Welcome to Sage Audio.
Today let’s cover How to Use FabFilter Saturn 2.
But first, If you have a mix that you need to have mastered, send it to us to receive
a free mastered sample of it with the link in the description.
Understanding its EQ and Harmonics
Instead of just doing an overview of this plugin, I really want to start from the most
basic and fundamental aspects and build on that, so by the end of the video you understand
how to accomplish lots of different things with it.
Let’s start by examining the various distortion types to see what they do - with an EQ curve
analyzer, we can see that different distortions have different preset EQ curves.
For example, clean tube adds a little in the lows but has a more significant boost to the
high end.
Warm tape on the other hand boosts the lows more significantly, and has a bell around
1200Hz, and 14kHz before cutting off the highest frequencies.
As you’d imagine, amp emulations will create much more drastic changes to the frequency
response.
If we run a sine wave through the processor, and examine the output with an analyzer, we’ll
notice each setting creates different harmonic formations - for example, clean tape will
create significant odd-ordered harmonics, whereas subtle tape creates the same formation
but with lower amplitude harmonics.
Tube settings will create both even and odd harmonics meaning they’ll create a fuller
sound due to the added frequencies.
Transformers do the same but will create a slightly brighter sound due to the additional
high-order harmonics.
I can’t cover every setting, but do some testing if you’re curious and when in doubt
just use your ears.
Let’s listen to some of the various distortion types and note how they alter the sound.
Understanding how it Compresses
Let’s quickly look at how Saturn 2 compresses a signal - if we pull up plugin-doctor we
can observe how each saturation type alters the ratio, knee, and threshold of compression.
These thresholds also change depending on the frequency, due to the pre-emphasis EQ
that we covered last chapter.
Another thing to consider is the dynamic’s dial.
If we increase it, we’ll notice that the peak down compression stays the same, but,
the overall level of quieter levels is increased.
Conversely, if we lower it, we get an expansion effect, in which quieter signals are attenuated,
but then amplified.
So keep in mind how increasing the drive dial, and varying the dynamics will affect the overall
dynamic range of your signal.
Let’s listen to these parameters being affected, and notice how higher drive at a subtle tube
setting compresses less than when we use a warm tube setting.
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Intro to Saturn’s Modulation
Modulation is really what makes this plugin special.
Saturn has 6 different types of modulation that you can introduce - the slider is probably
the simplest; if we attach it to a function, in this case, the drive dial, a window pops
up that lets us determine how much the slider’s value will affect the particular function.
With the positive or negative icon, we can make the slider’s value increase the drive
dial’s value, or decrease it.
So let’s say I want the drive to increase, but the dynamics dial to decrease simultaneously
- I’ll attach it to the drive with a positive value, and to the dynamics with a negative
value.
Quick side note, I wanted to be able to control this with midi modulation, however, I could
only get it to work when using Saturn 2 as a midi effect, not when it’s inserted as
a plugin.
We’ll cover the other 4 functions in future chapters, but first, let’s introduce modulation
with the slider.
Affecting Transients with Envelope Followers
Envelope followers are probably what I use the most with this plugin - they measure the
incoming signal and can be used to modulate various functions accordingly.
For example, say I want to saturate my drum bus, but I want the transients to be distorted
more to give the instrument some impact.
First I’d create an envelope follower in the modulation window, then I’d switch the
type from envelope to transient.
I’d keep the trigger as the regular input, but I have the option to affect it with an
external side-chained signal.
I could then determine the timing of the measurement, so let’s measure the transient as quickly
as possible and then give it a 0.1 second release.
If I attached it to my drive dial and play the track, we’ll notice how the distortion
is increased whenever a transient occurs.
As you’d imagine, you can link this to any other parameter - so say I want to only distort
the highs when a transient hits, I could first isolate the saturation to the higher frequencies,
and if I wanted, attach the envelope follower to the frequency crossover to either increase
or decrease the frequency range at which distortion occurs - again, according to the incoming
signal.
Let’s take a listen to saturation added to drums, with an envelope follower attached
to multiple parameters.
Controlling ADSR with Envelope Generator
An Envelope Generator is similar to the follower, but with it, we can determine the ADSR of
a parameter once it’s triggered.
Similar to a compressor, we can set a threshold to determine when the ADSR is triggered - then
we can change the Attack, Decay, Sustain, Hold, and Release.
We can also change if the slopes are logarithmic or exponential.
This effect works better for creative effects - for example, say I want distortion to increase,
hold then quickly drop down - this won’t sound natural but it may have a cool sound.
Let’s try it out so you know what I mean.
