00:00for the longest time I wasn't really
00:01sure what to make of bit saturator it
00:04always seemed a bit too elaborate and a
00:07bit too complicated to actually use it
00:09in a song and even when you get what all
00:13these controls on the right do here you
00:16don't really want to tweak them every
00:18time and I think to be honest I was just
00:21right you don't want to do that and I
00:23think bit's teams understood that and
00:26that's why it doesn't have this curve
00:27editor always so whenever you're just
00:30mixing I think the way to use this is
00:32you just use presets you save these
00:34things as presets and then you just use
00:37this View and just dial in a quick
00:39saturation maybe use this filter
00:42here and if you really want to dial in
00:46your own presets you can open up this
00:47curve editor but you're not going to
00:52mixing so let's just look at the left
00:54for a bit because these are the main
00:56controls we're going to be using when
00:57actually mixing so we've got this
01:00simply an input gain this gain linking
01:03here at the top that links the input
01:05gain to the output gain which can be
01:07tweaked with this orange number here so
01:10whenever you turn it up it automatically
01:12turns the output down to make sure you
01:15don't just get louder and then a low
01:17pass filter that lets you filter out the
01:19harmonics this doesn't filter the dry
01:21signal it just filters the harmonics
01:24saturator ads you can change filter
01:26curves and so on here we'll go into this
01:28more later but if you're just want to
01:30use this for mixing and don't really
01:31care for using any uh creating any own
01:34presets you can just stop watching now I
01:37link to my Discord somewhere I I'll post
01:39some presets there for like tube
01:41saturation but if you want to learn how
01:43to make your own and also how to remake
01:45plugins like P filter Saturn or other
01:48things just using this saturator you can
01:50stick around and I'll try to
01:52explain how it works and how all these
01:55different things here work so basically
01:57what we've got here is a transfer curve
01:59and the in coming volume on the xaxis is
02:02mapped to an output volume on the Y AIS
02:05so if we just turn all these up
02:07here this basically doesn't change the
02:10signal I'm going to use a saw wave
02:13here just so you can see what it does to
02:18the sound let me get some more in here
02:23gain and then we've got the loud bit you
02:25can think of this a bit like Dynamic so
02:28if we've got this D Amic curve here it's
02:31the same curve it just turns down the
02:33loud bits you can also turn down the
02:36quiet bits just like here with this
02:39thing and so these top knobs are just
02:42thresholds so we can turn the threshold
02:47down turn the ratio up and we'll start
02:51compressing our signal and because we're
02:53doing this with saw wave we're adding
02:55harmonics to it then we've got the knee
03:01kind of soft and hard clipping and then
03:05we've got the quiet controls which are a
03:07bit less normal I think this is called
03:09type B saturation I know that waste
03:11Factory Spector does it and some other
03:13things do it this is basically like an
03:15order rate kind of gating effect so you
03:18can turn the threshold up and just turn
03:21this down and you can see how any bit of
03:26quieter than a certain volume is kind of
03:29getting turn down here so interestingly
03:33if we drive the signal less more of the
03:36waveform is affected while if we drive
03:38the signal more less of the waveform is
03:41affected this can add a lot of snap to
03:44drums and kind of it's it's really like
03:46a very very fast gate kind of effect and
03:49you can also do some kind of upwards
03:52compression so the quiet Parts kind of
03:57here as you can see and then we got a
04:00knee which kind of Blends it with the
04:03waveform and that's basically how you
04:05use these controls then we've also got
04:08these uh asymmetry knobs these just
04:11exist for the loud part and you will see
04:13later with the harmonic analysis why
04:15these are important basically you can
04:17offset these for the other side using
04:20these small knobs so just one part of
04:23the way from either the top or the
04:25bottom is getting clipped
04:28more here the top here the bottom you
04:32can offset the knee for either so only
04:37knee and you can also offset the ratio
04:41for either by the way you can turn this
04:44to above 100 and it kind
04:46of uh starts folding the wave as you can
04:49see here it kind of uh makes a dent here
04:52and bends it back down again I slowly
