Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine Manual

On the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine, you will find five smart potentiometers: Compression, Drive, Character, Blend, and Level. These potentiometers are the main interface for sculpting the signal chain and your overall sound on the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine.

The Compression potentiometer is the one-knob-solution for compression on the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine. This controls the amount of input gain to the compressor and intelligently applies the correct amount of makeup gain so that your signal is always driven at the appropriate level, no matter how much compression is applied.

The Drive potentiometer adds distortion and drive to your signal. Crank this knob to apply Nolly’s favorite vintage distortion to the distorted part of the signal chain.

The Character potentiometer changes the tone of the distortion, adding brightness to the distortion signal.

The Blend potentiometer mixes between the distortion signal and the clean sidechain signal.

The Level potentiometer controls the master volume of the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine.

The smart potentiometers allow for their positions to be stored in each preset, with the stored position indicated by the ring of LEDs surrounding each potentiometer.

With this, you can get a glance at your signal chain settings when changing presets, regardless of the physical potentiometer setting.

At the center of the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine are the touch-sensitive sliders that control the 6-band graphic EQ at the end of the signal chain.

Each slider has a -12 dB to 12 dB range. From left to right, the frequency bands for each slider correspond to a low shelf, 250 Hz, 500 Hz, 1.5 kHz, 3 kHz, and a high shelf.

Controlling the touch sliders is easy – swipe upwards to boost a frequency band or swipe downwards to cut a frequency band.
When swiping, the position of the slider is also reflected on the potentiometer LEDs. Double-tap the slider to reset the band back to 0 dB.

Hint: The sliders respond to the direction of your swipe on any part of the slider, so you can make small adjustments without your finger covering the actual position of the slider.

Below the touch sliders are three rotary footswitch encoders A, B, and C, which can be pressed or rotated. These footswitch encoders enable many of the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine’s functions. Simply press A, B, or C to switch to the preset stored in that footswitch.

The rotational position of each encoder is displayed on the five LEDs under each encoder. Additionally, when rotating, the position is shown on the potentiometer LEDs – this is a visual aid that does not affect the potentiometer configuration.

· Rotating A allows you to change the compressor ratio or bypass the compressor.
· Rotating B allows you to change the distortion mode or bypass the distortion.
· Rotating C allows you to change the active IR in the signal chain or bypass the IR.

When none of the five LEDs are lit, the respective compressor/distortion/IR is bypassed.

Editing and saving presets on the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine is remarkably easy. If any of the parameters are changed (i.e. potentiometers, sliders, encoder rotation), the color LED of your current preset will gently breathe, indicating that the edit or audition mode is active.

Auditions are an easy way to try new sounds and settings, which can be either saved or discarded. When you find a sound that you would like to save, the audition can be saved into any of the three presets by pressing and holding one of the preset footswitches for two seconds. All LEDs on the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine will flash rapidly a few times indicating that your edits have been saved into a preset.

A new audition is always entered when changing any parameter from an unedited/saved preset. This will overwrite any previous unsaved auditions/edits.

During an edit/audition, you can change to any of the three saved presets by pressing the footswitch associated with that preset. After changing to a preset, pressing the footswitch again will swap between that preset and your active editing session.

Presets can also be saved, edited, shared, loaded, and managed in the Darkglass Suite.

For instructional videos on editing and saving the presets, please visit https://www.darkglass.com/creations/aggressively-distorting-advanced-machine/

To enter the tuner, press B and C simultaneously.

To exit the tuner, press B and C simultaneously or one of the footswitch presets. The Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine will always return to the last active preset. The Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine will not output any audio when tuning.

The Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine features a five-octave chromatic tuner, which can tune any note between A0 and A#5, allowing you to dial in any guitar or bass tuning that you desire. The tuning is derived from A4 = 440 Hz. Only one note can be tuned at a time.

When the tuner mode is entered and there is no input signal, two red LEDs on the two rightmost sliders are shown by default. When an input signal is received, the left section of sliders will update to show the note that you are tuning.

A small indicator is displayed to the top right of the note if it is a sharp note.

When tuning, the two rightmost sliders will update to show how close your tuning is from the note’s perfect pitch. Distance below the center line indicates that the note is tuned flat, and distance above the center line indicates that the note is tuned sharp. The red LEDs will transition to green as you approach the perfect pitch, and the slider and preset LEDs will fully illuminate in green when you are on perfect pitch.

To enter the bypass mode, press A and B simultaneously.

To exit the bypass mode, press A and B simultaneously or one of the footswitch presets.

In this mode, the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine does not perform any processing on the input signal, and passes the unprocessed input signal through to the outputs. All LEDs are turned off during bypass mode.

To enter or exit the performance lock, press A and C simultaneously.

In this mode, all LEDs will gently breathe on the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine to indicate that it has been locked.

This mode prevents any accidental parameter changes or edits to your presets. You can still change between the saved presets A, B, and C, and enter the tuner or bypass modes, but potentiometer updates, slider touches, or encoder rotations will not respond to any changes.

Tip: Enter the performance mode after the soundcheck while playing live gigs.

If you are using a Mac, no additional drivers are required to use the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine as an audio interface. If you are using Windows, please download the latest USB audio drivers from https://www.darkglass.com/ suite/. Please refer to the Darkglass website for more details regarding USB audio.

USB output (to Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine)
· Output 1: Balanced left + Headphone left
· Output 2: Balanced right + Headphone right
· Output 3: Balanced left
· Output 4: Balanced right
· Output 5: XLR DI (mono)

Both Mac and PC send system audio to outputs 1 and 2 by default, so you can always use the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine’s stereo output of choice without having to set up any extra routing.

The level of these outputs is controlled by the small volume potentiometer at the top of the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine. The other outputs have no volume control on the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine.

USB input (from the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine)
· Input 1: Processed signal
· Input 2: Unprocessed raw signal
· Input 3: Aux left + Bluetooth left
· Input 4: Aux right + Bluetooth right

When the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine is not bypassed, the Level potentiometer always controls the volume of your instrument input at all four outputs, and has no effect on the USB/Aux/Bluetooth audio.

When the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine is bypassed, the Level potentiometer has no effect.

Your instrument, Aux input, and Bluetooth audio is routed to the headphone and balanced outputs. The media volume at these outputs can be controlled with the small potentiometer at the top of the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine.

• When using the balanced outputs, the media volume and instrument volume level are separately controlled (small volume potentiometer at the top of the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine and the Level potentiometer, respectively).
• When using headphones, the volume is controlled in the same way, with one exception: the headphone volume potentiometer acts as an overall master volume for both media and your instrument input.
• The XLR DI output is routed only with your instrument output and USB output 5.

The media playback volume level on the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine is not applied to USB inputs 3 and 4.