POETRY AND DISTORTION - Part 1: Corrupting Stock Effects with Poetmistry

In this Lux Cache tutorial series, we explore the left-field uses of standard software processing effects to create unique types of distortion, the multi-layered puzzle of bringing drive & character to otherwise ordinary sounds. In part 1, New York based producer Poetmistry details his methods of breaking and morphing stock effects within DAWs to showcase hidden crunchy sonic flairs and secrets.

This tutorial is available as both a Patreon text post and .pdf document format. We ask you kindly to not share Lux Cache content outside of the Patreon, our contributors rely on your donations.

• Accompanying sample pack can previewed on SoundCloud and downloaded here.

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Introduction

I love working with distortion and resampling not just because of the sound design possibilities but because these techniques are so uniquely tied to “electronic” music specifically. Effects like reverb and delay are intuitive because of the way they exist in the natural world (think singing in a cathedral or yelling at the top of a mountain). And while there are certain harsh and abrasive sounds in our natural world, what we think of as “distortion” cannot exist without an electronic medium. You can’t quite distort an acoustic guitar no matter where or how you play it. You have to run it through an amplifier and crank the hell out of it. It is the degradation that occurs there—whether in analog or digital form—that creates distortion as we know it. That is why resampling, or rerecording a signal, naturally follows. It’s the broken attempt at reproduction that creates distortion in the first place. In this spirit of “breaking things,” this tutorial will focus primarily on less intuitive and more unconventional ways of creating distortion and how we can use resampling to aid that process.

There are five techniques I’m going to talk about and then two sections which comment on how all of these techniques might be combined with each other or stacked with other effects. While some of these techniques can obviously be used with virtual instruments, I’m primarily assuming that you’re working with samples (especially since we’ll be using some techniques specific to audio). Generally speaking I encourage you to try these techniques with any sort of source material, but I’ll also mention if I think that specific kinds of samples work better than others. Everything I talk about will be in the context of Ableton Live, but I hope the most valuable takeaways will be the discussions of the processes for experimentation with the general techniques of distortion and resampling.

Contents

1. Gain And Resampling
   
2. Abusing Time-Stretching
   
3. Filter Drive And Resonance (+ Self-Sidechaining)
   
4. Ring Modulation Drive (+ Live Resampling)
   
5. Breaking Dynamic Tube
   
6. Creating Complex Distortion Chains
   
7. The Plug-In Cheat Code
   

1. Volume and Resampling

The simplest distortion effect in Ableton is the most basic: Utility. You might already use this effect to automate volume or convert between stereo/mono, but simply turn the “Gain" knob far enough right and you will begin to hear your signal distorting in pleasant and unpleasant ways. The issue here is how to capture this distortion and reduce the level so that your sample can actually be used among other sounds. My preferred method is to create another audio track, turn the “Ext. in” dropdown to “Resampling,” arm recording on the resampling track, and then solo the distorted track. When you hit the arrangement record button, the audio from the distorted track will record into a new clip in the new audio track. Then you can turn down the clip or track volume on the resampled audio to lower the level but keep the distorted effect.

We will be using this method a lot going forward, so if I talk about “resampling the audio,” this is what I mean. This method is probably familiar to many Ableton users, and if you’re one of them, you probably have a few other ideas of how you might capture the distortion from blasting the gain on a Utility. So, let me also tell you what won’t work. Once you turn up the gain in Utility, simply turning down the track volume will undo the effect of the Utility and will not preserve the distortion. Additionally, boosting the clip gain and then reconsolidating (cmd/ctrl + J) the clip will not move the clip gain back to 0 (meaning you won’t be able to turn down the volume without losing the distorted effect. You can boost the clip gain and resample, but I like using the Utility effect so that you can put it in multiple places in a signal chain and/or use it multiple times.

