Want Proportional Drive/Distortion

[Melodeath]

I'm looking for a plug-in for a particular situation. I was listening to a folk singer recently on CD, and I noticed his voice is crystal clear when he's quiet, but really saturated (very lightly distorted) when he gets loud. Looking at the waveform, it's obvious these loud sections aren't clipping, it's just the nature of the recording. (Perhaps the loud sections were really driving the preamp or something. I really don't know...). It sounds almost like something in the chain was clipping or being overdriven, but the waveform is not especially large during those sections, and it doesn't look squared-off. Maybe he ran the vocals through some sort of soft-clipper.

So, what sort of plug-in could I use to get the same affect? I want the distortion/drive/saturation to increase as the input increases. Would a typical saturation plugin work like this?

Someone suggested I could automate a distortion plugin, but I'm looking for something a little more "natural," or easier, I guess.

Any ideas?

 

[abt]

How old is it? Could be tape saturation or the mic diaphragm pushed to the max. Those look square though. Either way you should be able get similar results with a saturation plug.

EDIT:

PSP has a saturator I pretty sure you can set the input level, anything lower than that goes through untouched http://www.pspaudioware.com/plugins/dynamic_processors/psp_mixsaturator2/index.html

 

[Melodeath]

It's from no earlier than 2003. It's certainly possible he recorded the vocals to tape. Would a tape saturation plug only saturate when the signal gets loud? Sounds promising.

 

[abt]

Should be able to make it copy tape so once the input is over a certain threshold it will saturate. If you can't get it to saturate at a certain volume you could run the plug in parallel the automate the volume for the effected signal. Maybe post a clip.

 

[Morgan C]

It's from no earlier than 2003. It's certainly possible he recorded the vocals to tape. Would a tape saturation plug only saturate when the signal gets loud? Sounds promising.

Well it wouldn't ONLY saturate then, but it'd saturate MORE as volume increases. Just as you can put GClip on something, the louder it is the more it'll get clipped. Same thing with saturation.

 

[greyskull]

was it hurt by johnny cash?
that gets properly distorted at the end

 

[BLUElightCory]

Just use a distortion/amp sim/saturation plug. Most distortions (when set properly) saturate more as you drive them more. Think of what happens when you turn down your guitar volume (sound cleans up) and gradually turn it back up (sound becomes more saturated).

This effect happens on Feist's last CD and I read that they ran some of her vocals through a Vox guitar amp and re-mic'd it. Sounds cool.