Saturation on the master

[excuse me please]

I remember there was a time when they put this thingy on everything.

"The Sausage Fattener is used by Tiësto, Kaskade, Diplo, Laidback Luke, Chuckie, Sebastian Ingrosso, Dirty South, Hardwell, Angger Dimas, Frank E, Zedd, Lazy Rich, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, Marcus Schossow, John Dahlbäck and many other DJ/producers."

From Dada Life site.

Add up guys like Avicii, Skrillex and Garrix and I'd say saturation has created the sound of the 10s.
Prediction: it will also create the sound of the 20s.

I thought that was actually a joke of a plugin lol

Lol, you got me there. But it gives a good impression of how the vst farm movement works IMHO.

[LeVzi]

I remember there was a time when they put this thingy on everything.

"The Sausage Fattener is used by Tiësto, Kaskade, Diplo, Laidback Luke, Chuckie, Sebastian Ingrosso, Dirty South, Hardwell, Angger Dimas, Frank E, Zedd, Lazy Rich, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, Marcus Schossow, John Dahlbäck and many other DJ/producers."

From Dada Life site.

Add up guys like Avicii, Skrillex and Garrix and I'd say saturation has created the sound of the 10s.
Prediction: it will also create the sound of the 20s.

I thought that was actually a joke of a plugin lol

Lol, you got me there. But it gives a good impression of how the vst farm movement works IMHO.

It does tbh, and I think we've all been down that road at some point, some guy calls it snake oil.

I guess i'm already doing it, from what I read, inflator actually can add a bit of "colour" , even though it's not a saturator.

[Spring Goose]

some guy calls it snake oil.

The snake oil idea is that it doesn't really do what it claims it does, is that right?

I think almost everybody can hear a saturator can't they?

[LeVzi]

some guy calls it snake oil.

The snake oil idea is that it doesn't really do what it claims it does, is that right?

I think almost everybody can hear a saturator can't they?

I'm talking about sausage fattner.

[Spring Goose]

some guy calls it snake oil.

The snake oil idea is that it doesn't really do what it claims it does, is that right?

I think almost everybody can hear a saturator can't they?

I'm talking about sausage fattner.

sorry my bad. What does sausage fattener supposed to do? I've never demoed it.

[LeVzi]

some guy calls it snake oil.

The snake oil idea is that it doesn't really do what it claims it does, is that right?

I think almost everybody can hear a saturator can't they?

I'm talking about sausage fattner.

sorry my bad. What does sausage fattener supposed to do? I've never demoed it.

Fatten the sausage

No idea tbh

https://dadalife.com/sausage-fattener/

[sQeetz]

I like to use "juuuust a tad bit" of Sausage Fattener on drums. It's nice.
Other than that, I don't mind a bit of Softube Overstayer M-A-S on the master track.

[Michey]

some guy calls it snake oil.

The snake oil idea is that it doesn't really do what it claims it does, is that right?

I think almost everybody can hear a saturator can't they?

I'm talking about sausage fattner.

sorry my bad. What does sausage fattener supposed to do? I've never demoed it.

Fatten the sausage

No idea tbh

Actually, to F(l)atten the sausage.

It does it well, providing one understands that the "gain" is actually an INPUT TRIM (trim the audio BEFORE it hits the f(l)attener) - otherwise everything becomes KVETCH (distorts in an ugly fashion) pretty quickly.
After one hits the sweetspot (the LED has to blink steadily and not too quickly) with the input trim (ie. "GAIN"), there's a FATNESS (to control saturation) and "COLOR" to hone in the prominent frequency.

BUT...

When I said EDM, I am literally calling everything dance music related, using a "colouring" plugin on the master, to add "something"

"Something" what ? there are trillion ways to describe "something"... you can saturate the low-end and fill "something" ; you can saturate the high-end and fill "something" ; you can add "bite" to the mids and decipher it as "something".

Its like approaching a police officer and ask him :
"excuse me, Sir... can you help me get somewhere ?".
police officer : "yes please. where do you want to go ?".
"I want to go there".
police officer : " 'there' where ? ".
"y'know, a place. with stuff. and the best !".
police officer : "you're under arrest"

[LeVzi]

some guy calls it snake oil.

