the fun thing about a compander setup is that it enhances transients in two ways. first, the transients get distorted harder, and then the transients also get put back in as the loudest 'part' of the waveform. this can definitely cause problems if you're overdoing it, but it can also just be a really nice way to make transients cut through the mix in a way a normal transient shaping plugin wouldn't be able to.
@@rodstoneExpansion is basically the opposite of compression. Compression takes all output above a certain level and brings it down to the desired level without touching anything below that level Expansion (also known as upwards compression) takes everything below a certain level and brings it up without affecting anything above that level.
For a different approach, you could have an effects rack that has a compressor on one end, then an expander on the other with the side chain being the pre-compressor sound. For extra gravy you could assign macros that compensate for each other combining the same controls on the compressor and expander side, but because of the saturation you don't necessarily want the exact same settings on the compressor and expander
I don't know how to thank you enough. It's literally the one thing that always lacks in my mixes. And a small rant: How many times I've seen videos on UA-cam saying "These 3 Mixing Tips will save your life" or "Muddy mix? Use this to get it clean!" and providing just niche specific tricks that dont help at all. While you just get straight to the point with plenty of examples and a detailed explaination. Thank you!
this is one of the most informative and useful videos I've seen. I've been trying to figure out how to get my drums to sound crispier/saturated without it sounding horrible in the mix. Low and behold this pops up in my feed and gives me the exact information I was looking for. literally 10/10
other clever way is insert the tool device after saturation or clipper then add audio sidechain modulator and take the input from the same track but choose pre-fader then adjust the setting with rise and fall settings , then modulate the gain knob in tool device the add original dynamic back into the track after distortion/clipping
@@jshstuff To do it in a more controlled way, you could also use a Segments modulator and use that to modulate the Tool device instead of dealing with the rise and fall of any kind of envelope follower.
you can flat tilt out bass pre-distortion and then do the opposite EQ curve after distorting. This will bring back some dynamics as youre distorting an altered signal. Also nice to have it not modulate so hard from insane bass energy.
it’s been three weeks. upload again. i don’t even make music, but i gotta feel productive when i binge youtube at 4 am. the way you use microsoft paint and explain big brain maths comprehensively to make music sound good is so beyond my 45 iq understanding, and i need more of this.
This helps bring more perspective to my tracks because I’m actually taking more cleaner digital sounds (although some emulate analog synths that means nothing) and run them through different methods of distortion with bus processing to slowly reverse engineer the song to have an authentic loss of fidelity to it. If I can make the song sound like your dad dug it out of the old milk crate, I did it right 🎉❤
for level match the input and output of any type of sound while maintaining dynamics, dial +6db in Compander Output, Attack and threshold at . Thats literally it. The saturation threshold must NOT be on , thats the gain knob (it indicates where the effect starts applying, if put at zero it doesnt do anything). Release work to smooth the saturation being added. What you explain in the video is how to introduce saturation using the compander as a pre dynamic modifier. Thats why it only works if you put +6db in the output of the Compander with the saturation threshold at zero (what you do its surpass the "zero threshold" capacity to read sound). That explains why you dont hear the mode of the saturation changing either. Great video!!
Good video! Just a tip, Klanghelm's SDRR2 can achieve a similar effect. There are multiple saturation options, and there's a dynamics section in every one of them. Set the dynamics slow, transients wont be affected/squashed with saturation. Cheap and a good plugin! Just wanted to share.
parallel heavy distortion (i.e. just using the mix knob on your distortion plugin) at a low-ish mix level can often give you very similar results at a fraction of the effort
there's also airwindows' "facet" plugin, wich basically clips the audio "at an angle", wich is kinda hard to visualize but basically means it clips audio while still preserving its peaks. Think of it kind of like if the db limit was a horizontal line across the time domain that sliced the waveform, and then it was slightly tilted horizontally, letting out some of the peaks. It may not be as effective as your technique (and if you push it too hard it just ends up clipping normally at high values), but it works in some cases, it's free and it's extremely easy and quick to use (I'm referring to the idea of clipping without losing dinamics, of course the fatness and overall sound you get is completely different, but it's useful for cases like when you want to clip a simple synth and a sub to get that gritty sound of the sub frequancies and the synth clipping together, but without losing the dynamics that the both already have)
@@jshstuff yeah it's pretty hard to visualize at first, u just gotta fiddle around and u'll get the picture by just experimenting. There's also his UA-cam channel which has a video for every plugin he's ever put out where he explains in detail how they work and shows examples, so you might wanna check out his video on facet (and his thousands of other plugins, of which dozens are really unique and interesting)
Wtf, and here I thought we had seen it all, and collectively arrived at the conclusion of: “just throw a clipper on the master and boost that shit”. This is awesome, thanks so much for sharing
my favorite part is that the grid’s oscilloscope allows for 2 inputs of different colors so I can show the waveform as well as the compression envelope!! that made me happy
Interesting technique, Melda makes such good stuff, I ought to get into it. I do many variations of this with multiband expansion and then a subtle clipper or comp, simple volume/gain automations, serial and parallel fx going on the same sound etc. But nice to have a tool like that which does it all and with a simple enough gui...
