Recording - June 2016 - 23

parallel effects routing, all inside the normal effects bin of a single audio channel/track. This approach, as a new feature on one DAW, has a bit of a learning
curve, but once I familiarized myself with
the flow of this method, it became my
favorite technique for adding harmonics.
I have little doubt that this feature will be
copied by other DAWs.
Setting it up is relatively straightforward. First, click on any of the effects in
the bin, or on the bin itself if there are
no effects yet. Then, in the top left of the
window, click the Routing icon to open
up the Channel Layout window.
Alternatively, you can click the Channel
Editor button on the track to look at the
Routing view, which shows all of the
plug-ins and how they are routed.
Use the Splitter icon to drag a parallel
split into the effects chain. The Split
Mode can be tweaked to split normally,
by sending an identical copy of the signal down both paths, or you can also
set it up to split by frequency, like a
crossover circuit, to send different parts
of the frequency spectrum down different
paths. The third option is Channel Split,
which sends the left channel of a stereo
track down one path, and the right
channel down the other. You can also
specify the number of parallel paths, or
splits, though it defaults to two. In most

cases I use a normal split for parallel distortion.
Once the parallel paths are set up, I
will add the distortion plug-in I wish to
use on one path of the split, along with
an EQ after it to sculpt the tonality. In
Figure 4 you can see this arrangement;
first is an EQ applied to the incoming
signal to notch out any problem frequencies. Then is the splitter, which sends
one path back to the summing point,
and the other path to the RedLightDist
plug-in followed by another EQ. You can
see the curve of this second EQ in the
left panel, whose job is only to sculpt the
tone of the distorted signal, before it is
blended back in with the original signal.
This EQ curve is typical of what I like to
do, with fairly aggressive highpass and
lowpass filters, a fairly broad cut in the
upper bass to remove muddiness, and a
high shelf cut below the lowpass to further reduce the treble.
At the end of each path, before they
are summed again, Studio One provides
a volume control. In this case the distortion
path is set 10.8 dB lower than the original
signal, with the original signal reduced by
about 2 dB. This gives a pretty good level
match with the original signal to doublecheck tonality when it's bypassed.
The second EQ after the distortion
plug-in is, in my opinion, what gets us

closest to the authentic sound of analog.
The key is to tune the distortion that you
then blend back in with the original signal. This allows you to create a tone that
works best with the recording itself...
and of course it's available to those of
us recording without six-figure budgets
for analog gear!
Harmonics = Tone
These techniques are especially important for those who prefer to record as
clean and flat as possible, so that tonality can be manipulated in the mix. EQ
and compression are well understood,
but I think distortion is just as important,
particularly with today's proliferation of
ultra-clean preamps and converters
found in commonly available interfaces.
Often, these devices are much cleaner
in comparison to boutique preamps, so
the clean tracks recorded with them
often benefit from using distortion to add
additional harmonics and tone.
James Lindenschmidt (lindenschmidt
@recordingmag.com) is the General
Manager of RealTraps, making the world
sound better, one room at a time. He also
runs Crafted Recordings, providing quality
audiogeekery in northern New England.
Find out more at www.realtraps.com and
www.craftedrecordings.com.

http://www.realtraps.com http://www.craftedrecordings.com http://www.cras.edu http://www.audiorecordingschool.com/consumer.html

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