got a AH Mki a few weeks ago, I haven’t used it for exactly “creative” purposes, but to perform tracks through it, for which it is amazing.
but there is one thing to mention, the more aggressive the distortion is used, the more it is dangerous to have the dry/wet knob in the middle, because this produces phase cancellations that blow a big hole into the mix. Somewhere upper midrange, really noticable. So now I try to go more either to the dry side, or with CleanBoost more to the wet-side, especially when it’s processing summed signals.
looking forward in trying out the LFO and Envelope Follower scenarios posted by some here
Here’s a couple MD patterns jammed out through the Heat’s saturation, toggled off/on.
Minimal techno thing, MD synthesis only:
G-Man style techno thing, MD UW samples only (606bd/909hats/110clap/chords)
And yea, they’re peak level matched between off/on toggle.
I used to really struggle with getting such a sound out of the MD, especially with the synthesis only. It has various distortion options, but not much headroom. You have to gainstage carefully if you want to use those features and the compressor. With Heat on it I can just play.
Hmm - are you using the Heat as a send effect or routing straight through the Heat into a mixer/interface/etc.? I don’t think I’ve noticed this, but I kind of want to experiment to see if I run into the same issue.
Also @AdamJay – yeah, booyyyyeeeeeee. Analog Heat is magic on all the things. Sounding great over there.
If you have any audio you want me to run through it, I’d be happy to do so, using a couple different circuits. Would give me a good reason to finally set it up for Overbridge VST send/receive.
I’m learning that driving the EQ, filter overdrive, and even the preset volume saturates certain circuits in very pleasant ways. There are so many places throughout the signal path to find sweet spots, especially in the first 3 circuits.
Thanks for the offer, but I don’t have any specific use case in mind.
I’ve seen quite a lot of demos of the Heat, but your short audio samples are among the best to showcase how it can kindly “polish” the sound (not speaking of all the other great sound shaping possibilities, of course).
I’ll guess soon it will complete my personal Trinity (A4/OT/Heat).
Been using my Heat for beefing up my Model:Cycles.
The High Gain circuit is really good for getting things to punch their way to the top.
All the drums and the bass on this is being put through the High Gain circuit, with a lot of drive, like about 80, and the wet level is also pretty high, with about a 70% wet mix. Lots of dirt on the filter (HP) with just a bit of the low end scooped out, but with a smidge of resonance and a lot of eq boost to emphasise the lows I want.
It’s early days for this setup, the hats might be a bit high up in the mix, but otherwise I’m happy with where this set of ideas might take me. Other sounds on this track come from the Erica Bassline and Lyra 8, both being fuzzed out/distorted by other means.
I think I prefer using the Heat in a more targeted manner, I found it was making me a bit lazy on the master.
The obvious answer is to get another Heat, but I’m enjoying having to work a bit harder on the mix right now.
The high gain circuit is such a knife edge, it takes quite a bit of work to get it just right, especially when you’re dealing with kick/bass and hats at the same time.
The fact that I can process an entire drum buss and bass with the same unit and get away with it just proves how clever the Heat is.
But seriously man, this track is a big step from your last works. Really good sound overall, and the drum pattern is gorgeous, love the bassline. Lyra doing her thing.
Mixed in OT right? Did you use OT for anything else?
Yeah, all mixed in the OT.
There’s some fairly hefty compression on the M:C and some filtering/dark reverb on the Lyra.
The Erica Bassline is going through my Black hole Symmetry pedal which is combined delay/reverb/fuzz and then I’ve got a tiny bit of flanger on it in the OT.
No master track and no samples. I had a couple of samples going on two flex tracks, but they made it all a bit too busy, so they got cut.
My gain staging is all over the fucker though, still getting used to where everything is on the OT.
Tidy.
Yeah I reckon mixing in the OT sounds best open. I did used to use the master compressor a bit. Prefer the open sound through, with compressors or filter distortion where it needs to be.
I was quite hopeful that I could achieve at least some of the Heat’s magic with the OT’s master track, but it’s not for me, it doesn’t really add anything to the mix in the way that the Heat does and I’ve found that the OT’s compressor is more smashy than gluey, at least how I’m using it anyway.
Also, with 3 thru tracks, I need the space for other things.
The more examples I hear, the more I think I need to liberate my heat from the master insert too. At least for some applications. Great example here. Thanks for the details on settings, too!
I finally installed OB for my Heat MK1 yesterday. Put Microtonic through it.
whoa jiminy.
I do like how it mutes the analog inputs when you load the plug-in, and then unmutes the moment the plug-in is removed from the DAW project. This means I really don’t need to get a second unit.
For me, it’s not an either/or proposition, but rather the sum is greater than the total of the parts. I just love using both together.
Akin to how the Heat’s envelope follower makes the magic happen, p-locking the OT’s master compressor in an similar way is super beneficial.
Thanks. As a proof of concept, I think it does the job.
I’m looking forward to having the time to put some more complex arrangements and compositions through it in this setup, as I’m definitely feeling more inspired by using it as part of an instrument than as a kind of pseudo outboard piece of gear.
This is exactly how I’m using it, just as a nice little boost. It works really well for that, and helps me clean up some of my wonky gain staging.
I do need to give a bit more time to playing with the OT’s master compressor, as I haven’t fully explored it, but I’m kind of enjoying dealing with my dynamics per track and just working a bit harder on the mix before I hit record.
We all do.
I love the thing but it took a long time to get comfortable with it. Having it hooked up to an RMS+Peak meter has helped me a lot, now I can do it mostly by ear.
Just be glad it’s not the MD dynamic version of the Dynamix where up is down and down is left. (though I do wish OT’s had the HPF filter)
Same here. Have been offloading a lot of my more creative FX so that I can have more Comp+EQ in FX1+FX2 on OT individual tracks. It really helps.
(though I do wish OT’s had the HPF filter)