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Ableton Compression Trick01.10.2008 19:25:39

My friend utofbu pointed me out the trick of using a Dynamic Tube in Ableton, with Dry/Wet on 50%, and output gain to -3db. This adds a subtle distortion to the sound which makes it more lively. This is definitely in "voodoo" territory for me, I can just say that it sounds better. A few months ago, I recorded a liveset on webcam on the stickam website, and the compression and bad sound quality it added really sounded good to me, so I tried to emulate (albeit in a much softer way) using the Ableton Effects. I finally tweaked a "killer" combo which I saved as an Effect Rack, and now just throw it on the master channel once I've finished my song. It just makes everything sound a bit nicer, and it's totally voodoo. This is the combo I use (using the Vintape Reaktor Ensemble which you can download in the User Library).

Here is an excerpt of a track on our upcoming EP, without the distortion ensemble:

And here is the same excerpt with distortion turned on (it's a bit louder, so it sounds better automatically, but it's also much more "lively"). It's a perfect trick to make the "ghost" sounds stand out.