Saturation is awesome

[Machinated]

Just revisited an old mix, as I wanted to remaster it, and just for the sake of trying out some plugins I played around with the saturation on the mix buss.

Ended up with Massey Tapehead, URS Saturation, and an Airwindows ClassicChannel on there, and I'm really liking the results. Definitely worth trying out if you guys haven't already.

Tapehead AU and AirWindows are both free, and I am really loving URS Saturation and think its well worth its price tag.

 

[J.DavisNJ]

Excuse the newb question, but can you give a biref explanation of saturation? Something to do with the loudness/presence I'm guessing.

-Joe

 

[Jaymz]

Everytime I try something like that, they fuzz my guitars up something rotten :S

 

[Machinated]

Saturation basically adds harmonic distortion to the sound, its kind of like distortion in sound but kind of different too. Different hardware is going to impact different kinds of distortions to a sound, and these saturators emulate the way it distorts. The URS saturation plugin also affects transients and dynamic range, and has a Wet/Dry % fader so you can blend it in.

Its a hard thing to explain how it can help your work, but its definitely worth a try. For example on bass, drums and vocals it can really grit things up. On guitars, Id tend to use lower settings and I'd blend it in as opposed to using it 100% wet as it gets a little too crazy otherwise.

 

[MetalJonesy]

where are you slamming it dude? before or after gclip/master buss compressor, or in both positions?? i used to use one pre and post compression, but have gone away from it, as i was getting bogged down with using far to many plugins for my own good!

 

[coldthrn]

I add saturation to my main bus to glue the mix together a bit and give it a bit more punch and warmth. Machinated is right it adds harmonic distortion that simulates tape recordings. Its good to use it sparingly or yes you will get fuzz. DUY DAD Tape is another great plugin for this as well.

 

[Ermz]

Great to hear!

I've actually been looking for good tape/saturation plug-ins for a long while now. It's a real shame that the presets offered with URS Console Strip Pro don't actually do any saturation, but rather simply apply an EQ curve to the material.

So far I've got my options narrowed down to these:

URS Saturation 2 (good to hear it's working for you)
DUY Dadtape
Virsyn Vtape (fantastic one from what I hear of it)

What I'm afraid of is none of them being overly convincing, nor close to what they're attempting to emulate. I like to use the very best plug-ins available whenever I can, so as always it's been a long time researching.

 

[ze kink]

Sounds interesting... could you possibly let us hear some unprocessed & processed clips?

I've experimented with some tape saturation plugins when mastering, and I remember I was liking the sound. That was a while back though, and I didn't know a lot about anything back then.

 

[abyssofdreams]

I like to use the very best plug-ins available whenever I can, so as always it's been a long time researching.

Ain't that highly subjective?

 

[Ermz]

It is, but you generally tend to find some vague consensus in there amongst all the B/S. Plus there are sometimes technical documents and tests of certain plugs in practice which can reveal 'fakes' and those who don't deliver what they claim (like the URS CSP input section for instance).

 

[Machinated]

With URS Saturation you get 7 (I think) different models, all with different characteristics (German, British, 2 Tapes, Tape deck, transformer and a "Modern" pre). I find myself using them all pretty evenly as they all have their uses. The fact you can mix the wet and dry is also really great as different applications demand different things.

On my mix bus I'll have a CSP (only normally taking off like 1dB, barely anything), and then I have found the saturation to sound nicer for me afterwards, I suppose it depends though for what you are working with.

Definitely give them a try, it can sometimes bring some life back into a mix if its just missing something.

FWIW I seem to remember saying that he uses the Cranesong Pheonix on like every track, although I have heard that Pheonix is much more subtle in terms of the effect it has.

 

[Machinated]

And there is graphs around on the internet showing the different harmonic characteristics of the Saturation plugin (as in it does actually saturate unlike the CSP).

 

[Ermz]

Can't wait to check it out... how much does it cost?

 

[Machinated]

URS Website

I bought it when they were offering it as an upgrade if you had the CSP, so I think I paid $99. Also for those of you that are students, you can get 50% off URS plugins.

 

[Ihsahn1981]

Care to post a before/after clip?

 

[Machinated]

I could maybe do something on a single track to show what it does, but when its on the mix bus, its going to alter the sound of everything as it affects dynamics and transients as well. My best bet would be to demo it, and get a feel for it like that.

 

[Sloan]

JB Ferox is another good free Tape Sat plugin.

 

[Ermz]

Anyone wanna do a shootout between Ferox and TesslaSE? If not, I'll try to get around to it sometime tomorrow.

 

[paladin shredder]

I've started putting massey tapehead on each individual track I record. I used to put it on the master bus, but if you think about it back in the day when people were using tape, the tape didn't actually effect the entire mix going out, it effected each individual track (from what i understand, I've never recorded with actual tape). The only thing i don't use it on is vocals and pre-processed drum samples, I like my vocals clean. Although I don't have any tube saturation plugins, that may work better on vocals than the tape plugs.

 

[J.DavisNJ]

Thanks for the explanation guys...I wonder if Logic 7 includes something similar.

-Joe