Help me understand saturation and its uses please

[kraster]

I already included the link to Joshua Jaycen, but you can look up just about any major mixing engineer and you’ll find use of saturation in major releases that are known for sounding clear.

Spike Stent (who's done a few things now and then...) is another one. Likes to push the hardware/plug-ins and famously bemoaned that newer SSL consoles are 'too clean'.

I've sat in on a few mixes with Spike Stent.

He parallel processes everything so he uses distortion/clipping more "strategically".

For example on bass, he'll have a dry unaffected version, an absolutely hammered 1176 version, a sans amp/fully distorted version, one with chorus, one with a sharp low pass filter, one with hi pass etc.

These are all blended to a bus and then that bus is further processed. He does like to hit the end stops on the inputs to get extra sauce from the desk.

Great mixer who really knows what he's doing.

[jamcat]

The key is to leave everything at default.

Nah, it isn't...

Both UAD and IK tapes are setup for normal operation at default. If you leave them at default, you will get the sound of a calibrated tape machine that was operated correctly.

The input level on these models adjust the gain prior to processing. If your levels are already in the correct range, there is no need to adjust the input. I use a preamp plugin prior to the tape machine to set the level going in to the tape, so the preamp THD and tape saturation are in agreement. (Preamp plugins that force automatic gain compensation on you won’t work for this.)

So on my tape machines, the only controls I’m adjusting are tape speed and tape type. I mentioned increasing the input on UAD Studer A800 by 1.5dB, which is simply because I replaced the IK tapes with it, and this is to compensate for their differences and keep it at about the same level. It shouldn’t be necessary in the future when I’m starting off with UAD.

Now if you want to sound like you used a machine that wasn’t calibrated, or sound like your levels were too hot, then you might want to tweak other controls. But if you’re concerned about too much distortion from putting a tape on every channel, as Mind Riot was, then leaving the controls at default is the way to go.

[enCiphered]

So, you may disagree with that - but... - and I mean you may voice your disagreement all you like - how come you seem to be so confident that your - quite unusual - opinion is the more valid or right one?

Think of his narcissism as a protective bubble, and his unconventional opinions as the delicate fragility of that bubble. The thought of being wrong threatens to pop that bubble and expose him to the harsh realities of self-doubt.
In his world, he's the undisputed king of his unique opinions.

[donkey tugger]

It's all a plot by Big Saturation.

[jamcat]

So, you may disagree with that - but... - and I mean you may voice your disagreement all you like - how come you seem to be so confident that your - quite unusual - opinion is the more valid or right one?

Think of his narcissism as a protective bubble, and his unconventional opinions as the delicate fragility of that bubble. The thought of being wrong threatens to pop that bubble and expose him to the harsh realities of self-doubt.
In his world, he's the undisputed king of his unique opinions.

Or perhaps he’s just coming from a different frame of reference than others. I’ve heard some of Teksonik’s guitar recordings, and it sounded very good. To me, it sounded quite analogue, so if he’s not using plugins to get that sound, it means whatever’s in his signal chain that he’s capturing his source audio with is already doing it (if I recall, he uses a fancy hardware ampsim.) So whatever he’s doing is working for him. Coming from that frame, it makes perfect sense why he might find adding additional software saturation on top of it to be unnecessary.

[vurt]

It's all a plot by Big Saturation.

main character syndrome.

[Mind Riot]

You can download the Kirchoff EQ presets from here:

UAD Iron Oxide compensation curves for Kirchoff EQ (Google Drive, ZIP file, 17kb)

Thank you very much good sir, I appreciate it.

I'll post back again after I try it out.


Actually, this whole thread has turned out to be much more informative and enlightening than I had any right to expect, so thanks to everybody for their contributions. Even with a few disagreements things have stayed pretty civil. Thanks for sharing, everybody!

[jens]

Your results depend both on the actual material you mix and your own mixing skills
to a far greater degree that they depend on the tools you use.

Absolutely, skills are most important but I can turn that right back around on you. Perhaps it is the lack of mixing skills that convinces people to use saturation.

Nope, because this is not you against me.

Make no mistake: I am a complete nobody - just like you.

This is you against an army of praised, revered and highly successful producers, musicians, engineers.

And mind you:
it is not at all the case that they say what you do is wrong. It is you saying what they do is wrong. And it really doesn't get any more absurd than that.

You do you - you can work any way you want and I can promise you that not many people won't give the tiniest rat's arse about it at all. Seriously: Why would anybody care?

But you come here just to tell us all that a whole huge bunch of people (a.k.a. the majority) do it all wrong and you know it better - you have the skills, insight, knowledge and wisdom that they all lack.

And this is yet again basically the same old tiring story as when you kept joining in on Bootsie/Variety of Sound threads just to tell everybody - again and again - that the plugins basically do nothing, are placebo, suck and everybody who falls for them is an idiot who doesn't know what they're doing.



But in all honestly you actually know what really sucks, right?

[jens]

The input level on these models adjust the gain prior to processing. If your levels are already in the correct range, there is no need to adjust the input.

You see, that already is highly debatable. It's not just about "correct levels" - it totally depends on the overall energy, transients and frequency spectrum of you program material just as well as it depends on your aesthetic objectives. There isn't really a one-size-fits-all.

And of course it's not just how hard you drive it - it's also the speed of the tape and of the course the used tape formula, even when leaving aside other possible adjustments such as overbiasing.

[martinjuenke]

Saturated popcorn anybody?
Or do you prefer distorted one?

[Download SOphist]

Just give me the distorted truth. Or was it the saturated fat? Damn memory keeps playing tricks on me.

[Mind Riot]

You can download the Kirchoff EQ presets from here:

UAD Iron Oxide compensation curves for Kirchoff EQ (Google Drive, ZIP file, 17kb)

Thank you very much good sir, I appreciate it.

I'll post back again after I try it out.

Alright, I used the curves you supplied and they removed the excess bass and treble from Oxide very effectively. I'm now trying out Oxide on every bus, and I might try it on every track at some point if I'm feeling like getting wild.

Thanks for the patches.

[_leras]

I really hate it when I have to agree with Teksonik but he is right on the money here. I'd go a step further and suggest that the "warmth" you seek is there most of the time and doesn't need to be added. It is very rare that I want to use a sound that I think sounds too "digital" and needs to be warmed up. Most devs these days build it into their plugins, whether they are trying to emulate some old piece of shit hardware or not.

I'd say warmth can also be described as softening. This can be achieved with eq, by reducing higher frequency and/or boosting that 150-400 hz region. Can be done by a LPF. Saturation can also do this as it can muffle out the higher frequencies and push towards a pink or brown noise.

There are plenty of saturation and distortion options. Some of these can break up sound in a really pleasant way.

There's of course some overlap in tones between different tools, but I find it remarkable how much difference there is between some.

Some can take off a digital edge, a bit of saturation can sometimes brighten in a pleasing but subtle way, some can just bump the density in a pleasing way and make things a bit louder. Many ways to use saturation. Too much can just mush your sound though, but even that can have it's place.

[egbert101]

Polyunsaturates are better for your mixes.

[martiu]

i can really eat some chicken right now, some cold beer, fat sausage, good old times