Hey all, not sure if this is the best forum for this, but hoping to get help. Friend of mine wants to resurrect old (decades!) band songs for a birthday reunion. Except I'm now on keys duty, which is the primary instrument (most songs were just bass with some distortion, keys with distortion, phaser, etc, and drums). This is lo-fi indie rock stuff, like maybe Ween or Quasi.

The original keyboardist I believe used a Yamaha CP-20 or -30, running it through some pedals. That's about all I know.

As I'm listening to the recordings and learning the parts, I'm running into one problem. Right now I'm using the Arturia Stage-73 V, which sounds pretty close. Adding distortion (usually through Overloud VST) gets me to a "close enough" sound.

However, one issue: the left hand low parts have a thicky, chunky, distorted sound, which is great. However, then this means the right-hand parts get totally lost. It's hard to hear the melody. Clarity is crushed. If I don't play the left hand bass parts, and just do the right, it sounds good, like what I want for that part.

If I dial the distortion way back, well that helps, but then I lose that growl, etc.

So, what can I do here? I figure maybe an EQ issue, but I'm guessing my desire for growly thick distortion + melody clarity just don't jive... when I get the distortion I want, there's just too much sent there from the keys (left and right hand parts) and it all gets crushed.

Other thought was to do a keyboard split, with two versions of Stage 73, Overloud, etc, so I can dial in what I want for each, and if I'm playing the right hand part and start mashing some bass keys, it doesn't ruin the clarity.

Thank yous

 

Yeah, that's always a problem with keys where low frequencies drive a distortion harder. What about running the signal through two filters, a high pass and low pass and then sending each one to its own distortion? I've never done that before but I think an approach like that could work. Maybe blend that back in with the original sound.

 

You can probably get there by adding the distortion in parallel and perhaps using a multiband distortion to dial in the amount of growl and fizzle.

 

Same problem with guitars mate
I will advice the same thing than muddy amps :
overdrive pedal + EQ boost AFTER it

Overdrive will "low cut" the mud, boost / drive the signal, and you bring back the bass AFTER it to compensate low cut.

It is a common practice, and it works for decades

Another solution is multi band disto, so you push less on the bass side.
It is used by bassists too.

Something like Quadrafuzz

Audio Damage give you some for free (Kombinat Multi-Band Distortion
Kombinat Dva Multi-Band Distortion):
https://www.audiodamage.com/pages/free-and-legacy

 

I keep forgetting multiband distortion is a thing now. created basically to solve this exact problem. I've never worked with one.

 

Post-distortion EQ is a great tool, good point!

Sometimes a slight EQ before the distortion works a charm as well, it pushes the distortion more in certain frequencies though it's all distorted still so it's slightly more subtle.

But both tricks worth knowing.

 

You could also use BlueCat Audio's MB-7 mixer. You would insert your distortion plugin on one band by itself, and you could leave the other band clean or use a another distortion plug instance with different settings.

Unrelated somewhat, This distortion from Newfangled Audio is free: https://www.newfangledaudio.com/obliterate

Or you could use Fabfilter Saturn 2, which is a multiband saturation and distortion plugin. I would most likely try Saturn 2 first and be done there, but you could experiment.

 

Some guitarists use graphic EQ before the amp to cut bass/push mids ... , and push bass in the amp itself.
They "play around" amp voicing, being fixed by amp creator, to create their own voicing.

 

Last edited: Jan 14, 2025

Emphasis/de-emphasis is other good approach and has something to do with @ItsFine said, but in the case you put an eq before the distortion to cut the areas you don't want distortion and boost the ones you want distorted, and after the distortion you will boost the exact same frequencies you cut on the pre eq and cut where you boost. The frequency, Q factor and the gain should be likely the same for the desired effects and you should avoid hpf/lpf since you can't revert it on the post eq.
Its just:

Eq->distortion->Eq

Bandpass filters or hpf/lpf combined are good for parallel distortion, where you want only one part of the spectrum to distorts. I use a crap ton of bandpass filters on send faders with some kind of effect on.

I use Ozone Exciter for multiband tasks, but i use for other purposes, not exactly this one. Mostly mid/side stuff, but that's talk for another thread.

 

I've been experimenting alot with distortion and if my tips which also coimplents itsfine reaction:

Try to get two lanes: one with distortion and an overdrive. SO this lane is just overdrive or whatever. And than the other 50% channel u take an EQ and either cut or boost. I found that cutting is better.

This way u can really shape ur sound around the distortion. So basicly u only EQ the dry sound and u DONT EQ the wet sound.. if u understand.

 

This is all really great advice and gives me lots to try. Thanks all.