Join My Free Discord Server: discord.gg/sBbsE6e Topics Covered/Time Stamps 0:00 - Intro 1:50 - Pure Sine Tone 2:05 - Even Harmonics (2nd order) 2:25 - Odd Harmonics (3rd Order) 2:45 - Even vs Odd 3:30 - Tube vs Tape - which type of saturation 4:30 - Non Linear Behaviour (Discussion) 5:25 - Non Linear Example 6:00 - Recap 6:30 - Ear Training Checklist (headphones, plugins, gain staging) 9:30 - Audio Example Drums with Saturation 10:38 - Warming Saturation 11:35 - Tape Saturation 11:55 - Marketing Myths. Don't be fooled by Tubes! 14:00 - Guitar Exampl 15:07 - Final Discussion
It's really amazing that this man is offering all this information and knowledge in such high quality videos - FOR FREE. We don't pay respects enough to people like you, the online music community wouldn't be the same without you! THANK YOU.
What I love about your tutorials is that unlike many other similar tutorial series, you don't say "Do this and that to make your mix sounds better" You explain "Do this and that, to understand the tools at your disposal, so you know how to make your mix sound better"
One thing that I realized more acutely after watching Adam Neelys latest video is how little vocabulary we have in English that just describes sound. Almost everything is actually a description of another sense
For example which words? I am not native english speaker. So i didn't even know that saturation was meaning something else. What's even more funny, that there is almost no tutorials in my language, so i don't even know, how would i say these words. We just use english terms. It sounds weird, but i got used to it
VERE well the word saturation for example usually has to do with having brighter colors. Music has taken this word and used it to mean something else. But really, any descriptive word in music has this problem. Punchy refers to impact but that comes from touch, warm is also based on touch. There are so many words like this. I have to say that I don't know whether other languages are different or whether this is a common problem
@@deltanebula8622 It's not a problem in other languages, bcs for saturation we have different word, so when you say saturation, it reffers to music saturation
As a genuine enthusiast, I feel the beauty of this channel and Michael's skill as a producer/engineer/teacher is that I can keep coming back to quality content and keep learning. I often refer back to many older videos for reset and recap. His professionalism, integrity and consistency is what is equally impressive. I have not found that content from much older videos is in any way contradictory - all the keys basics are the same. Superb channel, and head and shoulders about other similar content providers IMHO.
I seriously cannot thank you enough for making these, Michael. You are seriously my hero man you're so wise and full of encouraging, positive energy. God bless ya fam, forreal
I've been following and watching both Michael and Paul Davids for the past year and a half, and suddenly today I find this comment! Both these channels have helped me an awful lot, thanks to both of you :)
Damn this channel has to be the best resource for music production on the internet. I think I've learnt more from this channel than I have from every other recourse combined. Thanks so much for everything you do!
I love your methodical and concise approach to all your videos. You always make such a fluent attempt at actually displaying what you’re doing. Keep up the amazing work! ❤️
Literally today morning I was going through some free saturation plugins & was thinking how does it really works or what it does... So thanks for this video today ❤ from 🇮🇳
Love this, before the hollidays I was selected for a producer/artist school. This school just send me an e-mail with learning material INCLUDING THE LINK TO YOUR CHANNEL. which is kind of amazing to see :D
your channel, in a few years, will be the future free music school covering every single thing you can learn, and more. not that it isnt now hahaha you are doing the community a massive favor, thank you bro.
How to record electric guitar like the example in this video would be really helpful. Lovely tone. Your other recent videos are only on acoustic guitar
I remember watching this video a few years back. I'm rewatching it again today. Your videos are amazing because regardless of the level you're at, you'll always take away so much. This is hands down the best youtube channel on educating yourself in mixing, ever.
A nice idea is to sidechain your track to a separate mixer channel, go crazy with saturation and slowly blend in the signal. I know it sounds kinda useless, but it lets you apply effects *on* the saturation. For example an Eq can prevent it from getting too dirty, and a compressor will make it more consistent. Great video as always, Michael
@@prod.extelligence the steps I list below are what I do on FL studio but I think it's about the same in every daw 1. Assign your sound to a mixer track, let's call it track 1. 2. Select track 1, go to the arrow at the bottom of *another* mixer track (track 2 I guess), right click and hit "sidechain to this track" 3. (In FL studio you do this by fruity send) send the audio from track 1 to track 2. Now you have 2 identical sounds on 2 different tracks. Grab track 2's fader and pull it all the way down to -infinite 4. Apply a saturation plug in like softube saturation knob at the start of track 2's effects chain. You probably want to exaggerate here, as not all of this grit is going to be used afterwards. 5. So now you have the original sound on track 1 and a very dirtorted version on track 2. Track 2's fader is at - inf, time to change that. Start slightly pushing it up, thus adding more and more of this dirtorted volume. Once you are happy with the sound, leave the fader where it is. Keep in mind this increases the overall volume, so don't get fooled by making everything super loud. 6. Most fun part: the entire track 2's effects chain is empty, so you can add any effect there. The effect will only affect the distorted part of your sound, hence you actually get to shape this distortion any way you want. I hope this helped, have a great time producing!
