I disagree about your statement that +0db is not useful. Actually most plugins do not clip audio at 0db for the very good reason that you might have a whole effect chain, where some of the plugins got too loud. Maybe you got carried away there but still brought the levels back on the last instances. The idea is not to make a mix that exceeds 0db, but just to enable a bit of freedom about the gain staging process between plugins. The very thing our digital context is so great at compared to analog gear.
Oh good another saturator. And not a great sounding one in my opinion. 😂 Fire the Gold sounds much better, it’s saturation modeled on vintage Neve. It was one of those free thingies, last year from Acustica. Maybe still free now. Softube’s free Saturation Knob is also better-sounding imo
Slate was great when Fabrice was the one programming the algos. Guy is a genius. He left, then Steven eventually sold Slate Digital. These new plugs are the new owners. Not horrible overall but they have definitely gone a different direction.
I found Heatwave to be very effective, but as an individual track effect, not as a mix buss effect as in your demo. For me it gave a very nice extra “ooomph” to a vocal.
I tried Heatwave on instruments, vocals and whole mixes. Pretty good sound! But I'm not sure yet if it causes too much distortion, I will have to try it some more.
I had a huge cull of plugins yesterday in between projects, deleted hundreds. All my go to plugins now fit in one piece in Reaper's docker, no more scrolling or searching slowing down my work flow, no more choice paralysis. Really looking forward to starting the new project with this setup today.
It’s their 1 knob saturator. Like softube sat knob and kit plugins Burier. Their descriptions are important. Why? I know mixers who don’t realize how hot the input going in absolutely reflects the non linear sound of a saturator. So if it’s got hot input and barely driven it could crap out. Where as understanding that one could turn the input down and then drive the knob may yield warmer, sweeter, and/or more of a window of tonal possibilities. For me it’s understood. But for plenty of mixers, their track is already hot and a little drive into clip won’t take much and they could think the plugin sounds terrible when the truth is, they don’t grasp gain staging into non linear plugins like a saturator. It’s the same as understanding why we don’t drive on the highway in first gear, but when you have only driven automatic you might think the reason the engine blew was because of the car not the drivers lack of knowledge. Cheers.
i think theres actually no string attached... beforehands they gave "fresh air" out for free as well no strings attached. i guess its to get new people familiar to their services? idk
yep, probably just ripped the saturation algorithm from another one of their plugins and offered for free in a (very) simplified interface, for fidelization and brand awareness ofc. nothing wrong with that imo
Not a bad plugin for free but what I was impressed with is the deal where they give the SSL complete subscription at no extra cost to your slate digital all access subscription for black Friday..... Granted I'm having issues activating mine and I got the obligatory we are out of the office for thanks giving message so hoping to sort tomorrow but what a deal.
The new Slate + SSL bundle subscription upgrade ain't free, it cancels your previous subscription even when your halfway on your yearly plan and you need to pay $ 79,50 on top of that...
@@gaetanclybouw when I did it yes it cancelled my old subscription but stated at no extra cost but you do have to confirm for 1 year but can choose to carry on paying monthly at 14.99 dollars a month which is what I'm paying. So no extra cost.
@@gaetanclybouw Product: Slate Digital All Access Pass + SSL Complete Billed monthly, 12 months commitment Active Stop renewal Next Payment: $14.99 on December 24th 2023
WHY DO I HAVE TO DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE EFFING SLATE DIGITAL LIBRARY OF PLUGINS TO RUN ONE FRIGGING FREE PLUGINS AND WHY DO I HASVE TO REGISTER AND ADD ALL DETAILS WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY but yeah its cool
Not sure the right place to share suggestions but I would love if you could cover TDR's new Spectral Filters This plugin tbh I would not install even if free. I think there are better saturation plugins out there even other free ones.
I want to become a member of your channel but don't know how to do so. I click on the " become a member" and I go to your website. How do I become a member?
Would have made a lot more sense to try it on an individual instrument or vocal track. I have to say I found this review (or whatever it was) a bit underwhelming but it was entertaining 🤷🏼♂️
So i guess my question would be, is how does it compare to similar saturation plug ins? For example sortube has the saturator plug-in which could be obtained free at one point and usually dont cost much if you were to pay for it. Would this product be worth sdding to a collection of similar products?
Softube Saturation Knob is, and always has been free. The main difference between the two IMO is that Heatwave is not just a saturator. It has some obvious compression characteristics and an EQ curve that gets more extreme the more you dial in the drive knob. It also doesn't saturate the lows at all from what I can see. It sounds pretty good on the right kind of material, but your control over the processing is so limited that it doesn't make sense using it most of the time. Saturation Knob is more or less just a saturator, so it's easier to use on most material and together with other plugins. The only thing it does except saturation is the two extra emphasis modes.
I only got it last night, so I’ve used it only on one test case, but I liked it very much on my vocal. Definitely does a saturation kind of thing but also seems to be some compression and EQ effect as well. I like it a lot at first blush.
