So... You've got the music skills. Do you have the sound skills? If you don't quite yet worry not my friend, we've got harmonic distortion to help fill the sonic gaps in your productions. Have you ever wondered why there is so much talk about tubes & tape machines in audio? Well, aside from the fact that they're just plain cool they also impart certain sonic characteristics on source material known as harmonic distortion. This distortion occurs as overtones of the original sound wave's frequencies and you're about to learn a whole lot more about it!
These non-linear overtones can add quite a pleasant aspect to your music but, they must be understood in order to truly take your productions to the next level. While this whole idea of harmonic distortion may seem a bit unfamiliar to you don't be intimidated. There are plenty of resources available to you that can help you to grasp the concept. For this post I'll be focusing on one of those resources in particular.
Samplecraze publishes tutorial videos on various aspects of the audio industry designed to give independent professionals and amateurs the knowledge they need to succeed in this ever evolving world of pro audio. Their latest release is on harmonic distortion as I'm sure you guessed using cues from the first paragraph. Below you'll find some words from Samplecraze on the video as well as a clip from the tutorial.
From Samplecraze.com: "Today, more and more producers are turning to the wonderful world of tape saturation and valve driving to attain warmth and a full bodied texture for their production and sound design projects. However, one needs to understand the subject of harmonic distortion to get the best out of any active gain staging equipment, be it for tape saturation or over-driving valves/tubes. To do this it is crucial to understand the theory and application behind harmonic distortion, so this comprehensive video tutorial covers all the following topics:
-What is harmonic distortion? How does it occur in tape and valve based systems?
-What are active gain stages?
-What are odd and even harmonics and how do they affect the sound?
-How to create odd and even harmonics and blend them to create new textures.
-What is hysteresis?
-What is bias?
-What are triodes and pentodes and how do they affect harmonics?
-What is tape saturation and how do you process it?
-What are the characteristics of tape?
-What is saturation compression?
-What is magnetic threshold?
-What are grids?
-What are valves and how do they work?
-How to use tape saturation and valves plugins (ferox/ psp vintage warmer/ psp tape sat2/ voxengo tube amp/ nomad tape warmer/christortion)"
As you can see this is much more than just the basics and while it won't make you a pro overnight it will help give you and your music a leg up in the game. The tutorial video only costs $5.99 and it will no doubt prove to be a valuable resource both now and in the future when you need a bit of refreshing. For more information on Samplecraze visit their website. As always, thanks for reading & happy geeking!
All the best,
Nick
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