heavy distortion without losing dynamics

this is a neat little technique called “companding” or “compander saturation” where we’re able to put compressors and saturators on either end of a saturator, so that we can heavily distort a signal then recover the dynamic range afterwards using an expander which applies the same amount of gain that the compressor initially removed. this can be great for coloring a sound with distortion while preserving dynamics. compander saturator bitwig grid preset: 0:00 clip for loudness vs color 0:44 drums example 2:03 MSaturator tutorial 3:45 compander in bitwig grid from scratch 4:58 vocal example 5:42 saw pluck example 6:06 summary