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.
@@jshstuff also i dont know if this would necessarily have a use, but would it be possible to achieve this without the intial compression? Aka you just record the amplitude of whatever goes above the threshold on your saturator to reintroduce that volume after the clipping. So it would only be cutting off peaks but boosting them right back in.
or even crazier being able to adjust how much the initial sound is compressed regardless of the expansion in the end. so you could basically adjust how dynamic the saturation should be, but still retaining the dynamics of the original sound, rather than having completely even saturation due to the input getting squashed by the compressor. I think the thing you built in bitwig could already get close to achieving just that if you just removed the part that did the gain reduction in the beginning. And obviously application for this would be 808's where you might want a harder distortion in the beginning that fades off. If you compress it then the distortion would be applied equally which would be a different type of dynamics lost. You could be adding spectral dynamics from distorting a dynamic sound (aka different levels of saturation due to the amplitude differences) AND you could reintroduce the lost dynamics in the end.
yeah you’re a smart one!! this would totally be possible and could lead to some great results. I don’t think you can do that in MSaturator because the companding links the compression and expansion, but in my Bitwig grid patch all I’d need to do is bypass the module doing the gain reduction and it would work just like you said. thanks for this awesome idea 👏👏👏
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.
Look up eq curves, tilt is a setting for pro q, not sure where else you can find it but there are absolutely some other eqs that have that option. @PrideGamingTV
@@PrideGamingTV meaning; if you distort something using a waveshaper with a flat frequency response sidechain, each frequency contributes equally to the intermodulation that will occur in the distortion. By EQing going INTO the distortion, you can alter the impact of certain frequencies and their contribution to the distortion, and then do the opposite EQ after the distortion to bring back the original frequency response of the incoming signal. The "equing in/equing out" is simply to alter the behaviour of the distortion, and is synonymous with equing the sidechain signal of a compressor, or any non-linearity for that fact. Anyway, you know the sound of a bass heavy song getting clipped, and all of the high frequency instruments flutter and warble in response to a big bass note. That is the bass intermodulating the whole signal.
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 TH-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!
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!!
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
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.
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.
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 🎉❤
I literally clicked on the compander enable button, heard that it made the song sound like booty, then disabled it and never used it again. Thank you for this brief and well explained tutorial.
People normally say.."oh this is gold" and i am like hhhmmmm but damn all of your videos are gold and they speak to all the issues we all face and we hardly see other people covering or if they do their solutions are normally Mid. Thank you
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
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
Great lesson. I realized that through few mastering processes. I thought compressing some problematic bands like the low end would make my mix sound more stable on dynamics and tonal balanced but when clipper was used the problems got bigger hahaha
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 🤓!
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
Damn this just what i been trynna figure out for some drums not too long ago where things got too squashed, but i liked the grit. Was kinda able to get around it, but will def be using this in the future
- 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
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...
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 TH-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)
this is very cool, thanks so much! Been using MSaturator for a while but I always ignored the compander section because I didn't know what to use it for.
this is great! One question though do you think that using a tool, then a saturator/distortion device then a dynamics device with an expander setting and the input signal being the tool would have the same effect?
I’m not certain I understand exactly what you mean, but as long as you can find a way to add gain based on the volume envelope of the pre-saturated sound, then yeah it’s the same thing! someone else mentioned that you could simply do sidechain expansion based on the sound itself before the saturator, which is a pretty great solution. that could even be what you’re describing here?
Yes that's what im saying! Its nice to have it all there in the Msaturator but could potentially be done with any saturator if you sidechain expansion based on the sound itself before the saturator. I like the idea either way.@@jshstuff
Damn this can get completely creative! I do a lot of work with vocals and playing around with distorting them while retaining the natural dynamics is something i haven't really thought about. Thanks for these tips! Also the bitwig rack thing looks sick! Looks like a colorful and somewhat simplified version of the FL Studio patcher.
hope you get good results with this! btw Bitwig grid is certainly not a simpler version of patcher. imo patcher is a toy while Bitwig’s grid is a toolbox. the only thing patcher has that’s better is the UI creator tool
Maybe simplified was not the right word, but rather more easy on the eyes. Patcher to me always looks flimsy and weird lol it gave me a hard time learning the tool itself @@jshstuff
@GaashMusic yeah gotcha. patcher can do a lot of stuff but at the end of the day it’s just a glorified FX rack, as opposed to the grid/the ableton one (max for live I think), which are actual instrument/FX creation tools. I find that I have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get anything done in patcher. and yeah agree it’s not easy on the eyes, unless you spend hours making a pretty control surface for it.
