Hi,

I have been waiting for the Fabfilter Saturn 2 to be on sale, but I also found out that Izotope's Plasma and Soundtoys Decapitator are on sale right now.

Which one would you recommend, if I only can use one of them?

Saturn I guess is the most advanced. Though SoundToys I really like their stuff. No clue what to tell you. what DAW do you use? did you check out the saturation plugins in that?

I am mainly using Ableton and Pro Tools, but feel that I need to invest in a "real" saturation plugin. I know that many established and good producers are using Decapitator, but I just discovered Plasma and wonder if that is better compared to the price and maybe some new AI functions. But Saturn 2 seems to be more advanced if you learn all it's functions, but more expensive though. I already own Pro-Q3 and Pro-C2

I use both Saturn and Decapitator. Though Decapitator can deliver feisty saturation, Saturn is more versatile due to routing and multiband capabilities, and Fabfilter is always a good choice. That said, another personal favourite is Black Box Analog Design HG-2.

I know the feeling, but if you have Ableton 12 and 12.1 you already have very good saturation built in. For a Saturn like experience you can use Roar, and for a general saturation the Saturator effect has been upgraded in 12.1. I really suggest spending time with those. The builtin stuff is really underrated.

Edit: for reference I have and use Kelvin, Saturn 2, Softube Harmonics, Newfangled Saturate, Eftilo Mogano, Decimort 2, and The Scream

Saturn is intended for a wider variety of uses, and is far more flexible than Decap. But, there’s a huge price difference. All FF plugins ate expensive, even when on sale.

I’ve started to use the Black Box Analog instead of Decap for subtle saturation, so maybe check that out.

Izotope has Trash 2 if you want something super dirty, or the original Trash if you don’t mind an ugly interface. I don’t much trust any new stuff from Izotope, since everything is centered around “auto” something.

Also check out ShaperBox, which has a Crush module (and lots and lots of other features)

been into kclip lately. cassiopeia is another that I like a lot.

Waves magma
UAD Helios
New metric halo
Wavearts tube
Lots of great stuff out there

Hazelrigg > wavearts and magma by a very long mile.

Saturn2

There’s definitely alternatives to Decapitator (which aliases by the way, which you may or may not want). I prefer Korneff Audio and Kush Audio plugins for a more vintage vibe. Or a straight up wave shaper like Inflator. Or a pedal emulation like the incomparable The Scream.

Tone Projects Kelvin - if you want versatility in characters and high quality of processing.

Saturn is good. I just don't like its workflow style and a bit "static" saturation modes.

Old, forgotten but still versatile (and high quality!) — Klanghelm SDRR.

Kush bundle is excellent. Wish it was assembled in 1 plugin with "mode" switch.

Everything else i know is "one plugin - one type of saturation", tho maybe an advanced one.
Everything by Neold is great.
Sonimus consoles are great.
...

Saturn2 in theory could cover you, all possible distortions are included.
Dont know why is not that favoured. Technical gui instead of an skin of a vintage gear?
Absence of emulation of a famous vintage gear??
It gives you all the tools you might need but doesnt help you with refereence. Leaving you to yourseld decide. Difficult.

Saturn is widely respected by everyone folks in my circle, at least, and FabFilter in general is a reliable industry standard. I doubt you'd go wrong with Saturn.

My go-to these days is Kelvin, though (I recently joined the ever-growing Kult of Kelvin, I suppose). It's really, really good. I have a ton of saturation plugins but this one swiftly became my favorite. Others I really like are Neold Big Al, Black Box HG2, and Phil's Cascade, plus the venerable Decapitator that still is quite good and widely used for good reason.

Really no bad choices here, we're spoiled for excellent plugins these days.

Kelvin was one I installed, tried, and deleted. I didn’t get what was special about it (and also thought it was too much an EQ and I prefer clean EQ - I rarely use an analog emulation EQ). I’ll have to try it again some day.

LTL Silver Bullet mk2 is one of the best current saturators. Best purchased from LTL and not PA - also better than the others to my ears than any other one distributed by PA.

Best saturators: NFuse, Newfangled saturate, Decapitator, OTT , Squasher [Cubase], Inflator,