Best or Cheapest Analog Saturation/Drive for Digital Synths

[Uncle E]

A Tube Screamer circuit like that Joyo has a midrange forward sound with reduced bass and treble. It's a good sound but it doesn't fit the sound you're describing (no sparkle). A Tim circuit would give you more of that.

Behringer spring yes. Analog synth module yes. The MoogerFooger filter is one of the best synth distortions, IMO.

[justin3am]

If you happen to have a 500 series system you could take a look at things like this:

https://www.diyrecordingequipment.com/c ... ons/colour


These are quite subtle though unless you drive them really hot but they give some subtle "mojo" when wanted.

This is a good suggestion. I'll add Louder Than Liftoff's Mister Focus, as it also supports DIYRE's Colour format sub modules. I like it's gain staging and routing options a little better than the Colour Palette and the tilt EQ is really useful. I use a 15ips and Mass Drivr modules in mine. Two distinct flavors or saturation.

I'll also second Eric's suggestion of MoogerFooger and Minifooger pedals.

I run my Ambika through an old Roland SDE-2500 and it comes out sounding super lush.

Analog Heat is also good.

I have a few tracks where I recorded parts to a really cheap cassette recorder and then mixed the results with the unprocessed signal. I find that works really well for some synth sounds.


There are lots of other things... an old Boss BX mixer, vintage voiced mic pres, DIs with nice tube/transformers (I run a lot of synths though a pair of Phoenix Nice DIs).

[Uncle E]

There are lots of other things... an old Boss BX mixer, vintage voiced mic pres, DIs with nice tube/transformers (I run a lot of synths though a pair of Phoenix Nice DIs).

Old mixers is a great recommendation. The Roland M-240 distorts very cool, that's 24 channels of distortion for around $100! The very first Mackie CR-1604 also distorted cool (has to be the first one, not a VLZ). Finally, my all-time favorite, the Yamaha M512, has the same opamps as vintage Boss DS-1 pedals and distorts like mad.

[zerocrossing]

Use Tonex and my MoogerFooger captures. That's as good or better than any hardware.

This. The days of "digital can't do saturation" are long over. I sent back a bunch of analog hardware stuff after finding there was no appreciable positive difference. Not that all of it's that good. Some kind of sucks. I was looking at Bitwig's shapers and they're all pretty mediocre, but there are a lot of other options in plugin form. I recently did a per-voice-distortion shootout, and the clear winner was Spire. Analog Four was runner up, great but not very flexible. That's with a desk full of $3000 synthesizers.

Can you tell us your Tonex name? I'd love to grab those 'fooger captures. That was the best thing about my Cluster Flux.

[zerocrossing]

Ooo, that new Behringer 636 clone does sound nice, but if you have a stereo synth you'll want two. Shame they didn't do a stereo version.

[zerocrossing]

These are stereo and can be had for about $200. I keep thinking of selling mine, but then I find a use for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDeVyabN054

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmEgV31mcJA

[Uncle E]

Can you tell us your Tonex name? I'd love to grab those 'fooger captures. That was the best thing about my Cluster Flux.

I'll PM it to you when I get home.

[Uncle E]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmEgV31mcJA

I am AIRA junky.

[bharris22]

I just bought an IK Multimedia Uno Synth Pro as an outboard unit for my modular setup. You can run audio input through its analog filters and it has analog drive. The digital effects - reverb, delay, modulation - not to mention the actual synth, are a bonus .

[egbert101]

Ooo, that new Behringer 636 clone does sound nice, but if you have a stereo synth you'll want two. Shame they didn't do a stereo version.

Ahh yes, it does doesn't it. Mono might be fine for me and I might just buy it as a bonus for crunchy drums.

[Liero]

A tubescreamer isn't necessarily the best pedal for most synth duties as it so strongly mid-focused ( it's meant to push a guitar amp with those frequencies into further distortion ). So a lot of bass synth will just sound honky and thin, pads will sound congested etc. on a TS type pedal. Try going for something with a wider, flatter frequency response, like the Boss Blues Driver or all its clones.

[lfm]

If to use guitarpedal I would try Catalinbread Dreamcoat that brings a very warm thing for saturation. It's a replica of a tape machine preamp use by Blackmore for a while. I have not used for synth though but think it would suite very well and have good tweaking options.

But that is two to get stereo.

For daw I would look at Waves Vitamin, Kramer Master Tape or NLS also keeping stereo field. Voice panning stuff is among the best things happening for synths IMO that make less cancellation harmonics since spread in stereo field compared to stacked on a mono.
https://www.waves.com/plugins/vitamin
https://www.waves.com/plugins/kramer-master-tape

NLS is simply 3 different consoles like SSL and a drive knob. You can go from subtle to obvious.

Vitamin is really full control of many things as which frequencies to add harmonics to.
https://youtu.be/Ex5F1jb-ncg

Master Tape takes a bit of experimenting to get it right.

Once my Opsix moves from my lap to dawwork I would try those plugins. Nordlead 2X sounds good as is and the REV2 and Prologue are analog and need nothing.

[zerocrossing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmEgV31mcJA

I am AIRA junky.

When I was looking for something to put on the outputs and in feedback loops of my Dominion 1, I came across the Torcido demos and it blew me away. I didn’t do much research into it, other than to see that it had the sound I was after and the feature set I wanted. I was at least a few months until I found someone talking about it being a fully digital device, and I was surprised, though I’m not sure why. Lot’s of digital devices do amazing distortion, these days.

[zerocrossing]

I just bought an IK Multimedia Uno Synth Pro as an outboard unit for my modular setup. You can run audio input through its analog filters and it has analog drive. The digital effects - reverb, delay, modulation - not to mention the actual synth, are a bonus .

I’m contemplating getting one next April. How do you like it so far?

[Constructed Identity]

You could get Saturn 2. I almost got the bundle recently.