@@rhydes_ wow! thank you so much for that elaborate explanation! i really appreciate it! i got it to work now :) but just to be sure, this is basically the same as duplicating the sound and putting the second version on another mixer track, right? i've done this with 808s where I cloned my 808, put it on another mixer track, distorted the shit out of it and then mixed the two versions together.
Never mind the complexity of technical terms this man brings. It does not make me panic or cringe. He has that skill of putting everything in perspective and let me go away with something with out making me feel stupid. I love it. Good for him(Even better for me :))
Michael, thanks for posting all the great tutorials. You have a gift, bro. Rarely do you make a beginner video where I feel like something material was omitted. Usually, I do not have to watch other peoples videos to clarify something you taught. You have profoundly shortened my learning curve for FL Studio. I live in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. I assume because you rock the union jack wall hanging that you are British. Thus, I wish you would review the SSL 2 usb audio interface. I would love to here a Brit discuss SSL. My engineering teacher, who is Russian, not British, devoted a lot of time to discussing how SSL engineers historically set the bar. Due to pandemic backorder at the time I purchased, I ended up ordering my SSL 2 from Liverpool. The 4000 E eq saturation emulation is remarkable to my ears, especially at the price point. Easiest way to get that kind of sound.
As someone who always gravitates towards subs in my beats as opposed to common 808s, this was extremely helpful🙏 I always get frustrated when my bass is non-existent through cheaper speakers.
Great video. You explained enough to give a useful background to what saturation is and what it does, without it being dry. The musical examples were also very useful, showing more upfront with the drums and more subtle with the guitar. I'm looking for saturation VSTs at the moment to introduce it into my music more - so absolutely relevant info - many thanks 👍😁
This guy is an excellent YT teacher. So easy to follow..... until an obnoxious ad pops on omg. The ads are extra obnoxious when youre watching his tutorial
You're seriously amazing! Your tutorials are simply a treasure of information and I can't thank you enough for this quality of didactic and content. Sorry for saying this in almost every video, but man, ty a lot!
Great video. We need to keep in mind that saturation can reduce sharp transients; it has a compression effect. Higher levels can smoosh transients, which may or may not be the tone we are looking for.
Everytime I received a notification of your new video, I feel so much excited.. Thanks so much for helping me in my music production Journey... I've never trusted any other YT Channel like yours, you are good bro... RESPECT from Liberia.
always find myself coming back to this channel when I need help with fundamentals. lol I think you had a video even describing how headphones produce sound. love it man. big love from Canada.
Thank you kindly for you generous information. All your videos are jam packed with essential stuff for both new and experienced producers. I for one really appreciate your contribution to the creation and production of music.
@@inthemix Thanks for all the work you put into these videos mate, I've learned a lot about recording and basic vocal EQ in just a few months. Recently set up my old PG58 with a cheap interface to do some voiceover work, but in practice I just have really overkill audio quality for Discord calls hahah. I appreciate that you take the time to explain the details to beginners, as audio really isn't intuitive to everyone, and in my experience that attention to detail is the mark of a great educator.
Holy shit, that saturation on the guitar was a check mate. absolutely beautiful. i'll be implementing a lot more saturation in my tracks. Thank you bud.
Very good explanation of saturation. I usually use Kramer Tape Saturation on my master mix bus. It makes a subtle but noticeable difference in the final mix.
it was third day i was watching In The Mix channel and didn't heard almost any difference in sounds he was talking about. You'll say it's cause my ears are not trained, maybe that i'm deaf and maybe the music is not my thing. Maybe you right. But i'm so fascinated by the idea that i'm trying to learn from a crazy man who hearing things, that i want to learn from him even more
I love how excited you get about sharing things, you let alittle grin out when your about to share some awesome knowledge. just have to say thanks, I've been really trying to improve my mixing and mastering and Im amazed how much You've been able to teach me in pretty short time, thank you
lol I don't know how you always manage to make your tutorial pure gold. It's like college courses. Sometimes I have the impression that I should have paid before watching them. better than some paid courses on the net at least, thanks for all
At last, im at 2nd video before the first - for I have started watching the oldest video here just to get all the essentials - it's worth it!!! A HUGE THANKS MIKE!!! you really do know what you are saying - just tons of meat in your explanations...
