KVR Audio

Googly Smythe · Post by **Googly Smythe** » Sun Oct 15, 2017 12:23 pm

This short shoot out, too.
http://www.vt100music.com/blog/2016/04/ ... he-vocals/

brok landers · Post by **brok landers** » Tue Oct 17, 2017 5:55 am

chk071 wrote:
brok landers wrote:an exiter in terms of what it used to be is actually an high frequency extender, based on a sidechained and highpassed signal, which then is being distorted with a certain shape/curve, then mixed back to the dry signal, while the dry signal is shelfed down in scale at the same frequency, typically coupled with the mix knob. over the times, there have been some exiters for the bass range, too, which more or less work the same way.

a saturator, as we know them from plugins, as there is no dedicated analog hardware that does saturation exclusively, sadly is nothing else than a specially curved distortion on the whole signal (which actually doesn't cut it, compared to analog saturation, for various reasons).
it can sound good in some way though...

both, the exiter and the saturator have in common, that _ideally_ you _wouldn't_ perceive the saturation applied as audible distortion at all, which is what i've yet to see/hear in any saturator plugin up to date.

the term "saturation" or "saturator" was invented in the digital times actually. it is refering to the fact that analog has a "grey zone", a sweetspot in gain amplifying, where these subtle effects come to life automatically (there's actually way more to good sounding saturation than applying a shaper curve, there's frequency dependant phase-missalignments, noise interharmonics, etc, that actually does a good saturation).
in digital this isn't the case. 0db is 0db on a 16bit converter. whatever goes over 0db will be distorted by truncating the signal portion that shoots over. this simply sounds awful, for the most part. with higher resolution converters you may shoot over 0db, but exept theres no clipping, nothing further is happening with the signal exept getting louder. this is where analog differs greatly. so if you would have wanted to have that kind of analog automatic saturation in the digital realm, which was present in analog consoles, compressors, eqs and whatnot, you'd have to add it manually. this was the reason the first saturator plugins saw the light of the plugin-day.
nowadays everyone uses the term "saturation" for a special kind of distortion being applied that is actually audible as such. there's whole musicstyles that are based on this. but if you want to hear really good saturation, listen to david bowies "let's dance" or "china girl", or to paul hardcastles "just for money - the great bank robbery" - you won't notice any audible distortion at all, but the signals, especially the drums really sound bigger than life. granted, the mixes don't hold up to modern mixes in terms of frequency balance and loudness, but the individual signal quality itself is greatly influenced by analog saturation.

note that there's only one saturator close to analog saturation, which is bootsies stateful saturation, which goes into that direction, and these are by far the best plugins when it comes to modelling any kind of analog saturation. the other one to be mentioned is the cl1 by artsacoustic (which isn't an isolated saturator), but here you could call me biassed, as i do work for artsacoustic and am affiliated with them.

well, i hope this explains it a bit...
Hm, that's gotta be the most technically sounding esoteric explanation i ever read. Also, you say that there's "only one saturator close to analog saturation". Did you try them all or what?

esoteric? yeah, right...

on your question - not all, but i tried a lot, and in 30 years i also was forced to work with analog gear a lot.

SparkySpark · Post by **SparkySpark** » Wed Jul 25, 2018 3:41 pm

MogwaiBoy · Post by **MogwaiBoy** » Wed Jul 25, 2018 8:45 pm

So the difference is that an exciter is only adding harmonics to the high frequencies? What if you took a multiband saturator and only effected the high band?

In my plugin list I put exciters, saturators, distortions and waveshapers in the same folder

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Wed Jul 25, 2018 8:53 pm

I was reading a few days ago about something called a "presence filter" (which happens to not be a filter, after all, but a signal booster, in the region of the 2kHz-4kHz). Would you call that an exciter? Or what is that?

I think that the name "Presence Filter" doesn't make any sense.

MogwaiBoy · Post by **MogwaiBoy** » Wed Jul 25, 2018 10:06 pm

Well EQ curves are essentially "filters" so it kinda makes sense, although I typically associate "presence" with higher frequencies than 2-4k (upper midrange-ish?). Presence to me is more like 5-6K.

Ah_Dziz · Post by **Ah_Dziz** » Thu Jul 26, 2018 1:55 am

Exciters add distortion (harmonics) to only one part of the frequency spectrum.

Audio Assassin · Post by **Audio Assassin** » Mon Sep 20, 2021 5:34 pm

Yesterday I used an exciter for the first time. Izotope Ozone's exciter.

If exciters only process the upper part of the frequency spectrum then why does the Ozone exciter (which is multiband) allow you to apply the effect to the whole spectrum and different amounts in different bands?

If someone could explain, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

a9k1tp · Post by **a9k1tp** » Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:09 am

The world is saturated with excited maniacs.

MogwaiBoy · Post by **MogwaiBoy** » Tue Sep 21, 2021 2:03 am

Audio Assassin wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 5:34 pm Yesterday I used an exciter for the first time. Izotope Ozone's exciter.

If exciters only process the upper part of the frequency spectrum then why does the Ozone exciter (which is multiband) allow you to apply the effect to the whole spectrum and different amounts in different bands?

If someone could explain, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Because for all intents and purposes, exciters and saturators are the same thing: subtle upper harmonic distortion.

Ploki · Post by **Ploki** » Tue Sep 21, 2021 7:49 am

MogwaiBoy wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 2:03 am
Because for all intents and purposes, exciters and saturators are the same thing: subtle upper harmonic distortion.

Well, historically speaking, saturation is only one part of the exciter, or not even one.
The eponymous Aphex Exciter adds a frequency specific phase shift.
The Dolby system type A NR that was used as an exciter had some dynamic thing going on. i think it's 4-band split compression - but in parallel, so it doesn't add that many harmonics as much as being a parallel compressor.

I use the Type A preset in u-he Satin constantly, i'm not sure if it's really 4-band split compression in parallel, but it works well. (It does something dynamic tho)

It's true recently that any waveshaper calls itself an exciter nowadays, but i still think it's inaccurate - exciter should do something to the high end, but not only distort. If it only distorts, it's a saturator.

Audio Assassin · Post by **Audio Assassin** » Wed Sep 29, 2021 2:22 pm

Thanks guys.

Regarding the exciter in Izotope Ozone, I've been applying it from around 2khz upwards to avoid distortion of the bass and mid range.

Bulbizarre · Post by **Bulbizarre** » Wed Sep 29, 2021 2:49 pm

OTT works as an exciter with the highband upward compression

Difference between saturator and exciter