Saturation

[_leras]

Same as everything else, good arrangement, saturating groups over channels if possible, rolling off high end.

But really I don't have that problem with saturation, if anything over doing it make the sound muffled not crispy..

[jamcat]

How do you handle the exponential introduced Aliasing caused by stacking up such an amount of non - linear working plugins?

Export at a high samplerate end-to-end, plus use plugins with oversampling (and turn it on.)

Though even when I reduce my samplerate to 48k to stretch my CPU while mixing, I still don't hear any aliasing artefacts. I don't think aliasing is a problem until it is, and it usually isn't. So it's never been anything I've had to worry about in the real world. I think if you're doing heavily distorted frequency sweeps without oversampling at 44.1k, looking for aliasing, you'll find what you're looking for. But that's not what I'm doing in my music.

[Uncle E]

How do you handle the exponential introduced Aliasing caused by stacking up such an amount of non - linear working plugins?

It's just super short transients getting clipped. No audible distortion.

[_leras]

It’s entirely possible. I don’t use Oxide enough to know, and that would be the most similar of the three. Studer and Ampex can’t get as heavy-handed.

What mode do you use verve in and how much do you push it?

When I tried it it seemed 'too much flavour'. Oxide is just like a nice tape that you can push into a bit, that kind of pull it down so you only notice when you disengage it type thing.

[Uncle E]

I normally use Warm or Sweeten with Drive at 50% or less. Sometimes I use Thicken or Edge if I want it to be a little heavy-handed, or Vintagize or Sputter if I'm looking for something really over-the-top.

[_leras]

I normally use Warm or Sweeten with Drive at 50% or less. Sometimes I use Thicken or Edge if I want it to be a little heavy-handed, or Vintagize or Sputter if I'm looking for something really over-the-top.

much appreciated, I'll give those a try.

I'm quite bad a writing off a plug in or synth from an unfair first impression. Just because I didn't work for my first try, doesn't mean it's not going to be great for something else.

[Igro]

A few weeks ago I got PSP Saturator. And only now I had time to try it out. I have so many saturation plugins, but this one just within an hour has became my favorite one for 909 kicks. Usually I use PA Elysia Karakter for that. But PSP was way more versatile and I could get it to sound almost like the Karakter (no other plugins could) and beyond. It can sound very warm and punchy the same time. Make sure to open the hidden panel and make some tweaks there.

The problem is that not all saturation plugins sound good with kicks, especially if you need thar warm and the same time punchy sound. For example, you will never get it with something like Softube Harmonics Analog Saturation Processor (which has that typical transformer sound). It's just like the opposite to PSP Saturator. I guess it is good for different purposes. Will you get that sound with the FabFilter Saturn 2 (l own it)? No. No matter how hard you try. Tools like Saturn 2, Arturia ColdFire, Melda MSaturator are very digital sounding by nature. They give very similar sound.

Now I actually very interested what the Vintage Warmer 2 can do.

[_leras]

The problem is that not all saturation plugins sound good with kicks, especially if you need thar warm and the same time punchy sound.

I find it's the same with distortions not every tone suits every sound. Its strange how different saturation and distortion can bring out completely different things, for individual sounds or on mixes...

But maybe it doesn't make as much difference as I think it does. I once closed a project with Coldfire demo on a sound thinking I really didn't like it only to open the project the next day and love the sound. So who knows.

[Benedict]

But maybe it doesn't make as much difference as I think it does.

There's a lot to this I think.

I spent a day with the new small Vintage Wamer 2, feeling that it was a total revelation, never before achieved in my DAW. The next day was WTF, where is all that magic? It wasn't bad per se, simply was just another.

I made this vid and everyone kept going on about this BST and that BST being the creamiest, warmest... I compared one to my Combinator a few days later, and guess what, once you even out the sneaky (but to be fair somewhat inevitable) level boosts, they A-B all but same-same.

Mostly, the magic is in the marketing. Once you know how it happens, you can dial it in. Obviously one can, seeing that is what the Devs are doing. Doesn't make all of them wrong; some make a good product.

[Wriggle]

Where ever possible I try to use plugins - it's just a lot less hassle but saturation is one of the few effects that still benefits from hardware. My instrumental synth music leans towards neo-classical so I don't compress heavily but I run the mix out into a Cranborne Camden preamp, set to Thump 50% and Carnaby EQ/Saturator (19 inch rack not 500 series). The Camden adds a lot of low mid thickness and the Carnaby is set to add some saturation to the highs and lows. I mix into them so they are never too much. My Rev-2 and P08 really shine through these - any hint of harshness disappears. I actually have them powered on all day because I also listen to commercial music through them too. I have a good setup and A/B-ing in Totalmix is incredibly revealing. Commercial mixes and my own fall very flat when you hit bypass. I am sure, with time, I could achieve the same with plugins because even after passing through outboard the audio is converted to digital before going to the final DAC and the monitors.

I have tried running the entire mix through the outboard against running individual tracks and then combining the treated audio. Even with the same settings and levels I much prefer the version where the final mix went to the outboard. It does glue the mix.

[Agg]

The problem is that not all saturation plugins sound good with kicks, especially if you need thar warm and the same time punchy sound.

I find it's the same with distortions not every tone suits every sound. Its strange how different saturation and distortion can bring out completely different things, for individual sounds or on mixes...

We've said it before, but this is basically identical to stating not every waveshaper preset suits every sound. It makes perfect sense in that way. Ofc, if the plugin does something else under the hood - such as add a layer of noise like some emulation plugins - then it's not the same. Those standard clippers and saturators are however? They are just that. Waveshaper presets.

[pekbro]

The HOFA saturator came out pretty nice imo.

[zerocrossing]

How do you handle the exponential introduced Aliasing caused by stacking up such an amount of non - linear working plugins?

Export at a high samplerate end-to-end, plus use plugins with oversampling (and turn it on.)

Though even when I reduce my samplerate to 48k to stretch my CPU while mixing, I still don't hear any aliasing artefacts. I don't think aliasing is a problem until it is, and it usually isn't. So it's never been anything I've had to worry about in the real world. I think if you're doing heavily distorted frequency sweeps without oversampling at 44.1k, looking for aliasing, you'll find what you're looking for. But that's not what I'm doing in my music.

It really depends on what you're doing, but in some cases, aliasing can build up and give your mix a harsh sound, if you're not careful. It's a lot less of an issue, these days, because most saturation plugins, or plugins that have saturation characteristics, are pretty clean. A few months ago I did a survey of all my distortion plugins and most passed my test, though there are still a few that could use an oversampling function. I find it funny that people are all ga-ga over the NAM guitar amp capture plugin, when it's pretty bad in this sense. If you're making a metal album with it, you will have issues.

There's also quite a bit of aliasing in a lot of built in effects on synthesizer plugins, and not all audio rate modulation is without aliasing. It won't be too noticeable with bass lines, but if you're doing stuff higher up, it can become noticeable.

[DCrown]

For me saturation has two purposes.
Adding it as an effect to make an instrument eg. Bass more audible or eg. Vocals upfront and aggressive.
Or to reduce the level nominal level of a track and making it even louder at the same time, making the perceived level louder.

[ramseysounds]

…reduce the level nominal level of a track and making it even louder at the same time, making the perceived level louder.

How?