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Best Saturation plugin?

Noone mentioned Slate Digitals Virtual Tape Machines yet?
Its my personal go-to saturation plugin next to Saturn2 - which is reserved for less subtle effects in my workflow. It works wonders in giving everything a subtle glue and making it sound less digital if used on the master bus or subbuses, while being less obvious than a lot of other saturation plugins, even if dialed in really hard. Didnt ever feel the need to even try out another one for this usecase :)
 
MarcMahler89 said:
Noone mentioned Slate Digitals Virtual Tape Machines yet?
Its my personal go-to saturation plugin next to Saturn2 - which is reserved for less subtle effects in my workflow. It works wonders in giving everything a subtle glue and making it sound less digital if used on the master bus or subbuses, while being less obvious than a lot of other saturation plugins, even if dialed in really hard. Didnt ever feel the need to even try out another one for this usecase :)
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Saturn 2 can be useful for subtle stuff. Check the transformers they added on v2.
 
Pier said:
I used it for years and it's really amazing.

Shame it's abandonware at this point. Izotope will not update it for the M1 like most of the Exponential Audio reverbs.
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I have so many saturation plugins but I'm sad Trash and Ohmicide seem to both be abandonware. Both make crunchy/extreme sounds that sound great, which is rare. And so many presets, seems like such a waste to not keep them alive.

That said I can't find any that compare to old hardware. Many do subtle saturation, but never sound as sweet as the real thing.
 
X-Bassist said:
I have so many saturation plugins but I'm sad Trash and Ohmicide seem to both be abandonware. Both make crunchy/extreme sounds that sound great, which is rare. And so many presets, seems like such a waste to not keep them alive.

That said I can't find any that compare to old hardware. Many do subtle saturation, but never sound as sweet as the real thing.
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Granted there’s no best and a plugin will generally fall short of hw but this one imo is really nice 👍

www.klanghabitat.com

Cassiopeia (plugin)

The plugin version of the 500 series stereo tube saturation module. AAX, VST3, AU for Mac and WIN
www.klanghabitat.com www.klanghabitat.com
 
FYI for the Soundtoys Decapitator, I was able to duplicate several of its settings (proven with spectral outputs that were identical) using Voxengo's freebie Tube Amp. I'm not knocking Soundtoys and I'm a huge fan of how they curate and make great sounds so accessible. And also praising Voxengo's freebie. LOL, I was using it before saturators even became a plugin category. As an aside, PA's Black Box is fantastic imo. [edit] Another aside, after doing spectral testing of a number of saturators, I'd recommend 2x oversampling them for 96KHz projects and 4x oversampling for 44.1 and 48KHz projects.
 
nortiks said:
FYI for the Soundtoys Decapitator, I was able to duplicate several of its settings (proven with spectral outputs that were identical) using Voxengo's freebie Tube Amp. I'm not knocking Soundtoys and I'm a huge fan of how they curate and make great sounds so accessible. And also praising Voxengo's freebie. LOL, I was using it before saturators even became a plugin category. As an aside, PA's Black Box is fantastic imo. [edit] Another aside, after doing spectral testing of a number of saturators, I'd recommend 2x oversampling them for 96KHz projects and 4x oversampling for 44.1 and 48KHz projects.
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Id also suggest using at least one instance of TDR Ultrasonic (eg on mixbus) in that case. Maybe more, depending.
 
Couple of experiments here. I quite like the exciter module in Neutron which has multiband saturation modules. This is not a recreation of Trash but (apparently) it carries some of the same algorithms according to iZotope. It's a simple control for adding some harmonics to things.

I also have Decapitator of course. I find TAIP by Baby Audio a fun alternative.

I'm also interested to try out something like Spectre by Wavesfactory, but having Neutron means I probably won't!
 
I love Spectre. Point and click harmonics in de-emphasis mode, thickness in place of EQ with the same workflow. Sandwiching a saturator between 2 gain-opposed but otherwise identical EQs is another cool one as long as you don't have to set any of it up!

Michelangelo sounds nice. But I too feel like throwing in the towel for awhile on keeping up with the new good stuff coming out. PSP Saturator and Spectre for 90% of everything, and plenty more great plugins than I need for the other 10% :cool:
 
Difficult one… Saturn is up there for flexibility, but also love SoftTube Harmonic, PA Blackbox HG-2, Decapitator.. I dont think there’s a no#1, all good on different sources.
 
jcrosby said:
Tone Projects Kelvin is pretty awesome.
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I agree Kelvin,Cassiopeia,Big Al and True Iron are my most used saturators they are all great: mix to taste.
The reality there’s so many good ones, for me it’s just a matter of what sounds good and not over-doing it.
 
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kgdrum said:
I agree,Kelvin,Cassiopia,Big Al and True Iron are my most used saturators ,all great: mix to taste.
The reality there’s so many good ones for me it’s just a matter of what sounds good and not over-doing it.
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I didn't know about Cassiopia, thanks for mentioning it, it looks really nice. I use the others as well though, and totally agree... Really quick and easy to dial in without overcooking things, but also sound really excellent.
 
jcrosby said:
I didn't know about Cassiopia, thanks for mentioning it, it looks really nice. I use the others as well though, and totally agree... Really quick and easy to dial in without overcooking things, but also sound really excellent.
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It’s nice and to my damaged drummer ears it’s a bit on the subtle side which I prefer. For me it’s to easy to over do the saturation and make everything sound like shit. So it helps me listen carefully with saturation plugins that can be naturally subtle, that’s another reason why I also like True Iron.
 
I'm still going with these, generally

Mild saturation
* SSL X-Saturator
* Little Clipper 2
* Oxide / Studer

Modest saturation/mild distortion
* Fury
* Saturn 2
* Decimort 2

Distortion
* The Scream
* Destructor v2

Of course, even the ones under Distortion can be mild, and vice versa, but they don't excel at it or make it as easy.

(tried many of the others mentioned and, well, it's personal like everything else - for example, none of the tone projects plugins "do" anything for me, let alone true iron)
 
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