Designing a distortion for vocals

[Gregory Kollins]

This is sort-of an active build report, plus a request for advice for anyone with experience or good knowledge on what I'm doing. I'm building a distortion for vocals. Here is my current "design" -

XLR input ---> Low to high impedance transformer (DIY circuit needed, help is appreciated) ---> Distortion circuit (to be determined, again help is appreciated) with distortion level, volume, and hopefully an eq, possibly single tone knob ---> Dual switchable outputs - 1 1/4" and 1 XLR, both behind a fixed resistor.

Of course the whole thing would be switchable on-off by a 3pdt stomp switch. My #1 question would be, what goes into a low to high impedance transformer? They are passive, correct?

I'm going to demo several distortions, but feel free to add if you know of any that work really well. The idea is to be able to add some "umph" and roar to the lead vocals, as well as be able to make them "fssssssst" if that is desired.

Thanks and I'll keep this posted for those of you who are interested.

Oh one more thing - I want to make this one REAL nice, and I'm looking for one of those "soft touch" type 3pdts. I've seen a few of you guys have 'em on stuff in the pictures thread. Anyone want to tell me where you get them? Thanks.

[mac]

The Chemical Brothers use a Big Muff to distort from keyboards to vocals.

mac

[mr.adambeck]

Having used distortion on vocals in the past for bands, I've found that if you want to use it live you definitely need a gate in there or you'll get nothing but feedback.

I don't know if this is something you just want for recording or not, but I would seriously consider this, because even if it sounds fine in your practice space, the second you get in a club and the acoustics/volume, etc. changes it's feeding back like crazy all over again.

[Gregory Kollins]

Thanks for the heads up. Really, the more elaborate this gets the happier I will be, if that makes sense. So a gate there will be.

[sean k]

Heres your input stages...
http://sound.westhost.com/project30a.htm

[AFF]

This is not a please listen to us plea!

I am a singer in a Metal band and when we recorded I wanted to add something to the clean vocals. We pulled up the ampli-tube plug in and it sounds pretty good. I mention this because it's settings give a great sound to start from or listen to. If you have access to the plug in try it and see what you think.

You can listen to my vocals through it at : myspace . com / apartfromfear  Listen to the song promises (it was the first time we tried this sorry in advance) ... I am a shitty singer that's why I do low and high screams it's more natural distortion LOL.

The amplitube plug in is obviously a tube amo distortion sound ... actually the layout for it is a boogie rec series copy and it processes nicely. I have a multi vocal effect somewhere that I never really ever used and it has a distortion setup on it. I was never able to get a "good" sound just an okay sound.

See if you can actually test through a DS-1, Uber Metal(built in gate), and SD-1.

I know some of this is like apples and oranges but I have tried a few of these ideas.

I would use a ds-1 modded circuit  (a few cap and resistor changes) an Led with a low forward volt drop in d4 and a 1n4001 diode in d5. It makes mine sound very modern tube like (mesa triple rec like)

Most of my input may not be useful to you  ... if not sorry. Hopefully you can at least use some of the suggested listening ideas such as the ampli-tube effect.

[Gregory Kollins]

Haha yeah I have some plug-ins, and I have used them for recording. But this is for live sound, besides just being cool. I have a modded dist +, ds-1, red llama, fazz face, harmonic percolator, axis fuzz, tone bender,  and untavia (octavia minus octave) that I will demo, and if none of that sounds good I will look to recommendations.

Oh BTW, your vocals are pretty METAL man (I'm not really an authority though), makes me think of those mean lizard guys from the Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time fire temple. That's a good thing, just to clarify.

And many thanks sean k.

[AFF]

Thanks man. Good luck. I know it is hard to find exactly what you  are looking for. It sounds like you are in that limbo phase of research and pre experiment. It's the toughest part but definately gives you a good direction to start working from. I looked awhile until I started modding and still do ... I like to know what lies in front of me.

If you get it going and it is a good live distortion effect I might have to buy one from you! LOL I will help you advertise it also!!! It looks like you have a lot in front of you and I wish you the best bro. Thank you for taking on a task like this ... a good distortion with range and variation!!! None of the big companies seem to bother with vocals in that aspect.

I mentioned the boss pedals because I really like the tone path and the clip path that they travel in a circuit for example the ds-1. I would love a pedal that offers a diode clip like a ds-1(sound and tone of the diode clips) and the drive and saturation of an overdrive sd-1 like to really push the signal ... I think a setup like that would give you a little or a lot of grit (turning a pot) and add the drive to really sound like you are screaming (even if you are only whispering) I did a few vocal lines that were a lot more quite than the straight screams but the amplitube really got the dirt into it!!! Not that a ds-1 setup would entirely work just two pedals to easily visualize.
I will stop rambling on now and good luck man ... post your progress.
Thanks
-AFF

[ashcat_lt]

I don't think the impedance thing is going to be any big deal.  You can design the circuit to have a suitable input-Z, and anyway I think that even going to the "standard" 1M will work fine for any microphone.  RG explained this in a thread around here recently.

