Best Submit Onlywire!: Bitcrushers and Distortion

We tend to think of distortion as
‘real’. Even when they’re simulated
using plug-ins, most distortion effects
seek to replicate the sound of circuits
being pushed to the limit: tubes
bursting with signal and other
physical objects positively
overloading with level and character.
Bitcrushers are very different
however. There is no such physical
‘thing’ to model and as such they
seek to achieve something similar
within the digital domain.
As you probably know, digital
recording is primarily ‘measured’ by
two means. Although this is a
simplified explanation, it helps firstly
to think of incoming audio being
rapidly captured via a series of
snapshots, almost like a cinema
camera capturing frames per second.
In audio terms, this is called ‘sample
frequency’ and a CD quality mono
audio recording captures 44,100 of
these per second (double that for
stereo). However, simply ‘having’
these snapshots isn’t enough; they
need to capture a ‘picture’ each time
one is fired off and the accuracy of
that ‘picture’ – in audio terms – is
called resolution and is measured by
bit-rate. CD quality uses 16-bit but
many recording engineers prefer to
record at a higher rate of 24-bit.
Bitcrushers seek to deliberately
obscure or distort the ‘quality’ of the
audio picture, producing artifacts in
the audio which can, in particular,
produce overtones which produce an
almost ‘ringing’ quality. It’s a curious
‘crunchy’ effect that while once was
considered a criminal by-product of
digital’s ease and quality, but now
lives as a desirable quirky sound in
its own right. It exists at odds with
‘actual’ digital distortion, which is
when a digital audio file is pushed
‘into distortion’ by overloading its
level. It’s an sound which is yet to
aquire any such desirability.
>
Our starting point is fairly ambient. It
features three copied sequence lines, one of
which is transposed up one octave. These
are accompanied by a simple percussion line
bounced to audio from FXpansion’s Geist. There’s
no real power or sense of progression here yet.
>
Let’s bring power and drive using effects
alone. We do this by setting up an auxiliary
buss using a Stereo Delay, which feeds a
Grinder distortion pedal. This is also sent to
SoundToys’ PanMan for Tremolo. The effect is
gradually introduced to all parts via Automation.
>
We apply the same trick to a reverb
provided by UVI’s SparkVerb. Its long decay
tail is warped with SoundToys’ Decapitator
to add drive and dirt to the clean ambience.
Again, this is introduced to the two sine sequence
parts gradually using Automation.
Distortion in Sound Design
When programming, it’s always easy to hear gaps filled by extra parts, if a
mix isn’t full or interesting enough. There may be a better way…
It’s all too easy to find yourself feeling that your production needs another part. You may have listened to the track so much that its impact
is, by now, very diluted and another part might just inject some life back into it. Equally, you might have listened to a commercial mix
which has already been mastered and, upon listening back to your mix, decided that its relative ‘weakness’ might be solved by recording
another layer. And then another. And so on. In practice, extra parts are often not the best solution. Instead, positive reinforcement of the
good ideas you already have can work wonders. Indeed, with some careful effects chains which include distortion effects, you can see
overdrive, saturation and distortions too as sound design layers ready to reinvent and enhance your mixes.
DON’T:
>
…let the output
channel of your
mixes distort. If your
mix features two
sounds that both get
close to 0dB at the
same time, their
summed result will tip
the output mix over
0dB. Leave adequate
headroom in your
mixes to avoid internal
clipping. Use gain
plug-ins if you have to,
both on individual
tracks and across the
stereo buss, to get
volume under control.

Friday, 6 June 2014

Bitcrushers and Distortion

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