Saturation is a very broad effect and it can be a deliberate and obvious effect such as an overdriven guitar tone or a heavily distorted 808 bass sample but it's also the more subtle side effect induced by signal processing so virtually any circuit i.e.(tube/tape/transistor or even plug-in)has saturation to a certain degree. Analog style saturation- Part of the appeal or fascination with saturation is that,as a lot of these devices are analog, records made back in the good old days often sounded really warm full punchy and thick and part of this is down to the fact that there was subtle saturation on every single track in those mixes just naturally due to the devices they were recorded on and mixed through. Saturation is when extra sound is induced or added to your original signal. There's two main types of harmonic saturation-even and odd harmonics. i.e- fundamental x 2/4/8 etc=even fundamental x 3/5/7 etc= odd In both cases we're adding signal or notes that weren't there previously albeit at a slightly lower level into the higher frequencies. In general the even harmonics tend to give a feeling of support,clarity and fullness mainly because you're adding in the octave and another octave above as well and adding the octave to the original sound sort of gives this feeling of support maybe a subtle sort of feeling of doubling that original sound whereas the odd harmonics add a lot more richness,edge,bite,+ buzziness to the sound w/more high frequencies. Even and odd harmonics both can sound excellent depending on what you're using them for it's not that one is better than the other. Besides a few plugins and wave shapers,almost all plugins and certainly all analog hardware doesn't simply induce even or odd harmonics as many people believe. All of these different devices and plug-ins have a different combination or distribution of these even and odd harmonics depending on a lot of different factors. You may have heard that tubes have only even harmonics and maybe tape has only odd harmonics but this simply isn't true. It's true that certain devices favor certain harmonics-even or odd,but it's much more than just whether it's got a tube in it or whether there's a bit of tape there. From an engineering background it' all has to do with the topology of the circuit,not just the tube or the tape-it's every single piece of wire,every capacitor...especially the transformers make a huge difference,it's just the general design of the circuitry and not just one component. Non-linearity or non-linear behavior= Basically with any device that induces saturation or distortion what you might expect is that at all levels of volume or gain that you feed into that device you'd have exactly the same type of saturation i.e.the same distribution of even and odd harmonics but at varying levels. However,actually with almost all of these devices and plugins,if you feed a different amount of volume into them or drive them differently you get dramatic differences in the distributions of odd and even harmonics and the tone of the saturation that's generated. I have an example here with a tube emulation and you'll see that as I increase the amount of drive there's a big difference in the distribution of harmonics.At some points it's favoring those even harmonics then the odd then back to the even again. These devices respond completely different to transients/different amounts of signal. To be able to accurately hear the effect of saturation being applied on a given signal you need something that can give you an extended high frequency response. Reference monitors are great in a well-treated room but most of the time the subtle differences of saturation are a little bit harder to hear correctly on studio monitors whereas in headphones you can hear if you're overdoing it a little bit too much
I'm going to swap over to tape and what you'll hear is that it starts boosting the high frequencies,so with the mids and top of the snare and the hi-hats it starts boosting them a little bit sooner than with the tube saturation...even by the time I get to here I'm hearing those hi-hats substantially louder so what I'm going to use for the drums is the tube because I don't want the top end to be boosted this much. Although it says tube,it's not just modeling a tube,it's probably modeling the whole circuitry that was in that tube device;a tube on its own does not provide warmth although it glows really hot,is warm, if you touch it it would be hot,however the tube on its own is actually just inducing higher harmonics, it's the whole circuit(mainly the transformer)that is adding all of that weight,extra body and warmth to the signal. The crucial step once you've picked the type of saturation you want is to unsolo the track turn everything else back on and this is what you use to blend in the amount of saturation because on its own you'll almost always get the wrong amount of distortion. If you listen with and without the saturation you'll see that the one with the saturation is actually much more quiet in terms of peak loudness,it's 6 db quieter give or take but the perceived loudness and the overall loudness in my opinion is a little bit higher,at least in these headphones. The way I like to use saturation in a mix is usually just subtly so every single track just has a little bit of saturation.it doesn't have to be "in your face";those drums were probably a little bit over the top but especially when you're using saturation to reinforce a track with those extra second order even harmonics what you'll find is that if you use just a little bit on 10 or 20 tracks all together it sums together to a much punchy,full sounding mix. Now I'm going to go on to the guitar which is an excellent example of why you should be blending in the saturation with everything else playing. What this other saturation plug-in(Brainworx Black Box) lets me do is not really increase the loudness but just add a little bit of grit/texture to the guitar while also keeping it pretty smooth. More importantly it lets me hear the guitar without having it stand out in the mix,it lets the guitar sit a bit further back in the mix yet it pulls all this detail up,all of those extra harmonic overtones are pulled up in the guitar and it just sounds a little bit more cool/textured but again it's not an in-your-face sort of "screaming wall of guitars" effect,it's just sort of a subtle amount of saturation. That's the end of the examples;I hope that it's clarified what saturation is, the difference between even and odd harmonics,the difference in the non-linear behavior of the circuitry... The type of saturation that's induced really is all down to the specific topology of the circuit or the plug-in that you're using so the real take-home from this video is that you've just got to get your hands on a lot of these plugins,feed them a lot of signal and just learn what they do...it takes a bit of time to tune your ears into these things and learn the differences between all of these types of saturation...
