I spent a week with the Analog Heat +FX and I’m starting to think that it’s least effective use is as a kitchen table / laptop / mastering tool, which is a big reason for me buying it. I have a week left with it.
I’ve been finishing a tune with an MPC Live 2 with the AH as end of chain with just HEAT and COMP activated -
CLEAN BOOST / 40% drive
COMP set to parallel acting more like a limiter
Slight boost of BASS and TREBLE.
Sounded lively but flat, as if it was all mushed together.
Running the entire mix through it is definitely adding ‘character’, but it seems to reduce fidelity when listening through quality monitors rather than headphones, which I’ve been doing mostly.
For a reality check I went into my studio and recorded the MPC straight through my Allen and Heath mixer / FMR RNC on the Really Nice setting and the results are so much better.
Next thing I’m going to do is use it exclusively with Machinedrum for a solo performance, using envelope followers / effects, so I get a different perspective on it as a creative tool.
Oh and the screen has started to create the dreaded lines. Visible but they come and go.
Overbridge is hard work understanding it for recording. Its gain staging is all over the place, manual is unhelpful, it loses connection with my Mac and needs switching on and off.
An alternative would be to get a used SSL Fusion and use the insert for RNC. Then you have more of a mixbus-sweetener, with saturation, basic EQ, high freq compressor, general compressor, spacial widener (and a mediocre transformer). However, depending how hi-fi you want the saturation to be, the vintage drive might be too noisy.
I try not to be critical but I feel like they really dropped the ball with AH+FX. In many ways the Syntakt FX block offers more control because it has a sequencer. People can also complain about the lack of things like different reverb algorithms, but what is really lacking on the AH+FX for me is a second stereo input pair.
Even as digital FX, the H90 by comparison is slightly cheaper, and offers more variation with combining two different types of FX or having them go to separate inputs. The Octatrack as well for that matter.
I guess perhaps someday we’ll see a fourth iteration (fifth if you count Analog Drive I guess) of this product. What I do like about the AH+FX are the extra control inputs for sustain and expression pedals, and I think these are underutilized by owners.
I thought the older ones are the same analogue HEAT circuits without the digital effects? You can put it in analogue mode anyway so it bypasses the digital stuff.
…analog heat is the last truu ‘n pure analog device i got in use…
it can add any sort of analog mojo even to thinnest plastic sounds, if used properly…
havin’ any digital fx added to that cake frrom within, even whith optional total bypassing them, is not the same thing, at least to me…
if u like digital fx and especially, takin’ ur avatar name as a hint, any bit reduction/crushing, i’d say, get a heat mk1 for half the price and invest the rest in some dedicated pedal that has it’s focus main purpose on digital destruction values…
end of the day, ur way better off investing in devices that do one thing only, but that for real…
i never experienced any let downs and dissapointments like u reported, when using the heat and all results really profitted from it big time ever since i got it in use for years by now…
but don’t trust any internal converting/ob usage with it…use it’s physical in’s and out’s only and always watch out for the right gainstaging…that’s truly essential…
So, people think of this unit in the way you described, as an ‘end of chain mastering/warming unit’, but I dunno, that’s a very limited use case. To me it’s what it says on the box - it’s a dynamic sound processor. It doesn’t have to be used at the end of a chain at all. Use it to have fun and really push it as a sound colouring device or a way to transform sounds. It doesn’t always have to be in your chain but you might use it in a sound design session. That’s how I think of the AH +FX.
Yeah, use it with analog connections, more like a sort of mastering stomp box/tabletop multifx. Because with overbridge, you have to print the results to another track on a DAW anyway, I don’t use it so much that way. I run Prophet5>AH+FX>UAD and work it more like a multifx on the way in rather than end of chain.
I have used it in audio over usb mode as a sort of soundcard with some of my smaller synths for quickly getting stuff onto the laptop, that’s injected more life into stuff.
I’ve also taken it out live as an end of chain but also DJ performance style box, and that is actually quite fun to punch in and out fx, crush stuff, delays etc. I mean, I could do that with other devices and controllers but it is a neat thing to double up on that too.
Yes I totally agree with that. I’m going to try it in more unusual ways over the next few days. As primarily a guitarist I’m surrounded by overdrive, so I’m trying to find other ways of utilising it as I’ve got many spanners in the toolkit.
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