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.
awesome stuff - had no idea about companders tbh. I always used parallel distortion or would use compressors to shape the dynamics of a clipped signal after the fact, but this is something really cool I didn't know you could do every day I seem to get a tiny bit closer to converting to bitwig I'm afraid
Really well done, appreciate the different approaches. Trying to see how this could fit into my approach options, in what ways is this different from parallel processing a selected track?
I’m using an AT2020 with a sock as a pop filter. it’s not a great voiceover mic so I’m doing a lot of processing -high pass to remove rumble/low end -found my room’s resonances and notched them a bit -a compressor to reduce just my loudest words by 3-5db max -noise gate for when I stop talking -a SPITFISH is doing some heavy de-essing -a TDR Nova is doing some pretty heavy dynamic EQ, essentially multiband compression so that my voice’s lows, low-mids, mids and highs are each more glued. It’s doing up to 10db of gain reduction for each band. -some eq to bring out the good parts of my voice and reduce the harsh parts -a little bit of parallel saturation to make my voice thiccer, but it’s pretty subtle and only mixed in at just 30% -a limiter at the end in the future I need to do a mouth declicker because my mouth sounds are still way too loud.
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
This is pretty interesting, just for future reference, it'd be cool to hear a super clear back to back comparison of the different plugins/ settings you're using, just for a bit of extra clarity to understand what you're talking about
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*
😵💫🤯
Its been a long time that ive watched a music production tutorial and it was about something "simple" and generally useful that i didnt know yet
🙂!
@@jshstuff also i dont know if this would necessarily have a use, but would it be possible to achieve this without the intial compression? Aka you just record the amplitude of whatever goes above the threshold on your saturator to reintroduce that volume after the clipping. So it would only be cutting off peaks but boosting them right back in.
or even crazier being able to adjust how much the initial sound is compressed regardless of the expansion in the end. so you could basically adjust how dynamic the saturation should be, but still retaining the dynamics of the original sound, rather than having completely even saturation due to the input getting squashed by the compressor.
I think the thing you built in bitwig could already get close to achieving just that if you just removed the part that did the gain reduction in the beginning.
And obviously application for this would be 808's where you might want a harder distortion in the beginning that fades off. If you compress it then the distortion would be applied equally which would be a different type of dynamics lost.
You could be adding spectral dynamics from distorting a dynamic sound (aka different levels of saturation due to the amplitude differences) AND you could reintroduce the lost dynamics in the end.
yeah you’re a smart one!! this would totally be possible and could lead to some great results. I don’t think you can do that in MSaturator because the companding links the compression and expansion, but in my Bitwig grid patch all I’d need to do is bypass the module doing the gain reduction and it would work just like you said.
thanks for this awesome idea 👏👏👏
I use Faturator by Kiloheartz and i really like how it retains dynamics while still providing an incredible sound
Great tip!
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
Look up eq curves, tilt is a setting for pro q, not sure where else you can find it but there are absolutely some other eqs that have that option. @PrideGamingTV
@@PrideGamingTV meaning; if you distort something using a waveshaper with a flat frequency response sidechain, each frequency contributes equally to the intermodulation that will occur in the distortion. By EQing going INTO the distortion, you can alter the impact of certain frequencies and their contribution to the distortion, and then do the opposite EQ after the distortion to bring back the original frequency response of the incoming signal. The "equing in/equing out" is simply to alter the behaviour of the distortion, and is synonymous with equing the sidechain signal of a compressor, or any non-linearity for that fact. Anyway, you know the sound of a bass heavy song getting clipped, and all of the high frequency instruments flutter and warble in response to a big bass note. That is the bass intermodulating the whole signal.
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 TH-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!
:)
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
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!!
underrated channel. what a straight forward, clear tutorial. props, mate!