(For examples, see samples 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d)

So far, this might seem like a fun, little distortion easter egg, but maybe not something with that much practical application. Again, all of these techniques are meant to be combined. Try obnoxiously boosting the gain in various parts of any signal chain. More particularly, I recommend combining this utility with another lesser known effect: Cabinet. Cabinet does a particularly good job at taming some of the abrasive high-end that naturally appears when you bump the gain. Try the “4 x 10 Bass” speaker setting to thicken up the signal and definitely try changing Microphone to “Far” to instantly get a different tonal quality. If you want to experiment at higher volumes without having to turn your system volume up and down too much, slap a limiter on the end of your effects chain to keep your ears safe (make sure to turn it off when you resample, though, as it can affect the sound). The key here is obviously to experiment, but also to lose any inhibition you might have around going “too far.” Try adding in two Utilities, boosting the gain, and then layering another two or three Cabinets between those Utilities. If that absolutely blows the doors off things then turn a few effects off, resample the audio to a new track, and then try adding those effects back to the newly resampled clip. You will be amazed at how far you can get with just this iterative process. That being said, if you overdo it enough there’s likely to not be much audio left at the end, but getting to that point is important for understanding how far you can take different types of samples and techniques.

(For examples, see samples 1e, 1f)

A quick note on sample choice. First and foremost, try anything and everything. If you really feel like the technique is not getting you anywhere, throw something else in there. Don’t get stuck thinking that you should be able to transform any bit of audio into gold. Don’t use samples where you’re too attached to the original content and still want that melody or vocal to be there when you’re finished. Free yourself and be okay ending up somewhere completely different from where you intended. If what you’re making doesn’t sound like Kai Whiston yet, remember that he’s probably chopping up lots of material from his sound design sessions and then layering it with more conventional sounds. It’s not like he just has a signal chain that makes things sound good (I mean…maybe for 808s, but it’s probably just amp —> three saturators on waveshaper mode —> a few OTTs for good measure, all on top of a sub). That being said, for a lot of these distortion techniques, I find things with a good dynamic range (i.e. they have loud and soft parts) work best. However, that doesn’t mean you need to find a sample with good dynamic range. Just throw in a bunch of random percussion with little bits of rhythmic silence. Or distorts some vocals and then chop them up into something else, before of course—you guessed it—resampling and distorting again. I know this might seem like more “process” than tangible method, but these are the key elements that allow you to use the following more concrete techniques to actually make something interesting.

2. Time-stretching Distortion

There’s already been a lot of great writing on the ways of using the different time-stretching modes on Lux Cache, so I’m not going to go into them too much. Instead, I’m going to talk about a method for creating “distortions” through resampling between time-stretching modes. To do this, take your sample and use the “:2” and “x2” buttons in the clip settings to change the length of the clip. As you can probably guess, I encourage you to click these buttons more than once. You can also dramatically transpose the clip pitch up or down. Then, change the time-stretching mode to a different algorithm. I like to put the flux on full and put the grain size really low and make very small changes (you’ll probably even see differences between having it at 5, 10, and 15). Another classic combo is putting flux really low and messing around with various grain sizes. Once you’ve found an appealing sound, click the clip and hit cmd/ctrl + J to reconsolidate the audio. This is a more limited way of resampling that’s usually useful for joining several separate clips together, but what it will do here is write the time-stretching changes to the file as if that were the original audio. Now that we have those changes written into the audio clip, it’s time to use the “:2” and “x2” buttons (or the transpose knob) to return the sample to something closer to its original. However, because we reconsolidated the clip with a new time-stretching mode, we are not simply undoing the changes but getting Ableton to apply its algorithms to our clip all over again. After you’ve done this, try playing with the time-stretching algorithm again. Maybe this time try “Beats” mode on 1/16 with a really low envelope for something percussive or try “Re-pitch” mode for some weird results.

(For examples, see samples 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d, 2e)

Now at this point, you may have some pretty wonky results. Maybe something that you think is interesting, but not much more than that. A few suggestions: first, don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. Take what you’ve made, chop it up with cmd/ctrl + E, and then join it all back together with cmd/ctrl + J. Use the clip volume fades to create swells and rhythmic dynamics. Reverse it! Additionally, if there is a slight tonal quality to your sound that you’re wanting to use to create something melodic, make sure to use Frequency Shifter to change the pitch rather than transpose. Using transpose can make the tonal quality of the sound quite different or cause it to lose a lot of the crispy, crunchy, abrasive texture you’ve worked so hard to cultivate. Frequency Shifter will do a much better job at preserving the texture of your sound while changing the fundamental pitch.

