Analog Heat: Tips and Tricks from your favorite Patches

So as the Analog Heat Heat a few weeks out, it’s time to discuss some of the tricks for this very versatile effects box. You can use it as a compressor, expander, filter, destroyer, exciter. What else? Lets share some favorite settings.

Here are two of mine:

Long Sustain (also warm compressor):

This can make a nice long sustain, eg on sounds with an echo, it also dampens the hights a little bit on the attack with the filter , so it sounds rounder:

Charakter: Clean, Saturation, Enhancement or Classic Dist (with lower drive)
Drive: 100
wet: 122 (balance it, so that the sound is at the same loudness when changing from dry to wet)
dry wet: 63

Filter Type: LP 6dB
Freq: 100 (this chops a bit off the agressiveness)
Reso: 12
Filter Env: -11
lfo: 0
freqpan: 0
dirt: 0
EQ lo: 0 (change it for your own taste)
EQ Hi: 0 (change it for your own taste)

Env Mode: FLW +18 (adjust it to the maximum of the sound)
ATK: 9
Rel: 64
Trig Lvl: 111 (adjust it to the maximum of the sound)
Base: 0
Width: 127
Dest: Drive
Depth: -50

LFO: not used

Whipplash Snare:

This ist nice on a full drumkit and make the snare (or clap) very wide with added resonance for a sort of whipplash sound:

Charakter: Clean
Drive: 97
wet: 119 (balance it, so that the sound is at the same loudness when changing from dry to wet)
dry wet: 31

Filter Type: LP 6dB
Freq: 78 (adjust it so it fits to te snare sound)
Reso: 20
Filter Env: 35
lfo: 40
freqpan: 0 (Alternative for snare only: -40 makes it whip from left)
dirt: 0
EQ lo: 0 (change it for your own taste)
EQ Hi: 0 (change it for your own taste)

Env Mode: AR +18 (adjust it to the maximum of the sound)
ATK: 17
Rel: 17
Trig Lvl: 103 (adjust it to the maximum of the snare, so tat only the snare triggers))
Base: 80 (adjust to the frequency of the snare)
Width: 18 (adjust ist so that the hihat doesnt trigger anymore)
Dest: Filter Pan (this makes the wide stereo effekt, everytime the snare hits)
Depth: 78 (makes it whip to the right)

LFO: (is used as a second env. to quickly rise the filter resonance, everytime the snare hits)
Speed: 1
Mult: 1
Wave: Exp
Start: 0
Fade: 30 (Alternative: 40)
Mode: Trig (Alternative: One)
Dest: Filter Resonance
Depth: 60 (Alternative: 85)

Now show me yours :slight_smile:
Goat

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Legitimately surprised there’s not more discussion here! I’ve got to make more patches to share apparently :stuck_out_tongue:

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Me as well, OP 3 years ago…?

Just got mine so will take me awhile to feel out some cool techniques on it. (My preset long press doesn’t actually work either [mkii] so going to have to fix that at some point)

So far I love running digital Synths through it MD and Chiptune MD for example.

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It’s had 1.2k views but no one said anything… :grin:

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Very interesting lack of activity on this one. Does that mean not many people own Analogue Heat?

People like talking about products they want to buy more than use the ones they own, the Curse of Gearslutz!

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Awesome thanks!

Have the machine and really have to dig in when i have the time, starting out with your Patches :slight_smile:

I see them everywhere in youtube videos, (bedroom)studio pics, mentioned in interviews, used on stage etc.
Must be something else^^

It’s one of those boxes where it’s easy to fall back on just using it as per the immediate knobs on the front - I use it plenty, but only really at that level. I guess that other people similarly might not dive into the menus on LFO etc.?

I’d love a few bits of inspiration to help push me deeper with it! Recipes like those above are a cool starting point.

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I’m interested in resurrecting this topic. There is a topic of tips and tricks for every Elektron machine, but for the analog heat. There are some ideas in different posts, buried in the forum, but not a compilation place.

