User Manual

Band controls
FabFilter Saturn 2 contains one set of controls to adjust the currently selected bands in the display. When only
one band is used, it will be selected by default and the controls are linked to this single band. Once you have
multiple
frequency bands available, the band controls are linked to all selected bands.
From left to right, the following parameters are available:
The Enabled button lets you easily bypass the selected frequency bands. When bypassed, the dry input
signal of the band is passed to the output straight away. Note
that you can also solo and mute bands with
the solo/mute buttons in the display
.
The Band Presets button lets you quickly save or restore the parameters for the selected bands. See
Section presets
.
The Mix sets the combination of unprocessed (dry) signal and the processed/distorted signal for the band.
The Feedback Amount knob sets the level of feedback for the band, which feeds the processed audio
back into the input of the band. The Feedback
Frequency knob sets the ringing frequency of the
feedback loop. You can simply compare
this to the distance of a microphone which picks up the signal of
an amplifier that outputs its
own signal: the closer the mic gets to the speaker, the higher the ringing
frequency.
The Dynamics knob can be used to either gate or compress the band signal. Turning the knob to the right
will add heavily pumping compression, while turning the knob to
the left will introduce great all-purpose
gating/expansion.
The Style button selects the type of distortion applied to the signal. You can choose between:
Tube emulations: from subtle and clean, high mastering-grade tubes to juicy or even broken tube
sound.
Tape emulations: subtle, clean, warm or extreme tape saturation.
Amplifier emulations: from American and British classics to modern smooth, crunchy or screaming
amplifiers.
Transformer emulations: from subtle and controlled to colorful and lush-sounding transformer
emulations.
Smudge: this creative distortion algorithm smudges and stretches the audio in weird and
unexpected ways. The Drive knob sets the amount of
smudging/stretching.
Breakdown: a combination of down pitching and aggressive distortion. Great in combination with
the Drive Pan knob!
Foldback: an aggressive and very digital sounding form of clipping.
Rectify: a crunchy combination of rectified sound, DC offset removal and soft clipping.
Destroy: a destructive combination of bit-crushing, sample rate reduction and clipping.
The Drive knob is obviously one of the most important parameters, setting how much the clipping stage is
driven with input signal. While increasing the drive, the output
level will be adjusted automatically, to
ensure that the overall sound level doesn't get out of
control. With the pan ring, you can change the
balance of the drive amount
between the stereo channels (see also Mid/Side
processing).
The Tone controls adjust the bass, mid, treble and presence of the processed band signal, allowing you
to tweak the harmonics generated by the distortion algorithm.
The Level knob sets the output level of the selected bands between minus infinity and +36 dB. With the
pan ring, you can change the relative levels of
the left and right audio channels (or mid/side when
Mid/Side processing is active).
The Remove button deletes the currently selected bands.
Tips
If there is more than one band, you can also easily adjust the level or drive settings of any band via the
interactive multi-band display
.
All continuous band parameters can be modulated, of course!
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