(For an example, see sample 2f)

3. Filter Drive and Resonance

This next technique involves using the different filter drive modes that appear in various places throughout the Ableton devices. Since we’re working with audio, we’re going to want to use the Auto Filter device. If you’re not already aware, next to the filter shapes there’s a “Circuit Type” dropdown that has various different models of analog filters. Lots of online synth nerds have ideas about the different qualities of these filters based on the filter curves, and while they’re all different, I haven’t found one particular model to always be “the most aggressive” or “the warmest” after having run lots of different types of material through them. As always, my advice is to experiment. I tend to start with MS2, which is definitely one of the more “aggressive” ones, but again, it depends on the material.

Here’s one method that I’ve been experimenting with. First, add an Auto Filter to your track. I usually start with a low-pass filter (the default setting), but you can always mess around with changing that later. Pick a “Circuit Type” from the drop-down and crank the distortion all the way. Now pick a frequency (usually I start with under 500Hz) and crank the resonance so that it’s over 100%. Then add another Auto Filter with similar settings, but a different frequency (usually above 500Hz). Finally, I sometimes like to add a third Auto Filter that I keep almost fully open with a little resonance and a lot of filter drive. This last Auto Filter is just to apply a little more grit to the overall sound and perhaps to pull back some of the really high-end frequencies if necessary. Use utilities and limiters as necessary to turn down the overall volume.

Now that you have this all set up, you may or may not be getting some interesting results based on the samples you’ve chosen. From here, there are a number of parameters that you’re going to want to mess around with beyond the ones already mentioned. In the first Auto Filter, I like to play around with the Envelope, especially pushing it into the negative values. In the second Auto Filter, I like to play around with the LFO section. I like to bring the amount up fairly high, bring the rate to above 1.0Hz, and then play with the different LFO shapes. As you’re doing all this, definitely mess around with the filter drive on the first Auto Filter and the frequency on the second Auto Filter.

(For examples, see samples 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d, 3e, 3f, 3g, 3h, 3i, 3j)

A couple additional notes: first, be aware that once you push the resonance past 100%, the filters may begin to “self-oscillate” i.e. make sounds on their own. As a result, when you stop playing your sample, you may still hear sound coming from these tracks. To stop that, you have to turn the Auto Filters off at the source by clicking the yellow button in the top left hand corner of the effect. You might be wondering if we can leverage that self-oscillation for interesting possibilities. We can and we’ll talk about a particularly good way of doing this when we talk about ring modulation later on. Second, I want to talk about sample choice. For this technique, I suggest using simple repetitive sounds, for example a few snares. The filters are really going to work well when they’re able to pick up on the harmonics of the signal. Keeping the sounds shorter, simpler, and repetitive (so the harmonics aren’t constantly changing), allows you to better harness this feature of the filters. Third, I will briefly note that resampling this content and messing with the transposition and time-stretching modes is a very, very easy way to get some awesome results.

There’s another little Auto Filter trick that isn’t quite distortion related, but I thought I’d mention anyway. For this one, you’ll want to click on the little triangle button on the top left and sidechain the effect to itself (i.e. pick the current track in the dropdown). Then, turn the gain in the sidechain section, the frequency, and the resonance all the way up. From here, you’re going to want to mess around with the envelope, bringing it into the negative territory and playing with the attack and release. You can, of course, always add some filter drive too. Again, make sure that your sample has decent dynamic range, because what you’re really doing here is causing the filter to open and close based on the volume peaks of the sample itself.

(For an example, see sample 3k)

4. Ring Modulation Drive (+ live resampling)

The Frequency Shifter effect is an awesome tool, but here I’d like to talk about the ring modulation feature because that comes with a significant amount of filter drive. Here’s a method that I’ve taken to using. First, add three Frequency shifters to your track and turn them all to “Ring” mode. Turn “Drive” on for all of them and crank it past 10db. Click the “Wide” button on either of the first two Frequency Shifters and turn it up a little on one of them. This will increase the stereo width of your signal and I’ve found that it works a little better when you add it earlier on in the signal chain. Then begin to mess around with the frequencies of each effect.

