I've never used a saturation plugin before (to my knowledge), so I'd like your input on what I can try out (maybe I'll find it on the sister site). Thank you!

 

Oh man, this is gonna explode. There are more saturation plugins than freakin grains of sand in a desert.

 

what kind of music are you making?
i guess we talk different saturations if you're mixing rock or you want to saturate some synths for trance music or whatever...

 

this is the best one https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/black_box_analog_design_hg-2.html

 

I didn't know that. I'm making almost exactly trance music! Also, I'm using Logic on MacOS Ventura, so I'm looking for Mac/AU.

 

Overall FabFilter's Saturn 2 is just pure awesomeness. It can do anything between subtle coloration to total mayhem.
A similar one is Melda's MSaturatorMB.

For trance music, I would also recommend Unfiltered Audio's Dent 2 and iZotope's Trash 2. Both plugins are insane sound design tools. Just slap them on some loops, mess with the parameters while recording. If you do that for 20 minutes you'll have so much material to chop up, resample etc. that you won't need a synth at all lol.

 

Trance synths usually do not need saturation anyways because they already are super dense.
It's a process of sound design and if you are able to design your sounds like you want right now, there is no need for extra saturation.

Often it is advisable to keep things simple and to not fiddle around. And this will definetely happen if you try to make already dense material even more dense.

 

That makes a lot of sense

 

Maybe start with the most simple (good) saturation plugins like Softube Saturation Knob or other plugins with not too many controls, or the plugins from your DAW and from there you can go to more complicated plugins. Saturn 2 is a great plugin, because it's really easy to use and simple, but you can also do very detailed stuff with lots of parameters if you wish.

 

Thanks! I have that plugin as part of a bundle. I'll give it a shot

 

As @Lieglein has said, it's best to keep things simple. Whilst there are hundreds (probably thousands actually) of plugins that generate noticeably different harmonic distortion, it probably is best to sacrifice some flexibility for raw speed & actually getting a finished mix.
But if you just want some recommendations, here's what I use the vast majority of the time, & 3 that could probably set you for life:

• Klanghelm SDRR2

Classic that still holds up better than most saturators today. Sounds authentic but uses much less CPU usage than most that go this far to model analog gear, like all Klanghelm plugins. Whilst there's only 4 algorithms, the flexibility the limited parameters provides is unmatched. Whilst I love this to death, I can also see its limits, which is why I think it's good paired with another saturator perhaps with more raw algorithm variation.

• Arturia DIST Coldfire

This honestly might be the one I go-to the most now, almost solely due to the "germanium" algorithm which just sounds fucking amazing to me. It's like sonic gold, anything I put it on sounds what companies would like to market as "richer." All the buzzwords you see, but never hear, I hear in this plugin (despite them not even marketing this algorithm specifically)
It has a few other analog-modeled modes that sound good, along with some digital modes, all of which can be modulated. The 2 saturators can be in variations either parallel, serial, m/s, ect. Solid versatile option

• Multiband saturator: Fabfilter Saturn 2 or Sixth Sample F(l)atter

Fabfilter Saturn 2 has modulation, amp emulations & analog emulation, F(l)atter has better dynamic preservation, MUCH more algorithms & a better UI, imo.
F(l)atter also has more experimental modes that aren't useful in most situations, but maybe nice to have in a few edge cases. Why I generally go to F(l)atter is that the raw saturation algorithms available are more useful to me in a multiband context than Saturn's other features. I generally don't modulate, but if I do, it's for the envelope follower, which F(l)atter essentially already has as an option in all of the bands.

Hope this helps! If all this did was make you feel like there's too many options, then it's not helpful and you should erase everything I just said from your brain and just do whatever makes you happy ;)

 

I have a different favourite saturation plugin for every week and this week it is Arturia DIST Coldfire and until next week, this is the best saturation plugin ever. You should definitely try it. It's more like a distortion plugin but has wide range of sound enhancing and mangling option.



My favourite module is the Force that not many knows is actually modeled after an Overstayer hardware unit and sound quite close to the overpriced Softube version. The Tube module has a nice blend between Triode/Pentode style saturation, Germanium & Transformer (Nickel & Iron) are sweet and hairy too. The best germanium style saturation known to mankind is obviously the Fuse Audio Labs VPRE-31A but the module in Coldfire is not bad at all and I use both excessively like a maniac every day (this week).

with all the 5 modules Force, Tape, Tube, Germanium & Transistor, it should cover a normal everyday human being range of saturation needed in order to get a good mix in one plugin.

The 6 other modules is more to an extreme distortion/bit-crushing style and it's huge to have them all, the sound possibility only limited by the user's imagination I guess.

Best feature of this plugin is it's dual engine where you can pick Serial/Parallel and combine 2 type of saturation/distortion. It also has a built in OTT if that's your thing, of course all the basic dynamic needs.. Modulation section is not as powerful Fabfilter's but it's easy to work with clear visuals.

The shittiest part of the plugins is the pre and post filters that sound absolute garbage (not in a good way at all) and need a lot of patience to get it to work properly for fine tuning the saturation/distortion. It's so shitty even the Tone Empire saturation plugin has a better pre/post filter for their distortion plugin. Having to compare it with Tone Empire is already an insult but losing to it... I don't know what to say. I think those infamous Synth Edit stock filters sound better. So I use external filtering (other plugin) for post and pre if needed.

 

Last edited: Aug 13, 2023

nice taste bro, I said the same above.

 

I also agree with the part about the terrible pre/post filters, they're near useless to me. The default preset also blows your ears out. I'm assuming you can just overwrite the default preset with something more sane, but I just use Bitwig's built-in "save as default preset" feature.
I love it a lot despite its flaws, which it definitely has a few!

 

I was thinking I'd use the saturation plugin on these synths. The bass synth has a shaper in use already. At least I think it's called a shaper (it's "SHP" in the synth). But the synths are already dense, as @Lieglein said. Before I posted this question, I had no idea what saturation is used for. Now I'm getting an idea, thanks to y'all.

Here's the song:

 

Silika and The Scream would like to have a word.

 

Just an observation: Arturia is awesome, the problem is that their plugins are heavier than your mom (its a joke don't kill me), fr some of their plugins can be an absolute hog, if you have a modest setup I'd also recommend Saturn 2.

 

Saturn can eat up your entire CPU with linear phase and high quality turned on, and even without them it can add some load (nothing compared to Arturia though).
For high quality and extremely low CPU saturation I'd say Overloud, Fuse Audio Labs and Black Rooster. Black Rooster doesn't have a dedicated saturation plugin, but their preamps have beautiful coloring, as well as LA-2A mk2 which adds great saturation before the compressor hits.

 

Decapitator, aside from the single plugin price. On a less serious note, this one is free too. https://codalabs.io/szechuan/

 

true, i was mainly talking about 92-96 trance (dance, techno, hard trance, whatever).