Distortion stacking (or in general)

[skyloop]

I'm a new noise artist and I got a lot of the basics down of what does what with my synth based currently set up but one thing I'm wonder is how distortion tends to creating that extremely explosive sound that I would say sounds like a never end explosion when certain textures are put through it (or sometimes not at all, one time a long while back on a failed noise project I had a distortion pedal that did that exact thing no input and could be made into very simple wall noise). MY Data Corrupter pedal is able to do this and introduce some very wacky dynamics but I have a Boss DS-1 here that can on it's own get extremely loud but doesn't do the thing.

On another note I stacked this Boss distortion on top of it and instead of get louder and stronger the sound actually got a bit quieter. Is there only some that work better together or do I need some sort of signal boosting pedals  in between. Would make an extremely long stack to run more tests but my power supply multi-adapter hasn't arrived yet.

[Atrophist]

I'd advise you not to worry about how loud certain pedals are. Your amp/PA/whatever can make things louder if need be. If you like the sounds they produce, fo for it. Generally speaking, yes, my own experiences with placing Boss pedals after more experimental/noise-adjacent pedals have been underwhelming as well. And I know what I'm talking about, since I'm practically OCD about trying all my pedals in every combination possble. ;)

[skyloop]

I'd advise you not to worry about how loud certain pedals are. Your amp/PA/whatever can make things louder if need be. If you like the sounds they produce, fo for it. Generally speaking, yes, my own experiences with placing Boss pedals after more experimental/noise-adjacent pedals have been underwhelming as well. And I know what I'm talking about, since I'm practically OCD about trying all my pedals in every combination possble. ;)

Oh I see, well I have a Hizumitas on the way because it looks like it's extremely foundation noise heavy, you're right that it may just be that it's simply too clean of a distortion and in many contexts if you want something heavier that's not gonna do anything but get in the way. One use messing around with the Boss I did have is with some ocean waves like preset I made on my synth that I amplified and distorted with it then used my 2X Looper to take it down an octave and started infinitely building on top of it and got some really alien sounding results. So it's certainly not good for nothing though.

[Atrophist]

...

So it's certainly not good for nothing though.

Absolutely not, and "happy accidents" and experimentation is key. Boss pedals are sturdy, reliable no-frills sound tools and no noise artist can possibly go wrong having a few of them lying around. Or for the more budget minded, their corresponding cheap Behringer knock-offs.

[Commander15]

Distortion stacking is an interesting topic and there has been lots of discussions concerning it in the realm of "guitar scene", ie. The Gear Page and forums alike. You should check some of those topics, even if it is far cry from harsh noise context. You might get some good ideas from there but just do not fall into gear consumerist trap!

You could try to use the DS-1 as a boost to push Data Corrupter over the edge. Place it before the DC, max the volume but turn the gain and tone to zero. One pitfall is that DS-1 is an guitar distortion pedal so it might cut some low frequecies that are needed for that certain explosive, rumbling sound that you are seeking.

[Cementimental]

here's how i do it

[skyloop]

here's how i do it

I don't care how my HNW is made, as long as I like the texture and all! I actually been enjoying more ambient noise wall recently which is good for just spacing out or thinking to.

So over the past months I was just throwing everything to the wind and trying a million things, the only way to really go about this I'm finding since it's such an individual process anyways. But what I'm finding in general is that you tend to need one distortion pedal that is like the star of the show  with a good sound source. I now use an Arturia Microfreak because there are so many premade and customizable sounds to get out of it that when over driven even if very musical when heavily pumped up get really brutal and layer worthy. that really has some major crunchy potential and building whatever around that which provides enough juice to drive it over the edge into that sound territory, one of my favorite things to do now is using looping to make really constant brutal sound that's not HNW I have control over though it does get to the point where there is so much looping going on that you can't really get anything much else to come through (I gotta look at the manual on it and see how to remove single layers on the fly without crapping out the entire loop stack). If my recording works through my tascam from the mixer main outs when I get one than I'm a free man to do whatever with sound. Honestly I almost before just before recently after other life stuff went down I was about to throw in the towel on everything. Good thing I got that spark one day that told me give it a try one more time.

