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Distortion of Reality

It's Really Not Such a Bad Thing

By Charles Dye

Have you ever muted the drum loop in a track with sequenced drums and noticed how the life just instantly goes out of the track? Of course, the loop is providing one very important element to the track — vibe. But it's also being used to provide another important ingredient. If you were to replace every element of the loop with the sequenced drums — with the exact feel and dynamics — it would still be missing. And that's the glue that a loop provides to the track. What is that glue? It's saturation, crunch, and grit, in other words — distortion.

By looking at how recording technology has changed over the years we can better understand how to creatively shape sounds with distortion today.

We like distortion. In many of its various forms it is something we simply find pleasing to the ear. But, as in all things, knowing when, where, and how much is the key. For a better understanding of this, let's look back at how recording technology has progressed over the years and how distortion — good and bad — figures into that story.

A Brief History of Distortion
For many years, records were made entirely with tube-based recording equipment. The mics, the mic pre's, the tape machines, and the consoles were all tube-based. With the audio passing through so many tubes, a fair amount of distortion was introduced to the signal. It was essentially playing the equivalent of the childhood game, telephone, with the audio. By the time the signal came out the other end of the recording process, it sounded dramatically different from how it started out.

The electrical engineers of the day, in their constant pursuit of perfection, came up with a new technology — solid-state electronics — that would introduce less distortion to the audio as it was passed from one stage of recording to the next. It was a cleaner, truer representation of the actual audio. So, most mics, EQ's, compressors, consoles, and tape machines were redesigned using solid-state circuitry.

Originally all stages in the recording chain (like this LA-2A) were tube based. The tubes distorted the audio somewhat, but they also added a lot of warmth.

Some engineers felt that the solid-state equipment was sterile, harsh, and lacked warmth. But what they were actually missing was the harmonic distortion that the tubes added to the audio, harmonics that actually added musical character. In the end, the majority adopted the new technology and much of the tube gear was put in the closet or sold.

The audio now had much less distortion when it reached the tape machine, but when it went onto the tape it again became distorted. And over the period of a recording project, the top end would slowly diminish, actually causing engineers to add top end during recording in anticipation of the loss. Not to mention tape noise. Analog tape was far from perfect. So, the electrical engineers next set their sights on a new recording medium, and digital recording was the result.

At first, digital tape was criticized as being harsh, and much of the initial reaction turned out to be due to poor filter technology, but once better filters were designed and other improvements with the A/D and D/A conversion process were made, digital began to live up to its designers' intentions.

In the transition from analog to digital tape (as in the Sony 3348 above) distortion and noise were reduced, but some engineers felt (and feel) that analog tape's non-linear qualities were a plus.

But critics still said digital seemed harsh, sterile, and lacked warmth compared to analog tape. What they actually were missing now was its non-linear quality. Analog tape warmth is actually a combination of a number of characteristics: low-end boost, high-end roll off, saturation, compression, distortion, and, for some engineers, even tape hiss. But digital was a cleaner, truer representation of the recorded audio, and many engineers began to record to digital. As a result, to replace the warmth they were missing from the analog tape, the lucky engineers went back to their closets and dusted off their tube gear; the unlucky ones had to buy it back at a much higher price.

With digital recording, it then became apparent that every time the audio was passed through another conversion process and through analog gear, that, in addition to whatever job it was intended to do, distortion was being added to the signal. Even solid state was adding some distortion. The electrical engineers realized that the more the audio was kept in the digital domain the less distortion would be added. Their next goal was the all-digital mixing console. In addition to being distortion-free, it would allow total instant recall and automation of every parameter.

With the first digital console, the criticism was again that it sounded sterile, harsh, and lacked punch and warmth (sounding familiar by now?), but what the engineers were actually missing were again the qualities that the analog console was adding to the audio. Namely, an ever-so-subtle distortion, not so obvious as with the tube-to-solid-state transition or the analog-to-digital recording transition, but it was the loss of this distortion that tweaked their ears. Such a clean signal to these engineers seemed to lack character.

"Certain instruments and styles of music benefit greatly from different types of distortion."

With each improvement in the recording process, as the electrical engineers were eliminating distortion that was at first perceived as degrading the audio, recording engineers later realized once the distortion was missing that sometimes it added qualities that actually improved the audio. As it turns out, certain instruments and certain styles of music benefit greatly from different types of distortion. And other instruments and styles benefit from being kept as clean and distortion-free as possible. With today's technology, the ability to record a clean and transparent signal is not difficult. At times, that is exactly what you want, but at other times you want a sound to be as gritty and crunchy as you can make it, or anywhere in between. We now have the freedom to choose the type of distortion, how much, and when. You can, of course, do it before your audio is recorded. But, what do you do if the sound is too clean and sterile after it's recorded and you need to punch it up?

