All colouration plug-ins will affect the tonality (frequency response) and dynamic response of a mix. Saying that, make sure you don’t leave those decisions too late in the mixing process. The exact combination depends heavily on the music I’m mixing and I regularly use just one. I use multiple types of saturators on my master bus to create the complexity that only comes from layering. And without clean, there is no saturated. The key is contrast and you should apply this principal to everything you do.
Likewise, if you have a favourite effect, resist the temptation to apply it to every track. While it might spectacularly compliment celery or chocolate, it doesn’t go with every meal.
But there is no one-stop-shop no single magic bullet plug-in for your mix - like a studio full of analogue consoles, compressors, limiters and EQ units, that colour is achieved through layers and variation. Last time, I suggested you try Klanghelm’s IVGI plug-in on some of your own mixes to hear the subtle thickening and ‘gluing’ effect a quality saturator can offer.
#What does fabfilter saturn maste drivers#
It can come from many sources: tape, tubes, transformers, line drivers and summing buses, each with their own unique characteristics. Here’s the series’ philosophy: to get the most from in-the-box mixing, we must think outside it.Ī large part of the analogue sound we have grown to love comes from the multiple subtle saturations and colourations imparted by analogue circuitry.
In this second instalment, we canvass a palette of options for adding colour and control to your mix bus.