[DismalChant]

I would suggest using an EQ pedal, which will help give you a volume boost, but more importantly allow you to shape the sound. Ive spent an endless amount of time messing with the order of pedals, which can also make a world of difference. Try to use a variety of distortion pedals which each add their own unique sound... Just my two cents.

[chryptusrecords]

sounds like a never end explosion when certain textures are put through it

yeah, i think this is commonly achieved by using two distortion pedals together. of course the DOD FX86 is famous for this purpose, if you put another distortion in front of it (in my case I frequently use the BOSS HM-3 hyper medal with highs cranked and lows totally cut), running into the DOD with gain cranked and more specific eq, which is a much louder pedal, also prevents:

On another note I stacked this Boss distortion on top of it and instead of get louder and stronger the sound actually got a bit quieter. Is there only some that work better together or do I need some sort of signal boosting pedals  in between.

Atrophist is right that amps or mixer can compensate for gain loss but in my own practice I hate having to worry about this, and having stacked distortions in 'proper' gain order means you can turn off the louder one and achieve quieter, more subtle effects, and then turn the louder one back on for a real blast, without having to compensate with fiddly level adjustments. Besides who wants to lose signal? no good. i've seen plenty of live sets that are completely choked out by everything running through very compressed distortion.

[Commander15]

sounds like a never end explosion when certain textures are put through it

yeah, i think this is commonly achieved by using two distortion pedals together. of course the DOD FX86 is famous for this purpose, if you put another distortion in front of it (in my case I frequently use the BOSS HM-3 hyper medal with highs cranked and lows totally cut), running into the DOD with gain cranked and more specific eq, which is a much louder pedal, also prevents:

On another note I stacked this Boss distortion on top of it and instead of get louder and stronger the sound actually got a bit quieter. Is there only some that work better together or do I need some sort of signal boosting pedals  in between.

Atrophist is right that amps or mixer can compensate for gain loss but in my own practice I hate having to worry about this, and having stacked distortions in 'proper' gain order means you can turn off the louder one and achieve quieter, more subtle effects, and then turn the louder one back on for a real blast, without having to compensate with fiddly level adjustments. Besides who wants to lose signal? no good. i've seen plenty of live sets that are completely choked out by everything running through very compressed distortion.

Agreed. OFC all depends on the purpose, but too much compression from distortion pedals chokes all the dynamics.

[skyloop]

sounds like a never end explosion when certain textures are put through it

yeah, i think this is commonly achieved by using two distortion pedals together. of course the DOD FX86 is famous for this purpose, if you put another distortion in front of it (in my case I frequently use the BOSS HM-3 hyper medal with highs cranked and lows totally cut), running into the DOD with gain cranked and more specific eq, which is a much louder pedal, also prevents:

On another note I stacked this Boss distortion on top of it and instead of get louder and stronger the sound actually got a bit quieter. Is there only some that work better together or do I need some sort of signal boosting pedals  in between.

Atrophist is right that amps or mixer can compensate for gain loss but in my own practice I hate having to worry about this, and having stacked distortions in 'proper' gain order means you can turn off the louder one and achieve quieter, more subtle effects, and then turn the louder one back on for a real blast, without having to compensate with fiddly level adjustments. Besides who wants to lose signal? no good. i've seen plenty of live sets that are completely choked out by everything running through very compressed distortion.

I just got my mixer and yeah the mixer itself acts as an instrument and recording from it to a tascam is flawless, just having one issue with hearing what I'm doing while I'm doing it but hopefully the phones jack on the Tascam to the 1/4th mic jack in my sound system will work better (the phone output to RCA inputs give me a lot of sound system buzzing that is not the actual audio coming from the tascam and it gets really bad when I plug in anything but my synth like a contact mic). I'm not getting any gain loss and it sounds fine right out of the mixer. I don't even need to do anything to the audio after either, I was playing around last night in audacity with it but honestly I should just keep it where it is in all its ear splitting glory because making it quieter in any way makes it lose a lot of dynamics in the dead lows and highs. People can use their volume knobs and it's not artificially loud like I did with my last thing I put out since recording with a mic in front of an amp was clearly not working out (hell I might just wipe it and start again after that desperate embarrassing attempt at trying to make something work that couldn't in any practical way) since this is now going to be how I record and normally play)