Discuss the various methods you use in music production, from compressor settings to equipment type.
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By JACOB of DURBAN Wed Jun 22, 2005 11:25 am
Whenever I make a beat my bass and kick drum are distorting in the low end.
I cut both with my eq(waves plugin) at 75 and they still distort. The thing is that when I play it normally it sounds perfect, but when I cut every thing above 120 so I can hear what the low end is doing I hear distortion.

When i play a commercial recording with much louder drums through my system nothing. But mine I cannot seem to get a "smooth" sound and still get it punchy. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.
By the way I am using Sonar 3.0 and a comburnation of Waves plugins and the Sonitus FX plugins.

By arctec Wed Jun 22, 2005 1:00 pm
is the distortion there when you are not using any fx or processing?
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By JACOB of DURBAN Wed Jun 22, 2005 1:49 pm
Yes, it is. Tried many drums, many kick.
I have M-Audio BX5 monitors
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By Smoove03 Wed Jun 22, 2005 2:38 pm
maybe you need an amp for your monitors? but you said no other music sounds like that...

hmm...you not using any mpc? cause when my samples are too loud they sound distorted...then i turn the sample's volume down and it sounds normal again...
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By JACOB of DURBAN Wed Jun 22, 2005 3:00 pm
No MPC? I put a multiband compressor on main mix and bypass all so i don't get any of the compressor. Then I solo at 120 and there is the distortion.
Does not happen when i do this to commercial tracks.

By elmacaco Wed Jun 22, 2005 7:38 pm
Maybe you clipped them when you recorded them?
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By JACOB of DURBAN Thu Jun 23, 2005 6:13 am
Ok, found out problem. I was being a dumbass.
When exporting out of Reason it was clipping. The reason I did not notice was because on the main Reason mixer it does not show the clipping(not even on master fader) nor could I hear any distortion. Noticed it hitting red on Reason Hardware Interface(very small meter by the way)
Thanks for everyones input.

By arctec Thu Jun 23, 2005 9:04 am
whatever you use, your gain structure is always of utmost importance :-)