Using Distortion on Recorded Tracks

  • Thread starter Thread starter Will Kirk
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Will Kirk

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Hi All!

I'm new to the forums and I am in need of a little help.

My latest recording project is me attempting to take my didgeridoo skills into the experimental area. And in doing so I was looking to use some non-traditional approaches to the instrument.

Mainly what I'm looking to do is to find a way to integrate (hopefully in a pleasant way) effects such as distortion, flanger, and some optical compression (right terminology?) into the recording of the didge. It's basically the only instrument on the album at the moment. For reference I am using Audio Technica AT4040 LD Condensor through a Tascam Multi-track (no effects) and my DAW is Ableton Live 7. I should mention that it is impossible to use anything other than a microphone to capture the sound of the didge, you can't plug these things in (yet)

Does anyone have any advice as to how I would accomplish this? Guitar distortions have a decidely unpleasant affect on the overall tone of the recording. Perhaps a certain distortion VST would do the trick?

Any advice is welcome!

Dan
 
I'm not sure about distortion on a didge, it has a fairly rough sound, if that's the right way to put it. Kinda like micing a Marshall amp on Crunch, then adding more distortion. Flange, phase, chorus, all could sound pretty kewel. As much as I hate auto tune it might sound pretty neat on a didge.

You know I never thought I'd be conversing with a guy dat plays da didgeridoo. Why I lurve da net.
 
You say you don't want "guitar distortion", but distortion is distortion! Turn the gain down, adjust the tone ... Not sure what you are looking for, I would tend to agree with buzzard that distortion on a didge might not work as well as other fx.
 
True distortion is distortion but every VST I've tried so far has either made the sound completely indiscernable or just completely unpleasant.

I've attempted to use a tube emulator (or a preamp as I have both) to fatten up the recording and to try to get some distortion, but overdriving the preamp completely screws up the rest of the recording, I'm only looking to add distortion to certain parts to add some variety to the overall track.

It's not that the distortion VSTs I have don't work, it's just that they seem to be programmed towards making a guitar distorted instead of something else and they still treat other signals as guitar signals.
 
Will Kirk said:
It's not that the distortion VSTs I have don't work, it's just that they seem to be programmed towards making a guitar distorted instead of something else and they still treat other signals as guitar signals.
Click to expand...
Well, that's not surprizing. Out of every 100 times you hear distortion, I would hazard a guess that 94 will be guitaresque.
 
You might try something along the lines of a device made for the bass. They generally have a much more subtle effect, my Digitech multi pedal does that, I don't use it, but I think it would be a lot better than guitar distortion. Haven't used it for a while, that's why I didn't think of it until now.
 
Double the track, and heavy distort one of them. Then blend the two to taste.
 
That's a good idea, that's why I like this place, I wouldn't have thought of that, but that's another thing to play with. It's a learning curve forgetting all the limits of the old 4 tracks.
 
That, or do a bullhorn effect (which is easy to emulate with a simple EQ, do a sweep and find where the honk is, and boost that up). Try doing it in parallel like gerg said. I would mess with EQ more than I would with traditional distortion... almost treat it like its a blues harp or something. if you have any nice old compression modelers (or a tapehead emulator), you can try driving that pretty hard too to get something thats not so 'guitaresque'.

Hope you find what you're looking for!
 
I tried combining the Parallel processing along with the compression/EQ distortion and it's works really well!

Kind of a sweaty hog sound but it's exactly what I was looking for, thanks for all the help!
 
Sure do, here's a track from the project that I just finished. It's pretty non-traditional as far as didge compositions are concerned.

It's pretty non-linear as far as rhythms are concerned, I did use a click track but I purposely strayed slightly from the click track with the clave (the percussion you hear on the recording) to add a little variety. Plus it's an track that's meant to stretch your thinking a bit as opposed to just massage your eardrums.

SoundClick artist: William Daniel Kirkland - Steel String and Earthy Rhythm

Let me know what you think, I'm probably going to tweak it a bit in the future to see what kinds of distortions I can get out of it, I might even try to achieve a more contemporary sound with phaser and chorus etc..

This recording has a bit of reverb added to the didge but only a little delay added to the Claves to make it a little more spacious and not so jumbled, I doubled the didge track and panned about 60% left and right on each one and kept the Claves track centered.
 
For future reference, I cast a vote for the Anatares Tube plug-in. It's very "not-guitar" and I've gotten good results on everything from vocals to synths to drums to cellos. It's sound ranges from a slight warm-up to completely damaged, with a lot of room in between.
 
funnygames said:
For future reference, I cast a vote for the Anatares Tube plug-in. It's very "not-guitar" and I've gotten good results on everything from vocals to synths to drums to cellos. It's sound ranges from a slight warm-up to completely damaged, with a lot of room in between.
Click to expand...

That sounds more like what I'm looking for. I noticed on the Antares website that it says that they no longer make it. Is it still available from any other distributors?
 
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