If you have a compressor that can do 0 attack, release, and rms and infinite ratio, so it will act like a clipper, and a sidechain, you can get the same effect by sending a compressed copy of the signal to the “clipping compressor’s” sidechain input.
I got the same with camelphat bitcrusher and input volume control, its also possible with waveshaper in fl, but extreme saturation is a good point, gonna try on plucks. Thanks for the tip. P.S. guitar plugins are also a good idea but sometimes it can be too experimental and most of the time emulations use too much cpu resources. And maybe its not so flexible because you control amount of limiting and saturation with input gain (most of the time) so result is based on amp algorithms, and gain leveling can be not very precise. But i found a free British clean amp emulation it works great. But tbh your decision gives more control. Maybe I will use it with some custom amp emulation. Gonna make a nice character to synths. Put huge reverb on the top and play on the edge of the gain and have dynamic range... Mmm, sounds inspiring and interesting 🎉
- add saturation to your sounds - clip peaks off the tops of the sounds - clip more peaks on busses - send those busses into more busses, clip again - on the busses/master, avoid multiband and other processes that smear the phase tada you have loud song
Wow this is awesome. Its funny cus i would just use a clipper > post eq > mb comp (expansion) and usually get my dynamics back but i never looked thru an oscilloscope with it. Just perceived dynamics but this seems like the actual correct way to keep dynamics lol
The use of MSaturator as a clipper here is super weird and cool but I'm not sure how well its explained for people who really want to dig into why things are happening - took me a while and some playing around to actually understand whats going on here. I was confused by your description and use of the threshold slider. normally when you set a threshold to 0dB, you apply no saturation since saturation only happens above the threshold. This is how it is implemented here in MSaturator and theoretically there should be no saturation effect happening with these settings. However, the way you set things up here works because MSaturator's saturation stage has no internal headroom and digitally clips at 0dB, this happens ON TOP of the saturation being applied To say that the threshold controls the clipping mode is a bit misleading. What actually happens here is when you turn the threshold down, you are apply saturation AND digital clipping, which just happens to be functionally the same as soft clipping. This also means that if you have the threshold set to 0dB, none of the saturation modes are actually making a difference, since you are not saturating and only applying digital clipping. Another thing to note is that the output knob in MSaturator is not equivalent to the clip knob in GClip. it is just a gain at the end of the plugin. There is no parameter to control the clipping threshold, it simply is fixed to 0dB inside the saturation stage.
hey, thanks for taking the time to write this detailed reply. I appreciate that you care so much about getting details right. let's see if I can parse this properly and correct my mistakes/comment on everything you mentioned!! sorry for the wall of text in advance haha for starters, you're completely right about the gclip vs msaturator's output and clip knobs. I messed that up. they're not the same at all and you said it well. wish I didn't make that mistake and it'll bug me forever :( next, about my use of the threshold slider: yes since I put it all the way up it won't saturate the signal at all, unless it's clipping by going above zero and hard clips (which I consider a form of saturation). in the drums example that I showed in the video, the drums were coming in around +4db, so during the initial kick drum hits, the saturator actually was hard clipping by a few dB. next, perhaps this is just a terminology thing but: you seem to be describing two stages of distortion in this plugin: the saturation, then the digital clipping, which if I am understanding you correctly, means how the saturation stage of this plugin will never exceed 0dB. but to me there's only one distortion stage... this is just a waveshaper that does some form of saturation when the threshold is down, or when it's all the way up it acts as hard clipper with a 0dB ceiling. it's just one process, I don't think there's saturation THEN clipping (assuming the "Enable clipping" button is off). again maybe we're saying the same thing in 2 different ways. then finally you commented on how I described the threshold slider. you're saying that pulling the threshold down causes saturation to be applied. I mostly agree, but like I mentioned, if the sound is coming in at over 0db then when set to a hard clipper at 0dB, saturation will also be applied in the form of hard clipping, so bringing down the threshold doesn't "apply" saturation, rather I'd say it changes the saturation style from hard clipping to soft clipping - or whichever saturation mode is active. also, even if the sound comes in below 0dB, it can still get saturated when the threshold is all the way up by turning up the compander's output knob like I recommended, which in effect brings the 0dB threshold of the hard clipper down lower. so when the threshold slider is all the way up, it's not always doing nothing. so I don't think anything I said or showed in the video would be considered a bit "misleading". do you still think so? if I misunderstood anything you said or missed your main points please let me know. again I seriously appreciate that you went out of your way to make sure things are correct. thanks for watching :)
