Hello DJ Swivel,

Been a big fan of yours since the beginning. Just curious to know your current favs in the saturation/distortion department and where you use them most often. Keep up the good work. Peace!

Awesome! And great question. I use all sorts of different tools. For a long time my go-to was always Decapitator. I remember being in Australia with Jay, Kanye and Beyonce. I was working with Bey, and Jay/Ye were working downstairs doing watch the Throne. And Mike Dean who was also there happened to be using Decapitator on a lot of things. That’s when I first started using it - around 2010-2011. For more nuanced distortion/saturation I would go to FabFilter Saturn. And to be honest I use Heat built in Pro Tools a lot on my final mixes, more for a subtle effect.

Then I decided to build my own with the goal of beating the existing tools I was using. We had to innovate in some way, so we launched BDE (Big Distortion Engine). Aside from just being a great distortion with all the features I would typically want, the innovation is, we developed what I like to call Dynamic preservation. I believe we’re the only ones doing it. I primarily use that feature in the case of drums. Often you want that gritty distortion sound but you still want your drums to be punchy and dynamic. So we allow you to apply the distortion effect and then reclaim the dynamics that are lost as a byproduct of how a distortion works. And of course you have full control over how much. It’s really cool and leads to some very interesting sounds. There’s a free trial, check it out on my site, and slap it on a drum bus. Crank the drive, and then lower the Range slider. Then you can play with changing the Speed slider which can give some very cool pumping effects - sort of like a compressor but applied as distortion instead of just volume ducking. Very cool sound.

I only build things if they’re going to replace an existing workflow and in order to do so, it HAS to be better. So now I primarily use BDE. I still use Heat, and Saturn in some cases where I want the LFO’s/movement it can provide.

Where you using Heat on every track or just certain ones?
Did you change the Drive/Tone settings or just used one setting that worked?


Thanks

I usually use Heat on all mixes. I don't add it during the mixing stage, I'll finish a mix, and then I'll A/B it with Heat only at the end after I've added my mastering chain. If it sounds better, I keep it, if it doesn't sound good, I leave it off. But generally speaking I'm using it across all tracks on the mix.

Hi, Jordan! What settings do you typically use on Heat?
Thanks!