Enter a New Breed of Effects — Saturation Plug-Ins
With Pro Tools and the dedicated saturation/distortion plug-ins that are available, you can now add all the different types of distortion we've come to expect — tube, tape, or solid state — in whatever amount you want. All of these plugs give you a lot of options to give your tracks and mixes the warmth, punch and saturation that is really essential to many recordings. To get the most realistic results, I always keep in mind the way I would do it with their analog equivalents and I usually insert them in the same order. The four I use are:

DUY DaD Valve + DaD Tape are great for adding warmth and thickness to a track or an entire mix.

DUY DaD Valve:
This was the first plug-in of this type that I ever used, and it truly opened a whole new world of options to me with Pro Tools. It was my original secret weapon for warm digital, and for a while it seemed like one of the best-kept secrets of Pro Tools. But many people are now using it. It's really great at giving clean tracks an edge and warmth that they may be lacking. Some of my favorite starting points are the snare preset on drums and percussion, and the guitar and bass presets.

DUY DaD Tape:
The saturation you get with DaD Tape is great. Very warm with a nice crunch. I normally set it to Ideal Tape/30ips/Noiseless and adjust the input level to achieve the desired saturation. Used on individual tracks, it can make them very punchy, and used on a mix it can really glue it together in a very cool way.

McDSP Analog Channel AC1:
AC1 emulates solid-state console saturation. It's got a lot of great presets. I will often use it on many of my individual channels and may start my mix out with AC1 on the first insert of the Master Fader for outputs 1-2. For the last few albums I mixed, I never even listened to the digital tracks "clean". From the first fader I pulled up I heard everything through AC1 on the Master Fader. It just helped glue the mix together faster and made it much punchier. It's the subtlest of all the saturation plugs, but its positive impact on the mix can be great.

McDSP's Analog Channel AC1 has a punchie analog console sound. AC2 is a very smooth, tape saturation plug-in with lots of control.

McDSP Analog Channel AC2:
McDSP's AC2 is another tape saturation emulator that I like. It has a different sound than DaD Tape — less crunchy, smoother. I use it when the saturation of Tape seems to be too much. Because of their differences, I find having both to choose from very useful. AC2 also allows a lot of control over a number of additional parameters like bias and the EQ curve that I like.

They are all very powerful plug-ins, and I really couldn't work on Pro Tools without them. They give me incredible control over shaping the personality and character of my tracks.

September Means Back to School
I've heard it said that you can't teach mixing, you can only learn it. Well, I don't believe this. If you're willing to learn, I'm willing to teach. So, in the next few months I'd like to begin an experiment with your participation to see if it's possible.

What we will do is essentially break down mixing into all of its individual components and go through them, one by one. In a nutshell, we are going to mix a song over a period of seven months, and you'll be able to look at everything I do in each session. I'll explain why I'm using each plug-in in hopes that you'll be able to apply these techniques to your mixes. Below is an outline of what we will cover

1. Drums and Percussion — An in-depth discussion of kick, snare, hi-hat, toms, cymbals, and room tracks. Loops, including full drum groove and percussion only. Percussion, including tambourine, shaker, etc. The three key elements to drums and percussion — tone, attack, and ambience — and how to use EQ, compression, and gating to balance these, along with effects suggestions.

2. Bass and Guitars — Details about bass, synth vs. electric, and amp vs. D.I. Discussion of electric and acoustic guitars. Compression and EQ, and effects suggestions for both.

3. Keyboards — Rhythm keys: electric and acoustic piano and organ. "Pad" style keys: synths, organ, and strings (live or sampled). Compression and EQ, and effects suggestions for all.

Each month you can download new tracks as we go through a mix discussing sounds, blending the tracks, and how to get that big record sound with dynamic automation.

4. Background Vocals and Lead/Solo Instruments — Blending harmonies, different background processing approaches. Giving them a separate space from the lead vocal. Suggestions on when and how to make the lead/solo instrument sound big and when and how not to.

5. Lead and Harmony Vocals — The most important instrument. How to keep the listener focused on the lead without it overpowering the track. How to process the vocal in ways that reinforce the lyric, and how to make the artist sound like a star.

6. The Big Picture — Balance, blend, F/X's, groove — bringing them altogether so the song makes sense. Stereo bus processing, otherwise known as the "record button" (as in long-playing record).

7. Automation — Creating dynamics to support the song's emotion and energy. Heightening excitement during the song's transitions, propelling the listener forward from section to section using dynamic automation and "effects splashing" to accent parts. Working the mix so it continues to evolve, build, and climax.

Many of the above suggestions will be based on what I call my first choice starting points. They don't always turn out to be the final version of whatever instrument I apply them to, but time has proven out that my ear brings me back to these sounds again and again. And they could be good starting points for you as well.

I'll see you next month as we begin our mix.

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