Let's get creative! Post your favourite misuse of FX...

[BassTard]

Posting in the the distorted bass thread I got this idea.

So we're all talking about the "how to get it right" stuff. Clean low end, crushing guitars with defined midrange, wide vocals etc. Those toolbox recipes are really great. But some thinking outside of the box (not talking computers) will get our production techniques even more creative, more individual and (very important) more fun!

So here's the deal: Share some of your more unusual applications for effects! They may be hardware or software. Guitar stomps on snares, phase inverted gates etc. What do you use in places, you won't learn about in books or universities?

I'll start of with two of my own:

1.) Use a binaural simulator on bass guitar. There are certain plugins that try to mimic a studio monitor enviroment when mixing on headphones. E.g. 112dB Redline Monitor, JB Isone Pro and the oldschool Crossfeed EQ. Taking a twist on these toys, they may help you creating more depth in your sound. They use things like room simulation (verb), freequency tweakings, x-cancelation and what not. These Elements can add dimension and width to single tracks (especially mono).
I found this to be especially helpful if my bass tracks won't "sit" in the mix. As mentioned in the other thread I'm in love with Steinbergs classic Externalizer for this application. Also I'd never touch it for other reasons, it does something really vibey to the spectrum of bass guitars.

2.) Transient design high-gain guitars (Leichtmetall Guitars). I love this technique and I know of some clients who are now using it on a regular basis. So I'm cocky enough to name it "Leichtmetall Guitars" (after my studio). Most of us will be recording a guitar DI track along with any amp-sounds for reasons of editing and reamping. This comes in handy if you like A LOT of distortion but still want some impact and articulation. Here's how it goes:
a) CRANK the gain on your amp.
b) Send the microphone signal to the first track of a SPL Transient Designer.
c) Send the DI signal to the second track, push the link button and add transients to taste.

The link function of the TD is basicly a sidechain - and because your DI signal is very percussive, the Transient Designer has an easy job finding and enhancing those attacks on the non-dynamic distorted guitar.
You can mimic this quite neatly with Sleepytimes amazing freeware plugin Transient.


Have fun and share your ideas!

 

[J.Lindmann]

Potentially interesting thread. Time to bump it a little.
This ain't misuse of an effect actually but certainly a misuse:

Tom/snare blend
I like to use snare samples to enhance my tom samples in order to give those toms some more attack. I only use the very first milliseconds of the snare sample and blend it with the tom sample. When not overdone this will give the toms a nice crack without sounding harsh or unnatural.

 

[KillFrenzy]

Don't know if it's a misuse, but I oftenly use a gate with 0ms attack (and even pre-open) and fast release - around 30m - combined with a strong hi-pass - from 1k to 5k, depending on the result I'm after - as a sort of transient designer to add some crack and attack to snares and toms. Sometimes using a transient designer before the gate might help.

I do all this as a parallel process, of course, and blend to taste

 

[rapucore]

Drumfuzz

• route a parallel version of each shell
• (OPTIONAL: Gate the tracks to end up with the hits only)
• hipass to taste, generally from 500hz to 1.5khz
• Use a fuzz pedal / fuzz plugin to make the signal saturated but clear, try to keep it attacky
• New round of hipass (completely to taste, generally 100-500hz) added with some lowpass (completely to taste, generally 3-12khz)

You can touch up the mids to your needs and add additional processing to tweak it even further. All frequencies are just reference points, adjust to liking and to the respective source.

And of course, everything is tweakable and there are lots of variations. You could use any form of distortion/saturation as the general idea is the same, I just happen to like fuzz the most.

I find that this simple neat trick enables you to rely more on the actual drum tracks without having to sample replace them. Try it a few times and adjust to your personal preferences as it's basically trial-and-error as most tricks.

Kick and toms really love this trick. With toms I'll usually pan the original tracks narrowly and very close to the stereo picture of the overheads, then the fuzz tracks will be panned super wide (hard pan with 2 toms).

You can do a lot more than what I described as it was only a rough guide on the fx.

