Episode 6 - Harmonics and Saturation
Show Notes
Live With Matt Rad - Episode 6
June 30, 2020
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 6
Show notes by: Bradley Will
Harmonics and Saturation:
Jon uses transient shapers to make-up transients after saturation.
Jon prefers even harmonics instead of odd order harmonics when saturating sounds.
Jon mixes with less hi-mids.(2.5-3.5k) because our brain already hears them as 3-5dB louder than everything else. See: Fletcher-Munson Curves.
He uses Ozone spectral repair in this range to attenuate sounds, when he needs it.
5ths and octave harmonics are considered to be in-key, which is why Jon prefers even order distortion. He refers to this as a heightened naturalism. Good round, pure, deep, rich. All even-order.
Odd-order harmonics will immediately change the sound to something new, while even-order will let it retain its sense of naturalness. Even-order should work on any sound.
Jon does his compression through saturation and distortion.
He’s using multiple tools on his mix buss to add even harmonics so that he can add that fullness from the top down. His mix buss is entirely analog.
Jon hates .mp3 on Spotify because they are filtering out the harmonics with their proprietary compression algorithm.
Jon pans distortion to the left/right with Saturn 2 to keep the middle clear and clean.
Jon: DW Fearn Ruby plugin by Acustica is still not close to his DW Fearn VT-7 comp. Jon likes it as an EQ though.
Neutron Exciter in ‘warm’ mode (100%) is primarily even harmonics. This is what gives him the density that he looks for in his mixes.
Cardi B: 808 on ‘I Like it’ has so many harmonics.
Jon gets the note a lot that they “can’t hear the 808 on AirPods or iPhone”. He’s always mixing drums 808 and vocal on a trap record. That’s what’s driving the record.
Odd-order harmonics are going to give you the gnarliness of a Kanye distortion.
Jon hears a 500-900Hz boxy-ness from Ableton mixes. A cloudiness. Pro Tools is a little lower.
Bill Evans is Jon’s favorite musician. His left and right hands are perfectly matched at all times. You can hear the balance in every chord that he plays. Jon is trying to apply that balance to his pop mixes. Bring the brightness of the right hand down and bring up the left hand.
Saturn 1 has too much phasing to his ears when the wet/dry is less than 100%. He thinks that Saturn 2 has seemingly solved this.
Don’t buy tube gear unless it’s the highest end you can possibly get.
Don’t buy any high end gear until you can get a monitoring setup with no distortion. Monitoring. Monitoring. Monitoring.
He had some Focals beforehand and then he was able to hear the Saturn phasey-ness once he got his PMCs.
Jon never uses multi band compressors. Says it loses punch.