Just when I needed it the most. I'm making a future bass track and the chords were missing something and not sounding the way that I wanted to like my inspirations. Thank You so much
Join My Free Discord Server: discord.gg/sBbsE6e
Topics Covered/Time Stamps
0:00 - Intro
1:50 - Pure Sine Tone
2:05 - Even Harmonics (2nd order)
2:25 - Odd Harmonics (3rd Order)
2:45 - Even vs Odd
3:30 - Tube vs Tape - which type of saturation
4:30 - Non Linear Behaviour (Discussion)
5:25 - Non Linear Example
6:00 - Recap
6:30 - Ear Training Checklist (headphones, plugins, gain staging)
9:30 - Audio Example Drums with Saturation
10:38 - Warming Saturation
11:35 - Tape Saturation
11:55 - Marketing Myths. Don't be fooled by Tubes!
14:00 - Guitar Exampl
15:07 - Final Discussion
Should do an old studio tour with an old-head that did everything in analogue.
Thank you so much you ckarified any misconception
Have you done audio engineering??
@@bobby3eb I wish I could
@@arpantoppo3266 Yes
It's really amazing that this man is offering all this information and knowledge in such high quality videos - FOR FREE. We don't pay respects enough to people like you, the online music community wouldn't be the same without you! THANK YOU.
Beutax I appreciate the kind words, thank you so much :)
We can always donate :)) or purchase his products.
Couldn‘t agree more!
You were predestined to be different(Romans 8:29), he who has an ear to hear, let him hear(Mark 4:9).
HALLELUYAH!(PRAISE YE YAH!)
thats the same thing I was thinking the whole video. its amazing
Hope everyone reading this reaches their dreams❤ I think all of us are going for the same dream haha, just keep grinding homies
YEAH, YOU TOO
thanks you too :)
thanks fam same to you
Of course man,you keep grinding too😇
Thank you
I really like how Michael says "T H I C C". It's so nice how he says it 1:18
The way he said thic was also thic
@@harshilparmar877 ikr. That's why its so good
also 0:56
@@alisachu.mp3 Thicc, Silky, Creamie, Smooth...
Yum lol
that’s a body type / body positive term but ok lol
What I love about your tutorials is that unlike many other similar tutorial series, you don't say "Do this and that to make your mix sounds better"
You explain "Do this and that, to understand the tools at your disposal, so you know how to make your mix sound better"
One thing that I realized more acutely after watching Adam Neelys latest video is how little vocabulary we have in English that just describes sound. Almost everything is actually a description of another sense
You’re absolutely right. I’ve tried to find better ways to put these ideas across but everything is just too abstract!
For example which words? I am not native english speaker. So i didn't even know that saturation was meaning something else. What's even more funny, that there is almost no tutorials in my language, so i don't even know, how would i say these words. We just use english terms. It sounds weird, but i got used to it
VERE well the word saturation for example usually has to do with having brighter colors. Music has taken this word and used it to mean something else. But really, any descriptive word in music has this problem. Punchy refers to impact but that comes from touch, warm is also based on touch. There are so many words like this. I have to say that I don't know whether other languages are different or whether this is a common problem
@@deltanebula8622 It's not a problem in other languages, bcs for saturation we have different word, so when you say saturation, it reffers to music saturation
Wow. The saturation really "excited" that beat. It really "transformed" the vibe!
Get out. Hahaha
Worst thing I have ever read
As a genuine enthusiast, I feel the beauty of this channel and Michael's skill as a producer/engineer/teacher is that I can keep coming back to quality content and keep learning. I often refer back to many older videos for reset and recap. His professionalism, integrity and consistency is what is equally impressive. I have not found that content from much older videos is in any way contradictory - all the keys basics are the same. Superb channel, and head and shoulders about other similar content providers IMHO.