This. Sometimes there do be gold in the reccomendations
that was some THICC KRONCH there at the outro with all the companded saturated parts playing at once, love it!
Love this, especially for me as a hardstyle producer where distortion is used everywhere, this opens up a new world. 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
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.
that's the best outro I've ever heard
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
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 :)
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!!
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
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
@@Ibbys_space I promise
Bro keep making this type of video, that's important knowledge for producers
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!
I literally clicked on the compander enable button, heard that it made the song sound like booty, then disabled it and never used it again. Thank you for this brief and well explained tutorial.
People normally say.."oh this is gold" and i am like hhhmmmm but damn all of your videos are gold and they speak to all the issues we all face and we hardly see other people covering or if they do their solutions are normally Mid. Thank you
Finally, a tutorial that isn't incredibly basic information.
your voice is exactly what i want my voice to be. literally so asmr
bro this is so helpful I didn't watch this type of tutorials for long time , thank you so much
This is some really interesting stuff. I've always wondered if this was possible!
I literally just tuned out your voice and listened to the drumbeat for like 5 minutes
This is why I love TH-cam, the only place you can find gems like this! Thank you so much for this the effect is great.
yw!
sounds incredible bro!! well thought are executed and an incredible video explanation.
"I tricked you this is a bitwig tutorial now" 💀💀💀
Very well edited, very educational,very informative, Keep up the good videos!
Loudness war is over but I can still appreciate your video, thanks
and this is how Skrillex makes his stuff loud af 😮💨
very insightful and helpful video thank you jsh
:D
First audio vid I've watched yet, very confused And very inspired.
Idk why I was just expecting another video on NY compression but this is actually quite unique
This is awesome! not seen anything like this and you know your shiz! Very Nice!
You actually saved me from endless hours of trial and error my music about to get really good
remember me when u famous
MSat is one of my FAVORITES
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. 🙏
you’re insane. been looking for a way to do this for ages. thanks so much
you’re welcome!
that is a freaking genius technique!!!🎉🎉🎉
This video is TIGHT, subscribed
awesome tips, this adds a lot of color without losing the clarity
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
Cant wait to try this on some drums!
Fantastic video. Informative and no fluff. Subbed af
wow i didnt think of this, fantastic
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
This is an information that you shouldn't share here for free.
(Thank you, you are a legend.)
thank you for being you
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
Wow, this is such a simple, yet genius idea. Thank you for this VERY helpful video!
Keep up the good work :)
you’re welcome!
this is some insane stuff ty for posting this
yw!
Game changer production tips
oohh that's sick! definitely gonna be using this
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
Great lesson. I realized that through few mastering processes. I thought compressing some problematic bands like the low end would make my mix sound more stable on dynamics and tonal balanced but when clipper was used the problems got bigger hahaha
stuff in the grid looks cool
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
Yo this is a real gem
amazing tutorial, very consise and entertaining. will definitely try this out
:)
thanks youtube for recommending this gold right here,,,instant sub!!
shoutout @youtube
This is an excellent technique. Thanks 🙏
thanks for class! What is the spectral visualization above? It is a complement? What is it called please? I see useful.
minimeters!!
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
Let's go he's got the most based FL studio theme kicking
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
What do you use to show all the sound visualizations at 0:50? Are they on your screen while you're working or are they added in post?
minimeters!! it’s a desktop app and I position it above my daw
@@jshstuff you're a hero, this is what I've been looking for for so long
wow these are some really great info my guy thanks! what program do you use btw as I will attempt this on fl studio
bitwig
Thank you, can't wait to try this
Damn this just what i been trynna figure out for some drums not too long ago where things got too squashed, but i liked the grit. Was kinda able to get around it, but will def be using this in the future
Reverse clipping. Sounds like magic.
Thank you for the high quality video
you’re welcome!!
Great video! I'm very impressed by all the visualizers in the top of your daw, is that a feature of Bitwig or a plugin?
minimeters!! it’s a desktop app and it’s only $10 it’s soooo good!
This guy is very smart, subscribing
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
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...
This is a game changer! Also, what's the visualiser you are using on the top?
minimeters!!