@@jshstuff no problem! its a very cool idea and im definitely going to work out a way to do the the bitwig grid stuff in ableton with max. 2 stages is just my internalised understanding here, its definitely not one saturation stage and then one clipping stage. The manual doesnt even mention clipping in this manner at all so I think its more like you have this saturation stage that happens to be written in a way that cannot handle audio values above 0dB and so digitally clips. it does this even with the "enable clipping" button turned off so it appears to me like an unintended behaviour that we are abusing for this effect. I'm feeling it as two distinct things here because there are two different styles of distortion with two different thresholds at work - one is a parameter that controls the level of saturation, and one is a seperate 0dB threshold after which clipping occurs. 'Misleading' was a strong word here, to think of it as a clipping style parameter during this specific workflow isnt gonig to hurt anyone, but my point is that the saturation threshold slider here controls nothing but the minimum level at which the intended saturation is applied. it doesnt magically become a clipping style knob when the incoming signal is too loud. When you say the plujgin is 'set to a hard clipper', this is not how things are working. The saturation stage ALWAYS hard clips at 0dB no matter what the threshold is set to, and what lowering the threshold does is saturate the rest of the signal simultanously. it just happens that saturating a signal when it also getting hard clipped kinda resembles what we know as soft clipping. the output of the compander is simply gain controls between the saturation, and the compressor and expander. if you boost the signal coming out of the compressor when the saturation threshhold is set to 0dB and you hear audible distortion, then its simply going over 0dB and clipping. When I'm saying the saturation is doing nothing, I'm specifically referring to the analog style saturation that is controlled by the threshold slider. you get nothing but clipping in other words. you can check the harmonic analysis in something like plugin doctor, or look at the waveform in an oscilloscope, if you were getting any of that saturation you'd see a visible change when flipping between the different modes, but at 0dB on the threshold nothing hapens.
you can do the same thing by weakening signal before distortion, so distorting doesn't cause u to go past 0db, then bring back up before master. but this way is like having a whole control panel to tweak everything, very cool
Compression before clipping is done to make the transient hit the clipper more than the rest, obtaining the same result you'd get once you squash the transient restored by MSaturator into the mastering clipper/limiter.
yeah cool idea in ableton you can use the stock compresor. set one before distortion and one after the distortion. for the after set it to expander and the sidechain to it self pre fx. But you can also do parallel distortion to keep the transient because waveshaping doesnt mess up the phase
You can also make your own de-esser type thingies with parallel, reversed phase, expander tracks if the compressor has a usable high pass filter ceiling. :D
To be slightly less silly, This is a really powerful way of thinking about signal processing. It's reminiscent of reversing audio, adding reverb and then reversing again, or warping to get artifacts, and then slightly un-warping. @@jshstuff
another similar thing would be to do some eq boosts/cuts, then do saturation/compression/whatever, then do the opposite eq boost/cuts to negate them. Dan Worrall had a good video on that technique, I forget what it’s called tho
in fl studio you can just make a channel with distortion and connect it with another which also is connected to the normal one, or just making a copy and adding the distortion on one of them
yeah that’s parallel processing. that does a similar thing but is different, if you scroll way back to the earliest comments, check out @Wurldz comment for a good explanation
This is awesome, I was watching and thinking - damn I'm gonna make this in grid, then lil bro pulls up grid - thank you. Side note - try the "curve" module to bend the values from linear to log :)
What are these visualizers and such up there? Are they stand alone stuff that you've just put there as you have them visible over both daws? Looks very handy 🤓!
I swear producers are total nerds in disguise cuz what why how. This felt like i was watching a math video explaining how 0^0 can actually have an answer in some galois-riemann space :DDDDD
I've done a similar thing in fl studio a couple times just taking a peak controller output from before the saturation and connecting it to a balance so the original dynamics are preserved
i thought about the same things a couple of months ago and made the SAME compander+saturation effect in fl patcher, but the built-in envelope follower in fl is just too slow and the output amplitude wobbled too much so i shelved the idea... its so great to see that it actually was a good idea and that other people had developed it into something useful tho
I used envelope follower while making this video too, I was hoping it would work but it was so bad. that’s what made me want to try it in the grid. cool that you tried this too!!
