Hello dear Steemians !
This time i'd like to share some audio ''nerdery'' here on my blog . What recently caught my attention was the harmonic saturation . You might wonder what is saturation ? Glad you asked ! Saturation essentially means the same as audio ''distortion'' but we might have some negative connotations about that term . After all , distortion means the sound is not crisp and clean , it sounds spiky and unpleasing to the ear . Well ... it doesn't necessarily have to mean that . In fact in some situations it is even a desirable sound . To distinguish between the pleasing distortion and nasty one , audio engineers have coined the term ''saturation'' to mean the type of distortion that we like hearing and which is reminiscent of analog gear , which many have a nostalgic relationship to .
To demonstrate the effect the saturation has on the sound i have made a little drum loop . The reason why i picked the drums as a reference sound for our comparisons , is that the drums have the most complex audio waveform and the effects of saturation are audible the most , so let's start !
Reference - No Saturation
Ok , so this is our reference track . Nothing fancy going on here , just a touch of compression on the whole drum kit and that's it . It is advisable to keep coming back to this track to hear the effects of the saturation plugin . And just one more thing before we move on , in the coming examples i will be using the FabFilter Saturn saturation plugin . Just in case someone might be interested in that info .
Example No. 1 - Warm Tape Saturation
This type of saturation serves to emulate the sound of the big analog consoles . The things to look out for are the ''thumpy'' sound of the kick drum and more top end , and more of the ''wash'' of the hihat and cymbals . I quite like this warm tape , especially on drums it just makes it all more exciting .Example No.2 - Old Tape Saturation
In this example you might notice a quite drastic cut of top end , and the distortion kicking in even at quite low settings . I used somewhere about 35 % of drive . Here's the picture :With warm tape preset set at that level , distortion is barely audible while this old tape is a bit more bold sounding !
Example No.3 - Warm Tube Saturation
With this type you might notice the subtle effect it has on the sound . I feels as if the kick drum is more ''rounder'' and has a bit more of the gentler low end . Also , snare hits sound very clean while the cymbals have a bit more crisp .
Example No.4 - Clean Tube Saturation
The clean tube preset gives even crispier top end to the cymbals . It might seem counterintuitive that adding more saturation would bring up the shrill and ''hi fi'' quality of the sound , but it really does . Well at least up to a point when cranking the gain so high that the effect is reversed .
The biggest contribution to the sound of the audio processed by saturation is the flattening of the transients .
If for some reason you can't hear that let me show you the waveforms of both processed and unprocessed sounds .
The green track is with saturation on and the yellow one with no saturation . Notice the difference ? See how the ''spikes'' are flattened on the saturated track ? This means that the sound is getting slightly compressed by the saturation plugin . This may or may not suit the sound you are after . Usually i like to apply a bit of saturation just to make the sound a bit fuller , fatter and ''glued'' .
That wraps up our little journey through the harmonic saturation realm . I encourage you to try these settings by yourself and hear the effects each type of saturation has on the sound . When used properly , saturation can be a powerful tone shaping tool to have in your pocket and i hope this post will be of some use to you . :)