You Don't Understand Saturation

Saturation is one of the most important topics in music production. Saturation along with EQ and compression make up the most important tools we have for shaping sounds. Saturation adds a warmth and character to a track and can make a track professional sounding. In this video I describe the basics of saturation and harmonics and lay the groundwork for more advanced topics in distortion.
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Note:
The square wave at 8:25 is only 3 harmonics. If the sine wave was actually passed into the saturation curve it would become a wave similar to this: qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg...
You Don't Understand Saturation: Harmonics
► Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
0:50 - Saturation Crash Course
4:10 - Why Does Saturation Add Frequencies?
5:29 - Saturation Curves and Harmonics
6:05 - Odd Harmonics
12:00 - Even Harmonics
14:54 - Asymmetric Curves
15:12 - Intermodulation Distortion
16:09 - What's to come...

[@creddills7965]

i need more of this channel i‘m tired of tutorials being like:“iF yoU tUrn Up ThE deCay tiMe on The ReVerB, thE revErb taKeS lOngEr tO decAy“

[@sseb_music]

more content is on it's way sir

[@johndunn7733]

I am on the path to production enlightenment and sseb is my maharishi

[@lazyabeats]

Yep, I thoght I know everything I heard in this video, but it was collected collected bit by bit in years. Quallity stuff

[@wastepreserve]

this made me laugh so hard hahah

[@CensoredByYouTube.]

Oh my gosh, that just gave me a Kamala flashback.

[@xyzct]

I hope viewers can appreciate that this information is incredibly relevant _well_ beyond just music. Signal process is fundamental to so much of physics and engineer. Well done, sir!

[@mycosys]

Just about every piece of electronics can be described as a signal transfer function like that - it was honestly a better explanation than my lecturers

[@jb-ki9xf]

Ahead of the curve 😄

[@444Inlakesh]

his kno kno is thick and long

[@patski4]

When he got to Rectification, I was like: “Ah, AC to DC conversion. Electrolytics not included.”

[@noahrathje8976]

just thought the same thing its basically analysis

[@ramitimahashol5833]

Please never stop doing these videos. I fucking love them.

[@sseb_music]

Just for you, I won't stop 😉

[@Luwiszz]

@@sseb_music ye, you did it 😞

[@ckcheuk7921]

@@sseb_music where are you now

[@karo2090]

@@sseb_music Where are you?

[@criticaldamage8951]

@@karo2090 Hollywood abducted him because he was about to expose their secrets. >.

[@commandercortez]

Super surprised to see such accurate mathmatical signal processing ideas in a music production video, excellent job!

[@easynightly]

It’s very difficult to get me to comment on vids, but this is dope af.

[@sseb_music]

glad you liked it enough to leave a comment 😀

[@MOONRiiSENN]

Honestly though I wasn’t expecting it to actually be jam packed with awesome knowledge.... huge props

[@boomyx_ytk3546]

I agree

[@billbradleymusic]

Getting comments is more important than views and likes? Head scratcher 🤔

[@timmacdonald8141]

I just missed 20 seconds reading this comment and laughing. Rewind

[@gerben880]

wow, the part about quarter-wave symmetry and odd harmonics was definitely a mind-blown moment. Also perfect level of difficulty. Thanks for the university-level education!

[@dox1755]

Man your knowledge, delivery style, humor... Everything I want from a chanel

[@Sketchwald]

Agree 100% - and not an annoying typical super surprised-open-mouthed "you shit in my cereal" click bate-y thumbnail in sight!

[@odealianaffairs9001]

your tutorials have substance man. I watch a lot of tutorials online and this was the one first one that actually told me what exactly those fancy graphs on waveshapers are. Thanks!

[@odealianaffairs9001]

@@sseb_music really looking forward to the next video.

[@stevenschelling8452]

I have a degree in electrical engineering and I was very impressed with the mathematical accuracy you used to describe all this. Subbed, would love to see other music production techniques described in this way

[@qu765]

that play on words at 11:25 is worthy of a subscription. I really like seeing the cross between math and music that these videos cover, keep up the strong work!

[@Patrick-ryan-collins]

😂 thanks I missed the ... convoluted

[@808drumz9]

I'm an electrical engineer that started doing audio stuff and I've been surprised by how much engineering stuff applies to audio. This video introduces you to the concept of Fourier Series in a waay more interesting way than a college lecture.