04:58100% get this hard clipping effect and
05:01then above it you sort of get like a
05:04soft ratio compression kind of effect um
05:08and you can offset these all to make
05:11these asymmetrical shapes now because
05:14this works at audio rate incredbly
05:16quickly this adds harmonics to your
05:19sound so we're going to look at the
05:21Spectrum here and instead of a S Wave
05:23we're going to input something much
05:25simpler harmonically which is just a
05:28sine wave we're going to move this the
05:29visible area and just kind of maybe set
05:33this to 100 HZ so we can easily uh
05:37calculate the values of all these
05:38harmonics and then once we clip this
05:41down turn the loud threshold down turn
05:44this to 100% so like an Infinity ratio
05:53eventually negative 100% sorry we will
05:57add all these old harmonics you can see
05:59100 h is a fundamental 300 500
06:07900,00 and so on and so
06:11on uh using this knee we can kind of
06:14reduce the high harmonic so basically
06:18use you can see how it kind of makes
06:21these waves in harmonic but basically
06:22more KNE means soft clipping and less
06:26High harmonics likewise turning this
06:29ratio show down a bit sort of makes the
06:31harmonic slope off more turning it up a
06:35bit means just the balance between low
06:37and high harmonics we add changes but
06:40they're staying the same harmonics so
06:41they're always these odd harmonics
06:45here now we can do the same with the
06:48Quiet part so let's just make sure the
06:50loud part doesn't add any harmonics and
06:52then we can kind of Turn Down The Quiet
06:54bit and likewise we still add these odd
06:57harmonics here so 300 500 and so on but
07:01you can see how they're added at the top
07:03first so we add a lot of high harmonics
07:05so this is kind of an interesting
07:07relationship you're always thinking
07:08about when working with
07:10saturation it makes these uh audio
07:14domain changes to the sound so
07:17like it changes uh the loud and quiet
07:21parts and it also changes it
07:23harmonically and by dialing in these
07:25knobs you can kind of figure out the
07:26right changes you want so if we turn the
07:29Qui Parts up once again we add mostly
07:33harmonics then if we dial in some knee
07:36you can see how the harmonics get lower
07:39and lower the lower ones get louder the
07:43quieter and just setting the threshold
07:46now if we set the threshold lower we add
07:49more harmonics here which is
07:52interesting and if we set it higher we
07:56add less now these asymmetry knobs are
08:00important because this is how we get to
08:02even harmonics so if we turn down the
08:06bit and introduce some asymmetry to the
08:09threshold here so for example the bottom
08:12part here gets clipped more as you can
08:14see in this oscilloscope we start adding
08:17200 400 and so on HZ so this this is
08:20really important for like a tube
08:21saturation kind of effect so we can dial
08:26here and then we can tweak these
08:30just introduce some asymmetry and kind
08:32of change the relationships and loudness
08:34between these different harmonics and if
08:36we want to like the sound we get from
08:39this we can just save this as a preset
08:42and then whenever we're actually working
08:43on some music I would highly recommend
08:48this and maybe use this harmonic filter
08:50so what this filter does is it filters
08:53only the harmonics the saturation is
08:56adding so only the wet part of the sound
09:00if we turn this down you can see you can
09:02kind of control make sure that it only
09:04adds some lower harmonics if you maybe
09:06just want to add some warmth but don't
09:08really want the high high frequency
09:10harshness of these um odd harmonics or
09:15harmonics you can use this filter to
09:17kind of control the harmonics
09:18interestingly if we set this filter
09:21below 100 HZ So Below the volume of our
09:24fundamental our fundamental is
09:26unaffected likewise if we set this to a
09:29triangle wave or something this doesn't
09:32cut the whole signal it only cuts the
09:34harmonics the saturation is adding and
09:37this will of course also then affect the
09:39effect it has on the
09:43now we can kind of use this knowledge to
09:47our advantage now because as I
09:50understand it and maybe I'm wrong here
09:51feel free to correct me but this is kind
09:53of my simplistic understanding of it all
09:56saturations at the core are just wave
09:58Shapers like this so if you we get
10:00something like FB fter
10:03Saturn we can kind of just get a new
10:06chain get Saturn here and then what we
10:09can do is for example we've got a clean
10:12tape here maybe we want warm
