FabFilter User Forum
Fabfilter Saturn 2 volume issue
Hi there,
If I take a serum patch (just a saw wave), and listen to that on it's own, the sound is around -12 db.
If I apply ableton's saturator plugin, or Trash 2, or any other saturator plugin, if I apply drive, the sound gets much louder. Ableton's saturator, for example, with 5 DB of drive, ends up with a sound around -4 db volume.
But, when I take Fabfilter Saturn 2, and apply the default Warm Tape saturation to the sound, with full drive, I end up with a sound around -15 db.
If I try the "Heavy Saturation" preset, with the same drive settings, I end up with a (nearly inaudible) sound around -26.8 db!
Am I just misunderstanding how saturation works? Or should the Drive knob make the sound louder and more present?
Steven McKenna — Nov 17, 2022
Hi Steven,
Saturn 2 includes automatic gain compensation. That means that it tries to compensate for the difference in loudness that the plug-in is creating as good as possible. However, since saturation is a non-linear process, this can not be 100% accurate.
Since saturation usually affects transients the most, we tried to make Saturn 2 compensate for the RMS level instead of the peak levels. So it is possible that you are getting much lower peak level readouts when applying more gain. The loudness or RMS value should stay relatively the same.
In my experience, the RMS value is almost always significantly lower. A test I did today on a xfer serum saw synth loop:
warm tape distortion at 100% full drive:
-13.0 RMS no saturation
-18.3 RMS with saturation
-11.2 LUFS no saturation
-16.0 LUFS with saturation
It is very often that I need to adjust the band1 level or the output gain by 18-20 db so that the saturation is audible.
I wonder if there's an issue on my system that might be causing this behavior? Or maybe this is normal to have to use so much makeup gain.