[@Nevir202]

If you go down far enough, everything can be described with math. So, it's not that surprising that the more technical you get in any field, the more you start top see the overlaps. I mean, mechanical engineering and marathon running at first seem to have nothing to do with one another, but if you want to develop an ideal gait to optimize speed over time, you're going to start running into all the same issues that you do when designing an optimized machine.

[@codahighland]

Fun party trick: You can make a saw wave using a sine wave and a saturation function, of course. But if you apply a saturation function to a saw wave, you get back the exact saturation curve that you applied, repeated every wavelength. Bonus trick: This means you can encode any repeating sound as a saturation curve.

[@starfishandroid]

I don’t understand. Are you saying you can create a saturation curve based on the tone of the sound you apply?

[@codahighland]

@@starfishandroid Yes, I am indeed saying that! Think about it this way: A saw wave is just a straight line going from the minimum value to the maximum value over a particular span of time. If you scale value and time into the range from 0 to 1, then a saw wave is f(x) = x. It visits every possible value in the range, in order. Which means if you apply a saturation curve to a saw wave, it visits every point on the saturation curve in order. Which means if you use a sound waveform as the saturation curve, that means it visits every point in the sound waveform in order. Congratulations, you have invented a weird way to do waveform synthesis! I've actually done this in practice. The HTML5 audio functions don't have a way to specify a short repeating waveform for an oscillator to play, but they do have a sawtooth oscillator and a distortion effect that works by specifying a saturation curve.

[@kylemccombmusic]

Thank you for making a video covering this topic that does not dwell in half-truths and oversimplifications! This is easily one of the most misunderstood topics in audio engineering and most gear/plugin makers are not helping one bit

[@potrishead]

After youtubeing for a long long time and coming across countless semi-useful and plain useless production videos, I ended up getting to know this channel, and let me say, you are by far the best one. Clear, well done, technical explanations, graphics to understand better, and especially USEFUL tips on key aspects of production. Awesome!

[@u_ok]

“I made $1 million with this one EQ trick” 😂

[@clydehawkins123]

Dude, where did you learn all of this stuff lol. These are some of the best videos I've ever seen. I have a hard time understanding the complicated stuff, and I'm still not sure EXACTLY what's going on, but you do an extremely good job of explaining things, and I'm learning things in your videos that I've never seen in other tutorials. Thank you

[@pigsweat7763]

its easy you just look up the information online and then give a synopsis of it in a video.

[@lex4478]

@@pigsweat7763 but the question was where…not how…silly goose

[@samylemzaoui2298]

​@@lex4478 well then the answer is probably on google. not that complicated. the tricky part is to search in physics terms because its complicated to find in depth information on audio effects, but signal processing is exactly the same so no big deal

[@lex4478]

@@samylemzaoui2298 go to bed

[@Hexspa]

He’s probably into math

[@ianyapxw]

I'm still really excited for the compression video! Even though it's been 2 years I'm still faithfully subscribed and checking back!

[@88benz]

dude this is finally a serious tutorial that makes me want to delve deeper. can’t wait for next video

[@briefcasemanx]

This is much better than most KZbin videos, like Paul Third's, where they dont fully understand what they're talking about and either give information that's incorrect, or information that is strangely myopic and missing a lot of relevant information.

[@izaacthebeatchef]

man, the amount of depth in your breakdowns is amazing. i'm just starting to grasp at the technicalities of music and you've fed me so much more information in such a well put together format. thanks so much dude

[@outlanderart7273]

So I randomly clicked on this video to fill some time while I was busy and couldn’t actually search for anything specific. But instead of mindlessly listening for a minute and switching to something else. I was enjoying and thought I should leave a like and finish the full video. By the end of the next minute I was fully distracted by the video, not finishing what I was doing or looking for anything else to watch. By the end of it, I had decided it would be a crime to not subscribe and leave a comment for engagement of the KZbin algorithms. Awesome video, you made a ton of concepts I have tried to learn and never fully understood, super intuitive and engaging. How you explained and visually showed the information was the perfect tools I needed to actually have it click in my brain. Please continue more of these. They are great. Thanks for reading my Ted Talk about the inner workings of my adhd brain, moment to moment. ❤

[@mc2engineeringprof]

Dude, you really need to just do a video on Fourier theory and get it out of the way. Give as little of the math as is necessary, but don't hold back. People will get it. It'll make it a lot easier to be talking in the frequency domain instead of in the time domain from that point on out. PS - You're killin' it. Keep it up. I also can't wait to hear you get "convoluted*. Admit it: you've had some hardcore engineering or science training. I'm guessing BSEE or BSME, but Math or Applied Math or Physics or maybe even Chemistry are all possible, too. Theoretically, even CS, but you seem too cool for that one. Just a guess. Tell me I'm wrong. 😉