You will have to deal with the balanced mic line somehow.  This can be accomplished with a transformer, but it's not necessary.  It could be just as easy as just not connecting one of the "hot" signals from the XLR input, though you won't get all the available volume out of the mic if you do that.  You can also just design a double buffer type input.  The positive signal goes through a non-inverting buffer.  The negative gets an inverting version.  These are then mixed before going on to the rest of the circuit.

Or you might pick up something like the TI INA217, which is a mic pre on a chip.  Takes a balanced mic in and outputs an unbalanced line-level signal, which could then be manipulated any way you like. 


My band has been talking about having an effected mic on stage for just general weirdness.  I'm not completely sure what I'm going to fix up there.  I do know that I'm going to work in a momentary switch.  It will kill the signal when not being depressed, so you have to step on the thing to hear it.  You might be able to do the same thing with a momentary DPDT switch to bypass your distortion effect if you wanted to actually hear the mic when it's not distorted.  This would definitely be easier to implement than a gate, and might even work better.

HTH

[MikeH]

Noise gate! Gate! Gate! Gate!

One more time... Gate!

Seriously though, having a noise gate is the most important part, otherwise that thing is just going to feedback like mad.  Personally my favorite distortion for vocals is the original Rat.

[Processaurus]

I saw Fantomas a while back, Mike Patton had a clean mike, another super echoey mike, and a CB mike hooked up to some distortion.  The CB would feed back like crazy but only when he had the switch held down.  Easy, lo fi solution.

Has anyone tried an FWR octave effect like the green ringer?  That kind of non-clipping,  wave wrapping creates distortion without adding gain.

[Gregory Kollins]

I have an idea - ashcat_lt, you said I would not get all available volume if I just tied off one of the hot leads. What if I used a 4pdt and wired it so that while bypassed the second hot lead is connected, but while engaged it is cut, eliminating the balanced input problem. Output should not be an issue, since I'm sure the distortion circuit could compensate for the volume loss. You think that would work?

And yes, I will definitely add a gate. I tried some pedals in a PA effects loop today and had really bad feedback issues. But while experimenting, the Red Llama came out on top of what I have available. Very "growly".

I tried out this 555 oscillator circuit from the Beavis site also. It sounded like the vocalist's throat was filled with digital bees.

[Taylor]

How'd you plug a mic into a 555 oscillator? Ring mod?

[Sir_Ian]

I've never tried to do anything like this before....but because you sound kind of unsure what you want....here's what I would do:

Just build a pedal with the mic in and the buffer, and the noise gate, etc, with a loop in and out. This way you can use any distortion you want. It will be easy to try lots of different distortions. Maybe even  some flanges, etc. Then maybe in the future, if you have found the sound you definitely want. You can just rebox it all. Well...thats just my two cents. good luck.

[Gregory Kollins]

Well I'm building this fir someone else. Plus I have a PA setup for jams, so I can just set the distortion up in the effects loop behind a gate. Good advice though. Detailed projects with bad sound outcome are bad news.

But that does make me think about just building a loop like that... maybe... but that's not what was requested.

[AFF]

Had another idea someone may have dropped out there already but I doubt it.

Actually a few:
1. Add an expression pedal ... a pedal that would allow for distortion or gain control, volume or even frequency.
- I am not sure if you would want to incoperate a momentary switch on top of the expression pedal or not ... it could be useful and it could make more trouble than it's worth to run from one side of the stage to the other just to activate the effect when you could just leave it set where you need it and walk around.
2. Work a mic input along the lines of a diy talkbox. Although I am not sure where that would take you That is possibly a bad idea so you might scratch that one.

If you add the exp pedal you could have multiple uses for it. You might have to really work some magic but you could have two switches with different color LEDs that would let you know what effect was being used with the distortion/exp pedal.

I think however that you are actually looking for more technical ideas than what I am giving you. Sorry I don't think I am much help but maybe you can get some extra ideas this way.

[Gregory Kollins]

Actually I REALLY like the idea for an expression pedal controlling distortion level. Wow, that's definitely going in there! That would be endlessly useful.

[Derringer]

little OT here ... but seems to fit the title

my band played a gig last night and the PA setup for us to use was a Traynor Bassmaster head!

The tube compression and slight/distortion was actually pretty pleasing. It gave the vocals a nice "tint."

[AFF]

I also got to thinking of an octave like distortion but after working through that idea with or recording producer we realized that the octave effect might work but an octave distortion would suck for vocals. Just another idea 

[Derringer]

why would it suck?

just not the sound you were after?