Help me understand saturation and its uses please

[jancivil]

viewtopic.php?t=383884

the term Saturation as far as I can tell refers to the particles on magnetic recording tape reaching a point of literal saturation and harmonics that weren't there before may accumulate. Exciters are used generally if not absolutely exclusively for higher frequencies coloration, differently than a saturator which means you're looking at lower frequencies and resonances generated in a more fundamental area of the spectrum.

I don't have any direct experience with an exciter before doing virtual music production. I use VSL's, in Vienna Suite. You have control over a range where the middle = an even distribution of even to odd number harmonics; control over center frequency; control over amount ie., as wet/dry; and of "drive". it can be extremely subtle all the way to full bore crazy.

As to why, I wouldn't even try to tell someone why they'd do something. It's spice to taste .
I use a fair amount of very clean sources I want to add sonic interest to. I also like something generating tape noise as I have moments where nothing is sounding, & otherwise it's dead air. I don't personally find pristineness superior per se.

[Dark Fiber]

This topic made me want to challenge what i was doing out of habit, which was plugging in subtle saturation on each channel with TDR Slick EQ GE. In a synth pop / italo disco track I did a few years ago I used the "Excited" output stage for this. Today, I removed all these instances and I was shocked at how much better it sounded without them. I mean, really. Then I went to plugin doctor and saw that the Excited output stage of Slick EQ GE also has some kind of mid boost going on.

From now on i'm only using saturation if the particular instrument/sample needs it sound-wise and you can clearly hear the difference (meaning: it sounds better). I always thought saturation shaved off peaks and if you use it subtly all over your mix, you can get louder mixes (whether its perceived loudness or actual loudness). Boy was I wrong, in the end without saturation my master was almost a db louder by hard clipping the two buses and the two bus ever so slightly to ease off the limiter.

[metalifuxx]

Use it where needed. It makes sense in the context of a busy mix when you have a lot of sources that naturally have the same competing frequency spectrums in first and second order harmonic area. It’s great for basses/bass guitar and kicks to help cut through and translate better on smaller speakers, especially when layering or mixing it in parallel. Like layering a bass guitar di and an bass ampsim dialed in with a little breakup/grit. If you solo the bass ampsim alone, it may not sound to your liking, like way to gritty and overdriven, but in the context of a mix with a full real drum kit that has kick and toms, used in conjunction with mixing in the bass DI, if taken away, your bass guitar will disappear or hardly be audible on smaller speaker systems that cant reproduce the low first order harmonic/frequency ranges that your bass guitar and kicks/toms live in. Dial in the right bit of saturation and all of a sudden you can hear your basslines on your phone or smaller systems…in the context of a full mix you wont hear that saturation grit as opposed to when you have the track solo’d. It will just make the low end cut and those second order/octave harmonics will make the bass guitar jump out, especially if you’re playing more melodic lines, riffs and fills instead of just following the chord root notes as a supporting role for guitars and the kick.

[Raddler1]

Over time, I believe the ear will naturally begin to crave the sound of organic/analog. Saturation is the only thing we have in the digital world that can get us there.

I hated saturation when I began producing 15 years ago. I can't live without it today.

[martiu]

Over time, I believe the ear will naturally begin to crave the sound of organic/analog. Saturation is the only thing we have in the digital world that can get us there.

I hated saturation when I began producing 15 years ago. I can't live without it today.

what is the difference between saturation and distortion ?

[roman.i]

Saturation is subtle and soft. Used in mixing / mastering.
Distortion changes the sound in drastic way. Used by musicians.

[Mind Riot]

nice, now you will have more space for worthless kontakt library's
dont forget, next time you record something use your sausage fattener plugin on max
you gotta bring those additional harmonies for some fatness

I count up how many paid plugins I have and divide that number by the number of tracks in whatever project I'm working on. That number then tells me how many plugins to put on each track, usually thirty or forty. Then I can rest easy knowing that it's been mathematically proven that I'm the best at using plugins and that I'm getting the best mixes.