[@sseb_music]

Fourier is coming! We're slowly working our way there, but have to build up more of a foundation first haha. Thank you for all the kind words on my videos! And yes, I dabble in STEM from time to time ;)

[@hexionas]

Your videos bring back so much of my university memories back. I learned all this theory in the past and mathematics but it was before I started producing music. It was just another formula I needed to learn off for an exam back then. Thanks for putting so much depth into these videos they are really good for getting into the weeds of that is actually going on.

[@player042]

Yo this is honestly some of the best in depth explanations of audio processing! Great videos, keep it up :)

[@tristanwh9466]

Very refreshing to get more info than I thought I needed, typically with these type of videos you get less but I love how in depth you go

[@rzutyjenkin398]

Nerd talk is always welcome. On the subject of saturation, it might be worth mentioning the differences between simple plugins based solely on waveshaping and the physical phenomena actually taking place with tape or transformer. The nonlinearity of inductance based components is more complex and more difficult to simulate than active components like tubes or transistors.

[@PMEExperts]

This is the most comprehensive and clear video ever! Can't imagine how hard was to make all the images and animations to make ir clearer. Thank you!

[@capnzilog]

Spoken like a DSP engineer. You have my attention, sir - golden technical content!

[@u_ok]

I am literally rewatching the video I watched half a year ago, because this is huge!! Especially, when having the new videos on saturation. Love you, man❤️

[@macguyver3810]

I like the way how you produce your video --> no fancy cuts, the focus is on the content and everything is smooth! great!

[@AntonMochalin]

I like how solid and clear the concepts are in your videos. These are indeed the basics anyone doing sound/music production should understand.

[@Digitt6]

This is one of the most advanced and detailed vids I've ever seen. Absolutely phenomenal! I've subscribed. You're amazing man

[@dharshandm7488]

You have no idea how long I've been expecting videos like this.... Props man🤞🤞

[@menelaoeltrebol]

Great video, you are filling the gap in music making and mixing, that I’ve ever waited for. Great work.

[@welcomemcnall]

This is how a video is done, not just the what, but also the why. Breaking it down from the fundamentals. Way better than any other video i've seen on the subject Thank you! Keep it up! I will keep watching for sure.

[@user-ji5oe3wb5c]

Love this. Been studying sound design for a year independently and this is one of the most informative videos I've ever seen. I've come back to this over and over again at varying levels of experience and find a deeper understanding each time! Bravo!

[@joecm]

This video was freaking awesome, thanks so much for making. Looking forward to diving into the others. Please make more!!

[@SomethingImpromptu]

Extremely clear & rigorous breakdown. This helped me a lot! Thanks much for phenomenal work. 🙏

[@ryanoboyle1772]

Amazing video. I just found your channel after producing as a hobbyist for 3 years. Now that I’m getting comfortable with the basics, I’m glad to have a resource for more technical ideas that I feel ready to engage with.

[@TheUnderscore_]

Having watched a video from this channel earlier, I was unsurprised by the fact that this was incredibly informative and concise whilst still containing some occasional humour. Awesome stuff.

[@brianaltman9062]

Exactly the channel and content I was looking for. You’re a G for making all of these vids.

[@kasai1575]

4:59 this was really an eye-opener for me. I always imagined that less "sine-like" waves had more frequencies because more dramatic deviations from sine meant higher frequencies. This is a much more elegant way to think about it. A lot of the information you've presented in this video was stuff I had to spend a long time finding, largely because most production discourse revolves around "buy this plugin" and "use these samples." It's amazing to have all this information distilled into one source. Thank you!

[@frederikclosius1707]

Keep up the good quality, I am excited for more!

[@massimo-bnd]

WOW! I always wanted to discover what’s under those tool we normally use, like saturation, equalisation and compression, and finally I found someone who explain that in a deeper way than basically all the KZbin tutorial. Thank you so much for these videos, please continue to bring these tipe of format, I’m learning A LOT. 🙏🏻 In addition, I would suggest you to make some videos where you implements those theoretical concepts in a mix, for example, because yes, now I know way more than before on what saturation does, but I wouldn’t know where applying the right type of saturation. Thank you, again, for the attention (ye it’s a pretty long message I’m sorry😅) and have a good day!

