Saturator plugin recommendation?

[djscorb]

Oh dear Fred

Ouch!

12 edits and still not a single capital letter or corrected spelling mistake, a string of abused commas, missing apostrophes and a lack of any sentence structure.

It's not easy to argue coherently is it?

Go look up the definition of "replace"] and then you'll understand why your "lie" is anything but.

And I'm an asshole too. Nice!

Thankfully, my humble attempts to help are usually appreciated here and at GS. Try it sometime, it may give you a warm glow that you probably usually only get with real tubes.

I bid you good day sir

[ObsoleteAcc99]

for me it's killer on synth bass and acoustic bass which is why i recommended it to the OP.. he wanted something for bass.

You can tune the saturation to just add this awesome presence and weight to the bass.

These things are not to be used everywhere.

I also love using overloud mark 2 on all types of bass but i don't use that and other plugins too lol.. i just use one tool for the job that sounds best in that mix and song.

I would never use the LSR one on a mix buss either by the way.

Ah yes, here we go, it was the "bass thing"
Thanks, will give a run again.

Hmm I just used it on a clean guitar sett in the middle between bass and treble and it sounded absolutely wonderful. Zero harsheness, no squishing but smoothly helped with some wild peaks. In the meantime now that they are ilok I decided to get the 30 day demo of duende. X saturator is now officially my favourite saturator plugin of all time by a huge margin. It sounds absolutely incredible. Wow. Whoever coded or for them, good work. Some truly great plugins in that package, the bus comp is fabulous as is the channel (own that one for years).

I remember x verb as being great but now with trying it again it really doesn't hold a candle to lex/exponential/Valhalla/uad/even breverb2. It's the weak link of the bundle along with the crappy overpriced all pass filter.

The eq/comps/strips and the saturator.. What a wonderful suite

[jjpscott01]

http://www.lsraudio.com/tubenhance.html

+1 One of those very pleasant surprise plugins. I've spent much more on Saturator plugins in the past and still find it hard to replace this one for most of my needs.

[Omkar]

Having the reminder "the question is all about bass saturation" on focus,
I strictly rechecked LSR TUBEnhance on that condition.

I was going through number of tracks with an upright bass which to me is the diva of basses,
fragile, capricious, challenging and very sensitive in mixes.

The silver lining of a diva is the responsiveness on everything instanced
and serves as an indicator of the good and the bad pretty well.

What I liked immediately is the dual band option
but I would prefer to have more control per band instead of weighting saturation per crossover balance.

I also like the solidity and consistence of the tube drive which is all a bass is asking for.
The plugin offers smooth enrichment and does not affix a stamp to overtake the sound.

What more to say, on sale it is a steal of a bass buddy when a tube unit becomes a desired option.


Personally I stay with PSP Mixpack, the content is quality and the plugins do work hand in hand.
I would feel overwhelmed to have a pound of variations in the arsenal for one and the same task.

Isn`t it unfair ...
LSR, Mellowmuse, TDR, Vlag and a bunch more of quality developers have to be placed on hold
for the sake of an overseeable arsenal.

[Twrogstudio]

Just picked up Fxpansion Maul cheap from Audiodeluxe. Complex, yes, but brilliant sounding distortion. Complete bargain!

[Tp3]

Shattered Glass (SGA1566/SGA1566 MkII/CodeRedFREE) + [Your_Favorite_Tape_Sim_Here]

Only caveat is that you need to plan your gain stage VERY carefully or else it (the combination) will cough and fart.

ShatteredGlass makes some REALLY fine tube based emus (whatever that means...)

[Resound]

I have (and love) many saturation plugins, here's my 2c on them

FabFilter Saturn - I like the valve model. Other than that, I am not a big fan of how it sounds. The controls are great though, as always with FF.

iZotope Trash 2 - a great sounding and very versatile plugin. It's great for trashing but can be used in very subtle ways too.

Vertigo VSM-3 - my current favorite. For me this is the pinnacle of ITB saturation at the moment. Sounds great and gives you a great level of control over the sound and monitoring.

SoundToys Decapitator - good for beefing things up, but I don't find myself using it too often these days.

SoundToys Radiator - certainly sounds great when pushed, has a very particular sound. Not versatile, but great for what it does.

SoundToys FilterFreak - I actually use this as a saturation plugin rather than a filter most of the time. Has different models that behave very differently when pushed. I prefer the sound of this over Decapitator for saturating. Very analog.

U-he Satin - Very good for tape saturation! Plus it does beautiful delays and fx. Definitely a keeper.

Klanghelm SDRR - I just bought this the other day so don't have much experience with it yet. But I do like it a lot. Especially the tube model sounds lush, but also the other ones. I am looking forward to experimenting using this as a gain stager/channel strip thing, among other things of course.

Waves Cobalt Saphira - Pretty cool and useful. Does a similar thing to VSM-3. Doesn't sound as rich or complex as VSM-3 but it's very CPU efficient and easy to use.

Waves Kramer Master Tape - Very beefy, works great for bass.

[BERFAB]

I have (and love) many saturation plugins, here's my 2c on them

iZotope Trash 2 - a great sounding and very versatile plugin. It's great for trashing but can be used in very subtle ways too.

+1
I've got a ton of dedicated saturation plugs going from the usual tape saturation right up to stomp disto. But I must say that Trash 2 really outclasses all of them. Used subtlely, you can really get some amazing tone. And the included presets cover more basses than most will ever need.

[Resound]

Yeah. The presets are great starting points, especially since the plugin is quite complex and has a lot of modules to figure out.

That would be my only gripe with it in fact - it's not exactly something like SDRR that you can just throw in there and it sounds good right away. It takes some tweaking to get results with Trash 2 sometimes. But then you can get some very special things out of it with some patience (or luck).

[Twrogstudio]

The first time I used trash I accidentally picked the most crazy, insane preset on some drums. Damn near fell off my chair!

[dwozzle]

Haven't seen Sknote Grasso mentioned. It really depends on your source material and the results you want, but I freaking love it after a semi-distorted guitar amp, for instance. Fattens and breaks up gradually in a wonderful way, with tons of control, part way between compression and saturaton. Read the description of the controls on the product page, some knobs with familiar names don't do the usual things.

[MogwaiBoy]

Seriously considering grabbing Trash 2. Talk me out of it! Looking for more than just signal clipping - I'm looking for creative possibilities and being able to spice up static basslines and such and give them more character and interest, sonically. Yeah nah? Trash 2's filtering and impulses seem like real icing on the cake. $100 or under right now too, hmmmmm...

[Resound]

Seriously considering grabbing Trash 2. Talk me out of it! Looking for more than just signal clipping - I'm looking for creative possibilities and being able to spice up static basslines and such and give them more character and interest, sonically. Yeah nah? Trash 2's filtering and impulses seem like real icing on the cake. $100 or under right now too, hmmmmm...

It's very good for that kind of thing. Definitely geared towards getting creative, although you can go subtle too.

You should definitely grab the demo and see for yourself how you like the workflow and sound. Browse the presets, try them also with the wet/dry control on your material, and you'll quickly get an idea if it's for you or not.

The workflow in Trash2 is not the most intuitive to me. But on the other hand it can do a lot of crazy stuff.