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Just curious. What is this Spectre/Saturn raving about? Do these plugins have some special harmonic profiles? Cubase has a build-in multiband saturator. It doesn't have that many saturation types, but it should be able to do the trick, to saturate a specific part of the spectrum. You can use normal EQ before or after it. Am I missing something?

SupremeFist said:
Also check out PSP Saturator
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I have both versions and I think the older MixPack2 sounds better. It also uses a fraction of CPU. MixPack2 is great overall.

MartinH. said:
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't John Williams often use dynamics lower than modern soundtracks commonly use? It might be that the instruments simply have a smoother timbre with less harshness when they aren't blasting at fff.
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The old-school advice has always been "drop the dynamic markings down one notch and it will sound better". The semi-constant multiple F is a modern thing brass players can't physically maintain during standard concerts without losing 10 pounds a night.
 
Saturn 2 is “just” a really good multi-band saturation/distortion plugin. You’d have to demo it to see if it’s a big enough improvement over your other plugins from a sound or workflow perspective.

Spectre is more unique in that it is a boost only EQ that applies the selected saturation type only to the boosted curve. There’s a video narrated by Dan Worrall on the Wavesfactory YouTube channel that explains it pretty well.
 
(good) Saturation types are good and modulation/stereo control are good, Saturn has both and mostly Spectre does too, just no modulation. Which you might think isn't needed anyway, but envelope followers on drive/stereo controls are pretty saucy

Interestingly because Spectre is built on parallel eq, you can have multiple types of saturation on the same "band" in parallel and depending on your use of the de-emphasis feature you can have it either with a linear response/harmonics only or alter the phase while boosting in parallel.
 
This thread should also include a drooling mention of Softube's Overstayer M-A-S. Exceptionally powerful, high-quality tone- and saturation-shaper, this plug-in.


02-overstayer-mas-extended-high-res-gui-pluginboutique.jpg





_
 
AudioLoco said:
249???

Softube are a really good company, I've got a few of their products, but these prices... man....
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I'd consider $99 for that plugin. It really is good. But it wasn't THAT good to my non-professional mixing engineer ears vs. what I already have. More different than better. For example, I found it really did a nice job of preserving the stereo image (some saturation/distortion plugins seem to collapse it to some degree), but... so does Neold BigAl, as just one other that does so.

For clarity: I'm speaking of the plugin only. The hardware seems pretty impressive.


Tanarri said:
Just curious. What is this Spectre/Saturn raving about? Do these plugins have some special harmonic profiles? Cubase has a build-in multiband saturator. It doesn't have that many saturation types, but it should be able to do the trick, to saturate a specific part of the spectrum. You can use normal EQ before or after it. Am I missing something?
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Yes, you are missing something. Whether that something has value is what you'd need to discover. Saturn 2 is multiband distortion (don't forget about being able to control the slope between each band in S2) with powerful modulation capabilities. "Swiss army knife" within what it does. You can make compressors, and do all sorts of impressive things with a good UX.

If you just want to add a plugin for some saturation, there are decidedly cheaper alternatives that are just as good for that. Which I think I mentioned (e.g., TWK, BigAl, etc. etc.). And if you want harder distortion, S2 can go there, but there's better. I think S2 may be the best "one size fits all" tool out there. That is, if you're only going to get one - and only one - saturation and distortion tool it's probably the best choice.
 
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When setting the EQ mode to "INT BIAS" it gets very interesting.

This plugin is pretty performance intense but on powerful machines I think one can still use several instances in regular projects.

Here is an example of the power of this thing.

Before (0:00) and after processing (0:23)

View attachment Source vs Result.mp3

It's not 100% Unfilter, I worked on the sound further with other stuff but 90-95% of the difference is Unfilter I think. And a touch for "FireCharger" which can have a somewhat similar effect at times. Certainly not interchangeable though.

Waves' Studio Rack can load 3rd party vst3 plugins. So you can put any plugins or combo of plugins on multibands, parallel processing etc.
It's free too.
(random note: Be careful with the "default preset" function. I got major issues when saving a default preset in Cubase AND the plugin itself combined. I think there was a fight of default presets or so)
 
Lionel Schmitt said:

When setting the EQ mode to "INT BIAS" it gets very interesting.

This plugin is pretty performance intense but on powerful machines I think one can still use several instances in regular projects.

Here is an example of the power of this thing.

Before (0:00) and after processing (0:23)

View attachment Source vs Result.mp3

It's not 100% Unfilter, I worked on the sound further with other stuff but 90-95% of the difference is Unfilter I think. And a touch for "FireCharger" which can have a somewhat similar effect at times. Certainly not interchangeable though.

Waves' Studio Rack can load 3rd party vst3 plugins. So you can put any plugins or combo of plugins on multibands, parallel processing etc.
It's free too.
(random note: Be careful with the "default preset" function. I got major issues when saving a default preset in Cubase AND the plugin itself combined. I think there was a fight of default presets or so)
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That's an amazing transformation.
 
AudioLoco said:
249???

Softube are a really good company, I've got a few of their products, but these prices... man....
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KEM said:
Yeah that’s an absurd price for a saturation plugin, and I love Softube as well
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FYI Softube has Overstayer MAS on sale for $135 at the moment and they have a killer bundle deal of Overstayer MAS,Chandler Germanium Compressor and Tape for $219 that I’m trying to decide on………..



https://www.softube.com/promos/glue-your-mix-together

I already have Tape but it’s actually cheaper to buy the bundle than Overstayer and the Chandler without Tape……..
 
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kgdrum said:
FYI Softube has Overstayer MAS on sale for $135 at the moment and they have a killer bundle deal of Overstayer MAS,Chandler Germanium Compressor and Tape for $219 that I’m trying to decide on………..



https://www.softube.com/promos/glue-your-mix-together

I already have Tape but it’s actually cheaper to buy the bundle than Overstayer and the Chandler without Tape……..
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Some people just can't get enough plugins. You want to switch to UAD, you do! That'll sort you out.

Also, though, Softube has a lot of sales, but this is one of their best in my limited experience. I think it is a good time to buy.
 
Bee_Abney said:
Some people just can't get enough plugins. You want to switch to UAD, you do! That'll sort you out.

Also, though, Softube has a lot of sales, but this is one of their best in my limited experience. I think it is a good time to buy.
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Sweet Bee you’re such a lovely amateur plugin hoarder,I already have 100 + plugins from UAD. 👍
 
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