Saturation Plugins

[Scouser]

Just wondered what your favourite saturation plugins are ?

I am a cubase user and have just upgraded to v13 pro and am looking for something that is really easy to use and very effective..

[SafeandSound Mastering]

In my own music productions I use a couple of bread and butter options and overall I am not generally a heavy user of sturation plug ins.

Try Cubase's Quadrafuzz, it can work.

Fabfilter Saturn with OS on.

IVGI from Klanghelm along with SDRR (paid version)

NI Driver occasionally and a nifty little "pick me up" on a synth or drums (just 1-2dB reduction, not more.) Supercharger (Dirt and punch often off in the main. "Punch" does the opposite to my ears and "Dirt" is often too blurry if I recall correctly) Supercharge just gives things a little lift.

I have SoundToys Decapitator but I am not usually that convinced, I try it and test if it works.

Cassette by Wavesfactory works if you wants some saturation alone, as does Slate's Virt Tape Machine.

Klanghelm MJUC comp is a thickener, has a drive control as well. Use OS.

I am quite happy with Slate VCC drive... just at 8 o clock, nothing much.

I find the whole saturation thing a bit of an obstacle unless there is a 100pct clear reason behind the choice to. It seems like a crutch to me or an "everyone and their dog does it so should I" online pressure process, I am not a big compressor user or saturate-r in mixing my own tracks.

I am not really blown away with any of them if honest, The VCC I use all the time though for large track count self made music mixes. When something needs to be pushed in this direction I try them all and see what seems to produce the desired effect. I do own more upmarket options but they cost both money and CPU.

They won't make or break your track, hope that helps.

[Drew Stephenson]

Ooh, I have lots of saturation plugins for some reason, possibly because they all seem to work slightly differently.
Acustica Taupe for a bit of tape style saturation.
Sound Toys Decapitator for when you want to be heavy handed and Little Radiator when you want to be a bit more restrained.
Creative Intent Temper I like for electric guitars.
Izotope Neutrino for subtle stuff (I'm assuming this is primarily a saturation thing).
And Plugin Alliance BX Console N gets used on just about everything and this has a bit of saturation going on.

I have quite a few others but they don't get picked up much.

[muzines]

I generally have three uses for saturation plugins - the first is to add some size or life to individual instruments - in this category are various pre-amp type plugins, including channel strips and the saturation for me in this case is fairly light. Things here include various UADx preamps/channel strips, various PA ones including the Black Box, SSL X-Saturator, the Neold stuff and some other PA things, even some more subtle tape emulation stuff.

The second case is for more outright distortion, or a definite character change on tracks, something where the hair is a bit more noticeable, right up to clearly distorted stuff. Things here include Soundtoys Decapitator, Softube Harmonics, a bunch of PA stuff, driving some UADx plugins harder (they often have some really nice distortion when driver), and various more "distortion-type" effects, of which there are many.

The third case is more for the mix bus or sub-groups, where I'm looking for subtle colouration, size and "life" - again, subtle, but where turning it off makes the mix go flat and dull. Black Box, Softube Tape, some other "make nice-erisers" and so on, probably a bunch of stuff that's slipped my mind right now.

Honestly, there are a *ton* of saturators out there, you need to try to find ones that you like the sound of, and have a feature set and interface that matches your workflow and use cases. Sometimes you might want a Kelvin, sometimes you might just want a simple "turn it up more" knob you can crank until you like it...

[sonics]

I agree with muzines above. Saved me a lot of typing, thanks!

I like harmonic exciters, and waveshapers for creative effects.

[Stuart79]

Just wondered what your favourite saturation plugins are ?

I am a cubase user and have just upgraded to v13 pro and am looking for something that is really easy to use and very effective..

I'm assuming you already know about and use the saturation options on Cubase's channel strip? There are tube and tape options on there.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

I think my view stems from doing a lot of synthesis myself. So I build the sound I am looking for from an early stage and adding saturation to it seems like it takes away, rather than adds. Especially anything more than a tiny smidge. Do not discount options in synths if you use them, some are very good.

I have mainly been looking to keep distortion at an absolute minimum unless I do something overtly vintage.

It can be very dependent on what music you are making and its instrumentation of course. Clean can still sound pretty warm with merely the right EQ.

Quadrafuzz will do such things and you own Cubase. Hopefully V13 has it in still. And can do subtle and the heavier push.

[progger]

Saturation is certainly one of those effects that brings me an unreasonable amount of glee with judicious use. I have many, many more options than I reasonably need, but I just enjoy playing with them, for the most part. Only a couple make it into my professional work with any regularity.

Those couple are both by NEOLD: the V76U73 (Telefunken/Siemens pre and comp emulator) and Big Al (saturation and EQ). These ship with just about everything I send off, which is usually in the role of saxophones, flutes, and/or keyboards for remote recording sessions. The V76U73 is the closest thing I've encountered to a one-stop "sounds like a record" processor, while Big Al's subtle EQ is really, really useful.