Just by messing around with the frequencies, you can get a lot of very interesting results, but by mapping some parameters to macro knobs, we can make things even easier. First, shift-click all your Frequency Shifters and hit cmd/ctrl + g to group them. Then right-click on the “Frequency” knob of the second Frequency Shifter and click “Map to Macro 1.” After that, right-click on the “Frequency” knob of the third Frequency Shifter and also map it to Macro 1 (it will say “Map to Ring Mod Frequency”). At this point, the macro knobs should have popped out on the left side of the Audio Effect Rack, and the first knob will allow you to control the frequencies of both effects at the same time. Why didn't we map the first frequency knob? You certainly can, but I find that you can get some interesting results by keeping one knob fixed as a sort of anchor point while you go wild with the other knobs.

(For examples, see samples 1a, 3b, 4a, 4b)

So what was the point of mapping these frequency knobs to a macro? While it’s slightly convenient to be able to change both knobs at the same time, what’s really worth paying attention to is how those changes sound. Rather than keeping that macro knob fixed, play your sample and go wild with the macro knob. Move it around to create all sorts of crazy sounds. Then, create another track to resample to, but after you hit record, move the macro knob around to record those changes live.

(For examples, see samples 1b, 3c, 4c, 4d)

This sort of “live resampling” is a technique you can take and and apply anywhere, but it’s particularly useful for capturing the sounds that are more difficult to automate or record. Remember the “self-oscillation” that was produced when we turned up the Auto Filter resonance past 100%. That sound can sometimes be quite static and unchanging, so add some effects and then resample yourself changing the parameters of that effect as they modulate the self-oscillation. Another great use of this technique is to record yourself changing the parameters of a time-stretching mode, for example the flux or grain size parameters of the “Texture” mode.

5. Breaking Dynamic Tube

The final technique we’ll be talking about involves using the Dynamic Tube effect to really push samples to the brink of destruction. There are three different types of tubes in this effect: A, B, and C. Generally speaking, A is the most gentle whereas C represents a “poor tube amp,” perfect for getting the kinds of dropouts and harsh distortions we’re after. The “Output” control is a way of boosting the signal coming out of the effect, while the “Drive” control is a way of boosting the input to create more interactions with the tube. The “Bias” control affects where along the pictured distortion curve the incoming signal is going to be affected. The higher the bias, the more fuzzy and broken sounding the distortion will be. Overall, the Dynamic Tube effect is a fairly subtle effect compared to something like Overdrive, but by stacking a few of them, we can begin to create some interesting sounds. When we stack a few of them, it also becomes more and more unclear what exactly each knob does, but that’s the fun of experimentation. Ultimately, unlike Overdrive or Amp which will eventually push a signal into some all-encompassing wall of fuzz, Dynamic Tube’s distortion will actually begin to break and split away the signal.

Here’s how I set things up. Drag one Dynamic Tube onto your track. Change the tube to C, and crank the “Output,” the “Drive,” and the “Bias" all the way. Now, drag a second Dynamic Tube in. Again, crank the “Output” and “Bias," but instead drop the “Drive" all the way down. I’m not quite sure what this does, but it really begins to chip away at the sound. Also, feel free to play around with the “Tone” control—you can find some nice crackles if you really dial it in. At this point, begin to play around with the “Envelope” knob, especially by pushing it into the negative territory to bring back some of the sound. After this, feel free to add a few more Dynamic Tubes to keep pushing the sound. At this point, I would suggest primarily playing with the amount of negative “Envelope,” “Drive," and the tube type of the different Dynamic Tubes that you’ve added. What’s most exciting for me is when you push a sound far enough that the dropouts actually begin to create new rhythmic patterns. No matter what the final result, I really encourage you to chop up the remaining pieces to get some very “organically bit-crushed sounding” sounds that are perfect for percussion.

