Question about the use of DISTORTION

Slowly I start to love my Rytm. One thing I still don’t understand is ‘how to use the distortion’. When I use it, it influences all sounds in my song, because it is a master fx (serial, after the mixer).

I used to use distortion on some sounds… maybe this is not a good idea… but to crush my whole sound feels/sounds a little strange to me.

So my question: what do you do with this Distortion, and how do you do this? When in the production process, how much, maybe some soundcloud examples…

HELLO,
the global distortion effect is a creativ tool and really can bring your whole drum mix to live.
if you have played with the parameters a bit you hear that the really destructive distortion happanes just in the extreme positions and a little bit before. In the other parameter settings you have the ability to crunch the sound a bit up and add a few harmonics to the sound.
I think the global distortion is not made to destroy the sound completly but to give the sound more power.

And don’t forget, every single track has it’s own distortion effect, you find in the amp section.
So there you can beef up specific tracks.

hope that helps.

mb

The distortion is really nice on the Rytm! Used on individual sounds it can add some nice drive and loudness. Personally I use it on the whole mix at very low settings, more as a saturator to add loudness and thickness to the overall mix.

But as mentioned above, you will find the distortion setting for each sound in the amp page.

Wait a sec, the “overdrive” in the amp section isn’t the same as the “distortion” in the master effects. Or is it?

That’s what I was thinking too. I thought distortion was only a master effect.

Each voice has overdrive, plus there is a distortion in the master FX

Here are the voice routing diagrams:



They are not the same.

“Overdrive” is a per-voice feature that overdrives the input of the filter, and thereby also changes the sound of the filter. (Its knob is placed on the Amp page mainly because of lack of space on the Filter page).

“Distortion” is a master effect just before the master compressor.

They are not the same.

“Overdrive” is a per-voice feature that overdrives the input of the filter, and thereby also changes the sound of the filter. (Its knob is placed on the Amp page mainly because of lack of space on the Filter page).

“Distortion” is a master effect just before the master compressor.
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Ok.
But to clear something up: in the first intro ar video it started distortion on each individual voice. Was it referring to the overdrive?

I love the use of the “symmetry” parameter without applying distortion even, it almost acts as a cool, kinda unpredictable noise gate, cutting out the audio in strange ways depending on the volume of what’s going into it seemingly…

I’ve never heard of such an effect before in the analog or digital domain and find it really awesome when you apply P-Locks or an LFO to it!

They are not the same.

“Overdrive” is a per-voice feature that overdrives the input of the filter, and thereby also changes the sound of the filter. (Its knob is placed on the Amp page mainly because of lack of space on the Filter page).

“Distortion” is a master effect just before the master compressor.
[/quote]
Thanks that clears things up for me.

The overdrive is amazing, also the noise generators are very Nice…

But the distortion… I really don’t get it. Do people use it as an fx to play with during performance, or to pump up the sound. With me, it just destroys my sound.

I use it to pump up the sound a little bit more just for that extra grit to my sound or punch.

Have you used a sound editor to see how loud your samples are? Is it past 0dB?

This is something I don’t understand. In Maschine (i used to use that NI tool), I saw the sound level of my sounds… and saw when they went red… With Rytm I don’t see this…

I think this is what you are talking about

How do you do this in Rytm?

Don’t use the built in one instead buy a pair of Moog MF Drive pedals
They work well with synths and drum machines
The Moog MF drive is the best thing I’ve found yet for distortion --you can dial it down and use the MF-Drive as a pre amp too.
Check out Gordon Reid’s review in Sound on Sound

The way I check my levels is through an audio editor like audacity or adobe audition. What you want to make sure is how close is that Mono sample going to get to 0dB. If it touches it or exceeds that point than even a smudge of overdrive will ruin the sound.

There is no way of determining if the sample you are using on the RYTM is at that point on the device so make use of software.

Why did you leave maschine if you don’t mind me asking? I have been eyeing used Studio models lately.

there were 2 big reasons I left maschine.

  1. When I work, I am sitting a lot in front of my computers (graphic design, preparing lectures, email, etc). I prefer not to use a computer when I make music.

2)With NI Komplete, I used a lot of different tools and wanted to go more simple, one drum machine (rytm), one synth (A4) and hopefully a mixer/sampler/fx processor in the future.

Since I have the AR and A4, I love the sound of it much more than with maschine. I do miss some fx from maschine and my masterfx and looping functionality used from Traktor pro2., maybe I can get them when I use Octatrack, but I think (hope) something like it will be released soon.