Your comment is not only astute, but 100% accurate.👍⭐️
Thanks for this - really helpful introduction to saturation!
Thanks Curtis!
No matter how many times we thank you, it will never be enough. You are doing a lot for the community.
More power to you Sir. Salute
Thank you for everything bro, and to the person reading this, I hope you have a nice day :)
I had. Thanks. Jumped naked with my girlfriend in the waves of the sea with our 3 kids play at the beach. 😁
@@jellewierda3828 You shouldn't be naked with 3 kids
I seriously cannot thank you enough for making these, Michael. You are seriously my hero man you're so wise and full of encouraging, positive energy. God bless ya fam, forreal
This guy is like the Paul Davids of music production
This is the best compliment I could get!
💯
@@inthemix i'd say you are the adam neely of music production :)
Thank god people are not saying that ur Davie504 of music production😂 OMG!
I've been following and watching both Michael and Paul Davids for the past year and a half, and suddenly today I find this comment!
Both these channels have helped me an awful lot, thanks to both of you :)
Damn this channel has to be the best resource for music production on the internet. I think I've learnt more from this channel than I have from every other recourse combined. Thanks so much for everything you do!
I love your methodical and concise approach to all your videos. You always make such a fluent attempt at actually displaying what you’re doing. Keep up the amazing work! ❤️
Literally today morning I was going through some free saturation plugins & was thinking how does it really works or what it does... So thanks for this video today ❤ from 🇮🇳
same
@Sahil Makhare Thanks 😊❤
Love this, before the hollidays I was selected for a producer/artist school. This school just send me an e-mail with learning material INCLUDING THE LINK TO YOUR CHANNEL.
which is kind of amazing to see :D
Wow that’s incredible, may I ask which school it is?
@@inthemix judging by the OPs last name, my guess is Herman Brood Academy in Utrecht or the Rockacademie in Tilburg, both in the Netherlands
ROC amsterdam
i've asked a few things about how I could learn a bit quicker and they replied with your channel :)
You’re so humble, I really appreciate the videos you make for us, man. Thank you!
I really appreciate the ear training cues! I feel like it really helps me hear what you are talking about.
I just went on to youtube to search up videos about different effects including distortion and saturation and this was on my front page. Perfect
Loving these more technical oriented tutorials!
your channel, in a few years, will be the future free music school covering every single thing you can learn, and more. not that it isnt now hahaha you are doing the community a massive favor, thank you bro.
Great content mate. You're a true mentor.
How to record electric guitar like the example in this video would be really helpful. Lovely tone. Your other recent videos are only on acoustic guitar
Working on it :)
wildly underrated, the way u explain it so calmly and precisely like how do u not stutter? the amount of info in this one video is astounding
wow it's actually sound more lofi with saturation. Thank you Michael for explaining this.
I remember watching this video a few years back. I'm rewatching it again today. Your videos are amazing because regardless of the level you're at, you'll always take away so much. This is hands down the best youtube channel on educating yourself in mixing, ever.
A nice idea is to sidechain your track to a separate mixer channel, go crazy with saturation and slowly blend in the signal. I know it sounds kinda useless, but it lets you apply effects *on* the saturation. For example an Eq can prevent it from getting too dirty, and a compressor will make it more consistent. Great video as always, Michael
hold up. can you explain the setup in a little more detail? I just tried to do this but I didn't get it to work.
@@prod.extelligence the steps I list below are what I do on FL studio but I think it's about the same in every daw
1. Assign your sound to a mixer track, let's call it track 1.
2. Select track 1, go to the arrow at the bottom of *another* mixer track (track 2 I guess), right click and hit "sidechain to this track"
3. (In FL studio you do this by fruity send) send the audio from track 1 to track 2. Now you have 2 identical sounds on 2 different tracks. Grab track 2's fader and pull it all the way down to -infinite
4. Apply a saturation plug in like softube saturation knob at the start of track 2's effects chain. You probably want to exaggerate here, as not all of this grit is going to be used afterwards.
5. So now you have the original sound on track 1 and a very dirtorted version on track 2. Track 2's fader is at - inf, time to change that. Start slightly pushing it up, thus adding more and more of this dirtorted volume. Once you are happy with the sound, leave the fader where it is. Keep in mind this increases the overall volume, so don't get fooled by making everything super loud.
6. Most fun part: the entire track 2's effects chain is empty, so you can add any effect there. The effect will only affect the distorted part of your sound, hence you actually get to shape this distortion any way you want.
I hope this helped, have a great time producing!