(For examples, see samples 1b, 3b, 5a, 5b, 5c, 5d)

6. Creating Complex Distortion Chains

So far, we’ve focused on the less obvious distortion effects in Ableton. Rather than looking at all of the more popular ones (many of which are relatively straightforward in their use), I want to focus on some examples of my favorite ways to stack these effects to create really aggressive and nuanced sounds. I’ll be talking about a few of the effects that I’ve found myself frequently using together, but that doesn’t mean those are the “best” ones to use together. The most important takeaway from this section of the tutorial is that you shouldn’t be afraid to combine different distortion effects or repeated copies of the same effects with different parameters in a variety of different orders. For a long time, I had this strong feeling that I should be focusing on using two or three effects at a time and really understanding how those effects work to get the most out of them. Similarly, I had this idea that using multiple copies of the same effect was redundant or, at the very least, inelegant. Stringing together long chains of effects felt amateurish or excessive. The reality is that, especially when it comes to distortion, the application of multiple layers is the ultimate sound design technique short of resampling. Luckily, Ableton effects are generally very low CPU and will not disturb most computers (and if they do, you can always just resample). The key here is to open yourself to the idea that there is no right way to do things and that doing things that seem “dumb” or “excessive” can often have interesting results. So get a bunch of effects in there, mess around with their order, turn some of them off and on, and when you’ve found something you like, head back “upstream” and begin to tweak some of the effects at the beginning of the chain to see what happens. When you are satisfied with the results, shift-click the first and last effect to select them all and hit cmd/ctrl + G to group them. Now you can hit the disk icon in the top left corner and save your effects chain. Creating your own effects chains and templates is the easiest way to efficiently create music that is unique to you.

While these concepts are the most important, I’m also going to go over three of my favorite effects to chain together and some tips and tricks on how to chain them together. These chains will be more geared towards traditional distortion uses (like creating big basses, 808s and hard percussion) rather than finding more experimental uses. In terms of sample selection, I would recommend working with fairly clean, high quality sounds with a lot of harmonic information (think a well-recorded TR-808 sample pack or an acoustic snare). Since distortion will often break down and remove information from the sample, the more sonic detail there is to amplify and bring out through distortion, the more interesting the sound. Also, to avoid simply restating the Ableton manual, I’m not going to focus how these effects work, but rather on the specific parameters that I’ve found most important to creating interesting sounds or that I think might be overlooked in someway. If there’s a part of the effect I don’t mention, it doesn’t mean I think it’s irrelevant; it probably just means that I think its application is fairly straightforward.

AMP

The Amp effect has a lot of great distortion models and is fairly easy to use. My notes on this effect are that you shouldn’t be afraid to crank “Presence,” “Volume,” and “Gain.” Additionally, I would say that the “Bass” EQ knob can actually create quite a lot of high-end distortion, so don’t think about this knob as simply increasing or decreasing bass. Rather try to find a sweet spot that begins to resonate with the harmonics in your signal. Finally, the “Mono/Dual Output” button can create some interesting widening effects when applied to samples with more high-end, like snares and percussion.

OTT (Multiband Dynamics)

While OTT is technically not an effect in and of itself (it’s a preset of the Multiband Dynamics effect), its popularity in the music production world merits its mention in this tutorial. The main thing that I do with OTT is really just turn up the “Output.” Sometimes, I’ll mess around with the “Time” knob to explore slightly different rhythmic variations. That being said, since it’s a preset, I tend to not mess around with it quite as much as others might (i.e. changing the thresholds of the bands). If you do, I’d then suggest just looking at some tutorials on the Multiband Dynamics plug-in itself.

SATURATOR

Personally, I find Saturator to be the holy grail of distortion effects in Ableton. I don’t think there’s another distortion effect that allows for the creation of quite the same range of sounds on its own. Here’s how I like to experiment with it. The first thing you’re going to want to do is crank the “Drive” to at least 12db. Then, change the “Curve Type” to “Waveshaper.” This will allow you to mess with the parameters at the bottom of the effect. If you just start randomly changing these parameters, you will often end up with some awesome results. However, I’m going to give an order in which I like to approach these parameters because of the different ways in which they interact. First, I’ll start with “Curve” and “Depth” which will probably do the most on their own to impact your sound. Then, I’ll move to “Period” as that parameter actually modulates “Depth” (i.e. it won’t do much on its own until there’s a value in “Depth”). After that I’ll move to “Lin” as that parameter modulates “Curve” and “Depth” (i.e. it won’t do much on its own until there are values in “Curve” and “Depth”). From there, I’ll move to the filter section on the bottom left-hand side of the effect. “Base” is something that controls the bass frequencies of the sound. If you move it left, it will preserve more of your bass frequencies leading to a fuller sound. If you move it to the right, it will begin to distort the bass frequencies leading to squashed but interesting textures. The other three knobs control a second filter. “Freq” and “Width” will not do much until you turn the “Depth” knob, which operates a little bit like the high/low pass knob on a DJ controller. Generally speaking, when twisted to the left, “Depth” will accentuate the high end and when twisted to the right, it will begin to muffle the high end. The easiest way to think about “Freq” and “Width” is like the frequency and resonance controls on a filter. Messing with the filter section can add some very interesting elements to your sound. I’d suggest ping-ponging back and forth between the filters and the percentage-based parameters until you find something you like. A final note: try automating “Curve” and “Depth” for fun results. To review, here’s the order in which I like to approach things:

