Because 808 sample pack are nearly completely made up of low-end frequencies, they frequently sound distorted. To address this issue, the sample must be mixed properly with the other instruments in the song.
If your headphones or speakers are configured to vibrate too much in reaction to bass frequencies, 808s can sound distorted (Overtones). Vibrating Low-Frequency waves put pressure on solid materials to transport energy via air cavities and into solid materials; nevertheless, there is a limit to how much power can be transferred before things break down.

 

Spoiler: What is aliasing?

What is aliasing?

Aliasing is a form of distortion that occurs in digital synthesizers, digital signal processors, or software synthesizers when the signal being processed exceeds the system's Nyquist frequency. Aliasing is a term that is generally used in the field of digital signal processing.

Aliasing is a signal processing term and occurs when a system is measured with an inadequate sample rate. Aliasing can occur either when the anti-aliasing filter in the A / D converter is not so good or because the system is overloaded. The latter is the most common source of aliasing, as overloads lead to the generation of high-frequency harmonics in the digital system itself. Aliasing occurs when the higher-frequency components of the signal cannot be captured due to the low sampling frequency, which leads to overlapping in the spectrum.

It's easiest to describe aliasing in terms of a visual sampling system that we are all familiar with. If you've ever watched a western and the wheel of a rolling cart appears to be reversing, you've witnessed aliasing. The film's frame rate is insufficient to describe the frequency of rotation of the wheel and our eyes are fooled by the misinformation.

The effect can also be seen, for example, in images in which there is a pattern with high variation (e.g. striped shirt) and the pattern looks strange: This happens because the stripes actually contain higher spatial frequencies than the camera due to the limited number of Could accommodate pixels.


Because the sampling frequency is too low, the measured values are too far apart to be able to reproduce the original signal. The newly created blue curve indicates a signal with a frequency that is far too low. This is the alias of the original frequency.
Nyquist frequency
Nyquist's theorem tells us that we can successfully sample and play back frequency components up to half the sampling frequency. When an analog signal is digitized, any component of the signal that is above half the sampling or digitizing frequency is "aliased". This frequency limit is called the Nyquist frequencydesignated. The sampling rate determines this frequency range because it sets the Nyquist frequency. The Nyquist frequency is the maximum frequency that can be recorded at a given sampling rate. With a sampling rate of 48,000 samples per second, the Nyquist frequency is 24,000 Hz. With a sampling rate of 44,100 samples per second, the Nyquist frequency is 22,050 Hz. If a signal contains frequencies that are greater than the Nyquist frequency, they are transmitted by the Converter interpreted and mapped to frequencies lower than the Nyquist frequency.

Anti-aliasing filter
Aliasing is a major problem for digital audio because it is usually undesirable for frequencies in a signal to change. The good thing is that there is a special component in place to prevent aliasing as part of the analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion process. This component is known as the anti-aliasing filter. The anti-aliasing filter prevents frequencies above the Nyquist frequency from being converted. This prevents signals from changing frequency during the conversion process. Ideally, an anti-aliasing filter is a brick wall filter that lets anything below the Nyquist frequency pass while filtering anything above the Nyquist frequency. In addition, this filter would be audibly transparent without causing a phase shift in the passband.An anti-aliasing filter is required whenever analog signals are sampled or when a digital signal is converted from a high sampling rate to a lower sampling rate. Most A / D converters are a two-step process. There is an initial phase of sampling at a very high rate in which an analog anti-aliasing filter is used. The material is then downsampled to the desired rate (e.g. the CD rate of 44.1 kHz) using a digital anti-aliasing filter to achieve the end result.There is an initial phase of sampling at a very high rate in which an analog anti-aliasing filter is used. The material is then downsampled to the desired rate (e.g. the CD rate of 44.1 kHz) using a digital anti-aliasing filter to achieve the end result.There is an initial phase of sampling at a very high rate in which an analog anti-aliasing filter is used. The material is then downsampled to the desired rate (e.g. the CD rate of 44.1 kHz) using a digital anti-aliasing filter to achieve the end result.

https://alessandrofama.de/wiki/aliasing/
https://alessandrofama-de.translate...sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=nui

 

Last edited: Nov 15, 2021

most of the time it is just because people like how they sound when gain clipped/distorted through an analog mixing desk. So that's how they sample them. Pitching doesn't usually make this better.

 

Sorry, but I don't get it. Firstly, when you want to give an explanation, you should change the thread title to Why 808 samples sound distorted and not phrase it as a question.
Secondly, the samples of the link are distorted, they don't sound like this due to

So these examples/samples don't fit at all to your explanation.

 

The Roland TR-808 In Action

Download Doctor Mix's 808 samples, loops and kits here https://super808.uk

 

Lol is like saying why all rock guitars are distorted ) The house/techno 808s are clean, the hiphop/trap 808s are dirty. A clean 808 is not hiphop/urban anymore. Is not a mixing issue, is an aesthetic choice. Simple.

 

I had 808. It rather hard to make a powerful sounding track without at least overdriving it, especially bass. The bass is just a sinewave, essentially. Not much power beyond ~200Hz. When you put an overdrive or distortion on it, the higher harmonics start to come up and it starts to sound "more like it".

 

808 bass/kick is such a pure tone. By adding a little distortion increases its presence and assures it will be heard within the mix on all speakers.

 

True, very true (had one as well many moons ago), and the thing is that the 808 kick transient is fast and *huge*. So the tendency was to push the gain up to make it go "oomph" and in the process you usually overdrove the preamps making it sound, well, like an 808 bass.

One trick on an unprocessed kick is to compress it with a fast compressor, pretty low threshold and fair bit of ratio, set both attack and release to fastest and slowly increase the attack, leaving the release at 0 (or whatever). You get nice bit of overtones that way as well and a nice boost on the bass side of things.

 

this makes me want to know how 'pure' is the software version of Roland cloud TR808 ?

because, when you get the VPROM by Alyjameslab, you get played the pure 8bit 28khz-35khz original binary files that were extracted from the original Linn Drum device eprom. its just like having a linn drum device truly emulated inside your pc. -there is NO sampling! the sounds are dry pure and it is an abolute joy to apply some compressor/eq/reverb on them!

 

Bitcrushed blines

 

TR808 kicks are pure sine. No overtones. It can't hardly be heard on a small speaker (that has roll-off at around 200). It can be felt on a big system. We "hear" the overtones/harmonics when saturating/distorting, even at lower volume. A balance of fundamental and overtones. That simple.