How do I saturate?

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stugood
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Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2020 4:42 am

How do I saturate?

Post by stugood »

I read from a sound engineer that using saturation can bring one instrument out more in thr mix. Is this possible within SunVox?
LackOfArtisticName
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Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2016 5:24 pm

Re: How do I saturate?

Post by LackOfArtisticName »

"Saturation" is a phenomenon, (sound amplitude reaching the limit of a given device).
You have tape saturation, transistor saturation, tube saturation, etc. (copypasted because I liked the fast definition)

Some devices clip, some change the tone, etc. it depends on what you try to emulate and you might need several effects to get there.

There is the distortion module for hard clipping (and folds, and other nasty distortions) and the waveshaper if you want to do soft clipping or other custom distortion form.

Now, as far as I know drawing a smooth clip curve with the waveshaper should give you "random harmonic distortion" (but fewer high harmonics that hard clipping) if you want to recreate tube saturation you need even harmonic distortion, I don't know how to get there with a waveshaper (I think it's possible) but I suspect there's some math involved.
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Keres
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Re: How do I saturate?

Post by Keres »

Here is a distortion plugin that will saturate a sound. It can get pretty nasty. I kindof feel like today's producers put so many plugins on their tracks, it's like they push the poor sampler to the ground and take it's wallet.

if you use this slightly, it will "saturate"

if you push too many sliders, it will mug your track.

sounds good on drum loops and basslines.

havefun.
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monoben
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Re: How do I saturate?

Post by monoben »

Saturation is distortion. So yes this is totally possible in Sunvox.

I believe when people use the term Saturated or Saturation they are referring to the addition of every harmonic all the way up. For example if you were playing a simple sine wave at 1000hz and you added saturation to that you’d now be hearing 1000hz + 2000hz + 3000hz + 4000hz + 5000hz + 6000hz + 7000hz and so on, each time adding its original number to the previous.

To achieve this is Sunvox grab the WaveShaper and turn Symmetrical off.
Asymmetrical distortion is saturation, it adds all the harmonics. In the same way a guitar amp has a saturation setting this will give a thick saturated sound synonymous with heavy metal guitar wall of noise type of sound.

Symmetrical distortion will only add all of the odd harmonics. For example 1000hz + 3000hz + 5000hz + 7000hz + 9000hz and so on. This type of distortion is often used for more blues guitar. It’s often labelled “overdrive”. It’s a little less noisy but still crunchy.

Digital distortion and the type of distortion from say a tube amplifier (I think these are called triodes) behave rather differently. Also some amps use transistors.

So when people say Tape saturation really what they mean is a mixture of the tape deck amplifier reaching its maximum and distorting and also old tapes had a notoriously high noise floor, AKA bit depth. You can lower the bit depth using the distortion module. I believe a good tape in say 1995 was capable at best of around 9bit. Whereas now we all enjoy 16bit at least (which all CD’s are), and I tend to work in 24bit and also we now have 32bit float, which has such a low noise floor that it’s essentially inaudible. A massive improvement in my eyes.

If all of this is a bit much to take on then worry not because the community has your back! There are already community made modules that emulate old analog distortion types.

The Exciter module!

I’ve got to run now but I’m sure you’ll find it here on the forum if you really want it.
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