Others that I really like, even if I use the less frequently, are the Black Box HG2, Elysia Phil's Cascade, Black Rooster VPRE73, all the other NEOLD stuff, Klanghelm SDRR, various Brainworx consoles with the pre gain cranked... more than enough gluttonous choices. I recently (finally) got Kelvin, and it's a beautiful little plugin, I can see myself using it more and more over time.

I decided to distance myself from the Waves loop a few years ago, but the one thing I really miss from them is their REDD channel strip. That's a simple and easy saturation/EQ tool that I really, really like. But I'll survive.

[Dynamic Mike]

Quadrafuzz will do such things and you own Cubase. Hopefully V13 has it in still. And can do subtle and the heavier push.

I think this is the best native plug-in in the whole of Cubase. I ignored it for years thinking it was some type of fuzzbox effect because of the name. It's capable of complex fx yet simple and intuitive to use, and adds a little something to almost anything.

[amanise]

The type of stuff I end up knocking out works best with the dynamics preserved as much as possible (I think) - and I usually have already applied a fair bit of outboard compression on tracks as they're captured on the way in. So its very easy to overdo any saturation in the mix itself with it all. Not that I haven't done so in the past - one learns from experience, sadly. But. I do like the Softube Tape jobby which I use when I'm doing my version of mastering (self taught there too). I reminds me of my old cassette tape adventures, and I think its amazing those kinds of things can now be recreated at will.

[The Elf]

Cubase's Quadrafuzz is genuinely superb. It's my first choice for some applications these days, e.g. bass. It really is an unsung hero in Cubase's armoury.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

Just for info value Quadrafuzz and Saturn are multiband plus ins (or can be in the case of Saturn) and to my knowledge both of them use minimum phase filters for the bands (historically they did anyway).

As such they may not be what you want for any time aligned critical / phase aligned sounds in a mix.

[Martin Walker]

Only a couple make it into my professional work with any regularity. Those couple are both by NEOLD: the V76U73 (Telefunken/Siemens pre and comp emulator) and Big Al (saturation and EQ). These ship with just about everything I send off, which is usually in the role of saxophones, flutes, and/or keyboards for remote recording sessions. The V76U73 is the closest thing I've encountered to a one-stop "sounds like a record" processor, while Big Al's subtle EQ is really, really useful.

Others that I really like, even if I use the less frequently, are the Black Box HG2, Elysia Phil's Cascade, Black Rooster VPRE73, all the other NEOLD stuff, Klanghelm SDRR, various Brainworx consoles with the pre gain cranked... more than enough gluttonous choices. I recently (finally) got Kelvin, and it's a beautiful little plugin, I can see myself using it more and more over time.

I'm also using most of what you mention (and yes, I more recently got Kelvin, but definitely need to spend more time with it).

The only developer that you don't mention (and who ironically was the coder behind the Neold range as well as various Black Rooster products) is Reimund Dratwa, whose Fuse Audio Labs products include some wonderful preamp emulations. His recently released and freebie VPRE-V72 is woth worth trying out to gauge quality.

[muzines]

Yeah, Ray's stuff is always pretty good.

[alexis]

From the cheap seats:

Greg Well's ToneCentric and MixCentric

Cubase DaTube

[progger]

I'm also using most of what you mention (and yes, I more recently got Kelvin, but definitely need to spend more time with it).

The only developer that you don't mention (and who ironically was the coder behind the Neold range as well as various Black Rooster products) is Reimund Dratwa, whose Fuse Audio Labs products include some wonderful preamp emulations. His recently released and freebie VPRE-V72 is woth worth trying out to gauge quality.

I actually have almost all of Ray's "Fuse" plugins and you're right, that was neglectful of me!! The V72 slipped my mind which is a shame because it is absolutely top-tier, absolutely insane that it's free. That's probably the first "virtual preamp" anyone should get first, these days... You might not need anything else.

[Spells]

I always end up using Izotope stuff, such as the saturation / exciters in Nectar and Neutron.

[Sam Inglis]

Big fan of SoundToys' Decapitator and Radiator. I also use Softube's Harmonics a lot, and I have just discovered their Focusing Equalizer which is perfect on some things. For more subtle stuff, Acustica Taupe, Arturia Pre-73, Slate VTM, Softube Tape, Overloud Gem Tapedesk. Goodhertz' Tupe can be very cool too.

[garrettendi]

Melda has MSaturator for free but it doesn't look like it does tape saturation.

[garrettendi]

Slightly off-topic but I use Reaper and Tukan's free JS plugins include a Tape Saturation emulation. I think I shall be making use of that!

[Drew Stephenson]

The simple JS Saturation plugin is a very transparent way of adding a bit of weight and zing, don't underestimate it.

[Luke W]

I'm going to check out Quadrafuzz as I continue along my Cubase journey...

Brainworx bx_saturator V2 has long been a favourite of mine, but I'm without it at the moment as I've got the UAD-2 version and no longer run an Apollo.