[@Dthebeatsmith]

Wow, I wish I had been given an explanation like this in college. This is probably the most intuitive video on the topic of saturation that I’ve seen!

[@I_Davey]

Thank you so much for making this video, this is exactly what I needed! Can't wait for the next one. 😊

[@ianalmeidapinheiro8007]

This is actually the best production video I've seen in months. Learned a lot!

[@100chuckjones]

dude, been waiting for more videos. These are GREAT.

[@MixMeMcGee]

This is GREAT work. I don’t think that’s ever been laid out so clearly. Enough so, that even after 20 years of using this knowledge, I feel much clearer. Thanks man :)

[@georgevarghese383]

This is hands down the best video I've ever watched on any topic related to mixing and mastering. I love the physics and math involved in music

[@DirtyMike124x]

You not blowing up, leads me to believe many of the consumers of KZbin music production education were stupid, and are still stupid. They just couldn't hang, no matter how much crayon and macaroni you tried to cheerily, expertly, respectfully, and concisely spell it out with. You rock man. Thanks so much for these!

[@FlemmeDetout-qd6fn]

hey man thank you. Have been trying to produce for years and this is one of the most useful guides i've ever seen.

[@lantipode1617]

yo you don't post enough, your content is unique and people are clearly loving it, keep it up !

[@kristoferpersson6751]

Love these videos, knowledge served on a plate! keep it up!

[@basho5493]

wow this is the best tutorial ive seen on youtube about this topic, amazing - pls dont stop uploading

[@gtabro1337]

I finally fully understand what iZotope Trash 2 is doing now. Here, take my sub.

[@mc2engineeringprof]

"convoluted"! I love it!!!

[@ObscureProject]

What a video! I had a major backlog of Production videos I went through, roughly 150, and your 3 videos are hands down the best in that list, it's not even a contest. This concept in particular took me a few re-watches to really grasp, but you did such a great job laying out and depicting the core relationship between Even and Odd Harmonics, and how to maintain the Fundamental Harmonic, and what happens when you use Asymmetric Curves, it's knowledge really worth treasuring and I'm so grateful you put the likely massive effort required into describing it so well. I'm extremely interested to see how these concepts apply to Intermodulation Distortion, in particular towards things like Distorted Guitars. Thinking about such a concept and how it relates to massive walls of Guitars makes my head spin and I'm wondering if there is actually a method to the madness of making all of that work in Harmony or Dissonance without an excess of the other. Thank you so much for this invaluable resource! To say I'm looking forward to your next video would be a understatement.

[@MrJennes]

Please make more vids. These are incredible. There are few out there, with this level of depth. You are answering all of my questions, but as I'm sure I have unanswered questions I didn't ask, I would like to see more content, please.

[@OperculumAudio]

Great Tutorial! The visualizations of your videos really help understand instead of the typical videos where one has to figure out what they mean with no visual reference

[@Raest_999]

Man... I love how detailed and deep this video is. Going into the science of how things work is awesome, and including maths gives a deeper level of understanding. I know that's not a popular opinion but maths is vital for breaking real world phenomena into easy to manage thought experiments. I am loving your channel and content, and find that in a sea of beginner oriented channels that have very little left to teach me, I am learning a hell of a lot from yours. Please keep this up .

[@screw_the_world]

THIS IS THE MOST DETAILED TUTORIAL I'VE EVER WATCHED. YOU DESERVE MORE SUBS AND VIEWS

[@joshhowson]

Incredible explanation and quality visuals. I'll definitely be watching again.

[@chesterVonWinchester]

Great video. You clearly explain the mathematics while relating it to what we hear and perceive. You should make more videos that get into the weeds of signal processing like this!

[@varunkapahi8161]

please keep making more videos, i have learned more in last 5 videos than most content out there

[@segefjord]

These are some of the greatest videos about mixing. I love the fact you don't have 100 videos about some specific shitty plugins that you got sponsored by. You keep it to the very minimum content, but at such a high quality. - happy new subscriber

[@saturna8225]

Honestly one of the best tutorials Ive ever found on this platform. Thanks for sharing

[@distillednoise]

Never seen such an in depth and accurate video!! Congrats!

[@MrJose9783]

My guy this channel is amazing all these explanations helped me take my production up next level

[@hunterrobbins7590]

This was fantastic thank you!

[@sphyrnidae6749]

Pls marry me! 😂 Honestly, this is too good. Edu Award Alarm! Pls do more of this vids! Cheers from Germany!

