# Doom 2016 OST question - distortion that goes BRRRRRZZZZTT



## MartinH. (Oct 29, 2019)

I'm currently experimenting with building sort of a plugin based version of the analog "Doom array" that Mick Gordon built for his absolutely brilliant Doom 2016 soundtrack. I could use a hint on how one can achieve this distortion effect that doesn't sound like a typical distorted guitar, and more like... BRRRRRRRZZZTTTT
E.g. check this track starting at exactly 3:00 minutes where this kind of distortion is used:


I have watched his GDC talk a couple of times already. But I'm not sure if this is one of the things where he fed a pure sinewave into something, or two sinewaves that are slightly detuned, or pulsing white noise at a certain frequency.


Also I'm open to suggestions for creative stuff to try and emulate the "guitar morphed with chanisaw sound" trick or other gnarly guitar tones without buying zynaptiq morph. (If you've seen the talk, you'll know what I mean, if not, you really should watch the talk, I'll link it below)


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## Henu (Oct 29, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> I could use a hint on how one can achieve this distortion effect that doesn't sound like a typical distorted guitar, and more like... BRRRRRRRZZZTTTT



For what I hear from my laptop's crappy speakers, I'm pretty sure it's a very densely repeated very short sound (or a static, longer sound "cut" with a very fast chopper tool, like 1/128 notes) which is then driven through some heavy, hi-frequency-punctuating distortion/clipper.

Make the basic "brrrrrzzzzt" first and then turn it into BRRRRRRRZZZTTTT with some heavy distortion. (e.g. Steinberg's Quadrafuzz if you're using Cubase!)

Also, Mick Gordon rules. Talented guy with an passion and enthusiasm - and most of all, he's METAL.


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## MartinH. (Oct 29, 2019)

Henu said:


> For what I hear from my laptop's crappy speakers, I'm pretty sure it's a very densely repeated very short sound (or a static, longer sound "cut" with a very fast chopper tool, like 1/128 notes) which is then driven through some heavy, hi-frequency-punctuating distortion/clipper.
> 
> Make the basic "brrrrrzzzzt" first and then turn it into BRRRRRRRZZZTTTT with some heavy distortion. (e.g. Steinberg's Quadrafuzz if you're using Cubase!)
> 
> Also, Mick Gordon rules. Talented guy with an passion and enthusiasm - and most of all, he's METAL.




Thanks a lot! Then it must be the thing he mentions in his talk about pulsing white noise at a very low frequency (around 10:40 in the talk). I can get that with albino using a sine wave to amplitude modulate a white noise generator. Just have to figure out the processing to send that signal through then, but it's so much easier knowing what the input must be :D.


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## Jonathan Moray (Oct 29, 2019)

It's ring modulated noise that modulates at the same frequency as the sine. Then probably crushed to hell with some saturation or distortion. Yes, it's the thing he's talking about in his talk, very interesting stuff, also rather common. It sounds more advanced than it really is.


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## MartinH. (Oct 29, 2019)

Here's a sample of where I'm at currently: 






Jonathan Moray said:


> It's ring modulated noise that modulates at the same frequency as the sine. Then probably crushed to hell with some saturation or distortion. Yes, it's the thing he's talking about in his talk, very interesting stuff, also rather common. It sounds more advanced than it really is.



Thanks to you too! I'm having a little trouble with wrapping my head around ring modulation, both in general and in this specific usecase. What I did here was use "amplitude modulation" (at least I think that's what AM in albino stands for) to put the pulse into the white noise at the right frequency. How would "proper ring modulation" be different here? Any recommendation for an easy to use plugin in NI komplete or reaper stock plugins to check out for ring modulation?


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## brenneisen (Oct 29, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> Any recommendation for an easy to use plugin in NI komplete



Guitar Rig has one


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## Jonathan Moray (Oct 30, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> Here's a sample of where I'm at currently:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Ye, ring modulation and amplitude modulation are _slightly _different, but you could definitely get close to the same result with both in this case. Proper ring modulation would not preserve the original frequency in the carrier signal.



