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I have been experimenting with this plugin and I am very impressed with it.

However, there is one control that is missing and I consider totally essential.  This is a global post-fx mix control that ranges from 100% dry to 100% wet.

With this control, you can set the desired quality of colour and then set the desired balance of colour.

Without it, you have to use a sends which is not convenient for group and buss level or even at channel level.

To be perfectly honest, I think this plugin has to have a global mix control and is partially crippled without it.  Please Aleksey, will you consider this for us?  It will improve the plugin in a significant manner.

Thanks,

Mark

From Q&A:
"Unfortunately, this is impossible as the “Valve Saturation” stage of VariSaturator has a complex algorithm that applies some amount of phase-shift which is very program-dependent and this disallows to perform mixing with the original dry signal.  It is not even possible to mix signals from two VariSaturators at different valve stage’s FX settings because of this."

On the other hand, "Digital Saturation" stage's FX parameter is basically a "mix" parameter (for signal levels is below 0 dBFS, all levels above are clipped regardless of the FX setting).

Hi Aleksey,

Thanks for your reply - sorry I didn't notice this was mentioned in the manual!

However, whilst I understand the general principle of what you are saying, I am still confused.

If it is not possible to mix wet and dry, then you are saying this plugin cannot be used on an fx loop.  Is this correct?

Mark

What means 'FX loop' in your case?

In Cubase or Nuendo, a FX Channel or a Group Channel.

Mark

Well, then yes, you can't use them to perform parallel mixing.

Hi Aleksey,

I'm afraid I still don't understand this.

I have been experimenting with parallel mixing and sends using VariSaturator and it works fine.  There is no phasing or any undesirable artifact.  In fact, it sounds really good!

Please can you try this for a simple method to see it:

1.  Set up two tracks playing the same source material.

2.  On one track, insert a VariSaturator and adjust as required.  Leave the other track dry.

3.  Use the mixer channels for these tracks to balance between dry and wet.

This works perfectly, provides much better control over the effect level of the plugin and produces no bad artifacts.  If the same routing can be applied within the plugin, this will be a huge improvement.

Therefore, I still think a global mix control is not only perfectly possible but also very desirable for this plugin.

Thanks,

Mark

Well, you are right.  I myself unfortunately tried it without checking the "Oversample" setting.  Of course, it does not work if you mix 2x oversampled result with the original sound.

OK, I'll check how I can add an additional control here (it will probably be a dry gain hi/dry gain lo controls).

Sorry for my misunderstanding and mis-trying.

Aleksey - thank you very much for listening and trying this out - I wish other developers would be so responsive!

Before you get too far along with any new features, please may I emphasise the need for ease of use to make things quick and simple.  Therefore, I would suggest a simple balance control is better than making in effect four controls to set the output level.  Could it be done this way?

This is what I was thinking:

The signal comes in a point A.

Point A splits into two routes, route B and Route C.

Route B is the Wet route and goes into the upsampling/processing/downsampling/wet hi and low output controls.

Route C is the Dry route and goes into a delay module which delays the signal for the time taken to run the upsampling/DSP/downsampling.

After this, both routes B and C merge into a simple Balance control which balances the two route outputs (it goes from 100% Route B Output to 100% Route C Output with all steps in between).

I honestly think that adding Dry Hi and Lo Output Gains is going to make things awkward and slow to operate - too many controls.  It really would be much simpler and quicker just to go for a balance control between the wet and dry signals.

I hope I've explained that OK and again, my thanks for you having a look and considering this.

Regards,

Mark

Yes, I also think that a single Dry control can be added.  To make the UI compact output meter can be made horizontal - on the other hand, UI still have to be extended to the right a bit.