Saturation, but it doesn't!

[El°HYM]

Grow up.

[ampetrosillo]

There is *no* way to increase perceived loudness while decreasing nominal loudness with saturation.

You've got a sine at 40hz, you add saturation, now you have energy at 120 and 200hz (and maybe other harmonics as well depending). This is likely more perceptible in the mix and can sound slightly louder even at the same total volume. Or you could EQ away some of the 40hz energy after saturation for that matter.

This is easy enough to experiment with to hear and see it in action (particularly with something like MAGC that matches levels automatically).

*sigh*

You are still increasing total loudness. There is no going around it. Loudness is not relative to peak levels but to total energy (in simple terms). Saturation may flatten the peaks but it's still increasing the total energy of the signal, a simple RMS or LUFS meter will show you this. Yes, added power in the mid-bass will make the bass sound louder, but that added power still comes from reshuffling energy within the signal. At most, you are keeping the energy the same. The only way to, perhaps, decrease loudness levels and make it sound louder (which would be shown by greatly differing RMS and LUFS readings) is to actually focus the energy on the frequency range our ears are most sensitive in. It's what a horn designed for a passband in the midrange does, essentially. It gets plenty loud but power may be surprisingly little. Horns, in isolation, are not hi-fi, though (and are very hard to linearize).

[ampetrosillo]

There is *no* way to increase perceived loudness while decreasing nominal loudness with saturation. The only way you can do this is if you EQ your track in a way that enhances the frequency ranges our ears are most sensitive in and cuts elsewhere.

Ok, I see, then 100+ videos on YouTube must be wrong. Or maybe you can just tame some peaks or whatever

Taming peaks ≠ decreasing loudness. Two very different things.

[foosnark]

There is *no* way to increase perceived loudness while decreasing nominal loudness with saturation.

You've got a sine at 40hz, you add saturation, now you have energy at 120 and 200hz (and maybe other harmonics as well depending). This is likely more perceptible in the mix and can sound slightly louder even at the same total volume. Or you could EQ away some of the 40hz energy after saturation for that matter.

This is easy enough to experiment with to hear and see it in action (particularly with something like MAGC that matches levels automatically).

*sigh*

You are still increasing total loudness. There is no going around it.

There certainly is, if you use MAGC like I said, which resets the total loudness to exactly what it was before the saturation. (And yet it sounds louder.)

Some saturation plugins will also compensate the level automatically, apparently.

[CrystalWizard]

He said something dumb, lets harp on it for pages and not get over it!
#fun

Ttis not that it he/she said something dumb, there's a club of us here who sometimes do, it's that it doubled down and kept us giggling with repeated :it said something dumb moments" and hey, that's kinda funny. It's not like anyone is being cruel, some have tried to point out its' errors and help out.

[ampetrosillo]

There is *no* way to increase perceived loudness while decreasing nominal loudness with saturation.

You've got a sine at 40hz, you add saturation, now you have energy at 120 and 200hz (and maybe other harmonics as well depending). This is likely more perceptible in the mix and can sound slightly louder even at the same total volume. Or you could EQ away some of the 40hz energy after saturation for that matter.

This is easy enough to experiment with to hear and see it in action (particularly with something like MAGC that matches levels automatically).

*sigh*

You are still increasing total loudness. There is no going around it.

There certainly is, if you use MAGC like I said, which resets the total loudness to exactly what it was before the saturation. (And yet it sounds louder.)

Some saturation plugins will also compensate the level automatically, apparently.

Then it's not decreasing the loudness, is it?!

[foosnark]

Oh FFS.

No, it's increasing the perceived loudness while maintaining the same actual level.

You can always turn it down after that, to maintain the same perceived loudness while decreasing the actual level.

[ramseysounds]

Happy Christmas

[vurt]

Happy Christmas

ooh cool, i said to myself, xmas for my next module, as there's family birthdays between aug and then...

[neverbeeninariot]

how do you cut Eq and make things sound louder?

Chain -
Pro-L -1db
Pro-Q 12db low shelf
Reaper loudness meter

[ramseysounds]

Happy Christmas

ooh cool, i said to myself, xmas for my next module, as there's family birthdays between aug and then...

I felt the thread needed cheering up then the post after yours ruined the festive cheer

[neverbeeninariot]

Happy Christmas

ooh cool, i said to myself, xmas for my next module, as there's family birthdays between aug and then...

I felt the thread needed cheering up then the post after yours ruined the festive cheer

You're welcome. Happy Easter.

[motomotomoto]

I believe it is possible to decrease the loudness by saturating. Not as a rule, but yes it's possible.

Here is the thought process articulated better than I can do in a post

[psynical]

It's not allowed to give wrong information on YouTube, they have very strict rules.
When you upload a video there is a verification process before it's accepted and released or video or even channel could be banned.

i want to never forget this quote.
Just out of curiosity, were you homeschooled?

[DCrown]

The main reason for opening this thread is to know whether saturation could be a good tool to achieve an overall target mix loudness.
On tracks or busses you usually use some eq and maybe compression and let's say you have a mix containing some real instruments with quite a big dynamic range like electric bass, guitar, percussion and vocals.
Let's assume the unmastered mix has - 24 Lufs, of course without clipping and after mastering compression with about - 2 db gain reduction has been applied.
To achieve - 12 Lufs you must drive the mastering limiter pretty hard.
So maybe - 18 Lufs of an unmastered compressed mix generally would be better imo, also considering some headroom (min - 3 db) for mastering.
What tools to use on tracks or busses to achieve about - 18 Lufs?
Saturation?
Limiter?
Harder compression?
Harder eq settings?