hit my recorder, I was never going above -4dBFS, averaging more around -12dBFS.

Now, with that said, I may have jumped the gun with my post because I was worried about these tracks that I layed down a good while ago. I kinda feel like an idiot now that I figured out what was going on.

Do you remember I had a thread about a Behringer headphone preamp, where I was hearing my hard drive noises in my headphones? Well, the culprit for some reason was the headphone amp...the distortion....because I plugged in directly to my Roland and the static surrounding the tracks were gone. Man...I'm starting to think I should dump it. And Xtatic, I am now running to it through my monitor outs and not my headphone amps like you suggested.

 

[Phosphene]

The Distressor is really not the best unit to use as a limiter in that application in my opinion. You must have really been slamming it, too! I've never gotten close to that kind of distortion with my Distressors.

One of the best units to use as an invisible gain rider and limiter is the Aphex Compellor 320A. It's also pretty inexpensive on eBay.

I used to have one and I sold it! What's wrong with me??

 

[Phosphene]

Thanks for your replies fellas.

Now that I'm done freaking out....I think this is what I read that made me think it was my Distressor (even though this is about the RNC):::::::::

From FMR:

At the risk of sounding too esoteric and philosophical, there are many universal laws that are, many times, inconvenient (like, say, gravity). Well, there's a mutual (and universal) exclusivity between low frequency fidelity and fast compressor release times. Stated another way: the faster a compressor's release time, the more distorted the lower frequencies will be. "Okay, okay!", you say, "I know that! But why don't I have similar problems with my other compressors?" Simply put, the RNC's normal mode release times are shorter than many compressors (some of the fastest that we've seen). This means that the RNC will induce low frequency distortion more frequently than your other compressors. "Why didn't you make the RNC so it wouldn't distort my bass notes?" Because then we'd limit (no pun intended) your creative choices for other sound sources where a really fast release time would sound really gonzo...like on kick or snare drums. Try compressing a snare drum track with the RNC set for really fast attack and release times. You'll here drum resonances that you've never heard before that can be creatively used to add spice to your mixes!

"How do I avoid or reduce the low frequency distortion?" This one's easy: increase the release time until the distortion goes away. (Doing my best Groucho Marx impression: "Does it distort when you do that? Well don't do that!")

 

[Phosphene]

After some more experimentation and keeping the levels going into the Distressor low, I actually do get some distortion when I have the Attack at 0, but it goes away when I turn it to say 5 or so. Has anyone experienced this?