Way to approch SATURATION in Mastering

[edneysis]

Hey Guys!

I want to start dealing with Saturation while Mastering. Just wanna know what's the way you aproach Saturation.(Where in chain You usually put it , how you use it and what's your fav saturation for mastering esp. Plugins )

Thanks.

[Ruairi]

Saturation/distortion is very rarely useful in mastering, at least in my world. I've got the HEDD and various other tools and they stay off 19 times out of 20. They can occasionally be useful with very limp mixes when all bets are off and there's nothing much to preserve.

[edneysis]

Saturation can really increase loudness, but why is not a good idea??

[George Necola]

clip AD converter. some do better then others..

[inlinenl]

so first post you talk about saturation. third post you talk about increasing loudness ... ???

what do you want ...

saturation is not really a loudness tool, more a shaping tool , and it can mask some aspects in audio-processing ... well it all depends on what you like / the client likes ...

if you want loudness , just go for the clip preset on your limiters ..

[I.R.Baboon]

I use distortion (harmonic generation) a lot in mastering, it can increase loudness, thickness, vibeyness.

Obviously not on everything, today i'm mastering a jazz piano trio and all distortion tools are staying firmly locked in their velvet lined walnut cases.

[Joelistics]

In mastering, i use saturation to add some depth and character to very sterile mixes that usually come from itb mixdowns.. I rarely use tape although it often does the trick and am more into a tube saturation workflow..
There are a lot of possibilities here but my favourite is probably the saturation of the Gyraf Gx compressor. It doesn't darken the sound too much and does actually increase the perceived volume by about 1db. I use it as the first compressor in the chain often without any gain reduction..

[edneysis]

Originally Posted by inlinenl

so first post you talk about saturation. third post you talk about increasing loudness ... ???

what do you want ...

saturation is not really a loudness tool, more a shaping tool , and it can mask some aspects in audio-processing ... well it all depends on what you like / the client likes ...

if you want loudness , just go for the clip preset on your limiters ..

I just wanna know how u guys are using saturation , i find many times that someone was hittin' hard sat or tape plug to increase level and also compress everything, but i don't really know what is 'proper' way to use it, i'm new with all mastering thing so i'm reading a lot , and if i dont know something i'm asking someone who have years of experience.

[MAzevedo]

Well, I think you'll find that most folks with years of experience aren't using saturation plug-ins as a general thing. I think you'll find a fair number of folks going to tape or using tube gear or gear with colorful transformers as a tone tool, but even then probably not hitting things especially hard. This feels a lot like the dozens of threads about "How do you use multiband compression?" and when there is a chorus of people saying "I don't, generally" it gets treated like folks are being evasive.

[wado1942]

I usually steer away from it myself. I WILL use soft clipping from time to time to tame rare, extreme transients, but that's done so the limiting that follows will be less invasive that for the mere sound of it. As a general rule, I try to avoid adding audible distortion to my clients' music.

[Red Mastering]

myself- I tend to use saturation quite often,
it really depends on the mix,
today's - I had great sounding mix, new metal/deftones kind,
Culture Vulture LE, which I use for that task just messed the low end,
so I switched it off,
when I got acoustic music, well recorded, proper gain staging, clean and with big headroom - CV can do wonders,
it creates deep 3rd dimension, accent transients and adds vibe,
I also use it in parallel,
but as any other tool sometimes it works, sometimes - totally not,
during mixing stage - it's different story...

[Jerry Tubb]

a little real/reel analog tape saturation works for us.

JT

[Fabmaster]

Don't approach it.