[funky lime]

yes, a lot of saturation for me is the sort of thing where, you might not even really notice any individual instance, until you go to bypass all instances at once, and suddenly the mojo goes away.

i think it's like reverb, in that it's way too easy to overdo, and that even a little too much can ruin a mix.

of course, then there's driving saturation harder on purpose, for the distorted effect. but for me, that's a less common use case for saturation. kind of like how compression can be nearly invisible or it can be smashed to shit, if that effect is desired... nice to have the option, but if i'm slamming my drums that hard with a compressor, i'm probably doing it at like 10% wet. same kinda deal with saturation, for me

[mixtur.se]

If I need to make a sound source louder without the peaks overloading I'll just use a clipper. Clean, transparent, simple, done. Like it was never even there. Like ninja.

Clipping is causing saturation/ distortion- it’s effectively a waveshaper

[mixtur.se]

Saturation is subtle and soft. Used in mixing / mastering.
Distortion changes the sound in drastic way. Used by musicians.

It’s the same thing, it’s just a matter of definition (ex more or less distortion)

[JerGoertz]

what is the difference between saturation and distortion ?

Saturation is a form of distortion, usually modeled after the way analog equipment (such as tape machines, tubes, valves, etc.) responds to a "hot" input signal exceeding its rated range of power. This will cause the signal to "distort" in a way that causes the region around the peaks to be "compressed" (lowered in magnitude) with respect to the input signal. I.e., this gain reduction near the peaks is a nonlinear process, because the signal closer to the peaks is reduced in magnitude more than the signal which is lower than the peaks. More generally, any nonlinear gain-change of the signal can be considered distortion. This adds harmonics to the signal, which is what we perceive as the audible effect of distortion. If these added harmonics are soft w.r.t. the original signal, they can be perceived as added "warmth", "phatness", etc. If they are louder, they can be perceived as "grunge", "crunch", "harshness", etc.

Then there's stuff to do with whether odd vs even harmonics are added, but I forget the deal there.

[BONES]

I'd say it's been on countless top records as it seems tape recordings did add saturation.

So what? Lots of hit records have female backing vocals but that doesn't mean every song has to have them.

Anyway, saturation is just distortion for girls. Mostly I find it a waste of time, far too subtle to be bothered with, unless you over-do it to buggery, when it starts to sound terrible. Stick to overdrive, you can't go wrong there.

[martiu]

I'd say it's been on countless top records as it seems tape recordings did add saturation.

So what? Lots of hit records have female backing vocals but that doesn't mean every song has to have them.

Anyway, saturation is just distortion for girls. Mostly I find it a waste of time, far too subtle to be bothered with, unless you over-do it to buggery, when it starts to sound terrible. Stick to overdrive, you can't go wrong there.

put some bit crusher on the master for some crystal

[Raddler1]

Over time, I believe the ear will naturally begin to crave the sound of organic/analog. Saturation is the only thing we have in the digital world that can get us there.

I hated saturation when I began producing 15 years ago. I can't live without it today.

what is the difference between saturation and distortion ?

About 100 grit. But still sandpaper in the end.

[foosnark]

People seem to think of saturation as the more subtle, gentle version of distortion, but I think of it in terms of transfer functions, e.g. how it affects a wave.

As I see it, saturation "pushes" material away from 0V (making it louder) while also "squashing" it away from the minimum/maximum available levels (limiting the max volume without actual clipping), in a curved transition. Other types of distortion tend to introduce sharper "angles" or discontinuities (clipping, rectification, folding, quantizing, some comparator-based techniques, etc.)

Saturation doesn't have to be subtle or gentle -- you can smash a sine wave into basically a square if you do it enough. That can sound pretty great honestly on monophonic parts.

When applied to a mix (to emulate analog gear, or enhance bass or something) I think it can sound really shitty if you're not careful. I prefer multiband saturation, keeping it more on the bass end of things, and try to avoid extra harmonics crowding the 5K-10K range or so. Or when in doubt, just don't do it.