FabFilter User Forum
Use Volcano As Saturation Equalizer?
So, I've had Volcano for quite some time now, and it offers various saturation modes. Recently, I wondered if I could use Volcano as a kind of saturation equalizer similar to the Spectre plugin by Wavesfactory.
However, I noticed that with the Bell Curve I can't set the slope too far, so the applied saturation only affects a small section strongly. It would be really cool to have the same controls as the ProQ, and I'm not entirely sure why that's not possible, although I believe there must be a reason for it.
Another idea to work around this would be to use Band Pass and add saturation as a parallel signal to the dry one, but I'm not sure if that's the best way to do it.
Marco — Jul 26, 2023
I'm not familiar with Volcano but would it be possible to feed it through Q3 in parallel and side chain duck it in bands of your choice from the dry signal (such as a cloned track?
I don't know... I'm just asking.
Thanks for the answer @James :)
Maybe I'm not quite understanding what your up to but it's not possible I think. I can't set a overall distortion type in volcano (effecting the complete signal) so that's why placing ProQ before isn't effective. In the end I only want have more option to pronouce the saturation type on bell curves with a more generous bell curve leaving the rest of the signal untouched.
I didn't articulate my response properly. My bad. My idea was to follow with Q3, which seems like it would allow you to create your dynamics on bands of your choosing through compression and expansion (like equalizing a send).
Also, I apologize because sometimes I think from the confines of my DAW rig and PatchWork allows me serial inputs, multiple parallels and serial outputs, instead of relying on host return tracks, so creating a parallel with a feature such as Volcano and sending it through Pro Q3 and adjusting the level of the outcome respective of the other parallels is nearly effortless, while sending an audio track to another to create a side channel for a Q3 seems a bit more involved. So my suggestion was just a thought on how I would approach what you were intending to do.
When I viewed the Volcano plugin it seems like you should be able to do the same thing without Q3, but I don't have it or know a lot about it... so sorry for being a butinski.
Thanks for your patience.
No worries James :)
Thanks for explaining!
I'm really interested in your setup for the patchwork. Personally I use Ableton and tried out DDMF Metaplugin but I didn't quite enjoy the interface and was a bit confused to begin with. I mean in Ableton you can do parallel splits pretty easy but if you do a lot of parallel sound design it's also not the best for having an overlook about everything at once.