Mix saturation (Charles Dye style) using PSP MixSaturator

[bool]

Curious: what's the "summing trick"?

Probably puting softsaturator as the first and the last insert plugin on a buss or a channel.

In old days, one could do that with saturator in VstDynamics of Cubase even.

The first one could mimic behaviour of mixdesk input stage, the last one would stand for post-eq buffer stage nonlinearities. (etc).

It would be interesting to see if some experimenting developer could make a plugin that would mimic nonlin behaviour of an opamp with class-a pulldown -resistor- (not the "perfect" one, with a constant-current source). I found such modded stages adding more fat to the sound.

[bleebsen]

I read a very interesting thread recently where people were discussing using PSP MixSaturator on every channel to provide analog console-like saturation to take the digital edge off DAW-produced music (in a way suggested by Charles Dye in his Mix It Like a Record DVD).

I think Charles Dye was suggesting a single saturation plugin on the master bus, not one in every channel. Otherwise I wouldn't understand what he said about insert this plugin first and mixing "into" it instead of banging it on there in the end. According to Charles you'd mix differently when having that plugin in the master bus from the beginning.

And I'm not too sure if I agree. I get pleasant results with applying saturation at mastering stage.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I've seen this done in professional studios - it's becoming a new habit of Pro Tools engineers mixing 'in the box' with an ICON or whatever to load up the McDSP AC1 plugin on each channel. The AC1 lets you add the coloration of a variety of different line amplifiers, specifically the amplifiers found in the channel strips of a variety of vintage consoles. You can drive the signal in AC1 to control the degree of analog distortion, and this *will* affect the dynamics of your signals but it should be more gentle than limiting in most cases. The idea is that you can add back the nonlinearities at each channel strip and at each bus to "be true to analog".

I've used this technique on individual tracks, in cases where a i'd want a slightly bigger and warmer color... if I had an HD rig, maybe I'd give it a try across the board, but there's no way i'd put myself through that kind of hell with my 3 year old single g5.

As far as limiting on any channel, well why not? Dunno if I'd do it myself, but they were doing it for years with tape.

[loveless]

That's what I was saying in my earlier post. What I took from the brief bit I saw was that it influenced his mixing decisions, having said something to the affect of "if I bypass AC-1 I often find my mix will completely fall apart" - I've never seen this dvd, and probably won't ever... but I'm just clarifying. I love a lot of 'imperfect' recordings, there's a lot of character in technically flawed mixes/recordings - it just seems very unnecessary to slap some sort of saturation plug on every track, with the same setting.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Well all these guys are so used to mixing on SSL and Neve desks that, IMO, cognitive dissonance kicks in whenever these guys mix in the box, and they feel like they have to work harder to 'sound analog.' Of course, once you've convinced yourself to spend $15k on a Pro Tools HD rig, you could probably convince yourself of just about anything....

[KingofBeers]

You are right Rusty, Charles and many others do use that plug across each channel now more and more, but the most important trick is the dual mono setup on the mix buss to mimic the L and R channels of an analogue consoles mix buss...being uneven in a mircoscopic way seems to create a (sorry for the cliche) more organic dimensional sound...to my ears anyway..like the bigger consoles did way back when...saturating slightly differently with 2 instances of your saturation plug ..one Left...one Right...as oppossed to a single instance slapped across the mixbuss.

This is what is refered to as "the mix into plug or technique"...as bleebsen mentioned.

Cheers.

[gd_vm]

well its no trick....

Using cubase create 3 groups. 1 stereo 2 mono.
Goto the group 1 (stereo) and pull the fader all the way down. Open the sends of the group 1 and send to each mono group. Click the pre fader buttons on. Open the routing options and pan the mono groups left and right. Now goto the mono groups and pan them left and right. Add a mix sat plug to each mono group..thats it, dual mono.

Pro tools lets you set up stereo plugs as multi-mono..so I guess its the same thing with less work.

Oh,
Route all audio to group 1 (stereo group)

[KingofBeers]

It's also the last thing you should do in cubase before a mix because of the silly ordering/routing of groups cubase has...for example make sure you make your sub groups and fx groups before you make the dual mono group.(before you start mixing BTW)..so that everything can be routed to the last group..(Dual mono group)..dual mono group then goes to the main stereo out..so you can apply comps and EQ etc back in stereo as opposed to dual mono processing.

Cheers.

[gd_vm]

right....learned that the hard way

[Rusty Shackleford]

Incidentally, for those wanting to try this method out without a Pro Tools system of their own, Tritone Digital's Colortone can be used to similar effect. It too allows you to choose from a variety of different models, and it's free (but it needs pluggo runtime).

An interesting thought though - I don't think anyone would complain if Steinberg and Apple and all the other guys integrated this type of process directly into the mixer... in fact, I bet we'll see something like that in the future, and it'll make everyone want to upgrade. And what's the difference between loading an Autoload with an AC-1 on every channel and having a DAW mixer with the plugin's functionality built-in, really?

Anyways, my computer will kick me in the nads if i try to run that many plugins on top of the ones i'm already maxing out with, so i guess it's a moot point anyhow.

[wsaidah]

the Tritone Digital's guys did some test on ac1 and found out that it does not saturate at all and its just a cleaver compressor from Damon In response to several questions about AC1 we did some lab work and investigation about its behavior. Our tests seem to show that AC1 does not emulate consoles in the way many suppose it does or as reported. Our tests seem to show that AC does not do saturation or harmonic generation, two key components in analog distortion. It's a somewhat clever compressor; but that's the extent of its DSP as far as we can tell. We were pretty shocked, but the evidence seems clear. by the way Colortone is a must have! Sony inflator does the job that ac1 claims to do

[Rusty Shackleford]

wsaidah: what do you mean exactly? That AC-1 mimics the 'bite' of the amplifier on the peaks when it's driven, but that generates none of fuzz?

[kritikon]

So now, we not only are supposed to add noise into our recordings, we're also supposed to split the master buss into 2 mono channels? To emulate a console? What consoles do you use?



I read some strange goings on at KvR sometimes.


Most entertaining though.

[wsaidah]

http://www.tritonedigital.com/forum/vie ... highlight= take a look

[KingofBeers]

So now, we not only are supposed to add noise into our recordings, we're also supposed to split the master buss into 2 mono channels? To emulate a console? What consoles do you use?



I read some strange goings on at KvR sometimes.


Most entertaining though.

And there it is, no one has to try anything...it's all choice/experimentation to strive for better productions o and KVR isn't the gospel ...all about the IDEAS.., take on board or discard...you've discrarded..no problem

Cheers .