Not everyone can afford expensive saturation plugins, like those from Waves, Sound Toys, and Universal Audio. But that doesn’t mean you should waste your time installing subpar plugins.
To help you find the good stuff, we’ll be ranking the best free saturation plugins using the Scoville scale. Well, sort of. We’ll be ranking them from mild to extra spicy. The level of spice doesn’t indicate the quality of the tool, but rather how much it’s affecting the signal.
As always, we’ve got Fabio from Noize to share his (nearly) infinite music production knowledge and help us navigate the world of saturation plugins.
Let’s get to it.
Why Is Saturation Important?
Saturation is the secret sauce that turns bland tracks into audio deliciousness. Think of it as the condiment that makes your mix go from mild to “waiter, can I get some water please?!”
But for real, saturation can boost harmonic enrichment by turning cold, lifeless mixes into warm, analog sound recordings. It can glue everything together, much like throwing all your ingredients into a blender, and then BOOM, you’ve got a delicious tasting smoothie.
Saturation also functions as natural compression as it tames transients and smooths out peaks without the harshness of digital clipping. Consequently, this can also make things louder.
The three different types of saturation you might be most familiar with are
- Tabe
- Tube
- Transistor
Here’s a short breakdown of each type:
The Best Free Saturation Plugins
The Szechuan Saturator
First up we’ve got the Szechuan Saturator by Coda Labs, which they claim will make your music sound steamy and bootylicious.
When we fire it up, we can hear that it’s an obvious saturation, not a subtle one, which is why we’re applying it to a single loop.
We’re only addressing the input levels going into the saturation. The more input you drive, the more saturation you’re going to get. And for the output, we’re just balancing out the volume, so when we turn it on and off, it’s going to be the same.
The Szechuan has got a good sound, but what make it unique is the mod rate and modulation depth, which allows you to do some cool effects that you wouldn’t normally get with this kind of saturator.
Because it’s unsynchronized, you can add this very loose groove to things, which I think sounds really cool. It’s very creative.
Spice Level: Hot Hot Hot
GSatPlus
Our next free saturation plugin is the GSatPlus, which is a little bit more of a pro unit. It’s based off a TB Pro Audio channel strip, and it has three tube model circuits.
Even when we’re pushing it hard (we’re increasing the stages, pushing the even harmonics, the odd harmonics) it’s much more subtle than the Szechuan. This indicates that it’s more of a high end saturator that you could use in a mastering process or maybe on group busses, vocals, or even drums.
We really like the crisp characters on this one. It feels like it’s really lifting the highs ever so slightly.
Another thing that indicates the GSatPro is more of a pro-level saturator is the clip. That means we can clip the ceiling, we can hard clip those transients, and we also have the ability to oversample.
That means when it comes to things like distortion and compression, we can increase the signal, which is super important when you’re doing something like mastering.
This is a pro-style saturator, but it’s also quite subtle.
Spice Level: Mild
MIAfat
We love a really simple saturation plugin that has one dial, and that’s exactly what we get with MIAfat. This plugin is designed for maximizing low frequencies and is most applicable to EDM, techno, and dub reggae.
Since this saturator claims to affect the low end, we’re going to open an analyzer to better understand how much it’s adding to the bottom end.
It sounds good. We actually think it does quite a nice job of bringing out the kick and the bass on our sample track. You could use it at the mastery stage or on a kick and bass bus.
So how spicy is the MIA fat? It’s not subtle, but it’s not super aggressive either. When you use it in the right way, it’s going to give you the umph that your low-end needs.
Spice Level: Hot
Tube Saturator Vintage
According to its parent company, the Tube Saturator Vintage is the most accurate saturation plugin on the market.
The user interface (UI) is pretty simple. We’ve got an EQ section, a drive, and dials to increase the input and output. In terms of quality, we think it sounds really nice. It’s got that gluey, tubby, smushy sound that you want from this kind of saturation.
Even with a small amount of drive, it’s softening everything in a warm, analog way. We also think the Tube Saturator Vintage would work really well on vocals, bass guitars, and some synthesizers.
It’s going to help sort and smooth out some of those peaks and transients while still adding some nice color.
Spice Level: Hot Hot
BPB Saturator
Last but not least, we have the Bedroom Producer Blog saturator. It’s got both tube and tape saturation, high pass and low pass filters, and an input and output. The UI is super simple, and it lets you blend two types of saturation in one interface.
The tube distorts really quickly without affecting the highs and lows. If anything, it’s absorbing the highs and lows as you add saturation. Meanwhile, the tape is enhancing those highs and lows, and making them a bit more apparent (as tape often does.)
This saturator also reacts very quickly to the signal, so this isn’t necessarily a tool that we would use during the mastering process. It’s actually quite heavy-handed, which means it’s better suited to individual sounds.
Spice Level: Hot Hot Hot Hot!
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Once you’re done with these free saturation plugins, don’t forget to upload your mixes to Boombox and share them with your friends, family, collaborators, or label connections.
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