Tone Projects KELVIN coming next week

[rageix]

you're referring to the right thing.
however more bands = crossover and inherent crossover distortion
two EQs is how i've done it yes, but it's clunky af.
i'm not sure why more saturators don't have that standard.

True this can happen if care is not taken by the developer. However from my testing Fabfilter plugins like Saturn and Pro-MB do not suffer crossover distortion like say OTT does. Fabfilter do it the right way.

[Ploki]

True this can happen if care is not taken by the developer. However from my testing Fabfilter plugins like Saturn and Pro-MB do not suffer crossover distortion like say OTT does. Fabfilter do it the right way.

I mean i have both and as much as i like them, i dont like linearphase and there’s inherent phase shift in minimal phase crossovers.
Different approach, but preemphasis imo is a great way of dealing with saturation and i’m really curious as to why it isnt more common.

Kelvin isnt relacing saturn for me at all, saturn is just a great creative distortion tool, but when doing subtle and juicy it was never my go to

[midi_transmission]

I see your point that pre emphasis eq might create less 'damage' compared to a crossover, but I think the phase shift argument should not be exaggerated.

I think a crossover creates more phase shift, but a pre emphasis eq is not without phase shift. Not that I see a problem with that.

I guess both ways have their advantaged and disadvantages. I'm doing that with eqs since a long time. I agree that it's a great way to shape the sound.

[Ploki]

Compensated pre-emphasis reverses any phase shift since post EQ is inverse of pre-eq

I agree that it’s not a deal breaker or anything, i just find it faster/easier to “deemphasise” problematic portion rather than adding 2 extra bands just to do that task.
There are obvious benefits to multiband, i just dont think they apply to subtle general saturation

[midi_transmission]

Compensated pre-emphasis reverses any phase shift since post EQ is inverse of pre-eq

Ok with this addition you're right.

I thought it was just about to push certain areas into distortion.

Do you really compensate the same amount you push? Just curious about your experience.

[rageix]

If you're interested in what harmonics are being generated on each mode I'm posting my findings since I was doing my own testing anyways. Test is done in Cubase using the TestGenerator to make a pure sine wave at 440 Hz, then pushing the drive up until we can see the harmonics well. I've marked the fundamental, and 2nd and 3rd harmonics in Pro Q3 for reference.

Biggest take away from me is the saturation is very clean, unless you really drive the piss out of it. But if you use 2 saturation modes on top of each other then things naturally get very harmonic and even a bit dirty depending how hard you push it. But this should be expected when you're distorting distortion.

[cantaloupe]

Do you think you impart in making this forum a better place by posting such a thing?

What is the issue?

[Ploki]

Compensated pre-emphasis reverses any phase shift since post EQ is inverse of pre-eq

Ok with this addition you're right.

I thought it was just about to push certain areas into distortion.

Do you really compensate the same amount you push? Just curious about your experience.

I usually do when doing that yeah, and as far as i can tell so does Kelvin

[Rune L-H]

If you're interested in what harmonics are being generated on each mode I'm posting my findings since I was doing my own testing anyways. Test is done in Cubase using the TestGenerator to make a pure sine wave at 440 Hz, then pushing the drive up until we can see the harmonics well. I've marked the fundamental, and 2nd and 3rd harmonics in Pro Q3 for reference.

Cool, but keep in mind that it's not static like this. The harmonic structure can vary quite a bit depending on frequency and level. For example, transformers tend to have more prominent saturation in low frequencies. In some cases you'll also have a memory effect which affects the transient response and dynamics in general.

Cheers,
Rune

[midi_transmission]

If you're interested in what harmonics are being generated on each mode I'm posting my findings since I was doing my own testing anyways. Test is done in Cubase using the TestGenerator to make a pure sine wave at 440 Hz, then pushing the drive up until we can see the harmonics well. I've marked the fundamental, and 2nd and 3rd harmonics in Pro Q3 for reference.

Cool, but keep in mind that it's not static like this. The harmonic structure can vary quite a bit depending on frequency and level. For example, transformers tend to have more prominent saturation in low frequencies. In some cases you'll also have a memory effect which affects the transient response and dynamics in general.

Cheers,
Rune

I guess this is the reason why tools that just synthesise harmonics sounds very different to real or emulated saturation? The missing dynamic and transient behaviour.

There are some tools were you can choose how much 2rd or 3rd, 5th harmonics you want to have. They usually don't sound as good as modelled saturation or let's better say they sound different.

[rageix]

Cool, but keep in mind that it's not static like this. The harmonic structure can vary quite a bit depending on frequency and level. For example, transformers tend to have more prominent saturation in low frequencies. In some cases you'll also have a memory effect which affects the transient response and dynamics in general.