This is awesome! Great video, just subbed. Never heard of Bitwig til just now, where should I go to learn more? Is it really that different of a DAW? Thank you 😊
coming from FL, bitwig was gamechanging for me. there's too much to say in one comment. my over-generalization is: if you're someone who dives deep into the engineering side of things, there's no better tool than bitwig. I recommend you find a video or 2 comparing bitwig to whatever daw you use, that should help you decide if it's your kind of thing. then try the bitwig demo and make a song or 2. if you're liking it, dive deeper with some @PolarityMusic videos or his "Bitwig Guide" channel. he knows everything about bitwig. bitwig's modulators as well as the Grid are two features no DAW even comes close to competing with. the stuff you can do with just stock bitwig plugins is mind blowing, and in the year I've used bitwig I've gotten rid of the majority of my vsts. a con: compared to FL, bitwig's piano roll feels like ass to use, though I'm pretty sure ableton's is equally bad. but bitwig's piano roll does have some superpowers like its per-note pitch bending which is awesome. I'm glad u liked the video & it's good that bitwig's on your radar now. they should sponsor me.
This is awesome stuff. I just looked into Bitwig and it blew my mind. What did you do to get to understanding how to build that compressor from scratch?
this was my first attempt lol. @PolarityMusic has some good videos about the grid, after watching him make grid patches for a few months it felt natural to just build something like this. If you get into Bitwig I def recommend following him
the fun thing about a compander setup is that it enhances transients in two ways. first, the transients get distorted harder, and then the transients also get put back in as the loudest 'part' of the waveform. this can definitely cause problems if you're overdoing it, but it can also just be a really nice way to make transients cut through the mix in a way a normal transient shaping plugin wouldn't be able to.
well said!!
So a Compander is the tool? I am surprised Bandlab has it. Compression and Expansion! I understand one but not Expansion
@@rodstoneExpansion is basically the opposite of compression.
Compression takes all output above a certain level and brings it down to the desired level without touching anything below that level
Expansion (also known as upwards compression) takes everything below a certain level and brings it up without affecting anything above that level.
Oh my god, this might actually change how every single song I make from now on will sound, thank you so much!!
you’re welcome :) hope you get good results!!
I don’t know how many years I’ve wished I could have distorted thickness with the dynamics intact for vocals. This is amazing thank you
This is not necessary, you can just split or duplicate the audio output and have one dry and the other distorted and blend them together.
"It's super easy"
*opens up bitwig's effects grid to custom compressor setup built from scratch*
😵💫🤯
For a different approach, you could have an effects rack that has a compressor on one end, then an expander on the other with the side chain being the pre-compressor sound. For extra gravy you could assign macros that compensate for each other combining the same controls on the compressor and expander side, but because of the saturation you don't necessarily want the exact same settings on the compressor and expander
cool idea that would work super well!
I don't know how to thank you enough. It's literally the one thing that always lacks in my mixes.
And a small rant: How many times I've seen videos on UA-cam saying "These 3 Mixing Tips will save your life" or "Muddy mix? Use this to get it clean!" and providing just niche specific tricks that dont help at all. While you just get straight to the point with plenty of examples and a detailed explaination. Thank you!
:)
underrated channel. what a straight forward, clear tutorial. props, mate!
This. Sometimes there do be gold in the reccomendations
this is one of the most informative and useful videos I've seen. I've been trying to figure out how to get my drums to sound crispier/saturated without it sounding horrible in the mix. Low and behold this pops up in my feed and gives me the exact information I was looking for. literally 10/10
a couple people asked for the bitwig grid patch preset. it's linked in the description now, have fun :)
I don't see it in the description. But great video bud!
@@AlecWyldshould be after the main description and before the time stamps?
Oh I had your video open before you updated it haha thanks! @@jshstuff
other clever way is insert the tool device after saturation or clipper then add audio sidechain modulator and take the input from the same track but choose pre-fader then adjust the setting with rise and fall settings , then modulate the gain knob in tool device the add original dynamic back into the track after distortion/clipping
another bitwig W. you’re totally right I didn’t even think of that. thank you for sharing!!
@@jshstuff Bitwig is the best daw, no cap
@@jshstuff To do it in a more controlled way, you could also use a Segments modulator and use that to modulate the Tool device instead of dealing with the rise and fall of any kind of envelope follower.
@@shaboogen there's endless possibilities with bitwig and that's what i loved about it
you can flat tilt out bass pre-distortion and then do the opposite EQ curve after distorting. This will bring back some dynamics as youre distorting an altered signal. Also nice to have it not modulate so hard from insane bass energy.
what do you mean?
@@PrideGamingTV pump the bass with an eq going into the distortion and then do the opposite so the rest of it gets some more of the dynamics
it’s been three weeks. upload again. i don’t even make music, but i gotta feel productive when i binge youtube at 4 am.
the way you use microsoft paint and explain big brain maths comprehensively to make music sound good is so beyond my 45 iq understanding, and i need more of this.
