Open sesame
Saturator has an advanced parameters panel at the bottom. This Internal Board contains five options alongside some retro-inspired circuitboard graphics. One key feature here is FAT mode. This applies the x4 quad oversampling algorithm and from the block diagram we can see this affects the High and Saturation processing engines, though not the Low saturation engine that precedes them. It’s designed to reduce aliasing, particularly with heavy processing.
Next up, you have a sidechain highpass filter (10Hz to 1kHz). This influences the main saturation engine and we found it great for focusing the processing away from the lower frequencies. This is really handy when combining the Low saturation and main saturation engines as it allows you to prevent too much overlap. Following this is a Smooth control that, when increased, gradually reduces harshness and aliasing. Then there’s a post-saturation Makeup control. Rounding things off is a regular highpass filter (5Hz to 250Hz).
Rather excellently you can position this pre, post, or even both pre and post. This gives great flexibility to shape signal processing. In fact, we’re not entirely sure why this significant option is hidden away in this panel.