10:17tape we can just look at our saturator
10:20here and then we can get the Spectrum
10:23and Route this in as a secondary signal
10:26so we can get the test tone
10:29X layer Saturn pre can see how the
10:33harmonic Saturn is adding
10:38here maybe drive it a bit more so we can
10:42properly and then we see our saturator
10:45here and we can do the same for the
10:47oscilloscope so get the Saturn in
10:54here and then we can kind of use this to
10:57match the curves from the pattern so as
11:00I understand it and as we can see here a
11:03tape saturation only really adds odd
11:05harmonic so we don't really
11:07want any asymmetries here but what we do
11:11want is these odd harmonics so first of
11:14all let's just hard clip this get the
11:17threshold down kind of get this set
11:22100% then okay we can see this adds a
11:25lot more higher harmonic so maybe want
11:31and this way we can kind of work our way
11:35to something quite close to
11:40Saturn um we can use these harmonics of
11:45course so maybe we want tiny bit
11:49of quiet no this adds too much High
11:52harmonics so we don't really want that
11:53we might want to use this filter here we
11:56just tweak pitch of this around
11:59we find that Satan isn't really low
12:01cutting or high cutting the harmonics
12:04it's adding as you can see if we were
12:06were to introduce this filter we would
12:08get a lot less harmonics in the highs
12:10than we get for a lower signal so maybe
12:13don't use this filter
12:15here but you can see how in the lower
12:17harmonics we're getting pretty close to
12:20what Saturn is giving us now I'm not
12:23going to tweak this to match this
12:25perfectly but I think you get the idea
12:28that this is kind of the same profile
12:31maybe we want some money
12:34here want some different wave shapes we
12:37don't really want a symmetry turn this
12:44down and we want the low bit to go down
12:48so we get more of this and then we turn
12:51the output gain up a bit you get the
12:54idea so I can just save this
12:57now TW get some more so it gets closer
13:00so I can just save this preset to
13:03library name this warm tape and now
13:06we've made our own tape saturation and
13:08once again whenever we want to mix
13:11something we'll just look at this just
13:15go okay we've got some warm tape now so
13:19that's nice now let's try something
13:21differently because I personally really
13:23like the sound of tube saturation so
13:25what we can get from here is let's get a
13:29warm tube instead so we can already see
13:33tube saturation introduces even
13:36harmonics so we'll want to start from
13:42here maybe set this to this value I
13:46don't know why this can't be set to
13:47exactly 100 if we double click it it's
13:5199.2 just how the values work I guess I
13:54don't I don't really care to be honest
13:56um so let's first of all dial in odd
13:59harmonics here give it some more
14:02knee I'm like this and then start maybe
14:09symmetry get our even harmonics you can
14:12see that the second even harmonic is a
14:13lot more pronounced than the first so
14:16maybe we can get that kind of
14:25we maybe like this and we turn the loud
14:30yeah this this looks quite good so I'm
14:35kind of trying to match the lower
14:37harmonics first and then for the higher
14:39harmonics I'm just going
14:45knee remove this ratio a bit some less
14:49Drive what kind of map these or we can
14:54Saturn no Saturn adds these all the way
14:57so we'll probably want to not use the
15:00slow PA filter again although in a
15:02practical mixing context we
15:04might and we want somehow okay let's
15:07start from scratch let's try to match
15:09this overall profile first we've got
15:12this kind of thing that's nice that's
15:16introduce yeah this this is pretty close
15:19to be honest you can see how the first
15:21two harmonics which are probably much
15:23more important for your
15:25sound will um kind of match this Saturn
15:29thing the tube saturation you can see
15:32how here on the osilloscope
15:34one wave side is kind of clipped a bit
15:37differently we can also try to match
15:40just by the oscilloscope by the way
15:42that's not really something I've been
15:43doing here but you can kind of the okay
15:47Saturn is introducing some latency I
15:50think because these are out of time out
15:54rather let's have a look at that we've
15:57not set that to high quality
16:01it doesn't really matter to be honest I
16:03don't really I don't think this is
16:05latency actually so maybe remove this
16:08quiet bit you can use this quiet bit to
16:12kind of further just see how you can
16:15kind of shape these waves here and this
16:18by dial in your preset so I'm going
