Sonimus Britson - out now!

[kmonkey]

Can anyone shed some light on the Gain:Saturation inversion?

By that, I mean, like most plugins, I'm sure this one has less saturation the less gain you apply, and more the more gain you apply.

Let's say you take a track that was already recorded pretty hot, then throw Britson on it. So you use the trim to level it down to 0VU, but because it was already 'hot'(loud), you have to use negative gain to get it into the correct spot.. So wouldn't that just be applying less saturation to the signal, something that shouldn't necessarily make sense in the context?

It's quite simple. Saturation doesn't increase or decrease solely by a Britson fader(which is why (i am ssuming) you are confused). How signal is hot (read loud) or low will make saturation more or less dominant there.

I don't know maybe i am seeing this far to simple so my answer won't be sufficient...

Where is Compyfox when you actually need it..

[Aubrey Lamont]

i have a silly question. suppose i use satson (which is reportedly inspired by SSL). let's say i also have an SSL channel from T-Racks (British Channel). would said channel include console saturation similar to satson?

No, a console emu like satson or vcc emulates console saturation and other quirks, whereas a channel strip emulation (or individual console eq/compressor emulation) emulates the respective eq/compressor units.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

[Burillo]

i have a silly question. suppose i use satson (which is reportedly inspired by SSL). let's say i also have an SSL channel from T-Racks (British Channel). would said channel include console saturation similar to satson?

No, a console emu like satson or vcc emulates console saturation and other quirks, whereas a channel strip emulation (or individual console eq/compressor emulation) emulates the respective eq/compressor units.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

yes but isn't this channel strip coming from the console? where is this "channel" if not on a console? and those plugins usually provide some saturation as well as eq/compression.

[DMG68]

@itneveris:

If it's hot there's no way to trim down that saturation. The gain fader in Britson just controls what goes "in", the more gain it gets the more saturation you'll get "from the plug-in". The output compensation is like a gain make-up, it just reduces the output by the same amount of dBs that you're applying with the gain fader.
.

okay, this is what itneveris and I were both speculating. So if it is true: that the more gain Britson gets "in" (from adjusting the fader) the more saturation you'll get "from the plug-in", then it seems kinda counter intuitive to turn down the fader if the tone one achieves is flattering even in instances when the meter bounces into the 'red' - the tone achieved presumably as a result of the aforementioned 'saturation'.

Again, the manual instructs us to turn the Britson faders down so that the signals loudest instances just 'kiss' the 0.0 d.B., never crossing into the red.

I am all for proper gain staging and setting up a mix 'right' but I am curious about that 'tone' I heard the other night when I just slapped Britson on a bass gtr part and started turning up the fader (yum). That the result of said action still didn't clip the output of that channel with the DAW fader set to unity tempts myself, and apparently itneveris, to question the developers instruction to turn down the gain/fader so the signal never goes into the 'red'.

I have to suppose that following the manual promotes the theory/practice that subsequent plug-ins (like: comps & eq's) coded & designed with the overall behavior & calibration of hardware units (non-emulations included) anticipate specific range of level at the input stage. I am understanding that by following Sonimus' instruction to reduce the gain so it never goes 'into the red' steers us to these optimum levels so that the plug-in compressor and everything afterwards in the chain behaves & sounds its 'best', by design. This, in turn, inherently helps the mixer create a mix that 'breathes' more (a term I keep reading used to describe the positive & cumulative outcome of a mix after initial & proper gain staging has been exercised).

Buuuuut, yaaaaaaa, I still liked that tone from the other night;-)

If you use this for gain staging then you'd want to not cross the Odb mark. If you use it for the saturation effect you can slam it past, just keep it below the peak LED coming on. This is part of the purpose of gain compensation, you can push the channel then and it'll keep your gain staging decent coming out of Britson, if it's decent going in, that is.

The manual describes 2 uses for the device, one is for saturation and one is for gain staging. The saturation description doesn't mention not pushing past Odb.

I have a question though, the manual also says that the low pass filter is 6db or 12db, how is that controlled/changed from one to the other, anybody know? I couldn't find any info on that.

[djanthonyw]

i have a silly question. suppose i use satson (which is reportedly inspired by SSL). let's say i also have an SSL channel from T-Racks (British Channel). would said channel include console saturation similar to satson?

I don't think so. They might have some saturation, but they primarily focus on curves, while a console emulation might have some curves, but primarily focuses on saturation and other subtleties.

