Can you ever "warm" something up with digital?

[rubez]

Conventional wisdom says analogue is for the job.

But warming a digital VST synth up with a digital saturation plug-in seems weird.

Is it possible? How does it fare compared to analogue saturation or distortion hardware?

[Unaspected]

Yes.

[Jafo]

In order: Wrong. Wrong. Yes. Pretty darn good indeed!

To answer your next question, iZotope's Trash is a beast, Variety of Sound has plenty of warming plugins, as does ChowDSP's BYOD and Tape, and zillions more; these are just what I tend to use.

You can always output into a tape machine and record the playback. It's good enough for Tool and Portishead, so it's good enough for the likes of you and me.

You can also use different synths -- the demo of DIVA in particular, but Xhip is also great.

More importantly, worry about the song first: people would much rather listen to a great song with bad sound, than a bad song with great sound.

[plexuss]

Back in the day whe DAT became a standard medium to master to, I found DATs sounded harsh and brittle. So I'd print the DAT audio to tape and then back to DAT and that really helped screw the audio up so much is sounded great.

For the most part digital audio tools these days are pretty good sounding. And for the vast majority of work, the audio is going to end up in the digital domain anyway - so, don't sweat it. Especially if you use 96k to render in.

I don't buy vinyl recordings that were made from digital recordings. Doesn't make sense to me... I'd rather have the digital master then. Analogue medium only makes sense to me if the entire audio path was analogue.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Conventional wisdom says analogue is for the job.

But warming a digital VST synth up with a digital saturation plug-in seems weird.

Is it possible? How does it fare compared to analogue saturation or distortion hardware?

Lots of great digital tools that do a good job of replicating how analog gear “warms up” sounds. There’s nothing weird about it but there are a lot of different tools out there that can do some or all parts of that depending on what exactly you’re trying to achieve. Sometimes just adding some saturation does the trick, other times the high end frequency response may benefit from some gentle rolling off, sometimes you may want some subtle wow and flutter. Just all kind of depends. But totally doable.

[vurt]

my microwave is digital.

[El°HYM]

No.

[foosnark]

There is nothing inherently "cold" (whatever that means) about digital, it simply doesn't saturate and roll off the high end unless you do it on purpose. But... you can do it on purpose.

[El°HYM]

There is also Aliasing folding back into the most sensitive Area our Ears can hear (2-5kHz) plus IMD, while Aliasing builds up exponential and even being low in volume will at least cause pretty quick ear - fatigue. This might also be what most people call 'digital - harshness' or just 'cold'. Analog - saturation doesnt cause Aliasing while actually also causes IMD, yet in a much more pleasing way (think about Tape here). So with recreating that 'analog' - warmth back in the Box, you would need multiple kinds of Saturation, which can be done and like already said, builds up Aliasing no matter what. There are ways around this Problem, like using only High Quality - plugins, maybe with some good OS implemented, working at higher SR in your DAW, using Ultrasonic - filters etc. - All good Approaches but in the end you will always notice a Difference when comparing to an Analog - device. With that said (I use both) and this one might be one of the better Options #ITB: https://thehouseofkush.com/products/blyss

[rubez]

Just to point out I don't believe all digital synth VSTs need warming up. A lot of them are best kept natural.

[El°HYM]

Kind of agree; as there are really good Digital - synths and things like non - aliasing Oscillators, good filters and OS should also give very good Results. Also keep in Mind here that only non - linear effects are causing Aliasing, so there are indeed Ways to get something like a 'Hifi' sound in the Digital - domain.

[roman.i]

You need to warm it during the creation of the sound, not on a master effect.
Sugarcoating digital sounding synth doesn't help, it needs to be part of the sound design or the engine.

[Azbest]

Of course, there are plugins that do just that. I remember a thread on some forum where a dude made a blind test between a Manley Variable Mu and that old Native Instruments emulation. Manley hardware is supposed to have that "magic warmth" to it (it does) yet most people chose the plugin in a blind test. Go figure.

[Andreya_Autumn]

https://klanghelm.com/contents/products/IVGI.php

Not perfect, but dang close. And free. Great place to start learning about the art of subtle distortion (which is a major part of what "warming a signal up" means).

[syntonica]

You can use any number of tape saturation, overdrive, distortion, eq, etc. plugs meant to warm your signal. And they do. Have I heard a truly convincing one? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Individual tracks may sink into a mix nicely, but on a master channel, they are far more noticeable. It's all up to your ears and if the overall effect sounds "good enough".