Cheers,
Rune

Oh for sure. Looking at 100 Hz test tone you'll notice a lot more harmonics, and with any saturation all depends how hard you drive it. Obviously there's a lot of factors, especially when you mix in both states. I'm not saying that my examples are definitive, but you can draw some basic conclusions from them that you can use as a comparison vs other saturation tools.

[dblock]

How good could a saturator even be? The problem with Gearspace is that everyone there gets caught up in the hype. It's a flavour of the month thing you'll never stop buying plugins.

As someone who was initially very impressed with Unisum, i uninstalled this Kelvin demo very quickly. Not because it was bad, i just didn't find any reason to buy it or keep it, just another decent saturator and i don't have room for that. Prefer the workflow, simplicity and sonics i get from Fuse and Airwindows saturators. There isn't any breaking ground here but it seem like a good plugin if you aren't covered saturator wise. I just wish people didn't get so strong FOMO on these things.

Gearspace is a fun study in infectious behaviour, which is partially caused by the fact that the distinctions people argue over are very minuscule (by design, and therefore ripe for snake oil, placebo, group dynamics and faith-based thinking). Increasingly esoteric recipes for 'mojo' etc. Usually it starts out when some key members with high clout are impressed by something (for whatever reason, which doesn't necessarily always reflect the quality of the plugin). People tend to forget the amount of taste and subjectivity involved with these things, and a lot of members seem to have "argument from authority" syndrome so that quickly sets off the rolling ball of hype.

It also seem like a type of pacifier-behaviour where we are collectively soothed by feeling like we are moving forward progressively, that the plugins of this year are leaps ahead of 2018 plugins which are leaps ahead of 2015 plugins etc. It feels good to participate in the ritual where this Kelvin plugin is _it_, the next-level culmination of human engineering/vision/creativity/intuition. And sometimes leaps actually happen, naturally, i just don't think they happen often enough or are important enough to warrant the hype most new plugins get, and the FOMO that ensues.

This seems pissy, not my intention - Kelvin seems good, just not qualitatively above anything else these days and people shouldn't really be group pressured into thinking they are missing out.

Best post I've read today.

[dblock]

Demo'd it, uninstalled it. Decided to try it again this morning on the drum bus, bought it.

[_leras]

I only had a very quick play with this, but when pushing the two gains with Hygge I seemed to get a strange unnatural metallic sound...

I'll have to test on a few more things and at different levels, but my first impression wasn't all that Wow. I swapped it out for black box HG saturator, and felt like it was an instant improvement, or at least a more 'expected' saturation/distortion.

Any suggested sources to try Kelvin on, and any particular settings?

[Ploki]

I only had a very quick play with this, but when pushing the two gains with Hygge I seemed to get a strange unnatural metallic sound...

I'll have to test on a few more things and at different levels, but my first impression wasn't all that Wow. I swapped it out for black box HG saturator, and felt like it was an instant improvement, or at least a more 'expected' saturation/distortion.

Any suggested sources to try Kelvin on, and any particular settings?

I bought it when i opened the bmanic's "megaphone" preset on vocals.

There's plenty of presets there, i'll share two i made recently anyway: one for heavy guitar bus and an allround master bus

In my opinion, the uniqueness of Kelvin is in the Hygge and Widening, and its usefulness in pre-emphasis. (try pushing a bass-heavy sound hard and then just pulling down the "pre" slider).
Pre-emphasis works by applying pre-gain, then after it's crushed, post gain, effectively nulling phase distortion and having no change in frequency response - just response of the saturation.
It can make transformers behave much more "analog" and it's superuseful to clean up a frequency area that might be breaking up the sound you generally like (usually bass) without changing the colour of the saturation or frequency balance.

You simply can't do that with blackbox (or any other saturator), unless you sandwich it between two linked EQs, which is more cumbersome to use.

Also Kelvin doesn't sound "impressive" because it's gain matched. (maybe over-matched)
Blackbox isn't, it increased perceived loudness significantly, unless you knock it down for quite a few dB (iirc i had to knock down about 6dB when i was matching it against kelvin).
I actually really dislike that in plugins, and a lot of commercial plugs are this way (subtle level boost).
So really try gain-matching them for direct comparison.

i'm in honeymoon with kelvin so it's basically everywhere right now, but it will likely end up on buses (due to pre-emphasis), basses and master the most.

edit:
Top level presets that did it for me instantly:
Guitar - electric presence (but with post tone shaper toned down to +/- 2dB)
Synth - Conditioner
Vocal - Overdriven Megaphone (as special FX or mixed in parallel)
Master - Big & Dense