Analog Rytm Saturation/Distorion Help

Hi People!
First post here! I am really in the Darker Electro (real electro) sound that people like Umwelt play. Alot of it has a very industrial distorted element ot it, which i would like to capture. Unfortunately it’s not as easy as i had hoped… I have made a really simple 1 bar test loop on a TR808 and run it through some VST effects, fav so far is the FREE Plusdistortion emulation, but many are bland. I have also tried the few hardware pedals i could locally. I liked the Boss CS3 alot but for different reasons. Non of the rest really hit the mark. I know the RYTM has Overdrive per voice and Distortion on the master and have heard some very appealing stuff in tube videos, but nothing that i can be sure of. I like it where the tail of the clap is brought out but also the bass is retained.
As i don’t have a chance to try one, is it possible someone would be kind enough the showcase the the overdrive and distortion effects of the Rytm mk1 ?
I have uploaded the 1 bar 808 loop here:

TR808 1 bar clean.wav

Examples of what i mean:



Really sorry, that wasn’t meant to be so long… Any help really appreciated.
Cheers!!!

Download link is a bit spammy FYI.

I am also quite into this style. I don’t have a Rytm but I put a few Soundtoys plugins on it (plus the Waves LA-2A simulation):

I will try and make a similar thing with my TR-8S and Torcido effects unit and/or the Heat, it gets pretty close.

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Here you go.

TR-8S through Torcido, into an MX-1, into Heat. First clean, then the Torcido only, then the Heat only. Just messing with the front panel controls, nothing clever. Also no compression plugin on this one, it’s all hardware (apart from a brick wall limiter on the output in Logic). Sorry for the Heat levels being all over the place, I couldn’t be bothered to re-do it. :happy:

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analog heat can make this sound :slight_smile:

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Here I have run the loop through the AR Mk1 overdrive, distorion and both together.

Voice overdrive:

Master distortion:

Both master distortion and voice overdrive:

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As a side note, I have good old Boss BX-series mixer (actually two of those :sunglasses:) and the preamp gain on the BX produces pretty much the same distortion like on those tracks above, esp. like on the Delta Funktionen.

Distortion on the RYTM mk1 is somewhat different, like less round or so, at least to my ears.

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Cool man! I love the dark electro/italo style too, so I’m basically looking for the same stuff/vibe.

I believe it can definately be achieved with the AR, remember that you can also load in samples and make patterns with those, running them through the overdrive/distortion!

It is usually like @Octagon said a preamp gain section on cheaper mixers that produces this kind of overdrive tone. Older Mackie mixers were the goto stuff for this sound. Nowadays you can safely bet on Soundcraft epm series to get you there for really cheap.

It is generally a different effect then sending the sum thru overdrive.
You get more control over the saturation per part and imo better separation.

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Wow!!
Thank you all for the replies, sounds and thoughts!

@finalform Thankyou for the effort! I’m really surprised by the Torcido, digital too!
No worries on the AH levels, shame the sound didn’t do it for me although i am very aware it is quite a bit more than just a distiorion unit. For something that doeas’t produce sound, i’m sure it can eat up alot of time noodling.
The sofware effects were interesting, i liked the Devil Loc and Decapitator best although different. I really like it whent the sound gets pushed and pulled byt the effect and Clap gets brought out with the pseudo reverb splash on the tail, it’s my favorite sound on the 808.

@jonathantwinny1 Thanks also! That overdrive sound bloody great, really bursting at the seems! Is the distortion at a low level os it not that distructive? Didn’t so good to me.

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@Octagon Not heard much of the BX series, but did see a vid (can’t find it now…) of one of the KM series mixers and that sounded really nice, but a bit rare and expensive…

@macinski I have an old Mackie CR1604 mixer, i got it for this very reason but i don’t rate it really. Well it’s ok, but not what i’m after.

How do mean, did i do something wrong?

No, not your fault but the site has some dodgy ads/pop-ups.

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No bother at all. Yeah I’ve not done the Heat justice there to be honest, I’ve not had it long and I haven’t done much with it other than put a bit of saturation on the master. Need to spend some time with it!

I really rate the Torcido though, I pretty much always have it on my drum bus (I often separate the kick out, easier to do now I can control distortion on it independently with the TR-8S). It’s very underrated, it’s stereo, eurorack compatible, CV controllable, reprogrammable, and you can usually find them pretty cheap (or at least you could for a while… eg PMT has them listed for £119 right now, I’m half tempted to get another).

Devil Loc is really great on drums. It does something to them that makes them sit in a mix really well. And it’s basically only got two controls. Every now and then it’s basically free or nearly free in a Soundtoys sale as well.

Decapitator is a lot more flexible… I actually doubled it up and used one for the low frequencies and one for the mids and highs. It could have gone in all sorts of directions but I had a stab at the sort of frequencies in the examples you posted.

Anyway - HTH.

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So, here’s a random clean 808 loop from Soundcloud thru a BX-4 mixer with preamp gain increased gradually from zero until maxed out. No other processing and sorry for bad looping, I was too lazy to fix it.

808bx.aif (4.5 MB)

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The distortion is quite subtle, which isn’t that big a deal with the unit having overdrive on every voice. It can be quite useful for adding a bit of extra crunch to your rhythms if you use the main outs or overbidge left right tracks.

I’m into this kind of sound too, and I have to say: the RYTM has the juice. It can go from subtle all the way to BH808303. :grimacing:

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@Octagon
Thanks for that! I see what you mean, somewhere in the middle it does sound somewhat like the Delta Functionen track. I might look into getting one, but having said that, i really need to try and avoid buying more gear unless it’s the one for the job, or i’ll end up with a mixer museum before long, already have 5…

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yep i think the AR can absolutely do the sounds in those vids, all in the box. the per-voice distortion drives the filter, and the master distortion gets realllly filthy if you turn it up, precisely the same vibe as those tracks. the master distortion also has a symmetry parameter which can be cranked positive or negative to give it a sputtery choked character which varies a lot thru the knob turn. judging by those youtube tracks you posted, i think you will be really happy with it. as an added bonus it has a master compressor which is great for managing those filthy distorted sounds and keeping the mix sane when you are driving everything hard.

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This time the TR-8 loop is passed trough the Rytm (Overdrive & Distortion) and then the Heat (various circuits).

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RYTM’s capable of very distorted things completely in the box.

This is all RYTM mkl, other than the chord/string thing which is from Reaktor

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