constant distortion level but varying dynamics...is this a thing

PolarityMan

So a lot of people like less distortion because they want a more responsive playing style, which is fair enough but I was wondering could you do something like compress on the way in, then apply distortion, so no matter how hard you pick you ahve the same distortion level, then at the end do some kind of side-chained expander to put the volume differences back in post distortion.

Anyone wonder what it would sound like?

guitarfishbay

Have you tried EMGs?

guitarfishbay

If you've got zero dynamics into the distortion that'll sound weak - there's always going to be an amount of dynamics needed to get a punchy or crunchy sound.

But if you want more even then you could try EMGs.  What tuning do you play in?

PolarityMan

Played through a mates but not tried them for long enough to really get to know them, through my normal setting I wasnt a fan but I guess you might need to tweak afterwards.

Im not sure that would deliver the second part of what I was talking about though as after going trhough fairly heavy distortion it'll be compressed anyway regardless of input signal.

To be clear Im not even sure it's something I want, its more wondering if anyone has ever tried it, and what it sounds like.

PolarityMan

guitarfishbay said:

If you've got zero dynamics into the distortion that'll sound weak - there's always going to be an amount of dynamics needed to get a punchy or crunchy sound.

But if you want more even then you could try EMGs.  What tuning do you play in?

Drop c# mostly

bbill335

guitarfishbay said:

If you've got zero dynamics into the distortion that'll sound weak - there's always going to be an amount of dynamics needed to get a punchy or crunchy sound.

But if you want more even then you could try EMGs.  What tuning do you play in?

I think you can sound thick and punchy with a heavily compressed signal. Look at Billy Corgan's live rig. At one point I think it was mainly rack compressors distorting rack preamps. 

You could try a volume pedal between whatever's giving you distortion and compression and your amp. 

PolarityMan

I think Im not being clear about what my "idea" is....

So like take a normal guitar into a reasonably distorted sound, if you pick softly you get a quieter sound but it is also a little bit cleaner. If you pick harder you get a louder sound that is also more distorted.

If you have loads of distortion the difference between these 2 becomes more marginal.

What Im saying is that imagine if you first compressed the signal so that no matter how hard you hit you always get the same amount of distortion.The resulting output would basically not have much dynamics. So the idea is, what if you sidechained the original signal back to the distorted signal using a compressor set to expand. This should have the effect of re-introducing the volume differences but retaining the same amount of distortion.

guitarfishbay

Well you could just automate a recording of a distorted amp and see how that sounds.  Or you could that sidechain trick off the DI?  Never thought about doing something like this so just guessing.

EMGs are definitely personal taste - but the height, relative to setup and picking strength, really makes a huge difference.  There's a point at which they clip, at 9v, and also the distance from the string affects how bright they sound.  So it's a bit of a balancing act - more so than with a passive.  I set mine so they just barely clip when I hit very hard, and I really like how even they sound for regular playing.  I remove the tone pots as that increases the output, brightness, and dynamic range before clipping slightly.

Because I tend to move about a fair bit musically I like my guitar sound to kind of stay in its own pocket so it's not wildly going from a booming low B to cut your head off plain strings, and I find EMGs, having less deep lows and less high highs, and also slightly less dynamic range, work a bit better.

I'm personally not a fan of compressors at all for high gain rhythm playing, just because they get so fiddly to set in a way that doesn't suck all the power out of harder played chords.  The fact that EMGs clip works better for me than a compressor, but setting it all up can be fiddly, and the feel and tone is not the same as passive at all.

ICBM

PolarityMan said:

I think Im not being clear about what my "idea" is....

So like take a normal guitar into a reasonably distorted sound, if you pick softly you get a quieter sound but it is also a little bit cleaner. If you pick harder you get a louder sound that is also more distorted.

If you have loads of distortion the difference between these 2 becomes more marginal.

What Im saying is that imagine if you first compressed the signal so that no matter how hard you hit you always get the same amount of distortion.The resulting output would basically not have much dynamics. So the idea is, what if you sidechained the original signal back to the distorted signal using a compressor set to expand. This should have the effect of re-introducing the volume differences but retaining the same amount of distortion.

I understand entirely - I use hand volume dynamics a lot, and one of the reasons I tend not to use high-gain distortion *or* compression is because it prevents that.

What you (and I) need is a compressor-expander with an insert loop, or possibly just an expander with an external detection input which you can feed from the pre-distortion signal, since there may be no need to compress before high-gain distortion at all.

I have no idea if such a thing is available in pedal form...

guitarfishbay

So thinking about this, in theory you can do this on an Axe FX 2, using the envelope modifier tied to amp output (not master, the amp block output level), and set the sound up so there's basically no dynamic range at the front end (compress/distort as necessary).  Or if you needed a specific response you could use the ADSR instead.

https://wiki.fractalaudio.com/axefx2/index.php?title=Controllers_and_modifiers

I wonder if the Helix or other units can do similar?

With plugins I'd start with side-chaining from a DI and see how that goes

guitarmangler

Like this ?
Check out big Al at 3.40

guitarfishbay

guitarfishbay said:

So thinking about this, in theory you can do this on an Axe FX 2, using the envelope modifier tied to amp output (not master, the amp block output level), and set the sound up so there's basically no dynamic range at the front end (compress/distort as necessary).  Or if you needed a specific response you could use the ADSR instead.

https://wiki.fractalaudio.com/axefx2/index.php?title=Controllers_and_modifiers

I wonder if the Helix or other units can do similar?

With plugins I'd start with side-chaining from a DI and see how that goes

Sounds terrible with the envelope following the attack of the guitar, it's way too fast.  If you hold a chord it'll fade itself out, which I doubt you'd want at the speed strings decay on the guitar!

So you need to apply some sort of damping to the envelope.  And that makes it pretty hard to get right, I guess you'd need 2 way damping, so it gets louder faster than it gets quieter.  Otherwise it's hard to get it to work exactly as I'd want.  Such are the limitations of the guitar attack envelope.

Plus having the sound compressed into the amp does sound pretty flat and weak, you need some amount of transient power to get the amp to crunch up properly.

It's a cool concept, but I can't help but think a better compromise is a post distortion volume pedal