Creating a Basic Drive Effect
This effect is a little simpler but it’s really useful - say I wanted a traditional
drive effect, I’d first create a slider and attach it to my input with a positive
value, then my output with a negative value.
So, when I increase the slider, more signal is being run into saturation.
It’s then compensated for by lowering the output.
This creates a slighter more analog sound than simply increasing the drive dial.
If I want this to be program-dependent, I could do the exact same thing, but with an
envelope follower.
Let’s try it out with the slider for now, and notice how controlling multiple parameters
at once can be used to create specific effects.
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Introducing Stereo Imaging with Saturn
One of my favorite things to do with Saturn is to introduce stereo imaging - in the output
section, I’ll enable mid-side processing.
Now I can pan a band, my drive or distortion, or my input or output to the mid or side - if
I’m affecting a stereo signal.
So first, let’s create some bands to isolate the distortion into 4 frequency ranges - then
I’ll create an envelope follower as I did with the drums in chapter 4.
I’ll attach it to the drive and drive pan dials for each band - for the lows and high
mids around the vocals, I’ll have the drive pan toward the mid image by using a negative
value, making it more centered.
For the low mids and highs, I’ll pan it toward the side image to expand the stereo
image in these regions.
Or, if I want a creative effect, I could insert this XLFO.
I’ll set the oscillation to a 1/2 note and attach it to a band’s overall pan.
This will oscillate the imaging between mid and side - and I can determine how it does
this by adding and affecting the steps within the LFO.
Let’s listen to this effect, first with the envelope follower enabled, and then I’ll
enable the LFO later on.
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Tying Multiple Effects Together
If you want to tie multiple effects together but in a more complex way, I’d recommend
trying the XY modulator.
Whereas the slider offers 2 main options, either up or down, XY offers 4 - positive
X and Y, negative X and Y, Positive X Negative Y, Negative X Positive Y.
So say I want the drive dial and drive pan to be linked, I could set a positive value
on the drive and a negative one on the panning to make it more mid-oriented.
As I moved the cursor around, we’ll notice how the relationship between the 2 changes.
For a creative effect, let’s link the X and Y the same way to my input and output
panning, and take a listen to it being modulated.
Oversampling & Linear Phase
You may have noticed the linear phase and quality functions at the bottom, so let’s
briefly discuss those; the quality function is oversampling - either 8x oversampling or
32x with Good or Superb respectively.
Linear phase introduces linear phase processing to any band crossovers, but not to the EQ
or tone.
It also automatically enables 8x oversampling, even though it strangely doesn’t show this
in the quality tab.
Oversampling is great when you’re distorting high frequencies - if we run a high-frequency
sine wave through the processor and aggressively distort it, we’ll notice fold-back or aliasing
distortion.
This is reduced significantly with 8x oversampling and almost completely removed 32x.
As for linear phase, this is best used when mastering - it’ll reduce phase cancellation
between any crossovers and helps improves the quality when varying the mix dial value.
Although this will be subtle, let’s listen to the processor on a full mix, and enable
linear phase and higher-quality oversampling to see if we notice a difference.
Putting Ideas into Practice
To tie all these ideas together, I want to create a complex effect using everything that
we’ve discussed so far - which I’ll explain as I go.
First, I’m going to create 4 bands with 12dB/octave crossovers and select the distortion
type that I think sounds best on each range.
I’m going to create a slider, and attach it to the input and output with a positive
and negative value respectively to create the drive effect that we discussed in chapter
6.
Next, I’ll switch the processing to mid-side before creating an Envelope Generator.
I’ll attach this generator to the output pan of my highest band, with a positive value,
so that it expands the stereo image.
Then I’ll lower the range slider to make the effect subtler.
Next, I’ll create an envelope follower, and set it to transient mode - then I’ll
link it to the drive dials of my various bands, as well as the drive pan of my bands, using
negative values to pan toward the mid, and positive to expand.
I’ll also slightly increase the dynamic dial on my low mids, and then link the follower
using a negative value to bring it back to unity whenever a transient hits.
With an LFO set to a 1/2 note and linked to my crossovers, I’ll modulate the frequency
range of my high mid band - causing its settings to dynamically affect frequencies above and
below it.
Next, I’ll create an XY controller and link it to some tone dials - I’ll set the Y value
to a higher frequency and the X to a lower, using positive and negative ranges respectively.
This way I can determine if they both increase or decrease, or if one increases while the
other decreases.
Let’s take a listen to this effect with linear phase and oversampling enabled to reduce
phase cancellation and aliasing distortion.
If you have a mix that you need to have mastered, send it to us to receive a free mastered sample
of it with the link in the description.
Thank you so much for watching.