@@rhydes_ wow! thank you so much for that elaborate explanation! i really appreciate it! i got it to work now :) but just to be sure, this is basically the same as duplicating the sound and putting the second version on another mixer track, right? i've done this with 808s where I cloned my 808, put it on another mixer track, distorted the shit out of it and then mixed the two versions together.
@@prod.extelligence yes, exactly!
Never mind the complexity of technical terms this man brings. It does not make me panic or cringe. He has that skill of putting everything in perspective and let me go away with something with out making me feel stupid. I love it. Good for him(Even better for me :))
Michael, thanks for posting all the great tutorials. You have a gift, bro. Rarely do you make a beginner video where I feel like something material was omitted. Usually, I do not have to watch other peoples videos to clarify something you taught. You have profoundly shortened my learning curve for FL Studio. I live in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. I assume because you rock the union jack wall hanging that you are British. Thus, I wish you would review the SSL 2 usb audio interface. I would love to here a Brit discuss SSL. My engineering teacher, who is Russian, not British, devoted a lot of time to discussing how SSL engineers historically set the bar. Due to pandemic backorder at the time I purchased, I ended up ordering my SSL 2 from Liverpool. The 4000 E eq saturation emulation is remarkable to my ears, especially at the price point. Easiest way to get that kind of sound.
As someone who always gravitates towards subs in my beats as opposed to common 808s, this was extremely helpful🙏 I always get frustrated when my bass is non-existent through cheaper speakers.
Ong but b so tuff in the car
Great video. You explained enough to give a useful background to what saturation is and what it does, without it being dry.
The musical examples were also very useful, showing more upfront with the drums and more subtle with the guitar.
I'm looking for saturation VSTs at the moment to introduce it into my music more - so absolutely relevant info - many thanks 👍😁
This guy is an excellent YT teacher. So easy to follow..... until an obnoxious ad pops on omg. The ads are extra obnoxious when youre watching his tutorial
I usually don't say things like these, but you sir, are extraordinarily humble.
You're seriously amazing! Your tutorials are simply a treasure of information and I can't thank you enough for this quality of didactic and content. Sorry for saying this in almost every video, but man, ty a lot!
I so wanted to learn about Saturation. Thank you so much for this. Namaste 💜
THANK YOU BROTHER! I knew about this but never added it to my mixes,. thanks again for the break down.
Really appreciate the eartraining and detailed explanations. I teach myself and i often miss "musical" terms for problems with my mixes. This helps!
The best video on saturation in the whole of UA-cam.
I don't think I've been this early to one of your videos before!
And I was just wondering how saturation worked
Great video. We need to keep in mind that saturation can reduce sharp transients; it has a compression effect. Higher levels can smoosh transients, which may or may not be the tone we are looking for.
Thank you so so very much for explaining Saturation to me. Now I have so much clarity on this subject....
A friend recommended me to use saturation to improve the quality of my mixes but didn't explained me how, but you did. Thank you!!
38th...thanks btw I was waiting for a saturation video from this channel, one of the best channels on music production
Everytime I received a notification of your new video, I feel so much excited.. Thanks so much for helping me in my music production Journey... I've never trusted any other YT Channel like yours, you are good bro... RESPECT from Liberia.
ISTG half of the stuff I know about advanced production is thanks to this guy
If you reading this, have a good day and be safe. God bless you 🙏🏻❤️
always find myself coming back to this channel when I need help with fundamentals. lol I think you had a video even describing how headphones produce sound. love it man. big love from Canada.
Man so many things I didn't know. Have watched a bunch of your vids and now you have a subscriber :)
crazy how all this is free. so insightful
Thank you kindly for you generous information. All your videos are jam packed with essential stuff for both new and experienced producers. I for one really appreciate your contribution to the creation and production of music.
Thanks for the knowledge, I've been sleeping on Saturators for a while.
THANK YOU! I had no idea what saturation even was, it was just something I heard a lot about. Your videos are great!
Discovering your channel was the best thing I ever did in my mixing career
From now on.. I hail you Prof!!!! Excellent exposition... First class video
The cursor when mousing over the dB meter looks like the Call of Duty hitmarker.
You’re right, man that takes me back, I haven’t played CoD in almost a decade!
lol
@@inthemix Thanks for all the work you put into these videos mate, I've learned a lot about recording and basic vocal EQ in just a few months. Recently set up my old PG58 with a cheap interface to do some voiceover work, but in practice I just have really overkill audio quality for Discord calls hahah.
I appreciate that you take the time to explain the details to beginners, as audio really isn't intuitive to everyone, and in my experience that attention to detail is the mark of a great educator.
Words can't be enough to thank you sir.
wow bro you AMAZING! you are first person who explain well this
Good one again. Saturation changed a lot for me. Specially for electronic music.
