Hi,

I've been working on an EP for a friend of mine (based on acoustic guitars) lately and I've been finding myself looking for a specific guitar tone that sounds very open, direct, and bright but at the same time not overly harsh.

A couple of experiments have shown that Waves Abbey Roads Saturator gets me into the ballpark very efficiently, but I am somewhat frustrated that I can't achieve this sound with other plugins from my collection.

I've tried replicating a Compander-type deal using Pro-C2 + Pro-G as well as Emphasis/De-Emphasis EQ (pushing more highs and less lows into saturation) with Saturn 2 in between, but it never sounds close to what the Waves plugin sounds like.

Does anybody know of a processing chain I could use to achieve that sound as I would like to avoid using the Waves plugin?

Thanks and cheers.

 

u-He Satin - it has the compander
Soundtoys Decapitator - Model E (EMI, based on Chandler TG Channel) that was based on the Abbey Road TG Console.

 

Thanks, but using those plugins I still don't seem to get close to that sound.
Maybe the signal chain or settings are wrong or maybe I'm misunderstanding what the AR Saturator actually does to the sound..

 

And if the Waves works "very efficiently" for you, why don´t you just keep it as your secret weapon for those tasks? I don´t understand.

 

Yes, any saturation plugin and Overloud Gem Dopamine.
But you have to be careful. A compander adds a lot of "sugar" and one can very easily overdo it.

 

A before/after example would've been nice to have.

 

they are two types of saturation in the Abbey Road Saturator, the REDD and TG. The REDD is tube/valve amp, while the TG is transistor based. Which one did you picked ?

If you picked the REDD maybe go for the V76 emulation plugins like the Arturia's PREV76, Neold V76, Fuse Audio, Slate also got one.
If you picked the TG, the Softube Chandler Zener Limiter that was based on the TG Console has a THD mode, which you can only use the saturation without compression.

Using Saturn 2, or Wavesfactory Spectre etc also can get you both type of saturation if it is done correctly.

Adding Exciter at the end of the chain (the Dolby trick) can help as well. Overloud Dopamine, Audiothing Type A can help to emulate the compander. Kush Audio Clariphonic can also give the same effect but it is more of a parallel EQ. Izotope Ozone Exciter is one of my favourite, maybe try that as well because it is multiband and parallel, so you'll get more controls.

Other suggestion - Altec 1567A (Black Rooster Omnitec, Soundtoys Radiator), Kush AR-1, Waves RS124 for parallel compression.

 

Last edited: Mar 26, 2022

I'm not a fan of some business decisions Waves make, not to mention having yet another plugin manager installed, how much CPU some of their plugins use (e.g. AR Chambers & Plates), non-scalable UI and no oversampling options.

The demo video for that sounds like it could do the trick, I'll have a look into that. Thanks

That guitar sound impressed me the most.

tbh I don't hear much difference between REDD and TG unless I drive it too much, so both modes are fine for me.
Spectre might work but the boost needs to be compensated even with De-emphasis activated, will try.
In general I'll take a deeper look into excitation, seems like the way to go.

 

Any Waveshaper / Soft-Clipping Saturator nested between an emphasis and de-emphasis EQ should do the job. You just need to tune the emphasis EQ to correspond to the sound you hear in the Abbey Road Saturator + similar level of soft-clipping.