What is saturation in mixing? Find out what saturation is, how it works and how to use it in your mixes!
Saturation is a form of subtle distortion that you can use to add character and depth to your mixes. It can be used to help individual elements of your mix stand out, to create certain effects, to add thickness to a mix and can even help to glue a mix together by applying the effect across the whole mix. How a saturation plugin reacts to your audio, and how those additional harmonics sound can depend greatly from plugin to plugin.
The kind of saturation that your mix needs really depends on the result your after, and no two mixes are the same. But most mixes can benefit from added saturation to some degree.
And in this video, you’ll learn about different types of saturation plugin and what all of the common parameters do. You’ll then get to see saturation in use in a couple of mixes and hear the difference that it makes.
Jump Ahead
- Intro – 0:00
- What is Saturation in Mixing? – 0:09
- Saturation Parameters Explained – 2:10
- Mixing with Saturation – 6:18
- Outro – 9:28
Featured artists – Rusty G’s, Blind Fate