Holy shit, that saturation on the guitar was a check mate. absolutely beautiful. i'll be implementing a lot more saturation in my tracks. Thank you bud.
Yesterday i was reading about seturation on Google but didn't understood properly and today i got lecture from You. Wow..
Thank you Michael.
Very good explanation of saturation. I usually use Kramer Tape Saturation on my master mix bus. It makes a subtle but noticeable difference in the final mix.
michael, thank you. you are a great, good and intelligent teacher
i really like your style. can't wait to talk to you
Thank you Optimus for making a big difference.
it was third day i was watching In The Mix channel and didn't heard almost any difference in sounds he was talking about. You'll say it's cause my ears are not trained, maybe that i'm deaf and maybe the music is not my thing. Maybe you right. But i'm so fascinated by the idea that i'm trying to learn from a crazy man who hearing things, that i want to learn from him even more
That kind of tutorials is what we need to start on music production.
Thanks a lot.
I love how excited you get about sharing things, you let alittle grin out when your about to share some awesome knowledge. just have to say thanks, I've been really trying to improve my mixing and mastering and Im amazed how much You've been able to teach me in pretty short time, thank you
You are truely the best, thanks for your videos. Excellent clarity, organization, and completeness on all the topics you discuss.
THANKS A MILLION TIMES! no words left
ive watched this about 20 times going on thirty! thank you morty!
lol I don't know how you always manage to make your tutorial pure gold. It's like college courses. Sometimes I have the impression that I should have paid before watching them. better than some paid courses on the net at least, thanks for all
In The Mix Guy, Great stuff you're sharing with the world!
Getting addicted to this guy content! hope some day I master all of this!
At last, im at 2nd video before the first - for I have started watching the oldest video here just to get all the essentials - it's worth it!!! A HUGE THANKS MIKE!!! you really do know what you are saying - just tons of meat in your explanations...
I am so thankful for your videos, its amazing free stuff. Thanks a lot!👍
I truly appreciate the high quality content of your channel. I always learn valuable information from you. Keep on the great work!
Here comes my favourite UA-cam. Learned a lot about music production right here...
I just wanted you to know you're helping a lot brother, thank you very much for your effort. Cheers form Turkey
Very clear, thank you. My life has changed now I have an evo4 and can hear all the differences that were missing from the default audio out on the PC.
That’s so great to hear, I don’t personally use the Evo line but I’m glad it works for you :)
I love the "in the box" workflow. But I love the sound of analog saturation!
I learned so much after watching you for about a year
😊 😊 🙏
echoing everybody else in saying thank you for sharing these videos
Saturation is a very broad effect and it can be a deliberate and obvious effect such as an
overdriven guitar tone or a heavily distorted 808 bass sample but it's also the more subtle side
effect induced by signal processing so virtually any circuit i.e.(tube/tape/transistor or even
plug-in)has saturation to a certain degree.
Analog style saturation-
Part of the appeal or fascination with saturation is that,as a lot of these devices are analog,
records made back in the good old days often sounded really warm full punchy and thick and part of this is down to the fact that there was subtle saturation on every single track in those mixes just naturally due to the devices they were recorded on and mixed through.
Saturation is when extra sound is induced or added to your original signal.
There's two main types of harmonic saturation-even and odd harmonics.
i.e-
fundamental x 2/4/8 etc=even
fundamental x 3/5/7 etc= odd
In both cases we're adding signal or notes that weren't there previously albeit at a slightly lower level into the higher frequencies.
In general the even harmonics tend to give a feeling of support,clarity and fullness mainly because
you're adding in the octave and another octave above as well and adding the octave to the original sound sort of gives this feeling of support maybe a subtle sort of feeling of doubling that original sound whereas the odd harmonics add a lot more richness,edge,bite,+ buzziness to the sound w/more high frequencies.
Even and odd harmonics both can sound excellent depending on what you're using them for it's not that one is better than the other.
Besides a few plugins and wave shapers,almost all plugins and certainly all analog hardware doesn't simply induce even or odd harmonics as many people believe.
All of these different devices and plug-ins have a different combination or distribution of these even and odd harmonics depending on a lot of different factors.
You may have heard that tubes have only even harmonics and maybe tape has only odd harmonics but this simply isn't true.
It's true that certain devices favor certain harmonics-even or odd,but it's much more than just whether it's got a tube in it or whether there's a bit of tape there.
From an engineering background it' all has to do with the topology of the circuit,not just the tube or the tape-it's every single piece of wire,every capacitor...especially the transformers make a huge difference,it's just the general design of the circuitry and not just one component.