Your videos are gold, thank You so much🖤
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 TH-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)
this is very cool, thanks so much! Been using MSaturator for a while but I always ignored the compander section because I didn't know what to use it for.
:)
this is great! One question though do you think that using a tool, then a saturator/distortion device then a dynamics device with an expander setting and the input signal being the tool would have the same effect?
I’m not certain I understand exactly what you mean, but as long as you can find a way to add gain based on the volume envelope of the pre-saturated sound, then yeah it’s the same thing! someone else mentioned that you could simply do sidechain expansion based on the sound itself before the saturator, which is a pretty great solution. that could even be what you’re describing here?
Yes that's what im saying! Its nice to have it all there in the Msaturator but could potentially be done with any saturator if you sidechain expansion based on the sound itself before the saturator. I like the idea either way.@@jshstuff
this is incredibly informative! thank you!
yw!
Damn this can get completely creative! I do a lot of work with vocals and playing around with distorting them while retaining the natural dynamics is something i haven't really thought about. Thanks for these tips!
Also the bitwig rack thing looks sick! Looks like a colorful and somewhat simplified version of the FL Studio patcher.
hope you get good results with this!
btw Bitwig grid is certainly not a simpler version of patcher. imo patcher is a toy while Bitwig’s grid is a toolbox. the only thing patcher has that’s better is the UI creator tool
Maybe simplified was not the right word, but rather more easy on the eyes. Patcher to me always looks flimsy and weird lol it gave me a hard time learning the tool itself @@jshstuff
@GaashMusic yeah gotcha. patcher can do a lot of stuff but at the end of the day it’s just a glorified FX rack, as opposed to the grid/the ableton one (max for live I think), which are actual instrument/FX creation tools.
I find that I have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get anything done in patcher. and yeah agree it’s not easy on the eyes, unless you spend hours making a pretty control surface for it.
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!
awesome stuff - had no idea about companders tbh. I always used parallel distortion or would use compressors to shape the dynamics of a clipped signal after the fact, but this is something really cool I didn't know you could do
every day I seem to get a tiny bit closer to converting to bitwig I'm afraid
woah it's the coolest youtuber of 2023 aka pailiaq
do it I dare you, do it
Interesting video! And what vst do you use to create the audio visuals at the top? It looks so cool!
minimeters!!
Thank you so much! This helps me a lot!🤝
Really well done, appreciate the different approaches. Trying to see how this could fit into my approach options, in what ways is this different from parallel processing a selected track?
scroll way back to the earliest comments and read the thread under @Wurldz comment it’s a pretty good comparison
Gems!! Thanks for the tips. What a game changer 🧨
💎!
what microphone do you use? and do you have any affects or anything on it?
I’m using an AT2020 with a sock as a pop filter. it’s not a great voiceover mic so I’m doing a lot of processing
-high pass to remove rumble/low end
-found my room’s resonances and notched them a bit
-a compressor to reduce just my loudest words by 3-5db max
-noise gate for when I stop talking
-a SPITFISH is doing some heavy de-essing
-a TDR Nova is doing some pretty heavy dynamic EQ, essentially multiband compression so that my voice’s lows, low-mids, mids and highs are each more glued. It’s doing up to 10db of gain reduction for each band.
-some eq to bring out the good parts of my voice and reduce the harsh parts
-a little bit of parallel saturation to make my voice thiccer, but it’s pretty subtle and only mixed in at just 30%
-a limiter at the end
in the future I need to do a mouth declicker because my mouth sounds are still way too loud.
What is the visual plugin in the top left corner? Please let me know :) (with the RGB color waveform that looks like a waveform of a DJ software)
minimeters!!
Awesome!!!!
Love and blessings.
❤️❤️❤️
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!
Great video! What is the name of the analyzer at the top of the video? Is this a third party thing or something built into bitwig?
it’s minimeters!! it’s only $10 and it’s so good. I resize Bitwig to be a little smaller and put minimeters at the top
@@jshstuff thank you!!
u should post more, also this mixing based content is peak
This is pretty interesting, just for future reference, it'd be cool to hear a super clear back to back comparison of the different plugins/ settings you're using, just for a bit of extra clarity to understand what you're talking about