The snake oil idea is that it doesn't really do what it claims it does, is that right?

I think almost everybody can hear a saturator can't they?

I'm talking about sausage fattner.

sorry my bad. What does sausage fattener supposed to do? I've never demoed it.

Fatten the sausage

No idea tbh

Actually, to F(l)atten the sausage.

It does it well, providing one understands that the "gain" is actually an INPUT TRIM (trim the audio BEFORE it hits the f(l)attener) - otherwise everything becomes KVETCH (distorts in an ugly fashion) pretty quickly.
After one hits the sweetspot (the LED has to blink steadily and not too quickly) with the input trim (ie. "GAIN"), there's a FATNESS (to control saturation) and "COLOR" to hone in the prominent frequency.

BUT...

When I said EDM, I am literally calling everything dance music related, using a "colouring" plugin on the master, to add "something"

"Something" what ? there are trillion ways to describe "something"... you can saturate the low-end and fill "something" ; you can saturate the high-end and fill "something" ; you can add "bite" to the mids and decipher it as "something".

Its like approaching a police officer and ask him :
"excuse me, Sir... can you help me get somewhere ?".
police officer : "yes please. where do you want to go ?".
"I want to go there".
police officer : " 'there' where ? ".
"y'know, a place. with stuff. and the best !".
police officer : "you're under arrest"

Which is kinda the whole point of the post ?

What is it people are trying to achieve with it ?

[plexuss]

YMMV

Indeed. I think our philosophies on what constitutes a good mix are probably very different.

A song like this needs a certain amount of (for want of a better term) bollocks.. ; it wouldn't work half as well with a more thin sounding or 'neutral' type of mix. The clarity is there in that the instruments are clear, but the tape compression and (deliberate, hence the HF emphasis) saturation 'smearing' to give an added cohesion and energy to in essence assist in trying to convey the power of a band playing together, rather than a load of stuff recorded separately.

Where you say 'harsh', I would say 'having bite'. Not sure if you've done much work with indie guitars?[plexus added emphasis]

Anyway, interesting debate. Not ever opinions I'd heard on that mix before, but you obviously do have a decent level of competence, so I'm not trying to dismiss your opinion, just saying that it does need to be 'horses for courses', and in my view the approach I've taken works nicely here.

It remains to be said that "clarity" is only one of many different approaches in a production. To your point about indie guitars, clarity may not be the best choice. My point was that if one is going for clarity, saturation can often be a problem in my experince. But, clarity is only approach and a less clear approach might be more effective and saturation might help with that. Your track is a good example of a kind of hybrid approach: the quieter intro is pretty clear and nice sounding, but then its gets hazy in the heavy guitar section, which is appropriate. I think we got off a track and were generalization: my point was specifically about caveats using saturation if your goal is clarity, which is one of many different approaches we can take with audio some of which saturation is a great tool to get there. I could see using saturation on the master if you wanted more grity, fuzzy, hazy, etc type of sound. sure!

[NinjaToon]

Which is kinda the whole point of the post ?

What is it people are trying to achieve with it ?

The same reason people prefer vinyl, like the sound of distorted guitars, vintage samplers or any other non-linear process.

You already know the answer to this.

[pixel85]

Master Bus/Mastering:
- to glue all sounds together
- compression: especially tape saturation but other forms of saturation/distortion also can serve as compression to some extend
- to add certain "character": 'warmth', excitement (exciter)
- to make sound "full/rich" by adding harmonics

Sound Design for genres that require it:
- to add a certain 'retro' / 'old school' character
- to add distortion to 'aggressive' genres

[legendCNCD]

Master Bus/Mastering:
- to glue all sounds together
- compression: especially tape saturation but other forms of saturation/distortion also can serve as compression to some extend
- to add certain "character": 'warmth', excitement (exciter)
- to make sound "full/rich" by adding harmonics

hear ye hear ye

[Kalee]

I'm using VoS ferricDTS, thrillseekerXTC in mastering. I like the power those plugins give to a track. DTS can quickly mess up dynamics if not used with care.

[CrystalWizard]

Yeah, sometimes, for certain results.

Reelbus
VW2
Barricade
and many more but only used occasionally.