Non-linearity or non-linear behavior=
Basically with any device that induces saturation or distortion what you might expect is that at all
levels of volume or gain that you feed into that device you'd have exactly the same type of saturation i.e.the same distribution of even and odd harmonics but at varying levels.
However,actually with almost all of these devices and plugins,if you feed a different amount of volume into them or drive them differently you get dramatic differences in the distributions of odd and even harmonics and the tone of the saturation that's generated.
I have an example here with a tube emulation and you'll see that as I increase the amount of drive there's a big difference in the distribution of harmonics.At some points it's favoring those even harmonics then the odd then back to the even again.
These devices respond completely different to transients/different amounts of signal.
To be able to accurately hear the effect of saturation being applied on a given signal you need something that can give you an extended high frequency response.
Reference monitors are great in a well-treated room but most of the time the subtle differences of saturation are a little bit harder to hear correctly on studio monitors whereas in headphones you can hear if you're overdoing it a little bit too much
Thank you sir for such a great tutorial and taking the time for those of us who aren’t quite so experienced. Extremely helpful.
We can't be more proud to have you in our world
I can't believe this guy gives out so much of useful information for free. Sending loads of gratitude and love from India 🙏❤️.
Thanks for this video! This helped quite a lot!
Very strange how it sounds louder, but literally is the opposite. Mind=Blown.
SPAN is low key the best visual Vst out there...saved me couple times. Thx for a great video again.
Love this channel. First class education - for free!! Thank you so much Michael.
I'm going to swap over to tape and what you'll hear is that it starts boosting the high frequencies,so with the mids and top of the snare and the hi-hats it starts boosting them a little bit sooner than
with the tube saturation...even by the time I get to here I'm hearing those hi-hats substantially louder so what I'm going to use for the drums is the tube because I don't want the top end to be boosted this much.
Although it says tube,it's not just modeling a tube,it's probably modeling the whole circuitry that was in that tube device;a tube on its own does not provide warmth although it glows really hot,is warm, if you touch it it would be hot,however the tube on its own is actually just inducing higher harmonics, it's the whole circuit(mainly the transformer)that is adding all of that weight,extra body and warmth to the signal.
The crucial step once you've picked the type of saturation you want is to unsolo the track turn everything else back on and this is what you use to blend in the amount of saturation because on its own you'll almost always get the wrong amount of distortion.
If you listen with and without the saturation you'll see that the one with the saturation is actually much more quiet in terms of peak loudness,it's 6 db quieter give or take but the perceived loudness
and the overall loudness in my opinion is a little bit higher,at least in these headphones.
The way I like to use saturation in a mix is usually just subtly so every single track just has a little bit of saturation.it doesn't have to be "in your face";those drums were probably a little bit over the top but especially when you're using saturation to reinforce a track with those extra second order even harmonics what you'll find is that if you use just a little bit on 10 or 20 tracks all together it sums together to a much punchy,full sounding mix.
Now I'm going to go on to the guitar which is an excellent example of why you should be blending in
the saturation with everything else playing.
What this other saturation plug-in(Brainworx Black Box) lets me do is not really increase the loudness but just add a little bit of grit/texture to the guitar while also keeping it pretty smooth.
More importantly it lets me hear the guitar without having it stand out in the mix,it lets the guitar sit a bit further back in the mix yet it pulls all this detail up,all of those extra harmonic overtones are pulled up in the guitar and it just sounds a little bit more cool/textured but again it's not an in-your-face sort of "screaming wall of guitars" effect,it's just sort of a subtle amount of saturation.
That's the end of the examples;I hope that it's clarified what saturation is, the difference between even and odd harmonics,the difference in the non-linear behavior of the circuitry...
The type of saturation that's induced really is all down to the specific topology of the circuit or the
plug-in that you're using so the real take-home from this video is that you've just got to get your hands on a lot of these plugins,feed them a lot of signal and just learn what they do...it takes a bit of time to tune your ears into these things and learn the differences between all of these types of saturation...
I wish this video existed about half a year ago... I wouldn't have had to figure things out the hard way. Appreciate it anyway!
greatest explanation about saturation! thank you !
Just when I needed it the most. I'm making a future bass track and the chords were missing something and not sounding the way that I wanted to like my inspirations. Thank You so much
Great simple straightforward explanation - thx. JPMusic
Another clear, very helpful vid. Thank you!
Def cleared up a lot bro!! Love your videos.
Bro you're really awsome for helping people with music production. I really respect you!💚
Thank you so much for your clear explanation! Really looking forward to applying these principles to my new mixes going forward.
You are a good teacher. Well done!
I truly appreciate the time you put in to your videos! They are great, you're great, thank you 1000 times! best wishes!!