17-02-2016, 01:40 PM
Subtle saturation - lets say tape or console saturation - is hard to hear on a single track. VCC from Slate is a very good console emulation plugin but you can BARELY hear the effect on a single track if you don't drive the console hard - which means bringing the needle in the red zone and setting the drive knob to maximum. VCC doesn't distort like a guitar amplifier - it's way more subtle yet pleasing if you don't overdo it.
You WILL hear the colour and vibe the console adds to your track when you put the drive to the max AND turn up the Input gain. But on normal drive and input settings it's not a huge difference. It definitely won't make a shitty snare sound great - it just adds something to the sound that might or might not enhance the character of the track. If you put vcc on every track of the whole mix and turn all instances off you will clearly hear the effect.
Same goes with tape saturation imho. Different tapes and speeds produce different sound characteristics. Slates VTM is a great tape plugin and you can hear how different speed settings affect the overall sound - like a nice boost to the lows, less harsh highs. You probably won't hear much of a difference when you put it on a single track but it will be very obvious on the master bus.
The easiest way to hear what saturation or distortion adds is by using a plugin like decapitator, fabfilter saturn or ANY distortion plugin you have in your arsenal, put it on different tracks and just carefully listen to what it does. Put it on the room track of a drumkit and turn up the distortion. you will hear how the mids and highs get more pronounced. That's why a lot of egineers use distortion to colour a single track = to add more mids and highs. Open a mix. put a distortion plugin on the snare, play the mix and turn up the gain - you will hear how the snare sound changes, how it becomes more present.
The noise i was talking about isn't high fizz - it a static mid/high frequency noise. sounds a bit like the hiss you get from a vinyl playback
You WILL hear the colour and vibe the console adds to your track when you put the drive to the max AND turn up the Input gain. But on normal drive and input settings it's not a huge difference. It definitely won't make a shitty snare sound great - it just adds something to the sound that might or might not enhance the character of the track. If you put vcc on every track of the whole mix and turn all instances off you will clearly hear the effect.
Same goes with tape saturation imho. Different tapes and speeds produce different sound characteristics. Slates VTM is a great tape plugin and you can hear how different speed settings affect the overall sound - like a nice boost to the lows, less harsh highs. You probably won't hear much of a difference when you put it on a single track but it will be very obvious on the master bus.
The easiest way to hear what saturation or distortion adds is by using a plugin like decapitator, fabfilter saturn or ANY distortion plugin you have in your arsenal, put it on different tracks and just carefully listen to what it does. Put it on the room track of a drumkit and turn up the distortion. you will hear how the mids and highs get more pronounced. That's why a lot of egineers use distortion to colour a single track = to add more mids and highs. Open a mix. put a distortion plugin on the snare, play the mix and turn up the gain - you will hear how the snare sound changes, how it becomes more present.
The noise i was talking about isn't high fizz - it a static mid/high frequency noise. sounds a bit like the hiss you get from a vinyl playback