In this article Luke Goddard uses saturation in three distinctly different ways to help improve his mix.
For decades, equipment designers put a lot of energy into designing signal paths that were as clean (or “linear”) as possible, culminating in the near-perfection that we enjoy today. Ironically, many mixers continue to use saturation, aka, distortion, as a means of deliberate creative processing simply because sometimes it just sounds ‘right’.
The reasons for this have their roots in psychoacoustics, but also in strong positive associations with recorded sound in general. After all, when we include all eras, the majority of it has so far been made and enjoyed through systems that have been less than perfect. When we come to mix, these factors come together to form our reference for what sounds good. You can read more about the effects of saturation here.
3 Ways Saturation Helps In A Mix
Round Transients In analogue gear, when the medium doesn’t have enough ‘swing’ to resolve the full amplitude of the signal transient, rounding can happen. Making signals less spiky like this can make them sound fatter or more “glued”.
Improve Audibility Distorting a signal more obviously adds extra harmonics that are musically related to the existing timbre. This can add a richness to anything, but is especially useful with low bass notes that may be inaudible on very small speakers. Because the extra harmonics from distortion (audible on smaller speakers) are related to the existing sound, the ear is able to fill in the gaps and infer the missing low notes.
Add Character As well as using saturation purely for fattening or harmonic enhancement, applying audible amounts of distortion is the time-honoured way of giving music some wonky rustic charm or the sonic footprint of sounds from a different era. Certainly for sound design, creating broken radio or other transducer-type effects is basically impossible without it.
PSP Saturator
PSP were one of the first developers to come up with a saturation algorithm that was accepted in the early 2000’s by those with a true basis for comparison who were moving to digital from analogue systems. Since the days of Vintage Warmer, the company has developed a huge number of software tools with an eye on all things analogue. Their Saturator plugin offers a whole load of features to take you to harmonic nirvana:
8 different saturation shapes for a variety of tonal flavours.
Three signal sculpting engines (low, high, overall saturation).
Adjustable Low and High band processing engines for adequate, band related warming effects.
Parallel mix option, with internal intelligent phase alignment.
Multiple metering modes for signal analysis.
Additional control panel for fine-tuning of various saturation parameters and smoothing.
Three output modes (off, sat, lim) for shaping the final output stage.
Input and Output gain controls, with optional relative link.
Optional "FAT" quad-sampling for pristine saturation quality.
Very low internal latency of 6 samples.
200 presets designed by top engineers and producers
Better Or Different?
Saturation can bring some proven objective improvements to audio, for example by increasing the average energy of a sound or mix. Whether subjective improvements are psychoacoustic or by association with our favourite music is another question. Whatever the reason, our love affair with the juice and mojo of analogue is here to stay. PSP Saturator could get you most, if not all of the way there.