This helps bring more perspective to my tracks because I’m actually taking more cleaner digital sounds (although some emulate analog synths that means nothing) and run them through different methods of distortion with bus processing to slowly reverse engineer the song to have an authentic loss of fidelity to it. If I can make the song sound like your dad dug it out of the old milk crate, I did it right 🎉❤
❤️
this sounds like fascinating technique, I would love to hear some examples in your work if you'd like to share!
that was some THICC KRONCH there at the outro with all the companded saturated parts playing at once, love it!
that's the best outro I've ever heard
for level match the input and output of any type of sound while maintaining dynamics, dial +6db in Compander Output, Attack and threshold at . Thats literally it. The saturation threshold must NOT be on , thats the gain knob (it indicates where the effect starts applying, if put at zero it doesnt do anything). Release work to smooth the saturation being added.
What you explain in the video is how to introduce saturation using the compander as a pre dynamic modifier. Thats why it only works if you put +6db in the output of the Compander with the saturation threshold at zero (what you do its surpass the "zero threshold" capacity to read sound). That explains why you dont hear the mode of the saturation changing either.
Great video!!
great video! It really changed my understanding of saturation and clipping again! Thank you! I'll definitely apply this method in my productions!
yay! you’re welcome :)
God his voice is so pleasant I could listen to him talk about anything
asmr/bedtime story channel at 100k subscribe subscribe subscribe
@@jshstuffyou better keep your word
@@IDGs_space I promise
Good video! Just a tip, Klanghelm's SDRR2 can achieve a similar effect. There are multiple saturation options, and there's a dynamics section in every one of them. Set the dynamics slow, transients wont be affected/squashed with saturation. Cheap and a good plugin!
Just wanted to share.
cool thanks for sharing! it looks good gonna have to check it out
This is why I love UA-cam, the only place you can find gems like this! Thank you so much for this the effect is great.
yw!
Let's go he's got the most based FL studio theme kicking
sounds incredible bro!! well thought are executed and an incredible video explanation.
stuff in the grid looks cool
Bro keep making this type of video, that's important knowledge for producers
bro this is so helpful I didn't watch this type of tutorials for long time , thank you so much
Bro I've been looking for something like this for over a year...you are the GOAT
right, isn’t it sick!!? I’ve been using it on everything for the past 2 weeks ish
your voice is exactly what i want my voice to be. literally so asmr
parallel heavy distortion (i.e. just using the mix knob on your distortion plugin) at a low-ish mix level can often give you very similar results at a fraction of the effort
@@TheJohnsofDoes It adds harmonics while keeping most of the dynamics intact
Ohhhh shit. Okay wow. This is a game changer for me im using this on literally everything now moving forward
yaaaa I’ve been using it on everything too
Idk why I was just expecting another video on NY compression but this is actually quite unique
I literally just tuned out your voice and listened to the drumbeat for like 5 minutes
Finally, a tutorial that isn't incredibly basic information.
I love your videos, I'm really into those nerdy music production tips!
BTW: What plugin is that meters on top of the screen?
this makes me very happy :)
minimeters!! it's only $10 and is so good!!
Loudness war is over but I can still appreciate your video, thanks
this is very very sick mr youtube user jshstuff
www youtube.com/
there's also airwindows' "facet" plugin, wich basically clips the audio "at an angle", wich is kinda hard to visualize but basically means it clips audio while still preserving its peaks. Think of it kind of like if the db limit was a horizontal line across the time domain that sliced the waveform, and then it was slightly tilted horizontally, letting out some of the peaks. It may not be as effective as your technique (and if you push it too hard it just ends up clipping normally at high values), but it works in some cases, it's free and it's extremely easy and quick to use (I'm referring to the idea of clipping without losing dinamics, of course the fatness and overall sound you get is completely different, but it's useful for cases like when you want to clip a simple synth and a sub to get that gritty sound of the sub frequancies and the synth clipping together, but without losing the dynamics that the both already have)
chris from airwindows is the goat
sounds very cool and also confusing, gonna have to check it out
@@VicerFx yessir!
@@jshstuff yeah it's pretty hard to visualize at first, u just gotta fiddle around and u'll get the picture by just experimenting. There's also his UA-cam channel which has a video for every plugin he's ever put out where he explains in detail how they work and shows examples, so you might wanna check out his video on facet (and his thousands of other plugins, of which dozens are really unique and interesting)
Wow, this is such a simple, yet genius idea. Thank you for this VERY helpful video!
Keep up the good work :)
you’re welcome!
