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So much of sound design is about imbuing your sounds with life and movement, at every level, and this is a surefire way to incorporate that.
FABFILTER SATURN EVEN HARMONICS GENERATOR
This can also be achieved effectively by combining distortion in a chain with an auto- or step-filter, perhaps an LFO or envelope generator plugin such as the CableGuys stuff, or any other modulation effect. But you could also try fading in or out, or both, a distorted copy of the sound at some point during its complete envelope duration: in effect, modulating the distortion effect for additional movement within the sound. The most obvious technique here is to isolate or even add a whole new transient attack portion to a sound and then distorting it for extra definition and bite to mark the start of each note or hit. at certain points over the duration of the whole sound in time. at certain frequencies, you can also experiment with distorting different “horizontal” parts of a sound i.e. As well as distorting specific “vertical” layers i.e. If you don’t have separate sound layers to work with, try using a multi-band distortion unit such as FabFilter Saturn to achieve the same thing: set a band, distort it, and sweep it across the frequency spectrum until you find where it really brings out the most interesting bite or character. So, try applying distortion to only one of three “Sub”, “Body” and “Top” layers of a kick drum, perc or snare sound. It can be helpful to think of “sound designed” sounds as being built up of several different layers of discreet sounds and processing stages. And as with most aspects of sound design, distortion is often most effective when applied very selectively to specific portions of a final sound.
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This is essentially what an exciter processor like Waves Aphex Vintage Aural Exciter does, but you can achieve something similar with many different distortion types. But try experimenting with adding a distortion plugin instead, and setting the key controls (Drive, Tone, Input and Output Gain) to generate additional harmonics in the upper frequencies, that might provide that extra presence you really wanted in a more characterful and exciting way. When you want to adjust the frequency balance and add life and presence to a sound, your first thought might be to insert an EQ and directly boost the high frequency range. All of this adds up to distortion = some combination of more detail, and more bite. But it also enhances and adds to the harmonic content present in the original sound, making it appear (and actually be) more “upfront” and aggressive in terms of its frequency balance. Distortion typically does two things to a signal: it effectively compresses the waveform, looping off the peaks for that square-waved bite. In sound design situations, distortion can be used to either enhance a source sound or completely change it beyond recognition. Part 2: Distortion Effects In Sound Designĭistortion effects are a core studio process that can be applied to almost any signal, from vocals and lead synths to atmospheric pads and especially drums, in multiple different ways, depending on whether you want their presence to be noticeable or not.
FABFILTER SATURN EVEN HARMONICS FULL
Continuing our Sound Design series, in Part 2 we are looking at the many facets of distortion for sound design purposes: from subtle warming up and saturation to guitar amp effects, parallel treatments and full crunchy bit-crushed obliteration.