Every. Flipping. Time.
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haha, i know right?
Honestly, if the Level parameter knob worked on the track prior to a neighbor machine, Iād go back to using them. My old live set used a couple neighbor tracks and it frustrated the hell out of me. Itās one of the reasons I got a Twister for the OT.
We all have our quirks, though.
But anyway, back to your track. I also think the Dirt parameter is one of the most crucial. And I need to use the high gain on the Heat at various mix settings more often when I use Heat as a plug-in. So much texture there.
Maddening, isnāt it?
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I feel like the high gain gets written off because itās on the right hand side of the circuits and people just assume itās super extreme. For anything percussive, I really think itās fantastic, it has so much texture and depth to add and can be used subtly to great effect.
Personally I love to smash with it, but thatās just me.
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Good point. One thing I love about the Heat is all the little nooks and crannies where you can find flavor.
Like the Dirt parameter, or the filter (especially with resonance boost), and the EQ. Hell, even the preset volume can be driven. Each one of these adds unique saturation characteristics when boosted. And while itās great that they all react even differently based on the circuit, for me, the chosen circuit is just one piece of that puzzle. I can hang out in Clean Boost for days and find 10 kinds of drive that isnāt ever āsubtleā.
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I did a track with some friends. Ran all tracks except one through High Gain. For one reason iĀ“m not sure of, it didnt sound as distorted as i thought. But what was fun was manually fading some tracks in and out. It kind of hit a ceiling when the new track stops getting louder, but everything else gets more distorted, but lover in volume. We where pretty drunk when doing this, so not sure why everything wasnt totally distorted to hell. Like the other times i tried High Gain on a complete mix. hehe.
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High gain seems the most sensetive in terms of whatās being fed into it.
I canāt pretend I know exactly whatās going on in there but it does a very good job of bringing out textures and dynamics that otherwise go unnoticed, so some sounds will have the evil brought to the surface and others just sound nice and crunchy and loud.
I guess putting a whole mix through it inevitably just throws too many dynamics at it at once, pushing it into pretty severe distortion/loss.
Iām probably wrong though.
For sure. Itās like hitting a mic preamp with a line level signal. You have to majorly attenuate. But once you come down to that level, so much character to be found, and loads of mid range, which just invites you to crank the Low and High eqs even more
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Audio examples are fun, right?
Source is Octatrack with master track compressor.
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First section is High Gain, but heavily attenuated, some envelope follower reducing the drive on kick attack. Lows and Highs boosted. Filter off, but filter overdrive (Dirt) at 76 of 127.
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Second section is Clean Boost with some envelope follower reducing the drive on kick attack. Lows and Highs boosted. Filter off, but filter overdrive (Dirt) at 103 of 127. This setting has become my default Octatrack āsweetenerā.
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Third section is just the Dry signal, no Heat.
All 3 are peak level matched.
Probably could have backed down the Dirt on the High Gain a bit, but I like to party. Just love the blanket of funk it spreads over the mid range.
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I really like overbridge with my Heat. It actually made me learn the hardware faster. The visuals help alot with figuring out the env follower, and the different uses for it. And it helps that you can still tweak some knobs on hardware, even if you run it as a plugin.
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Here is the track we made through High Gain. Ruff jam, but like how brutal it was when you introduce a new element that is overpowering the distortion and changes everything.
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Sounds ace! Is it the waldorf doing the acid stuff?
Them hats on the high gain thoughā¦
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No Waldorf in this track. We had one to-303 and a TS-3 that night, donāt remember if we used both on this track.
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aināt no sizzle quite like an acidlab drumatix hi hat through the hi gain
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Iāve not used my Heat much in a whileā¦ it just dropped out of my workflow and Iāve picked up a few excellent saturation plugins (Blackbox HG-2 and Vertigo VSM-3 being my faves and Iād count Oxford Inflator as part saturator too) that have become staples in my mixing arsenal.
So it came to pass, with covid pressures etc. that the Heat was edging towards my āto sellā list. But this particular thread has kept reminding me to give Overbridge another go. My previous Overbridge experience wasnāt good - it was a faff and a pain in the ass to get working on my Mac with Logic. But I uninstalled today, downloaded and installed the latest versionā¦ and it seems to work pretty nicely thus far!
It has reminded me how much I love the toastier circuits on heat ā putting high gain on an ambient sound is just glorious! I LOVE it, always give me a tingle! And Iām delighted to be able to use it without routing out through my desk and back in again. Huzzah for technology working as it should.
Whilst Iām fine using it for adding crunch and texture, one thing Iāve never been great atā¦ the more subtle settings. When I volume match, I often donāt hear much difference until it noticeably distorts, which isnāt a problem I find with ITB saturators or with my 4track etc. I think gain staging is usually the answer? If anyone has good presets / tips on settings on the subtler circuits, Iād love to try them out. I also need to learn the envelope follower etc. better, as someone mentioned above, I think the overbridge graphics will be really useful for that.
I use the Clean Boost as my default sweetener.
Drive at 89
Wet at 106
Dry/Wet at full Wet
Vol at whatever you need to match.
The input sensitivity I am just barely hitting the ātoo highā alerts.
Filter mode off
Filter Dirt (probably the most important parameter for the first 3 circuits IMO) at 103
EQ Low at 20
EQ High at 17
(note that the drive and filter dirt are what are pushing the mid range here, and thatās why boosting the EQs a bit helps to get a pleasant pseud-transformer saturation)
Envelope folllower is also key. I like to see it on the MK1 interface just hitting during the kicks.
Mode I use FLW+4.5 but itās a bit program dependent.
Atk:0, Rel: 21
Trig = again, just enough to see the āOā icon light up on kicks.
Env Page 2: base = 10, width = 44, DEST1 = Drive, Depth = -7
LFO off.
Hereās the patch:
ADAM-100++_CleanBoost.syx.zip (739 Bytes)
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Reporting that Iāve secured my second Analog Heat MKII! Iāve got it on a Fraction Industries 45Ā° lowpro stand, itās going to be used with everything thatās not a
Digitakt.
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Brilliant, thanks so much, Iāll try this out over the weekend! The pseudo-transformer sound is my bag for sure so Iām keen to give this a go.
I donāt do that much with drums at the moment, so I need to experiment with the follower on more sustained / chordal / noise material.
Speaking of transformers, I have a couple lying around from some old lights I took apart - I keep wondering if I should make some kind of DIY stereo transformer box for tracking throughā¦
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Yes! Thank you for the detailed clean boost setup. Iām definitely going to dial this in as soon as this work conference call is over. Surprisingly (to me, since I donāt trust my skills), my main clean boost preset has some similar setpoints. Filter Dirt for the win. One big difference is the wet level. I have mine somewhere around 12 oāclock, using it to match the levels. Good tip on using the volume for that though. I can imagine Iāll like your preset. Mind you, the music Iām making lately is similar in genre to your style, so it should jive well.
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I too am floored. I might be squeezing a bit too much on this oneā¦ but this is a lightly modifed init patch (on two tracks so I can pitch bend the lead) on the DN, a klck, and a snare from the BB.
At this point I am pissed I never got the Heat earlier. Itās just worth it. It can do so much to make your synths sound like they are double or triple the priceā¦
Also you def smell the fresh PCB heat up the first few times you use it 
Makes it sound huge af:
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