> The difference between amplitude modulation and ring modulation is that in AM the carrier frequency is preserved and the sidebands generated are at half the amplitude of the carrier amplitude.





> A ring modulator outputs the product (Multiplication X • Y) of the signals at inputs X and Y. It's similar to a VCA, but whereas a VCA only responds to positive voltages at the inputs (2-quadrant multiplication), the ring modulator responds to both positive and negative voltages (4-quadrant multiplication).
> 
> The ring modulator thus provides a refinement of amplitude modulation (AM). Ordinary amplitude modulation will output the original carrier frequency fC as well as the two side bands (fC - fM, fC + fM) for each of the spectral components of the carrier and modulation signals - but ring modulation cancels out the carrier frequencies, and just lets the side-bands pass to the output.



It can be rather hard to wrap your head around if you want to learn this in depth. Although, a lot of people just know what it will do to the sound, not the science behind it and they get by fine.

What you've done already sounds alright, keep tweaking it and it will probably sound even better.

Here's a quick example: first the modulated noise + the carrier signal, then just the modulated noise, then the original noise. I think this is right... IT's been a while and it's rather early here. Although, the noise in the DOOM soundtrack is modulated at a lower frequency, somewhere around 30Hz min is around 41Hz.

Please someone correct me if I'm wrong.


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## Zero&One (Oct 30, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> Here's a sample of where I'm at currently:




I had a go at this ages ago, tried to build a similar array rack in Logic. Had some interesting unique results, but eventually moved on with something else. Wish I had stuck with it.

But man, that sample is great! I think it's only the different variations his array adds that differs from your example. Love it!! Some Decapitator fx drums on that would sound crushing.

Maybe not the route you want, but I've had some great results from using Effectrix. On crazy dubstep productions in the past, I used that loads to get a random glitch effect right down to only one beat.

Be great to hear where you go with this


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## MartinH. (Oct 30, 2019)

brenneisen said:


> Guitar Rig has one



Thanks! Took me a moment to find under which category it is, but I found it and gave it a go.



Jonathan Moray said:


> Ye, ring modulation and amplitude modulation are _slightly _different, but you could definitely get close to the same result with both in this case. Proper ring modulation would not preserve the original frequency in the carrier signal.



It does sound similar with ringmod, but it does add a little else, at the cost of losing the ability to conveniently alter the frequency through the midi note that I play. I like how I can use the portamento/glide of the sine OSC that drives the amplitude modulation to easily create movement in the sound. But then I experimented with stacking the two and that's where things got interesting. I think I'll settle for having a couple different tracks in the template to choose from for the different kinds of BRRRRRRRRZZZZZTTTTTTTT sounds.



Jonathan Moray said:


> It can be rather hard to wrap your head around if you want to learn this in depth. Although, a lot of people just know what it will do to the sound, not the science behind it and they get by fine.
> 
> What you've done already sounds alright, keep tweaking it and it will probably sound even better.


Thanks a lot for the encouragement! Here is the latest:



These are:
1. amplitude modulated noise through fx with ringmod
2. ringmodulated noise through fx with ringmod
3. sine wave through 2 fx and reverb + 1.
4. sine wave through 2 fx and reverb + 2.
5. sine wave through 2 fx and reverb (without any noise)

I quite like the wobble that I got from #2.



Jonathan Moray said:


> Here's a quick example: first the modulated noise + the carrier signal, then just the modulated noise, then the original noise. I think this is right... IT's been a while and it's rather early here. Although, the noise in the DOOM soundtrack is modulated at a lower frequency, somewhere around 30Hz min is around 41Hz.
> 
> Please someone correct me if I'm wrong.



Thanks a lot for the example! Does the ringmod that you used allow to input your own carrier signal? I think the one in guitar rig uses its own tone generator as a modulation source, which isn't very flexible (I could automate it, but I prefer just using midi notes to control that aspect of the sound).