There is a difference in dynamics if you look at the dB meters between input & output even without the plugin's knob engaged so at 0 drive. Wytse or anyone else with a little bit more technical knowledge than me can tell why or what it's exactly doing?
I mean I just shoutout slate this week cause they had me getting all my ssl plug-ins I wanted for not free but almost by including them in their subscription
So it's snake oil because they have paid products? I'm confused, sorry! Also, they have other free products too. It's nice that top tear developers give away products if you ask me.
I don't understand why people talk without really investigating what they are talking about I have a couple of slate plugins. All of them are free, and I never have to buy or subscribe to anything from them I have had them for years, so all that video is B.S It looks like there was no other subject to talk about, so here we go. Let's condemn Slate for giving a plugin for free🙄 And by the way, it is funny that I am defending Slate because I never buy their plugins because I think they are too expensive This is a crazy time in history. Nobody believes in anybody. Everything is a conspiracy theory This time, our friend is creating a problem that doesn't exist that is wrong and irresponsible on his part because people believe him when he Posts his videos👎
Again. Yes. Electronic music producer indeed try to have their masters as loud as possible at around -1 to -2 LUFS but this can be justified. Because their music played in a club by DJs track need to be comparable to other track in a set. Just turning gain button on a mixer is not an option in this case as it will clip output of PA system. Many clubs even ask you to gain down a bit level. So electronic music producers need to make masters as loud as possible without clipping output of PA systems. Hope this clear the confusion.
Autogain gain for saturation makes little sense, no? It creates more harmonic content. The entire point of using saturation like this is to make something louder.
Nope, when you drive the input you get saturation, lowering the output is just for gain staging. Just like driving analog pre-amps like a api or a neve, you drive the input and lower the output’s
When you said “what’s paying for it in the background”, I immediately thought about waves new silk vocal free plug in. Looks cool but would have to pay the update plan. No thanks 😬
I love Slate and use them a lot. but Heatwave comletely misses the mark for me. If you take your sound engineering a bit seriously, you already have solutions for saturation, EQ, Compression in your arsenal. A free plugin would have to be exceptionally good to make it into my mixing. This one isn't. Basically any saturation plugin I know does a better job than this one. Stock plugins with a decent preset come in every DAW these days. This urge to come up with one-knob solutions is Dumbing down the art of mixing good sound.
I ditched all my Slate plugins because they kept crashing my system. Pity though because some sounded very good. Like the Tape machine or the first version of the virtual console. But if you destabilize my system you gave to go. Mac Book Pro M1
The number of people that wants a master louder than 0db is incredibly small, even in the most extreme electronic scenes, the post gain is only needed if you use the plugin on a bus imo, my dude needs some vacations
I'm surprised that anyone want to master louder than 0dB. Why would someone do that? Even in the most dynamic music where I need as much volume as possible to get even close to -14LUFS-I, I still wouldn't go above -1dB TP. If you don't hit the standards you're just going to run into a shitty limiter on the streaming platforms that you can't control, or have the gain reduced. Obviously you're right and it's for gain staging reasons. I'm just surprised to find out people would use it for mastering purposes.
@@JoshWiniberg Some people make music aimed at festivals and they couldn't care less about streaming recommendations, i would still never go beyond 0 as it usually sounds terrible in every possible scenario
afaik slate don't do any of the funny stuff you mentioned. personally the installer straight up doesn't work on my computer though so i have to use individual installers, and i have the slate all access anyway so i guess i wouldn't notice a difference. that said, my experience (and the experience i've generally seen from ppl on gearspace) is that slate have some of the best customer service going. they seem to lean very heavily towards agreeing with the consumer and helping them out instead of wriggling outta stuff. maybe they're all being paid by slate though, maybe i am to write this comment.
Well... complains because the plugin has obvious tooltips - refusing to read user manuals it's not that bad having those, right, even if stating the obvious... Complains about "first control to be tried - it's the only one" - then in seconds finds out it's not. Then "Input gain is just gain staging of course" - no, of course it's more than that in a distortion - non linear - processing plugin "of course". Freak out about missing input/ouput gain linking - and it's there actually, even though I agree it should be an option and not a shift qualifier thing. I wonder sometimes why I am not yet subscribed to this channel - maybe it's because I still have to understand if it's a comedy channel or not... sometimes I honestly find this approach annoying. I'm also not too much in Slate ecosystem, but their free Slate Drums and FreshAir are pretty cool, same seems for this. It's a modern, simple and apparently good sounding plugin. what is REALLY GOING ON? Wrong side of the bed (me AND/OR him...)
I think you might be getting LUFS and dB mixed up. You don't measure LUFS with TP, it's a completely different measurement that has to do with average loudness over time. If they're hitting +2dB TP they've probably limited to very close to 0dB but not with a TP limiter, which is allowing for intersample peaks of over 2dB.