Wtf, and here I thought we had seen it all, and collectively arrived at the conclusion of: “just throw a clipper on the master and boost that shit”.
This is awesome, thanks so much for sharing
:D
very insightful and helpful video thank you jsh
:D
that grid compressor patch looked super pretty
my favorite part is that the grid’s oscilloscope allows for 2 inputs of different colors so I can show the waveform as well as the compression envelope!! that made me happy
Fantastic video. Informative and no fluff. Subbed af
Love this vid. Thanks for explaining the Melda plugin like this. I think YT is lacking tuts for them & all their plugins are great. Appreciate you. 🙏
awesome tips, this adds a lot of color without losing the clarity
Reverse clipping. Sounds like magic.
title should be
"how to make your song sound sosig"
LMFAO fr
amazing tutorial, very consise and entertaining. will definitely try this out
:)
When you put all of the example loops together i fucking lost it its lkke the worlds collided that is beautiful
I preconditioned u for that moment
Interesting technique, Melda makes such good stuff, I ought to get into it. I do many variations of this with multiband expansion and then a subtle clipper or comp, simple volume/gain automations, serial and parallel fx going on the same sound etc. But nice to have a tool like that which does it all and with a simple enough gui...
Yo this is a real gem
This is an information that you shouldn't share here for free.
(Thank you, you are a legend.)
thank you for being you
If you have a compressor that can do 0 attack, release, and rms and infinite ratio, so it will act like a clipper, and a sidechain, you can get the same effect by sending a compressed copy of the signal to the “clipping compressor’s” sidechain input.
Game changer production tips
I got the same with camelphat bitcrusher and input volume control, its also possible with waveshaper in fl, but extreme saturation is a good point, gonna try on plucks. Thanks for the tip.
P.S. guitar plugins are also a good idea but sometimes it can be too experimental and most of the time emulations use too much cpu resources. And maybe its not so flexible because you control amount of limiting and saturation with input gain (most of the time) so result is based on amp algorithms, and gain leveling can be not very precise. But i found a free British clean amp emulation it works great. But tbh your decision gives more control. Maybe I will use it with some custom amp emulation. Gonna make a nice character to synths. Put huge reverb on the top and play on the edge of the gain and have dynamic range... Mmm, sounds inspiring and interesting 🎉
Ever wonder how to get super Loud mixes? This is your answer! Gain staging and soft clipping will 9 times out of 10 get you there. Great video!
- add saturation to your sounds
- clip peaks off the tops of the sounds
- clip more peaks on busses
- send those busses into more busses, clip again
- on the busses/master, avoid multiband and other processes that smear the phase
tada you have loud song
Wow this is awesome. Its funny cus i would just use a clipper > post eq > mb comp (expansion) and usually get my dynamics back but i never looked thru an oscilloscope with it. Just perceived dynamics but this seems like the actual correct way to keep dynamics lol
u should post more, also this mixing based content is peak
Awesome!!!!
Love and blessings.
❤️❤️❤️
I'll definitely use this technique! Should be great for when making louder music, but as you said without losing dynamics 👍
The use of MSaturator as a clipper here is super weird and cool but I'm not sure how well its explained for people who really want to dig into why things are happening - took me a while and some playing around to actually understand whats going on here.
I was confused by your description and use of the threshold slider. normally when you set a threshold to 0dB, you apply no saturation since saturation only happens above the threshold. This is how it is implemented here in MSaturator and theoretically there should be no saturation effect happening with these settings. However, the way you set things up here works because MSaturator's saturation stage has no internal headroom and digitally clips at 0dB, this happens ON TOP of the saturation being applied
To say that the threshold controls the clipping mode is a bit misleading. What actually happens here is when you turn the threshold down, you are apply saturation AND digital clipping, which just happens to be functionally the same as soft clipping. This also means that if you have the threshold set to 0dB, none of the saturation modes are actually making a difference, since you are not saturating and only applying digital clipping.
Another thing to note is that the output knob in MSaturator is not equivalent to the clip knob in GClip. it is just a gain at the end of the plugin. There is no parameter to control the clipping threshold, it simply is fixed to 0dB inside the saturation stage.