I’ve only used the AH in very basic ways, and I’m interested in squeezing all the juice from this machine.

How do you use your AH? Can you share some tricks/patches/ideas?

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I wonder if anyone has tried clean boost on their master bus?

Oh yeah! Also, I mixed in the box tracks for a dear friend, and mastered with Clean boost, some drive, and then a limiter in the box. The result is great!

I was being a little sarcastic as that seems to be the use most put it to. Mine is gathering dust at the moment so I’m in no position to judge.

I actually got mine as an anti gas measure to liven up synth sounds on things like the circuit and the gaia. I remember being sold on it after seejng a video of someone running just a sine wave through it and making it sound amazing.

My most recent main use has been to run a drum pattern through it for 3 or 4 minutes and just use tweaks of filter, eq and distortion to map out a rudimentary song structure.

Looking forward to punching in the settings from the first post. I’m also getting the sense that people using and making presets is the exception to the norm?

I see :wink:

I didn’t detect the sarcasm. It’s indeed easy (for me) to forget the depth of the Heat. To balance that I would say it still brings a lot of satisfaction on just clean boost for subtle duties.

I’ve started lately to use it as a processor to record single instruments in the box in my hybrid setup. I still don’t use the envelope follower or lfo to their pour
Tential but get a wide smile with what the drive, filter and eq give me while recording a take.

I like this thread and will also try the things shared in the first posts to widen my palette.

Cheers!

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The Heat really opens up when modulating parameters via an external source. I sometimes like to route a MIDI LFO from the Octatrack to the AH’s circuit type for glitched out, steppy distortion.

Another thing I’ve been fond of doing lately is using one of the control inputs in CV mode to modulate a parameter of my choosing, and using the other input in footswitch mode to trigger the envelope from a gate signal instead of incoming audio. I currently have this set up with my Microfreak, sending pressure CV for modulation and gate to the footswitch input. It’s a lot of fun and really augments any synth with CV output. A4 anyone? :smiley:

One more little trick that I find useful is treating it as dual mono, monitoring only one of the channels, and using the input of the other channel as a sidechain to trigger the envelope. The only thing to be mindful of is that the input level of the affected signal stays below that of the “sidechain” so that only one channel is triggering the envelope. This can be used to emulate sidechain compression of course, but also many other interesting things.

I love the Analog Heat!

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Really interesting to read your experiments. This part I don’t understand yet. Can you trigger envelopes in footswitch mode (how?)? And how does that work via a gate?

I can’t understand most of this paragraph :sweat_smile:

For starters, why a gate signal and not a MIDI signal?

I have the Microfreak and the A4 and, so far, I’ve completely neglected the capacities of CV, thinking it was only a communication system for pure analog devices that weren’t capable of using MIDI.

You can change the behavior of each control input in the settings menu. I’m not in front of mine right now so I can’t say exactly where, but it should be fairly easy to find. Once you set an input to footswitch mode, on the same page you can set what will happen when it receives a signal, and you can invert the polarity if necessary.

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That’s a good question. I always assumed that the envelope couldn’t be triggered via MIDI, so I never even bothered to try. :sweat_smile: Does it work?

I guess I just enjoy using CV to control things because it feels a bit more like having direct access to the hardware, though it is generally more limited than MIDI. I like the modularity of CV, being able to route different elements to different destinations discretely.

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I completely get what you’re doing with CV to gate the AH’s Filter Envelope.

However, I have a question: Can you still limit the Filter Envelope Gate AMOUNT using a knob on the AH while using a CV Control Input?

Let’s say your Control-1 CV signal is simply steady +5Volt pulses; and obviously you don’t want the gate to open at maximum every time; but instead you want to control the amount (or depth) on the AH’s interface, making the Heat act as a normal filter, as found on all analog synthesizers.

Can you do that, or does one need to vary the external +5Volt pulse?