SATURATION EFFECTS – week nine
Saturation is a combination of soft-knee compression and harmonic enhancement, being a form of subtle distortion. Historically, this effect was caused by mix engineers overloading physical components of analog equipment such as tape machines, tube amps and transistor-based preamps, which they discovered created “soft-clipping”. This “overloading” means that the signal is caused to no longer have a linear input to output ratio (a 1:1 ratio), when feeding a component more signal while the output remains the same, becoming 2:1 or more. The most common types of saturation plugins include tape, tube and transistor.
Tape saturation plugins replicate the sound of audio that would be recorded through tape machines. These introduce harmonics, subtle compression, and non-linear shifts in the frequency response. Tape saturation also attenuates high frequencies while slightly boosting the low frequencies. In addition, these make the signal smoother by rounding the transient peaks, creating a form of compression. Many describe this type to be warm, musical and punchy, where this type of harmonic distortion can increase perceived volume, depth and richness.
Transistor saturation emulates the sound of audio signals that are controlled by transistor-based circuits. This sound can also be achieved by overloading the input levels of various hardware and plugins. In contrast to tape saturation, transistor creates “hard clipping” compression, though this type of harmonic distortion can sound subtle or aggressive depending on the device. This type of saturation is described to be fuzzy, gritty and textured. When this effect is pushed hard, this can cause sounds to be less punchy and musical, while subtle adjustments can give you a smoother tone.
Saturation’s unique effect allows sounds to be alters to sound fuller, punchy and louder in addition to addition depth, presence, character, colour and warmth. Therefore, this effect can be used as a tool to add an overdrive to a bass as an example, as well as being used to “glue” groups of sounds together when applied to bus groups and the master.
Martinovich, A. (2022). What Is Audio Saturation? How to Use It in Your Mix. [online] iZotope. Available at: [https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/what-is-audio-saturation.html.]
RORY PQ (2018). What Is Audio Saturation and How It Improves Your Mix. [online] Icon Collective. Available at: [https://iconcollective.edu/audio-saturation/.]
Sage Audio (n.d.). What is Saturation for Mixing and Mastering? [online] Sage Audio. Available at: [https://www.sageaudio.com/blog/mastering/what-is-saturation-for-mixing-and-mastering#:~:text=Saturation%20is%20a%20combination%20of.]