OUTPUT —> WAVESHAPER —> CURVE/DEPTH —> PERIOD/LIN —> FILTERS

OTHER TIPS OF CREATING CHAINS

Finally, here are a few other little tips and tricks I wanted to mention when combining all these effects. First, I’ll say again that you shouldn’t be afraid of adding multiple copies of the same effect. One of my favorite combinations is:

AMP —> OTT —> SATURATOR —> OTT —> SATURATOR

(For examples, see samples 6a, 6b, 6c, 6d)

Another thing to keep in mind is that as you begin to create longer and longer chains you will reach a point where the feedbacking nature of some of these distortion effects begins to create tails and sounds that aren’t immediately present in the original signal (especially after the sample ends). Keep a watch out for these as they can be some of the most exciting digital artifacts to resample.

Once you have a chain that you like, I’ll often throw an EQ eight on the end (usually to tame any undesirable high-end frequencies). Additionally, stereo wideners can often be used to great effect as there will usually be a lot of high-end information in your signal after it has been distorted so much. On the other hand, do be aware that this intense distortion will often rob your sound of the very low-end frequencies that give it impact. This is totally fine as cultivating interesting mid/high range frequencies is what’s most important to the sound itself. You can always layer with a sub or an additional sound, so don’t worry about whether your sample has become too weak or thin after being manipulated. Focus on interesting results, and later on, you can always reconstitute your sample into a fuller sound with layering, EQ, multiband compression etc. Finally, once I’ve created an interesting sound, I like to tweak some parameters at the beginning of my effects chain to see what cascading results that will have on the whole sound. This is a great way to create easy variations on a sound (especially if you put an Amp at the beginning as changing the “Amp Type” can have drastic effects).

7. The Plug-in Cheat Code

There are a lot of nice distortion plug-ins out there. Many of them simply make it more convenient to create the sort of distortion chains that we’ve made in this tutorial as they house waveshapers, filters, and dynamics effects together under one roof. While plug-ins can make things a lot easier, they also require a learning curve because they have their own interface and system. The way developers bridge this gap is by creating lots of different presets. Often times, these presets are good enough or at the very least are great starting points for experimentation and learning. That being said, if you’re reading this tutorial, there’s a good chance that you’re interested in trying to move beyond presets. While there’s nothing that can replace intimate knowledge of a certain plug-in, there’s a way that I use resampling that I think can make using unfamiliar plug-ins a bit easier, especially when it comes to experimental sound design.

This method relies on our “live resampling” procedure. To explain, I’ll talk about the process for creating the audio examples for this section. First, I started with a sample of someone playing a harp. Next, I added a distortion plug-in to the track. I inserted an additional track for resampling and began to record. Then, I opened up the distortion plug-in and simply began clicking around between different presets while recording. I tried switching between different presets in different rhythms too. Then, I began to repeat this entire process. I took the resampled audio and put another plug-in on it. I “live resampled” myself changing between the different presets on that plug-in. Finally, I repeated the same procedure, but instead of changing between presets I began changing some of the different parameters of the plug-in on the fly. Building up these different layers of changing effects can quickly allow you to create interesting textures and sounds that can be chopped up and layered into your tracks.

(For examples, see samples 7a, 7b, 7c, 7d)

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Poetmistry is a New York based producer. His recent release My Downstairs Box (2019​-​2020) is now available on Bandcamp and check out his website poetmistry.com

You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter : @poetmistry