Saturation is awesome

Daunt's guide aside, keep in mind that many of these 'tape/tube emulators' don't work very well on the master bus at all. In fact, many times it's the fast-track way to lo-fidelityville. I would advocate mixing with these plugs in on the individual tracks and instrument busses if they are a part of the sound you are after. Hitting the whole mix with one after the fact can often have undesirable effects.
 
paladin shredder said:
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.
Click to expand...

you're right in that tape saturation/compression was usually used to as an effect on individual tracks, but it could also be applied to the master by by increasing the console's output when printing the final mix to 2-track
 
I started to use a lot of saturation on my master-bus when reading Daunt's article on saturation. Noob that I am I guess I started to use too much (airwindows channel, massey tape head, voxengo saturator - in a ROW :D). I noticed it on the guitars for example. They got more gainy and the presence wasn't bearable at times. Now I try to give everything individual tape-saturation and back up on the master bus.

Saturation glues together the whole mix and gives it a bit of that grind that I really like - and I love it for that. But it's like exciters. You never know when it's too much until it's too late and you already bounced the tracks.
 
so after much reading from diff sources on saturation and compression, it seems like no one agrees on how to use it. should you compress and saturate on the master bus or do you put it on the individual tracks only? i've read people advocating both sides. is this one of those "there's no right answer", potatoe/potAHto things?

I've also read somewhere that you should take the master fader off before bouncing down to the final wav file. I think they said it opens up the mix or something. is that standard?
 
I've heard some great things about VTAPE, but then on the other hand a lot of people saying it's mainly for 'lo-fi' effects at the same time. Would you agree?

Anyone had experiences with Tritone Colortone Pro. From what I understand it's one of the few that uses actual impulses to match the curve response of gear, with some sort of saturation and color features to impart some harmonic excitement. I figure given the love for impulses here, someone may have tried it. Is it too static ala standard impulses? I feel half the idea with these plug-ins is transient smoothing.

Anyhow I think I'm fairly set on buying Nebula 3, as it seems to be the most promising technology for direct modeling of all kinds. The guys doing it seems intensely dedicated, the libraries are huge and the software itself is cheap. Take away the clunky GUI and CPU usage and you've got yourself one grand plug-in.

EDIT: On another note I tried out TesslaSE and JB Ferox on a track recently and I have to say I really preferred the Tessla. The Ferox seems to impart very unuseful characteristics onto the sound, whereas the Tessla simply saturates, fattens and smooths things out. Not particularly 3d sounding and the saturation is a tad grainy, but when you're surfing free plug-ins you really can't expect more.
 
Moonlapse said:
I've heard some great things about VTAPE, but then on the other hand a lot of people saying it's mainly for 'lo-fi' effects at the same time. Would you agree?

Anyone had experiences with Tritone Colortone Pro. From what I understand it's one of the few that uses actual impulses to match the curve response of gear, with some sort of saturation and color features to impart some harmonic excitement. I figure given the love for impulses here, someone may have tried it. Is it too static ala standard impulses? I feel half the idea with these plug-ins is transient smoothing.

Anyhow I think I'm fairly set on buying Nebula 3, as it seems to be the most promising technology for direct modeling of all kinds. The guys doing it seems intensely dedicated, the libraries are huge and the software itself is cheap. Take away the clunky GUI and CPU usage and you've got yourself one grand plug-in.

EDIT: On another note I tried out TesslaSE and JB Ferox on a track recently and I have to say I really preferred the Tessla. The Ferox seems to impart very unuseful characteristics onto the sound, whereas the Tessla simply saturates, fattens and smooths things out. Not particularly 3d sounding and the saturation is a tad grainy, but when you're surfing free plug-ins you really can't expect more.
Click to expand...

Nebula sounds promising but I've yet to hear some samples.
Tritone Colortone Pro colors a LOT! I really dig the SSL presets on bass.
Got this tip from a forum member on an old bass thread, can't find the link right now. Didn't use it anywhere else (yet) though.

I dislike JB Ferox, the buildin hardcoded filtering is an absolute no-go for me. I dislike TesslaSE too. While the first impression is that it assumably fattens things up I think it is too grainly and somewhat destroys that smooth lowend punch. Maybe I'm using it wrong but I dislike the overall character of it nonetheless. I have yet to find some saturation plugs for ITB processing that I like. I'm getting better quality without.

Sometimes I use the PSP Vintage Warmer in my mastering chain but it only works in some cases. Not a go-to per se. Gonna check out VTape...
 
abyssofdreams said:
WTF? That doesn't make sense at all. Any sources to this claim?
Click to expand...

this isnt the only place i've seen something like this come up, but it was the first one i was able to find doing a search online.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/45267-pro-tools-master-fader.html

i've been reading up on mixing, producing, etc in so many places, even i get lost half the time. doing my best to be a sponge and start to put together some mixes for my music project. i dont have a studio or anythign, so i'm doing what i can without any optimal conditions. but what can ya do? however, i must admit, this site is def one of my favs and one of like two where i actually "joined." the info i've gotten here is head and shoulders above most forums i've come across. thanks much you guys
 
jrt12 said:
this isnt the only place i've seen something like this come up, but it was the first one i was able to find doing a search online.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/45267-pro-tools-master-fader.html

i've been reading up on mixing, producing, etc in so many places, even i get lost half the time. doing my best to be a sponge and start to put together some mixes for my music project. i dont have a studio or anythign, so i'm doing what i can without any optimal conditions. but what can ya do? however, i must admit, this site is def one of my favs and one of like two where i actually "joined." the info i've gotten here is head and shoulders above most forums i've come across. thanks much you guys
Click to expand...

That thread is really interesting. Thanks for pointing to it.
I was totally unaware of this...
 
A guy in that thread did a bunch of null tests and there was perfect cancellation each time. Could be one of them placebo effect situations, or a problem specific to one, or a small group of guys' setup.
 
Another possible option - I hear UAD have a Fatso emulation in the pipeline...will be waiting to try the demo for that before I decide to drop any cash on the URS Saturation 2.
 
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