16:22um look at these again can see we've got
16:26too many high harmonics here
16:36again and then some more knee to kind of
16:41add less High harmonic drive it a bit
16:44less maybe use this low pass filter to
16:47get like practically kind of
16:52uh change the profile of even
16:56harmonics and you could probably if you
16:59days to do this pretty accurately kind
17:03of match the harmonics that sat is doing
17:07by just using the scope matching this
17:10here using the Spectrum matching this
17:12here I'm not going to bother to do that
17:15because I don't want something that
17:17sounds like Saturn I want something that
17:19sounds good and you can kind of see how
17:21functionally this is doing the same as
17:23Saturn so I'm just going to save this
17:29and call it a day because I don't want
17:31to bore you too long with this kind of
17:37so if you really like a preset of course
17:40you can always save it as your default
17:41preset you really like tube saturation
17:44for example this is kind of a Tubb sound
17:47with these odd and even harmonics you
17:50can do that and one more thing I kind of
17:52wanted to discuss with this is the
17:55anti-aliasing so that's also why I've
17:57got this track muted you've not heard
17:59any audio examples the whole time cuz I
18:02think that's kind of beside the point
18:03for this because you're mostly just
18:06going to be listening when using this
18:07drive knob and I trust you to just trust
18:09your ears to dial in the right amount of
18:11drive you the auto gain to not fall for
18:15byas all that kind of stuff um let's set
18:18this to really high because we can
18:23see we will get some aliasing here now
18:29Saturn is giving us a lot more
18:32aliasing than warm tube because warm
18:35tube uh the saturator the bitwig
18:38saturator with default I assume is over
18:41sampled you can kind of see here it adds
18:48sound so let's just assume it's
18:50oversampled so if we go to Saturn and
18:53try turn on high quality mode good you
18:57can see now we get pretty much the same
18:59amount of aliasing so this is kind of
19:01oversampled as Saturn's equ equivalent
19:04of high quality if we set Saturn to
19:07superb you can see sat Alias is
19:10less um so I assume bit we kind of went
19:13for a reasonable but not overly taxing
19:17on the CPU amount of Alias
19:24see how this adds way less less aliasing
19:28out effects so yeah that's I think
19:30pretty much all I want to talk about
19:32we've got the anti-aliasing we've got
19:35the okay yeah if we turn this filter up
19:37we can see a lot more aliasing here
19:40so if we turn this filter off
19:44actually how much aliasing we get
19:47compared to sat on off so you can see
19:49we've still got some anti-aliasing here
19:51this Alias is a lot less than
19:53Saturn but um turn this to good
19:58similar amount of aliasing I would say a
20:03Saturn so I guess um that's also a nice
20:06little hint that you can use this filter
20:12filter uh to further prevent aliasing
20:15you can even see that it goes to
20:1833 5 khz so that's that's a nice
20:21indicator that this is probably
20:22oversampled so yeah that's uh I'm
20:25talking for too long again so that's it
20:27that's that's kind of what I wanted to
20:29saturator create your presets this way
20:33save them this way and whenever you're
20:34mixing and actually making
20:37music I don't like looking at this I
20:40think this is just distracting from
20:41making your sounds this is nice for when
20:44your sound designing and making your
20:47on but I'm just going to be using this
20:50and then I can just search warm warm
20:54tape actually save the preset like this
21:00maybe turn on a bit of filter just so we
21:03don't get as much aliasing save preset
21:05to library warm tape and then you can
21:09just warm warm tape add this to my
21:13favorites add warm tube to my favorites
21:15and now we've got our own bitwig native
21:18emulations of Saturn type sound we've
21:23saturation we've got our tube saturation
21:26you can of course also set this for
21:28other kind of uh effects you like get a
21:30demo copy some presets I don't know or
21:33just make your own sounds that you like
21:36so yeah that's that's personally how I
21:37learned to make sense of bit Wick
21:41and it sort of explains the very
21:43sensible design decision from the bitwig
21:46team to give us these two different
21:48views one for practical mixing and one
21:52if we really need to tweak all the finer
21:54details of it I hope that sort of helped
21:57you make sense of it I'm going to put
21:59the warm tape and warm tube in my
22:00Discord thing and then I'll see you in
