Anyone here working on or have any ideas RE distortion and the ER-301?

#1

I was talking with someone about what I’ve been recording recently, especially, but not limited to, since I started using the er-301. I complained that my recordings all lack rawness, too beige or like interior design. It’s not a control issue; I thought just an esthetic issue – in patching especially, due to not wanting to communicate [ideological] messages in my music. Their response was just:

use more distortion… seriously… the CV running the show… like rolling a snowball down a large hill

I agreed this may be helpful, especially as the only raw element rn is the channel I run through two DOD death metals. But I’m actually a little light on distortion, and can’t think of how to distort CV, especially in the ER-301 herself.

So is anyone here working on or have any ideas RE distortion and the ER-301?

#2

Some popular methods are

  • Put your signal through the phase input of a Sine Oscillator unit.
  • Grid Quantizer: Similar to bit crushing.
  • Sample Scanner: Maps your signal through a LUT of your choosing. Interpolation can be disabled for further distortion.
  • Limiter: Hard and soft clipping.
  • Sample-and-Hold: Rate reduction distortion but you can also get creative with the trigger signal.
  • Fold: Works best when the controls are modulated at a similar frequency as the input.
11 Likes
#3

Useful, thanks.

#4

That’s a great list, @odevices, thanks! :slight_smile:

I’ll add putting the EQ3 or other filters on either or both sides of the modifiers/techniques in that list.

Thinking about guitars amps and distortion, those are the essential ingredients, right? Some kind of signal saturation or clipping provided by the pre-amp, and some kind of frequency spectrum reduction from the tone controls, and sending the signal out through a non-full-range speaker.

It’s an interesting topic, @vqlk. I’m probably kind of “light on distortion” myself - don’t spend much time thinking/trying out what that might add to my sound. Thanks for bringing it up!

1 Like