Add distortion and lower volume, seems strangely impossible

I want to have a scene where I add distortion to a sample, so I can use the cross fader to go between clean and distorted. Of course with all that lo-fi distortion, the sample is way too loud. I thought it would be simple to set the volume in the Amp section to be lower for that scene, but this doesn’t work. It seems the distortion is an over-dive and if you drop the volume in the amp section, you lose the distortion!

So I tried to set the over-all track volume to the scene, but that is an all or nothing venture - it’s min or max but I don’t want zero volume, just less so that the distorted version of the sample is as loud as it was clean.

Has anyone found a way around this?

There is a great distortion option on the filter, but it’s not scene-lockable - doh!

If you can spare an fx slot maybe a DJ Style Kill EQ after the lofi would work by mapping the low mid and high down a few notches equally…

I’ve been testing that option. It basically works, but for some samples the tone is really altered more than I would prefer. If the Q would go wider, or if I could know where the two frequency Q’s overlap, I might be able to get better results. But it might be the only way to go. The OT should allow you to lock the overall volume of a track to a scene, not just max or min.

I would gladly give up the comb-filter and half of the effects in the Octatrack for a proper distortion effect. I find I use the reverbs, delay, and phaser, but the others never seem to do much for me.

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You can also add a Compressor after LOFI, in order to control level with GAIN and MIX.
GAIN can add distortion too.

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I did try this as well, but I find the compressor in the OT to be unusable. Even with attack at zero, there is a loud pop whenever you are trying to drop the gain on a loud signal. Very buggy.

The compressor in the OT is a mystery to me. You can control levels without it, so it should just be about squashing a signal. But it doesn’t seem to do that very well. It has gain, but no cut like a leveller.

I don’t think the OT is going to do what I want in this case.

I’ve found if I dial in a decent ratio, and then start lowering the threshold until it starts to sound too squashed, back off a bit and maybe lower the mix (depends on material), I can then raise the gain carefully and get a decent compression situation.

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I think you can have interesting results with the compressor, if you make the sound louder before distortion (you can lower Vol too).

You are very demanding for someone who wants to destroy the signal with distortion. :smile:

Analog Heat ? You can also buy cheap guitar distortions.

It’s true, I am demanding - demanding distortion@!

I think I had just assumed I could lower the volume on a distorted sample, so I could cross fade through the sample from clean to distorted. Then when I found out the volume was needed for the distortion, I didn’t know how to re-organize my set. I’m still sort of trying to figure out the best way to do what I want, perhaps using two samples. . . oh, and I’m also using an Analog Heat on the cue outputs.

S.

Bit much but I’ll throw it out there. Crossfader sends cc 48 and track level is cc 7. If you can find a way with a midi processor or software to remap the cc, invert the values(make it go from 128 down instead of from 0 up), and set and end value to the appropriate volume, run a midi loopback and there ya go!:grinning:

Tonight I’m going to test the idea of editing the samples in my DAW with left channel clean, right channel distorted, and then use the crossfader to pan - but have both alt outputs going to mono on my mixer.

Last ditch effort!

Another idea :
Scene A, plock VOL to a higher value, lower Level.
Scene B, plock VOL to 0. Increase distortion. Done

If your sample is mono, there’s a trick to use 2 samples on the same track.

I think you missed the part where plocking the volume removes the distortion which caused the rise in volume. But yeah, I’m going to try using stereo samples and pan from clean to distorted.

Obviously I can have separate samples and plock the sample, but I want to fade through a sample while it is playing, and sweep distortion.

I didn’t missed the Volume part, and the idea is to have a clean sound with higher Vol, and a distorted sound with regular Vol, so with regular distorsion.

Another idea with FX2 delay Vol :
Delay Page 2 DIR=0
Time = 1 to avoid higher delay.
Send = 127
Adust Delay Page 1 Vol with Scene B.

It works for me.

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The delay trick works ! Thanks for the suggestion.

I knew DIR couldn’t be p-locked, but never noticed the VOL parameter for the delays themselves.

As for the previous post, what I was trying to explain is that if you have a distorted sound, and drop the volume (plock or otherwise), you actually get no distortion at all. The VOL in the Amp section is tied directly to the Distortion in the Lo-Fi like an overdrive. IF you get nice thick distortion and lower the AMP volume you won’t get distortion from the lo-fi effect. That was the whole unexpected part.

I love the weird ways you can find to make the OT do stuff that it doesn’t seem like it can do at first. :ecstatic:
@sezare56 is a serious OTist… :monkey_face:

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@Open_Mike :loopy:

@S_Righteous Glad if it works with delay.

For the regular Vol vs Dist, you maybe missed something :
I talk about starting from Vol +63 to Vol 0, default value (Vol can be - 63). You do have distortion with that setting. I talk about increasing Vol, not decreasing, compared to default Vol.
It works too, but the curve doesn’t seems very linear.

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Ah sezare56, I see what you mean now - I would need to reduce the overall track level to a very low value because my clean sample at +64 will be loud and the distorted version at 0 volume would still have distortion, and be really loud.

I just wish the distortion was unrelated to the Amp vol parameter. Or there was some gain stage in that effect to level things out.

Open_Mike - you are so right, the OT is a world within itself. Unlike most drum machines, it doesn’t have many tracks, but each track has a ton of options and possibilities. Although I wish they did a new version with more dramatic effects to really push that concept further.

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What is the problem in reducing track Level ? :slight_smile:

I mentioned it above :