Saturation & Distortion

Saturator 12.1: modes and the waveshaper

The 12.1 Saturator has six curve types plus a hand-shaped waveshaper. Drive pushes the signal into the curve; Output pulls it back; Dry/Wet blends. The Color section is a pre-filter (Base, Frequency, Width, Depth) that decides which part of the spectrum hits the curve hardest. Soft Clip on the output stage is a safety limiter. DC adds an offset to make a symmetric curve asymmetric: that is the even-harmonics knob.

1. Set Drive so the input meter shows the curve engaging: 3–6 dB for colour, 10–20 dB for obvious distortion, 30+ for fold.
2. Use Color: Base −6 dB with Freq 200 Hz, Depth +9 dB drives the low-mids into the curve harder than the sub, producing warmth without flabby sub harmonics.
3. DC 10–30% for even harmonics. Check for an actual DC offset downstream (Utility has DC removal if the device chain needs it; Saturator's own output is DC-blocked).
4. Output −Drive as a starting point for level match; use Dry/Wet 60–80% for parallel character inside the device.

Roar routing modes deep-dive

Roar is three saturation stages, each with its own shaper type (Soft Sine, Hard, Digital Clip, Fold, Bit Crush, Rectify, Diode and more), per-stage drive, tone and level, plus pre/post filters, a Feedback section with pitch/delay, and a modulation matrix with Envelope Follower, LFOs and Noise. The routing mode decides how the three stages relate, and that is the whole device.

1. Multiband for drums. Crossovers 150 Hz / 3 kHz. Low stage Soft Sine 3 dB (keeps the kick round), Mid stage Diode or Hard 8–12 dB (snare and body get presence), High stage Bit Crush or Digital Clip at low amount for sizzle. Per-stage Level balances the bands like a three-band EQ.
2. Mid-Side for pads. Mid stage Soft Sine 2 dB, Side stage Fold 10 dB with tone up. The sides get harmonically rich and move; the mono sum stays clean because the side channel cancels there.
3. Feedback for drones. Serial, Feedback amount 40–70%, delay time tuned to a note (use the pitch control in semitones), filter in the loop at 300 Hz–2 kHz. Modulate feedback amount with Roar's LFO at 0.1 Hz so it breathes. Keep a Limiter after it.
4. Use the modulation matrix: Envelope Follower → Stage amount (dynamic distortion: louder = dirtier, or inverse), Noise → Tone for grainy movement, LFO → Filter for wah.

Drum Buss: Drive, Crunch, and the transient/boom tools

Drum Buss is a drum-bus channel strip: Drive (three circuit models Soft, Medium, Hard), Crunch (a distortion aimed at the mid-highs), Damp (a low-pass to tame fizz), Transients (shaper, positive = more attack), Boom (a resonant low-end enhancer tuned by frequency with Decay), and Dry/Wet.

Overdrive and Pedal: filtered drive, guitar-pedal drive

Overdrive is drive with a band-pass before the curve (Frequency and Width), plus Tone, Dynamics (keeps some of the input's dynamic range) and Dry/Wet. Because the band-pass selects what hits the curve, it can distort only the 1–3 kHz of a TD-3 line, leaving the fundamental untouched. Pedal models three stompbox types (Overdrive, Distortion, Fuzz) with a three-band tone stack, Sub (keeps the lows), Gain and Output; it's the most "guitar" sounding and the harshest at high gain.

Amp + Cabinet: the rolloff is the point

Amp has seven amp types (Clean, Boost, Blues, Rock, Lead, Heavy, Bass) with gain, three-band tone, presence and a Dual mono/stereo option. Cabinet models speaker (1x12, 2x12, 4x10, 4x12), microphone position (Near on-axis/off-axis, Far) and mic type (Dynamic, Condenser). The cabinet's 4–6 kHz rolloff is what makes amp distortion sit in a mix; use Cabinet alone on synths for the same reason.

Erosion, Redux, Vinyl Distortion: digital and mechanical dirt

These three are not "saturation" but they all add frequencies that weren't there. Erosion modulates the signal with filtered noise or a sine (Noise, Wide Noise, Sine modes with Frequency, Width, Amount): it adds a halo of sidebands around every partial, like a grainy aliasing. Redux does sample-rate reduction (Downsample with Hard/Soft mode and a Jitter control) and bit depth reduction (Bits, with Shape and DC for the quantisation curve), plus a pre/post filter and Dry/Wet. Vinyl Distortion adds tracing distortion (even/odd harmonics with a frequency and drive), pinch (stereo-dependent), and a crackle generator.

Dynamic Tube: level-dependent harmonics

Dynamic Tube has three tube models (A, B, C) with Drive, Bias (asymmetry, hence even harmonics) and Tone, and an envelope follower (Attack, Release, Envelope amount) that modulates the Bias with the input level. Positive envelope: louder = more asymmetry = more even harmonics on the hits. Negative: the opposite, quiet detail gets the colour.

Utility gain into a soft clip: the quiet workhorse

The cleanest "loudness" tool in Live: Utility to push gain, Saturator with Drive 0 and Soft Clip on (or Analog Clip at low drive) to catch the peaks. The clip only touches the top 1–3 dB of transients; the body is untouched. Kicks and 808s especially benefit, and it's the normal first stage of a limiting chain.

1. Watch Saturator's input meter: you want the clip indicator to light only on peaks.
2. Push Utility until the kick's peak is flattened by 2–3 dB. On a mix bus, 0.5–1.5 dB.
3. Return the level with Saturator's Output so you can A/B at equal loudness.

Gain staging across a distortion chain

Every device above has an input level that decides how hard the curve is hit, and the devices' Drive controls are gain controls into that curve. A chain of three distortions needs the level set between each one, or stage 3 is just clipping stage 2's harmonics. Target −18 to −12 dBFS RMS into each device and use Utility between stages.

• Set each device's Output to roughly −Drive, then fine-tune by ear with Dry/Wet at 100% and 0% at matched loudness.
• Prefer two stages of 6 dB to one of 12 dB: the first stage's harmonics are redistorted by the second, which fills in the spectrum more evenly than a single hard curve.
• EQ before a distortion changes what gets distorted (the tone); EQ after removes what the distortion made (the fizz). Both are usually needed.
• Low-pass at 6–10 kHz after bright distortions on bass; nothing useful lives up there in a bass and the fizz masks the hats.

Hardware in the loop: External Audio Effect for pedals and modular distortion

Route any track through a eurorack wavefolder or a guitar pedal with External Audio Effect (set the hardware send/return channels, use the Latency control to compensate after measuring with a click). Put Utility before it to hit the hardware at a sensible line level, and drive the return into Saturator Soft Clip to tame unpredictable peaks. Freeze/Flatten or Bounce in place (12.2) once it's right.