So you're looking for a saturator? I would expect that you could probably get some saturation from any tube hardware that you have. I noticed you're using the Avalon M5 which is a FET pre right? I'm not all that proficient with gear so bear with me. Maybe if you used a decent tube pre or a cheap one for that matter and just push the tube a bit, you can thicken it up with some saturation.

There are plugins like Magneto but I don't think they sound anywhere near what a real tube sounds like. More like digital noise than anything.

THANKS FOR THE REPLY, YES I NEED SOME TUBE EQUIPMENT TO GET THE SATURATION

Maybe one of these:

http://www.vintageaudio.org

;-)

You can fuck up just about anything with an ART Pro MPA Gold. Drive the hell out of it and probably get some nicely colored and crunchy tones.

BTW musician's friend is blowing those things out right now at $299. :lol:

the avalon's are about the cleanest pre-amp's in the world....

someone told me he was warming up with a 737.... :shock:

it's like baking in a deep freezer!!! :-?

and the 414 is thin and brittle sounding... you're basically suffering from all of your gear having a bright tonal balance..... mic/preamp/converter

get a soundelux mic and some manley gear.... thing will warm up for sure..... and maybe exchange the apogee for an rme.... and listen through a good analog pot connected to your d/a instead of the O2R... and maybe an analog mixer.....

you have to track things with a warm "tone" to get warm mixes...... then you can add saturation to those things that need it...

iznogood wrote: the avalon's are about the cleanest pre-amp's in the world....

someone told me he was warming up with a 737.... :shock:

it's like baking in a deep freezer!!! :-?

and the 414 is thin and brittle sounding... you're basically suffering from all of your gear having a bright tonal balance..... mic/preamp/converter

get a soundelux mic and some manley gear.... thing will warm up for sure..... and maybe exchange the apogee for an rme.... and listen through a good analog pot connected to your d/a instead of the O2R... and maybe an analog mixer.....

you have to track things with a warm "tone" to get warm mixes...... then you can add saturation to those things that need it...

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Sounds like a case of the wrong gear for the job.

The 414 is by no means a warm mic. As a matter of fact, I find it an unjustifiable purchase simply because I can't ever find anything that I love its sound on. It's too thin and bright. A former mentor of mine used them to record bands/orchestras and no matter what I did or he did with them, all the recordings sounded like shit.

The Avalon, to me is also a sterile piece of gear unworthy of purchase. I have clean pres, so I don't need the Avalon or its price tag.

If you want warm, get a warm mic or a warm pre or both.

The Soundelux would be a good choice (just about any of them) so would Charter Oak and my new favorite warm vocal mic - the Beyer M130.

As for pres (warm that is) try Summit, Manley, GT Brick, Averill, OSA, API, and many others.

Just some thoughts.

J.

z wrote: Hay guys I upgraded my studio with gear that even would make the pro say whaaat,but it"s not the sound i want,
I have a hip hop artsist that is very special, and my influinces are Bowie,Peter Gabriel,Depech Mode, i'm looking to make a hip-hop-electronic album with lots of ambient and distortion but till now after 5mounths I've got nothing but clean digital sound wich i hate mostly vocals Mic-m5 or 737-compession-apogee in the computer I place a psp vintage warmer on my mix

my mikes are 58,57,and akg c 414 b

SET UP MAC DUAL RUNNING LOGIC 7 Hammerfall card
Apogee 8000
GEAR :DISSTRESSORS WITH BRITSH LINK,AND 1176LN
Effects H3000SE,SPX90,afex filter,space eco(THAT IS MORE OF WHANT SOUND WISE
pre amps: AVALON M5 AND 737(looking to change) ??? Manley vox

my stereo return is going threw my Yamaha o2r

my feeling is that i need to put some filters or stomp boxes on the mix but ultimetly i want to dump on tape
so any sugestions to get durtier sound

z

,

My biggest fear is that after buying RME / Grace 101 / baby BLUE bottle it is going to sound too digital (thin, sterile, etc.) I don't know if there is any way around this except to dump your tracks to 2" and mix from tape.

I have always gone to a studio to do my recording because I just can't afford decent equipment (and certainly can't afford a 24 track 2" machine.)

(Someone in another thread was using a soundelux mic w/ a great river pre and it sounded amazing. Not sure if it was tape or digital.)

Sound too digital? In a double blind listening test between samples of well recorded digital and well recorded analog music (even with the same mics/pres) I doubt you'd tell the difference more than approx. 50% (random chance) of the time. That's not an insult, I just don't think that this "digital sound" is a particularly tangible beast in terms of rendering a good performance sterile. Just my opinion. 8-)

i can tell a good 2-inch from digital anytime.....

another thing that works well is to get an old sampler (akai, roland) and midi trigger some parts from that. they will definitely color the sound.

the korg er-1 synth is another cheap way to get some scratchy sounds: it has an audio input for each of the two channels and you can shape the sound with the filter cutoff, resonance, etc. really easy and you are working with knobs so it is really quick.

z wrote: ...
GEAR :DISSTRESSORS WITH BRITSH LINK,AND 1176LN
...
pre amps: AVALON M5 AND 737(looking to change) ??? Manley vox
...

Never used a distressor, but the 1176 can produce some grit if pushed into deep GR with attack/release at the fastest. You could send the mix through that and add the result quietly back into the 'clean' mix. If you just have one channel I guess you'd have to run each side separately, but it could still work.

Also, do you already have a Manley Voxbox, or were you adding that as something you might want to replace Avalon gear with? If you already have it, then you could re-run the vocals through it, or even the whole mix (well, a channel at a time, anyway) to get your tube sound.

liquisound's idea is good too, to run it through a synth with audio input. The Korg EMX-1 and ESX-1 also have audio inputs but have tubes in the output path (low voltage) that could give you the distortion you're after. I have an EMX-1, and I don't usually use it for processing vocals or mixes, but I know you wouldn't need to crank the tube drive very high to get some nice distortion.