James H said:


> I had a go at this ages ago, tried to build a similar array rack in Logic. Had some interesting unique results, but eventually moved on with something else. Wish I had stuck with it.



A shame you dropped it! I believe the official handbook on how to make this kind of music (which is inked in blood and bound in human flesh) advises: "RIP AND TEAR, UNTIL IT IS DONE!!!"
Maybe pick it up again on a slow weekend or something, it's fun!




James H said:


> But man, that sample is great! I think it's only the different variations his array adds that differs from your example. Love it!! Some Decapitator fx drums on that would sound crushing.


Thanks a lot for the encouragement! I was planning to use NI Damage for the drums, but now I'm thinking, maybe I can synthesize my own drum samples out of frequency modulated sine waves and then process them to hell and back with the stuff that I already made for the sine bass?



I do have another question: at the beginning of the latest sound sample that I posted you hear a sound as if someone steps on a squeaky toy - that isn't intentional. It's a noise that gets generated from Guitar Rig. When I'm stacking enough distortion pedals and amps, I'm getting a static signal like they've simulated a sort of ground hum, and I had to put noisegates at the end of those signal chains. Any idea for what kinds of components I can put between the different distortion stages, that wouldn't noticably change the sound, but get rid of this squeaky noise that I hear every time I start playback?


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## MartinH. (Oct 31, 2019)

I tried making drum kicks from sine waves with pitch envelopes and running them through fx and that works pretty well, but I need to figure out a way to get the CPU usage of the template down because I'm pretty much maxed out already and I hate freezing tracks. What I want to have is a bunch of "signal source" tracks that route to fx sends and then automate the volume faders on the fx sends to blend through different sounds. 

I also experimented with tuning my guitar down to E and playing in a riff instead of using shreddage 3, and putting a parallel ringmod effect on it after the virtual amp. That seems to work ok-ish, but doesn't have that "chainsaw bite" yet. I'll keep working on it. 

Would be cool to combine this with some processed voiceover...


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## synthetic (Nov 3, 2019)

I like Audiodamage plug-ins for this kind of distortion, check out Kombinat, Grind, and Automaton. https://audiodamage.com/collections/software


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## MartinH. (Nov 11, 2019)

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1) I've stumbled over an interesting plugin emulation of the cornerstone of swedish deathmetal sound and I think I'll soon treat myself to this badboy here:









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2) They say "limitation breeds creativity" and I was wondering how far in sounddesign and "synths" you could get, with *just reaper stock plugins?*
Afaik reaper is quite limited in terms of bundled softsynths/samplers and you'd have to get creative, like resampling and processing sine waves, putting them in the ReaSamploMatic5000 and adding further stock fx to the chain. I'd be curious to hear what sounds people can come up with under those limitations, though I doubt that many would enjoy the challenge and I'm not even sure if I want to try it myself because while I like and use some of the stock plugs a lot (comp, gate, eq), some others seem to be lacking for what I'd want to do with them.


3) I've been contemplating if I should sample more sound fx down to wav files to have them transportable more easily, but I worry I'm gonna shoot myself in the foot with that somehow.
I also wonder if I should work more with fx chains on media items in reaper instead of fx on tracks, because the fat stack of tracks gets really CPU heavy and my system is struggling, but it seems like media item FX can be processed more efficiently since I don't need that many different sounds playing at the same time. Though in my tests there was an issue with things like reverbs retaining part of their buffer after processing stops and the next time the clip starts playing it will start with a bit of reverb tail that was still stuck in the buffer. Not sure if there is a setting that would prevent that or if I'm doing something else wrong. Any thoughts on this?

P.S.: That was my 1000th post here! 
🎂🥳


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## Zero&One (Nov 11, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> P.S.: That was my 1000th post here!
> 🎂🥳



Congrats on the 1000


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