hey, thanks for taking the time to write this detailed reply. I appreciate that you care so much about getting details right. let's see if I can parse this properly and correct my mistakes/comment on everything you mentioned!! sorry for the wall of text in advance haha
for starters, you're completely right about the gclip vs msaturator's output and clip knobs. I messed that up. they're not the same at all and you said it well. wish I didn't make that mistake and it'll bug me forever :(
next, about my use of the threshold slider: yes since I put it all the way up it won't saturate the signal at all, unless it's clipping by going above zero and hard clips (which I consider a form of saturation). in the drums example that I showed in the video, the drums were coming in around +4db, so during the initial kick drum hits, the saturator actually was hard clipping by a few dB. next, perhaps this is just a terminology thing but: you seem to be describing two stages of distortion in this plugin: the saturation, then the digital clipping, which if I am understanding you correctly, means how the saturation stage of this plugin will never exceed 0dB. but to me there's only one distortion stage... this is just a waveshaper that does some form of saturation when the threshold is down, or when it's all the way up it acts as hard clipper with a 0dB ceiling. it's just one process, I don't think there's saturation THEN clipping (assuming the "Enable clipping" button is off). again maybe we're saying the same thing in 2 different ways.
then finally you commented on how I described the threshold slider. you're saying that pulling the threshold down causes saturation to be applied. I mostly agree, but like I mentioned, if the sound is coming in at over 0db then when set to a hard clipper at 0dB, saturation will also be applied in the form of hard clipping, so bringing down the threshold doesn't "apply" saturation, rather I'd say it changes the saturation style from hard clipping to soft clipping - or whichever saturation mode is active. also, even if the sound comes in below 0dB, it can still get saturated when the threshold is all the way up by turning up the compander's output knob like I recommended, which in effect brings the 0dB threshold of the hard clipper down lower. so when the threshold slider is all the way up, it's not always doing nothing. so I don't think anything I said or showed in the video would be considered a bit "misleading". do you still think so?
if I misunderstood anything you said or missed your main points please let me know. again I seriously appreciate that you went out of your way to make sure things are correct. thanks for watching :)
@@jshstuff no problem! its a very cool idea and im definitely going to work out a way to do the the bitwig grid stuff in ableton with max.
2 stages is just my internalised understanding here, its definitely not one saturation stage and then one clipping stage. The manual doesnt even mention clipping in this manner at all so I think its more like you have this saturation stage that happens to be written in a way that cannot handle audio values above 0dB and so digitally clips. it does this even with the "enable clipping" button turned off so it appears to me like an unintended behaviour that we are abusing for this effect. I'm feeling it as two distinct things here because there are two different styles of distortion with two different thresholds at work - one is a parameter that controls the level of saturation, and one is a seperate 0dB threshold after which clipping occurs.
'Misleading' was a strong word here, to think of it as a clipping style parameter during this specific workflow isnt gonig to hurt anyone, but my point is that the saturation threshold slider here controls nothing but the minimum level at which the intended saturation is applied. it doesnt magically become a clipping style knob when the incoming signal is too loud. When you say the plujgin is 'set to a hard clipper', this is not how things are working. The saturation stage ALWAYS hard clips at 0dB no matter what the threshold is set to, and what lowering the threshold does is saturate the rest of the signal simultanously. it just happens that saturating a signal when it also getting hard clipped kinda resembles what we know as soft clipping.
the output of the compander is simply gain controls between the saturation, and the compressor and expander. if you boost the signal coming out of the compressor when the saturation threshhold is set to 0dB and you hear audible distortion, then its simply going over 0dB and clipping. When I'm saying the saturation is doing nothing, I'm specifically referring to the analog style saturation that is controlled by the threshold slider. you get nothing but clipping in other words. you can check the harmonic analysis in something like plugin doctor, or look at the waveform in an oscilloscope, if you were getting any of that saturation you'd see a visible change when flipping between the different modes, but at 0dB on the threshold nothing hapens.
Great video wtf this is insane
you can do the same thing by weakening signal before distortion, so distorting doesn't cause u to go past 0db, then bring back up before master. but this way is like having a whole control panel to tweak everything, very cool
that is a freaking genius technique!!!🎉🎉🎉
wow i didnt think of this, fantastic
oohh that's sick! definitely gonna be using this
melda audio has such goood plugins!!!
Compression before clipping is done to make the transient hit the clipper more than the rest, obtaining the same result you'd get once you squash the transient restored by MSaturator into the mastering clipper/limiter.
really depends on how the attack time is set up in the compressor
this is some insane stuff ty for posting this
yw!
yeah cool idea in ableton you can use the stock compresor. set one before distortion and one after the distortion. for the after set it to expander and the sidechain to it self pre fx.
But you can also do parallel distortion to keep the transient because waveshaping doesnt mess up the phase
great video, thanks for sharing!
yw :)
Your videos are gold, thank You so much🖤
You can also make your own de-esser type thingies with parallel, reversed phase, expander tracks if the compressor has a usable high pass filter ceiling. :D
this sounds intriguing. would this be effectively the same as a dynamic eq?