[DMG68]

i have a silly question. suppose i use satson (which is reportedly inspired by SSL). let's say i also have an SSL channel from T-Racks (British Channel). would said channel include console saturation similar to satson?

No, a console emu like satson or vcc emulates console saturation and other quirks, whereas a channel strip emulation (or individual console eq/compressor emulation) emulates the respective eq/compressor units.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

yes but isn't this channel strip coming from the console? where is this "channel" if not on a console? and those plugins usually provide some saturation as well as eq/compression.

If the programmers modeled the saturation then it'd certainly be in there, and it is certainly in there, not sure about the British Channel because I don't use it much, but it's in the White 2A and Black 76. That's why people like the analog modeled plug-ins. I'd think that they'd all be subtly different from one another, some maybe not so subtle, depends on how good the modelling was and what extras the programmers put in, like 2X and Fat modes maybe.

[itneveris]

I really think for instances of 'driving' Britson, you'd still want to gainstage, maybe even with the saturation off, so you still feed in a good signal to your compressors/EQ, THEN after these drive it, OR drive it very first, but them immediately level it back down with anoth instance of Britson before moving on.

I use a lot of modeleing plugs with -18 being 'optimal' levels. Each plug can be driven tho.

[b15fliptop]

The British Channel has input and output saturation, and LOTS of it, if wanted.

[DMG68]

I'd think so, you'd use 2 Britson channels is all. Another person might gain stage properly without Britson, as there are many devices and ways to do it, and would use one instance only, for saturation. Whatever works best for you, but on the saturation only channel, with the output compensation on, you would push it past 0 to get the desired effect. As I mentioned, this would keep the gain staging good coming out, as long as it was good going in.
I was just saying that if your goal is to get that nice sound you like then you don't have to worry about going over 0 as using Britson for saturation only and with gain compensation on doesn't affect your gain staging.

[Compyfox]

No, a console emu like satson or vcc emulates console saturation and other quirks, whereas a channel strip emulation (or individual console eq/compressor emulation) emulates the respective eq/compressor units.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Even simpler:

Tools like Sonimus, Slate Digital, MelloMuse and to a certain extend also Klanghelm, SoundToys (Decapitator), Nebula, etc...

They emulate the channel strip's "preamp" and the saturation/crosstalk/etc of the "summing bus". Sometimes these modules also come with an input filter (High Pass, SATSON and BRITSON come to mind)


Tools like IKM's British Channel, or any other emulation of EQ's, Compressors, etc that are part of a console, but do not(!) offer a preamp emulation, are basically emulation of modules of either a channel strip (Nomad Factory British EQ comes to mind, also IKM Britsh Black/White's SSL clones, Hornet SW34EQ), or individual outboard gear (the usual suspects like 1176, LA2A, etc).


Tools like Waves/Abbey Road REDD Console are an exception. They offer both the preamp and the filter section. But in this case, you don't have any crosstalk or summing bus saturation. The same also applies to SKNote's StripBus, only that here, you have all kinds of channel interaction.

[itneveris]

I have a question though, the manual also says that the low pass filter is 6db or 12db, how is that controlled/changed from one to the other, anybody know? I couldn't find any info on that.

It could be that the lo-pass is 12, and the hi is 6 or vice versa

[DMG68]

Actually, I asked Sonimus afterwards and they said that it's a mistake in the manual, both filters are -6db.

[B.A.Tech.]

I think all console plugins need built-in vst rack to insert-return.We can get in&out chracters seperately.And we can create our chain like real life.

[Uncle E]

I really think for instances of 'driving' Britson, you'd still want to gainstage, maybe even with the saturation off, so you still feed in a good signal to your compressors/EQ,

Watch a video of Mark "Spike" Stent mixing and you'll see that almost every channel is clipping on the input, before EQ's and compression. That doesn't necessarily mean it sounds like saturation, a lot of times the clipping is so short that you don't really hear it, but it's certainly impacting the transients and how they eventually hit the compressors.

[Uncle E]

I think all console plugins need built-in vst rack to insert-return.We can get in&out chracters seperately.And we can create our chain like real life.

Clipping on the input is real life. Perhaps it would be even more accurate to place a second clipping stage after EQ's and inserts but I don't know how much saturation is actually happening there. On my Trident console, the transformer is at the input and that's what I want to hear saturate.