Blue Cat Destructor vs. u-he Satin

[Tappistry]

After watching this video where this guy claims that waveshapers are a better alternative to tape emulation plugins:


... I got to wondering if I could get Blue Cat Destructor to sound simillar to u-he Satin. Destructor arguably has the internal characteristics of what tape should do: compression and waveshaping. Additionally, one of the great features of Destructor is the ability to import captured reference curves of hardware or software.

Specs of this experiment:

• Superior Drummer 3 with the clean Ludwig Concert Kit. Totally dry, no internal effects in SD3 whatsoever. So we're just hearing the raw samples which will then be affected with each "tape" plugin.
• Satin is running on the "Multitrack Drums" preset.
• Destructor starts with the "Color Tape" preset.
• Hornet VUMeter Mk3 with autogain for easy mode gain staging.
• Blue Cat Protector on the master bus

The "Color Tape" preset on Destructor seemed to sound the closest to what Satin was doing, so that seemed to be a good starting point. I used FreqAnalyst Multi to create the reference eq curve, then imported that into the post-filter (IR) section into Destructor. It took a little while to match the EQ curve as close as possible, but I think I got it as close as it could be within the limitations of how many filter points we're given in the plugin.

Can you guess which plugin was used on A/B? Or, which one do you think sounds better?

Since this is totally science, we need a control group. This is the completely dry drum track for your perusal:

https://soundcloud.com/user-9140904/raw ... d3/s-kd0wN

And here is the A/B test:

https://soundcloud.com/user-9140904/des ... in/s-XXWof

[midi_transmission]

Hmm, I heard the A/B test (second audio file). They have a complete different frequency balance. The bass is cut a lot in the second example too.

Im also not sure how much soundclouds encoding bias the whole thing, the transients sounds a bit strange to me. Wav or at least high encoding bitrate would be nice.

I find it difficult to compare because of that, but when I focus in the hihats I find the first part more peak-ish in the high end (at 0.12s for example). But that could be also because of the different frequency balance.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I remember watching one of that guy's videos in the past (wish I could remember which one) and it was full of misinformation. As a result, I have no interest in watching anything else of his, and I'd advise you to take anything he says with a grain of salt. And that's just good advice for anything you see on YouTube videos, particularly the ones with click-baity titles. You're totally doing the right thing by taking in information, and trying it out and listening for yourself though.

If you like what Destructor did, use it. If you like what Satin does, use it.

[Tappistry]

Hmm, I heard the A/B test (second audio file). They have a complete different frequency balance. The bass is cut a lot in the second example too.

Im also not sure how much soundclouds encoding bias the whole thing, the transients sounds a bit strange to me. Wav or at least high encoding bitrate would be nice.

I find it difficult to compare because of that, but when I focus in the hihats I find the first part more peak-ish in the high end (at 0.12s for example). But that could be also because of the different frequency balance.

I wouldn’t doubt that SoundCloud is compressing the crap out of these.

I can see about uploading the original to standard file hosting. I think I have enough space in Dropbox ...

Edit: what’s the file size limit for attachments here?

[Tappistry]

Alright, here's a Google Drive link to the full-res .wav file.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xLPFJ ... UsLD6jv67f

I think the I exceeded the attachment file size limit for the forum here.

[Tappistry]

I remember watching one of that guy's videos in the past (wish I could remember which one) and it was full of misinformation. As a result, I have no interest in watching anything else of his, and I'd advise you to take anything he says with a grain of salt. And that's just good advice for anything you see on YouTube videos, particularly the ones with click-baity titles. You're totally doing the right thing by taking in information, and trying it out and listening for yourself though.

If you like what Destructor did, use it. If you like what Satin does, use it.

Oh I'm fully aware this guy is a blowhard. But I watch his content from time to time because it's entertaining. His channel isn't one that I watch for any serious mixing/mastering advice.

This was just a fun experiment for me. I learned a whole lot more about using Destructor and FreqAnalyst Multi in the process, and was genuinely curious about the results vs. a "See, I told you so" sort of mentality.

Also, I'm gonna let this thread flesh out a little more before I post the results now that the full res file is available.

[midi_transmission]

Oh what a huge difference between soundcloud and the wav files. The soundcloud version is full of artefacts. Actually it made me questing soundcloud completely as a service when the quality is so bad!


I still think that both versions sound completely different. When this is the closest you can get to satin than I would say, no. You can't replace it. But which version is better? Which part is Satin? No idea.

The first part has way more bass, but I like the added more focused mids in the second part better. Sounds like two very different colored EQ versions.

I would prefer the first version with a bit more focused mids, like in the second part has. But I don't think that one sounds really better. It's more a question of context what's better and what you want to archive.

[Tappistry]

Oh what a huge difference between soundcloud and the wav files. The soundcloud version is full of artefacts. Actually it made me questing soundcloud completely as a service when the quality is so bad!


I still think that both versions sound completely different. When this is the closest you can get to satin than I would say, no. You can't replace it. But which version is better? Which part is Satin? No idea.

The first part has way more bass, but I like the added more focused mids in the second part better. Sounds like two very different colored EQ versions.

I would prefer the first version with a bit more focused mids, like in the second part has. But I don't think that one sounds really better. It's more a question of context what's better and what you want to archive.

I agree! I'll admit that I was confused between what was happening with the Soundcloud post and my rendered wav files. I went back and did another round of tweaks, and here's one more version. I'm pretty happy with this version. I made some adjustments to try and fix the bass cut in part B. I found that I had to set the autogain adjustment on the Hornet VUMeter a couple of dB lower on Destructor. Something about the output (and maybe because it's essentially a big compressor?) was making the track sound a bit louder than Satin, so I tried to compensate for that without being too heavy handed.

I guess I'll let the cat out of the bag now. Part A is Satin, and Part B is Destructor. Here's a screen capture of what Destructor is doing in the second part of the audio clip. This applies to the new audio link below.


The preamp section is mostly flat, and I flipped to the expert mode on the post filter section so you can see what Satin does to the signal. The gray line is my attempted match over the pink reference curve. Notice the complexity of the pink reference curve? It was difficult to use the given filter adjustments to get an *exact* replica (aka impulse response) of what Satin is doing. (But that's not entirely what Destructor is meant to do, nor is it entirely able to do.)

Alright, here's the latest link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xLPFJ ... UsLD6jv67f