You're crazy. This is great!
aw shucks, no you’re crazy ☺️
To be slightly less silly, This is a really powerful way of thinking about signal processing. It's reminiscent of reversing audio, adding reverb and then reversing again, or warping to get artifacts, and then slightly un-warping. @@jshstuff
yeah good comparison, I getchu
another similar thing would be to do some eq boosts/cuts, then do saturation/compression/whatever, then do the opposite eq boost/cuts to negate them. Dan Worrall had a good video on that technique, I forget what it’s called tho
ua-cam.com/video/H-Gs-o39C5o/v-deo.html
Thank you, can't wait to try this
some great vids on your channel, looking forward to more
:)
in fl studio you can just make a channel with distortion and connect it with another which also is connected to the normal one, or just making a copy and adding the distortion on one of them
yeah that’s parallel processing. that does a similar thing but is different, if you scroll way back to the earliest comments, check out @Wurldz comment for a good explanation
Woah, subbed. Great vid.
Big up for using Melda's stuff!
thanks youtube for recommending this gold right here,,,instant sub!!
shoutout @youtube
This is awesome, I was watching and thinking - damn I'm gonna make this in grid, then lil bro pulls up grid - thank you. Side note - try the "curve" module to bend the values from linear to log :)
I love you dash ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ cool that you made it here!
thanks I’ll check that out!
@@jshstuff update: the "bend" module (red one, not purple) at -100% seems to be doing it!
thanks for updating! I’m planning on fixing my patch this evening so this will help
I've used msaturator for quite a long time, but I didn't know this trick...
What are these visualizers and such up there? Are they stand alone stuff that you've just put there as you have them visible over both daws? Looks very handy 🤓!
minimeters!! it’s standalone
I swear producers are total nerds in disguise cuz what why how. This felt like i was watching a math video explaining how 0^0 can actually have an answer in some galois-riemann space :DDDDD
lol I am incompetent when it comes to math
Gems!! Thanks for the tips. What a game changer 🧨
💎!
Wow great tip!
Dats a spicy beat!
Thank you so much bro!
you’re welcome :)
I've done a similar thing in fl studio a couple times just taking a peak controller output from before the saturation and connecting it to a balance so the original dynamics are preserved
I tried with peak controller and got really bad results. did you have any luck?
personally i distort to reduce dynamic range and squash everything to make it louder so this would be helpful only when coloring the sound
awesome dude
Sick vid brah
i thought about the same things a couple of months ago and made the SAME compander+saturation effect in fl patcher, but the built-in envelope follower in fl is just too slow and the output amplitude wobbled too much so i shelved the idea... its so great to see that it actually was a good idea and that other people had developed it into something useful tho
I used envelope follower while making this video too, I was hoping it would work but it was so bad. that’s what made me want to try it in the grid. cool that you tried this too!!
Ive been bamboozled wtf
This is awesome! Great video, just subbed. Never heard of Bitwig til just now, where should I go to learn more? Is it really that different of a DAW? Thank you 😊
coming from FL, bitwig was gamechanging for me. there's too much to say in one comment. my over-generalization is: if you're someone who dives deep into the engineering side of things, there's no better tool than bitwig.
I recommend you find a video or 2 comparing bitwig to whatever daw you use, that should help you decide if it's your kind of thing. then try the bitwig demo and make a song or 2. if you're liking it, dive deeper with some @PolarityMusic videos or his "Bitwig Guide" channel. he knows everything about bitwig.
bitwig's modulators as well as the Grid are two features no DAW even comes close to competing with. the stuff you can do with just stock bitwig plugins is mind blowing, and in the year I've used bitwig I've gotten rid of the majority of my vsts.
a con: compared to FL, bitwig's piano roll feels like ass to use, though I'm pretty sure ableton's is equally bad. but bitwig's piano roll does have some superpowers like its per-note pitch bending which is awesome.
I'm glad u liked the video & it's good that bitwig's on your radar now. they should sponsor me.
@@jshstuff Thanks so much for the detailed reply! I’ll check it out!
neat vid, very cool
u 2
Fabfilter Saturn 2 also has a nice compander function (called “dynamics” there)
thanks for the info! someone else was asking specifically about this in another comment so I just let him know :)
Thnx 4 it. It will make my remake more accurate. And again, thank you so much from india..
:D
It's the best DAW in any year. 😏 Oh, I mean, 2024.... Very interesting! I think I might find use for this. Thanks!
This is awesome stuff. I just looked into Bitwig and it blew my mind. What did you do to get to understanding how to build that compressor from scratch?
this was my first attempt lol. @PolarityMusic has some good videos about the grid, after watching him make grid patches for a few months it felt natural to just build something like this. If you get into Bitwig I def recommend following him
@@jshstuff Done. I love the hands-on way, even if it takes longer. I appreciate the advice!
cool tip!
INSANE!!