 

[rapucore]

Vocal Magic

This is a trick aimed more at clean vocals and it works superbly in pop, alternative etc. With tweaks it can be implemented for anything, but I'll write for the aforementioned.

• Route your vocal track of choice to a new stereo aux track
• Insert a hard tune plugin (I use Soundtoys LittleAlterBoy for this) and choose the most obvious hard tune effect
• Insert a plugin to shift the track one octave up (Little AlterBoy for this one as well)
• (OPTIONAL: Spread the track a little with some good old Eventide-ish magic. I use Soundtoys Little MicroShift and Eventide UltraChannel for this.)
• Insert a delay of choice, ie. ping-pong delay and choose dreamy settings - such as 1/4th dotted with lots of feedback, hipass at say 500hz and lowpass at say 2khz (of course adjust to your liking). Mix to taste, preferably 15-50%, experiementing is the key as with everything!
• Possibly feed this all to a reverb of choice, set mix to your liking. As with delay, I don't recommend 100% wet settings.

That's the basics of the trick, tweak and adjust accordingly and remember to add your own twist to it.

I gotta whip up some clips for the tricks I'm posting so you get an idea how it sounds.

 

[==>Alb<==]

Vocal Magic

This is a trick aimed more at clean vocals and it works superbly in pop, alternative etc. With tweaks it can be implemented for anything, but I'll write for the aforementioned.

• Route your vocal track of choice to a new stereo aux track
• Insert a hard tune plugin (I use Soundtoys LittleAlterBoy for this) and choose the most obvious hard tune effect
• Insert a plugin to shift the track one octave up (Little AlterBoy for this one as well)
• (OPTIONAL: Spread the track a little with some good old Eventide-ish magic. I use Soundtoys Little MicroShift and Eventide UltraChannel for this.)
• Insert a delay of choice, ie. ping-pong delay and choose dreamy settings - such as 1/4th dotted with lots of feedback, hipass at say 500hz and lowpass at say 2khz (of course adjust to your liking). Mix to taste, preferably 15-50%, experiementing is the key as with everything!
• Possibly feed this all to a reverb of choice, set mix to your liking. As with delay, I don't recommend 100% wet settings.

That's the basics of the trick, tweak and adjust accordingly and remember to add your own twist to it.

I gotta whip up some clips for the tricks I'm posting so you get an idea how it sounds.

I assume that it will remembers the voice effect of myles kennedy in AB III
there's something high pitched that I always liked but never understood how it was done

 

[tomas_almeida]

2.) Transient design high-gain guitars (Leichtmetall Guitars). I love this technique and I know of some clients who are now using it on a regular basis. So I'm cocky enough to name it "Leichtmetall Guitars" (after my studio). Most of us will be recording a guitar DI track along with any amp-sounds for reasons of editing and reamping. This comes in handy if you like A LOT of distortion but still want some impact and articulation. Here's how it goes:
a) CRANK the gain on your amp.
b) Send the microphone signal to the first track of a SPL Transient Designer.
c) Send the DI signal to the second track, push the link button and add transients to taste.

The link function of the TD is basicly a sidechain - and because your DI signal is very percussive, the Transient Designer has an easy job finding and enhancing those attacks on the non-dynamic distorted guitar.
You can mimic this quite neatly with Sleepytimes amazing freeware plugin Transient.
!

I REALLY want to try this, but the plugin you linked doesn't work in sidechain in Cubase. Also, the link function is just a way to link the attack and sustain parameters, the sidechain button is the detection source (INT or EXT), but the plugin doesn't provide a sidechain option in my version of Cubase.

 

[TRUIE]

Not really, the "link" in a transient designer is more like a linked stereo compressor.
It means that L and R tracks are linked, so if you have DI on L and reamp on R, the transient designer will mostly react to the DI track transients BUT will apply the processing to both L and R tracks.
Then, just mute the DI part of the stereo track or use the pan, to keep only the amp.
Really cool trick, I sometimes use a TD on pussy pickings DIs but never tried it like this.