Analog Heat and master buss processing

How does it compare to something like Saturn? What do you think? Also, does it do a good job of adding vibrancy and dimension to your vsts?

Saturn is way more flexible/sophisticated in terms of feature set, doesnā€™t really compare IMO - they are too different wrt features. The saturn lacks the filter section, while the AH lacks multiband and M/S capabilities.

Vibrancy and depth are interesting words to use for something that effectively reduces dynamics and skews transient and frequency response on purposeā€¦When I think about those two adjectives, chorus and reverb are first things that pop into my mind :panda:

If you mean, can it add excitement and thickness to single sources, answer to that is YUPP :thup:

Iā€™ll take excitement and thickness.

Hi, Iā€™d be interested to hear more from people who have experimented putting the whole mix through the heat

If I were to buy one, it would ideally serve two purposes,

1 to ā€œheatā€ up different individual samples and sounds and
2 in a live setup where I would use it somewhat like a kaoss pad

If it could boost the signal, make it sound more homogenic, and let me do filter cut offs and weird FX breaks that would be cool

But I canā€™t see where else I could put it in the machine chain for live use other than at the end

I saw Cenk using it through the OTā€™s sends (I currently play with everything going through the OT to make use of the scenes and faders)
Which is an option, but I canā€™t seeing it being as dramatic

Anyway, more experience from users would be welcomeā€¦ :slight_smile:

I use the :heat: in the main-insert of my VLZ4 and it works great. I use it following the mainpurpose: heating, boosting the lows with the peak-filter and using the both eqs for the finish.

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AH can do M/S

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Iā€™ve used it on every track Iā€™ve made since I bought it. I canā€™t think of a time when Iā€™ve put it on and thought ā€œno, canā€™t use it on thisā€. If you are using it subtly on the master, it works great. The active button is a great A/B in this regard.

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Not really, all it can do is process either the mid or side, not both independently. In my book thatā€™s not really M/S, in fact you can do the same with any stereo processor by utilizing M/S encode/decode. Only when you can unlink the L/R controls we are getting into ā€œproperā€ M/S IMHO

The only control on the heat which does something even remotely like this is the freqpan on the filter.

Just master a track with Heat and a limiter on the master bus of my session in Logic Pro X. It worked quite well and a step my game up with the mid/side eq settings on Overbridge. I till to use clean boost, high pass the bottom with a mixture of the low and high eq. Before I always use ozone or waves plugins with logics adaptive limiter; but, today I kept it simple just heat and a limiter plug. I discovered that it important to bounce in real time as offline bounce and heat with go crazy switching up to slow ot blurred sounds. Overall I loved my analog heat as I first used it for my mpc 4`s outputs inspired by my rytm. Heat is an essential part of my studio and daw setup now.

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Do you guys think that sending audio from Digitakt to AH and then recording in Ableton could be a good start setup? Sorry for the noob question.Many thanks.

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good start setup? What do you mean?

A good start ā€œfor making musicā€ setup. Sampling in Digitakt and making beats, then process the sound with AH that is receiving audio from DT. And AH used as sound interface with Ableton. Thank you!

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good way to start making music is with software and especially free one at that. You donā€™t want to be spending lots of money until you have experience about music making and know what kind of sounds and processing techniques etc you prefer. Just my opinion though.

If you absolutely insist on starting music making with hardware (and why not? its fun and less cranial most of the time), just get a korg electribe sampler, MPC 1000 or a digitakt on its own. An analog heat is by no means a ā€must-haveā€ item for getting good results, especially if you plan on recording and mixing your music with software.

At the end of the day, the gear you are using is way less important than your skill at manipulating what you have and coaxing your ā€musical voiceā€ through those. Amassing stellar high end gear is a nice ā€want, not needā€ sorta thing IMO.

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Donā€™t depend on the AH being your interface for Ableton. Of course it may work for you depending on your system, but itā€™s not working for me. Very glitchy :frowning: Windows 8, Ableton 9.5

Digitakt and AH is the bulk of my set up and itā€™s amazing!

@hotscience: Many thanks for the info, hotscience! Actually, I know how to use Ableton good enough (not the expert level but close enough, I think) and thatā€™s why I felt that I need to work with some hardware also. I have Windows 10 (i7 and 8GB of RAM) and Ableton 9.7. I need to know how to connect these 2 machines (AH and Digitakt) in order to work good on Ableton. So, youā€™re saying that itā€™s better to work with Digitakt and Ableton and leave the AH away until processing the final track? Thanks and sorry once again for the noob approach.

No worries! What I meant was, donā€™t expect the AH to function as your main soundcard/interface. Although it has the functionality, itā€™s not reliable for me (and many others it seems).

Iā€™m currently using it for both pre and post processing. DT analog outs to the AH ins and the AH analog outs to my NI audio kontrol interface. Then I use the AH in overbridge mode as a VST on the master channel for post processing. Iā€™ve only had the AH for a few days, so Iā€™m still trying different combinations to find the best workflow.

yeh, many users are reporting significant latency with overbridge at least. Not the best thing in the world for audio interface use.

Good to know. Many thanks for clarifications, very very useful for me. Please let me know when you find the optimal combination.

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I wish it were just latency! For me, even when recording dry (no OB VST), the transport lurches ahead. Then it also lurches ahead on playback making things even more glitched. I do have Studio One and Acid pro on my machine and I plan to give those a try tonight using the AH as the interface.

Sorry to hear youā€™re having problems. I am on a mac so dont know how the windows side is like, but when I originally got the AH first, I needed to upgrade my OS to OSX 10.12 before I got audio streaming working without hiccups. I feel like the heat needs a bit more love on the computer integration side.

Now I only use my heat without a computer, everything works perfectlyā€¦

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