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[Luke Sheridan]

Seeing Bink's post in the 'venue db limit' thread made me curious: How many of you have deliberately introduced distortion into your system? How and why did you do it and how effective do you think it is?

I don't, but it's something that I've been avoiding for a long time and I will be trying it out shortly, in order to satisfy people who 'need' to drive the system to its limits, no matter how loud it is, mainly in dance clubs and the occasional rock gig.

[John Roberts {JR}]

Luke Sheridan wrote on Tue, 13 June 2006 13:55

Seeing Bink's post in the 'venue db limit' thread made me curious: How many of you have deliberately introduced distortion into your system? How and why did you do it and how effective do you think it is? I don't, but it's something that I've been avoiding for a long time and I will be trying it out shortly, in order to satisfy people who 'need' to drive the system to its limits, no matter how loud it is, mainly in dance clubs and the occasional rock gig.

There is a long history of adding distortion for effect, but the intent was never to mimic system overload. That is a new angle on the subject.

I have been in demo's of powered speakers where the SPL was underestimated due to very low distortion. How loud they were only became obvious when trying to speak and not even hearing your own words.  

While not formerly documented I believe there may be an issue with subs or low bass speakers where customers have learned to expect some harmonic content on top of very low bass notes and don't correctly interpret the sound of very clean linear playback.

I would say that easily 98% or more of the car sound systems that I hear played (too) loudly are severely clipped. If this is the new normal for "good" playback perhaps just some simple clipping from mismatched gain structure might help meet that new expectation.

As objectionable as I find even thinking about this... THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT... even when wrong.    

JR

PS: Hard clipping will have the effect of compressing the waveform so you may still realize relatively high average power levels unless clipper is set very low.

[Milt Hathaway]

Luke Sheridan wrote on Tue, 13 June 2006 13:55

Seeing Bink's post in the 'venue db limit' thread made me curious: How many of you have deliberately introduced distortion into your system? How and why did you do it and how effective do you think it is? I don't, but it's something that I've been avoiding for a long time and I will be trying it out shortly, in order to satisfy people who 'need' to drive the system to its limits, no matter how loud it is, mainly in dance clubs and the occasional rock gig.

I haven't had to do it often, but the Peakstop limiter on the dbx 166a is a nice imitation of Peavey's DDT limiting on their older amplifiers. Just the thing for outdoor gig with the opening act with their own "sound man" who has never mixed outdoors before.

I think there are many soundmen out there who turn it up until they hear bad limiting of some kind, which can really backfire on them the first few times they mix on a real system.

That's another reason why I keep the RS level meter out, and I try not to put FOH any farther back than I have to.

[Jake Scudder]

There was some discussion about this a while back http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/m/108502/13456/?sr ch=curse+of+the#msg_108502

Jake

[Matthew Morgan]

I've never noticed this before, but bow that you guys mention it, I remember hearing a bit of distortion on the vocals and everything when Bryan Adams came through a couple of months ago, and it does seem really effective at doing its job.

A quick question on this technique, would you put the distortion on the whole system, or just the top cabinets and not the subs. I'm also assuming the amount of distortion is just enough for it to be audiable, but not annoying.

[Michael 'Bink' Knowles]

Matthew Morgan wrote on Tue, 13 June 2006 15:04

I've never noticed this before, but bow that you guys mention it, I remember hearing a bit of distortion on the vocals and everything when Bryan Adams came through a couple of months ago, and it does seem really effective at doing its job.

Sound Art took Bryan Adams out in '02, '03 and '04. I don't know if they're still taking care of him this time around but here's the rack they used in 2004. Manley tube toys can be made to add pleasing amounts of distortion so maybe that's the trick:
Sound Art FOH raxx for B.Adams '04

Quote:

A quick question on this technique, would you put the distortion on the whole system, or just the top cabinets and not the subs. I'm also assuming the amount of distortion is just enough for it to be audiable, but not annoying.

You can put 'artistic' distortion on individual sources or on submixes or on the whole works. I wouldn't put such distortion between the crossover and the amp for some bandpasses and not others, though. I think it would be enough to add artistic distortion to a submix that effectively feeds the bandpasses you are aiming at. Aux-fed subs are another subject--I don't have any experience adding Special Sauce to subs all by themselves but I hear people talking about doing that with Peavey Kosmos and other subharmonic boxes. Not my cup o' tea; I like putting FLAVA on some of the parts in the mix but not all of them. Like on kick but not on bass gat. Or vice versa. Or differing thresholds on both.

In Robert Scovill's hands Tom Petty's live mix gets something called Cranesong Phoenix (a digital plug-in that models the hard limiting of 2" tape saturation) applied to some of the individual drum sources, the entire stereo drum kit, and the entire stereo mix. There might be other places it gets tucked in as well.  
If you're looking for a rackmount unit to do that job you could check out the Cranesong HEDD. Unlike a digital plugin where you buy it once and use it anywhere in the mix that you desire, for an analog console you'd need to buy as many HEDDs as needed to be patched.

-Bink

[Mike Slay]

I had a guy complain to me the other night that the vocals were too clear.  He said it was was like they weren't part of the music.  He said bands at this bar always are all like this.  Then he went on to compare my rig to another in town.  I wonder if this is an example of someone expecting a certain amount of distortion in a PA.

It makes me wonder if I'm pushing vocals to much out front or if this guy is full of it.  But at the same time more people are coming through the doors than this time last year so maybe I'm doing something right?

[Josh Millward]

Mike Slay wrote on Fri, 16 June 2006 18:28

It makes me wonder if I'm pushing vocals to much out front or if this guy is full of it.  But at the same time more people are coming through the doors than this time last year so maybe I'm doing something right?

Yeah, it's funny how everyone has a better way to do your job and all, but really if there are more people coming in you must be doing something right!

Josh Millward
Tampa Bay

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