[@sseb_music]

you have to take me to dinner first bb

[@sphyrnidae6749]

@@sseb_music may I ask what kind of background you have? Did you study something like engineering?

[@figmentariumanimation7598]

Been binging your channel and feel like I’m finally leveling up after a long period of production plateauing. Thank you!

[@sikdrumz5752]

Amazing. One of the best I’ve seen. Well done, and thank you!!

[@RyTheUnDefined]

DUDE.... I've been using graphic distortion and saturators for years, and had a pretty decent intuitive understanding, but I honestly learned SO MUCH from this video!! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!! Can't wait to dive into more of your content!

[@Dashmaster305]

You are basically the Aarthificial of music production. Instant sub for the in-depth explanation + clean, helpful visuals!

[@LPFan4]

I''ll have to rewatch this 5 times before I can make future suggestions. This is so transformative! Thanks!

[@Rubingah]

Thanks for this series. I'm subbed to many channels but this might be the first time I've ever hit the notifications bell. This channel is going to get huge, and deservedly so.

[@Rubingah]

"The best-sounding distortion comes from properly processing the sound before you even send it into your distortion" is eye-opening, as was your previous video's tip about (paraphrasing) "The more frequencies you remove from a signal, the more headroom you gain to drive the remaining signal into your saturator". You're clarifying these ideas in a way that fills in the missing links between theory and application. Psyched for the next video.

[@bradfordsmithmusic]

Thanks sseb. Great intro on distortion. This helps me to understand ehy saturation helps make sounds louder. I’m going to watch the rest of this series.

[@xs10tl1]

One of the best presentations I've seen on YT.

[@bechari1709]

some people pay lots of money to get this but here u are giving us for free. My thanks and appreciation.

[@subele_music]

This video was so well executed. I usually start to fall asleep with this much information saturating my mind. You kept it so interesting that I made it through the whole video, thanks man :')

[@bunny.bunbob]

this is so insanely good. my brain feels so understood.every craving for possible explanations or examples is satisfied before it can come to conciousness. 4 mins in and i learned so much that i havent learned in 13 years of dealing with music and watching production videos from time to time. i cant even express this properly right now. gonna go watch other videos on your channe afterwards.

[@bunny.bunbob]

its almost like an advanced AI sampled the way my brain understands those concepts or modelled them and then gave it to my brain that lives in the past with a 30 minute delay.

[@metalzizar]

Wish I found this gold mine ages ago, but I'm glad I did now. This was awesome dude, thank you.

[@veikster1165]

Looking forward to the next video, subbed!

[@franlarsen80]

Love the techie element - we have enough vids that gloss over the details of how and why, we need more like this.

[@hashi6160]

you've 💯 deserved my subscription and like. I'm really shocked that this content is free, huge thanks🙏

[@alvarocoras10]

Damn, this channel is crazy good. Keep working man!

[@stankyleggifications]

Lovely pacing mate, this is real quality.

[@odins_claw]

Wow! Was not expecting that. Amazing content dude, subscribed

[@djvoid1]

Looking forward to the upcoming vid!

[@cacheman2k]

Thank you! This was exactly the depth of explanation that I was looking for! I like your presentation style as well.

[@mistati8000]

bro you are like the 3blue1brown of music production, this is incredible. I have been looking for something just like this, that's some university level quality shit. Perfect to actually learn and improve, thank you so much!

[@slyparranini7639]

mate that’s awesome. I was looking for someone to explain this as clearly. Cheers!

[@magee3803]

Just WOW. Amazing videos. just watched all of them. These must take so much work, it will pay off brother believe me. One thing I would like to know: Specific EQ "tips", with examples. I know it always depends on the source, but i have found myself reducing certain areas on x instruments pretty much everytime (reduce 200-300hz on bass, making a smiley face on kicks.... etc)

[@MusicByKanak]

Here from reddit and been here since the first vid. Would love to learn about granular synthesis from you with the same depth as other videos

[@luiz69008]

niice video

[@MishkaBier]

I loved every second of this. Instant sub

[@user-ht9bo5zt4g]

One of the best explanations on that topic - big up many times!

[@tson6552]

Ive been watching your vids over and over and i keep learning new things, such a rich selection of vids you got👏 Also the background track is so fire, is it your own track? I need it omg

[@nickoldberg1752]

Wow what an excellent video! With great visuals and audio demonstrations. Bravo, ya got a new subscriber here for sure