Blog 5: Plug-in Review

“A little FATNESS can go a long way”

I’m going to review a plug-in that was introduced to me at a recent guest lecture at SAE Institute by ‘Wasteland’. It’s called ‘Sausage Fattener’ by Dada Life. Not only is the name quite comical itself, it’s actually a great plug-in when it comes to adding that greasy and dirty edge to your mix. It’s used by some very well known DJ’s and producers including Tiësto, Kaskade, Diplo, Dirty South, Hardwell and Zedd to name a few.

At an extremely affordable pice of only $29 USD, this plug-in comes with a simple three knob interface, Fatness, Color and Gain. With these two parameters you can create loads of different sounds. With moderate settings this plugin can be used on a single channel as a compressor, however at the other end of the spectrum it can used for dirty distortion. It’s also suitable for use on sub groups ie. drums and bass, or on a stereo master track as a mastering plugin.

The ‘Fatness’ knob adds complex saturation to the signal as well as boosting the initital signal by as much as 30dB. Upper harmonics are introduced to the fundamental tone which causes subtle distortion. The ‘Color’ knob adjusts the distance between the harmonics within the saturation algorithm. By increasing the value of the ‘Color’ knob you begin to increase the volume (amplitude) of the higher harmonics which causes the timbre to become brighter. Too much saturation and the original signal can become too large and hence why a ‘Gain’ knob is included. This way you can adjust the overall volume of the signal and keep a close eye on the clipping indicator, also included alongside the ‘Gain’ knob.

To illustrate this process I will provide a couple of images below that demonstrate a simple sine wave of 261Hz (middle C on the piano) and shows that the ‘Fatness’ knob has reached it’s maximum at full saturation of the signal. As seen below you can see a multitute of upper harmonic overtones added to the fundamental tone. This adds character to the original timbre.

A simple sine wave at 261Hz with no saturation.

The same sine wave at full saturation; notice the upper harmonics that are introduced.

This type of saturation would be most appropriate on a signal that you want to have more impact and presence for the listener ie. bass lines and lead lines. Another more subtle way to use this kind of saturation is as a mixing technique to tame signals as well as accentuate them. For example an 808 bass sound that needs a bass boost or more presence but you don’t want it to take over the entire mix. This is really important for engineers in this day and age when more and more listeners are enjoying music with ear buds or laptop speakers that are not reproducing audio signals that are low in frequency.

‘Sausage Fattener’s also great for overall mastering, which is how the guest lecturer ‘Wasteland’ was using this plug-in. In this case you would insert the plug-in as the very last device in the mastering chain with a low fatness value of only 8% and color value of only 10%. This gives you the sense of the subtle yet extremely effective saturation and loudness characteristics that this plug-in can contribute to your overall sound. Attached below is a great/hilarious video with an audio example of how the Sausage Fattener plug-in works. Take a look.