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BPB Saturator (FREE Tube/Tape Saturation Plugin)

By 66 Comments3 Mins Read
BPB Saturator by Bedroom Producers Blog

Bedroom Producers Blog releases BPB Saturator, a freeware tube and tape saturation effect in VST, VST3, AU, and AAX plugin formats for digital audio workstations on Windows 10 and macOS.

BPB Saturator is a freeware waveshaping saturation plugin. It is our holiday gift to you. Thanks for reading Bedroom Producers Blog! ❤

The plugin emulates tube-style distortion and tape-style saturation. It is optimized to sound great, albeit with low CPU consumption.

See also: Top 100 Christmas 2020 Plugin Deals & Freebies!

We wanted to create a saturation tool that is lightweight and easy to use. Emulate a tube preamp by applying a bit of tube saturation, then simulate passing your audio through a tape machine with a bit of tape saturation. Or, go crazy and boost the input to use BPB saturator as a dual distortion effect.

BPB Saturator also features a pair of filters (high-pass and low-pas) that are smooth and transparent. Use the filters to clean up the signal, or to isolate a section of the signal that needs to be distorted. For example, try removing the top end from a bass sound, then add plenty of tube drive for a more aggressive sound.

How To Use BPB Saturator?

BPB Saturator is the more nuanced follow-up to our BPB Dirty Filter plugin. Whereas BPB Dirty Filter excels at over-the-top distorted sounds with plenty of filter resonance, BPB Saturator can deliver a far more subtle form of saturation.

You can use BPB Saturator to warm up virtual instruments, drum loops, bass sounds, or even the entire mix. Experiment with applying a subtle amount of tube saturation first to drive the signal. Then, add some tape saturation to introduce odd harmonics and level out any excess volume peaks.

YouTube video

Another rather obvious (and often overlooked method) to make your digital audio “more analog” is to remove the extreme high frequencies. For example, to warm up a virtual synthesizer, add a small amount of tape saturation, then apply a subtle high-frequency cut with the low-pass filter.

The plugin features a resizable user interface. If you’re using a high-resolution screen, click the 4K button in the upper-right corner to double to GUI size. You can also right-click the plugin to select the preferred GUI size.

Download BPB Saturator

You can download BPB Saturator for free exclusively at Bedroom Producers Blog. The plugin is free to use for any commercial or non-commercial purpose, including music production, video projects, sound design, etc. We are providing the plugin as-is without any express or implied warranty.

BPB Saturator is available in VST, VST3, AU, and AAX plugin formats for digital audio workstations on PC and Mac. Both 32-bit and 64-bit plugin hosts are supported. At the moment, the Windows version of BPB Saturator only supports Windows 10. We will release an update to support older versions of Windows in early 2021.

We provided both automatic and manual installers for BPB Saturator. Visit the product page below to download your free copy of the plugin.

More info: BPB Saturator

More articles:

Tomislav is a music producer and sound designer from Belgrade, Serbia. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief at Bedroom Producers Blog.

66 Comments

  5. Ron Music

     on

    I love the fact that it’s called BPB because this is my favourite audio plug-in website ;)

    By the way, I quickly tested this distortion on a plug-in and it sounds F**KING NiCE!

    Reply

  7. Gil

     on

    Thank you so much for being a light in 2020! You make my dreams of creating music come true because of being broke.
    Thank you so much!

    Reply

  12. George Martínez

     on

    Awesome!!! :D
    A little question: I’m working on a project consisting of making a track using only the BPB exclusive VSTs plugins (kontakt instruments not because I don’t have the full version jeje). Appart from the BPB Dirty Filter, BPB saturation, Groove BPB edition, wich other ones exists still avidable (from all times and dimensions :D)?
    Thanks in advance

    Reply

  14. bmovie

     on

    Thanks BPB! Also thanks for providing the manual installation files, the old school (and better IMO) way . Happy holidays!

    Reply

  17. ambedo

     on

    Any specific hardware unit(s) that this is supposed to sound like? Curious to know what kind of sound to expect from it. I already have so many plugins so I am a bit more cautious of adding a new plugin to the pile haha – esp if it does something similar to plugins i already have in my collection.

    Regardless, appreciate another awesome freebie, i bet there will be tons of people who will use this a ton.

    Reply

  18. MRG

     on

    Ow, I guess it’s time to upgrade, then?
    Anyways, thanks BPB for making 2020 a little less awful. :-*
    Merry things and happy whatevers to whomever reading this!

    Reply

  27. Ivan Colombo

     on

    Love this plugin! I always love having some saturation plugins on tap for those extra mojo needs.

    I seem to be having an issue, however, when trying to use this plugin while channel splitting in REAPER. I’ve confirmed that the plugin works well, but if I try to split the dry signal in channel 1+2 and the saturator in 3+4, the plugin stops working. Other effects work fine.

    Reply

  28. rek

     on

    if you update this, can you include a *simple* auto gain compensation option, so you can increase the grit and reduce the output at the same time?

    i mean unless this is used as a gain box, most of the time users will be turning the output down every time they increase the saturation.

    Reply

  29. Lars G.

     on

    Is this plugin mono for the internal processing, or is it Waveform 11 (free) that’s doing something weird? It sounds great, but I wish it was stereo. Also the suggestion for some auto-gain is a good one. :D

    Reply

    • Michal Ochedowski

       on

      Perhaps this may be of some help to you. Waveform 11 Free has some issues when dealing with VST3 plugins. It has a tendency to process them as mono or only uses one channel and the other is left silent. I couldn’t figure out what it was. When I load VST2 versions this problem doesn’t appear.

      Reply

  31. voyager

     on

    Thanks!

    I like the tape flavor mucho.

    But why is it 64 channels in/out (At least in Reaper)?
    And quite heavy on the RAM for a simple plugin btw.

    Cheers!

    Reply

  32. Andi Vax

     on

    THANK YOU!
    Dope plugin!
    Just please add numerical values for IN and OUT and Autogain compensation for tube/tape.
    It eats a lot of CPU btw ))) 0.4% on 9900K

    Reply

  36. Juan María Solare

     on

    Hey, just downloaded (I didn’t notice before… I used Ferric until now when I needed saturation). I cannot say if it is better or not, but in any case easier to understand. And… already at 02 (%) of tube saturation I listen details. After that, it is a question of taste, of course, and of the concrete audio signal.

    believe it or not, I also appreciated the short “how to use saturation” sentences… it is always important to remind the essential points and not to get lost in details.

    Have a great day

    Reply

  37. Sokoleski

     on

    Exxelent plug-in…. still!!

    Getting a lot of milage from this one , and really digging the sound color and simplicity of the GUI.

    Is it due for an update?

    …a couple of wishes :

    • Wet/Dry for parallell processing
    • Numerical readout on ALL parameters, HZ on the filters
    • Input ..invert button … output. So when you raise the gain for the input , the same amount goes down on the output, for easy comparison and gainstaging.
    • Oversampling (perhaps)

    – Again, a lovely simple plugin

    Many thanks for Everything you do…much appreciated !

    Hvala lepo 😍 i Pozdrav!

    Reply

  38. DG

     on

    With just a little boost of the tape and some LPF, my guitars and cymbals sound warmer and bigger. This plugin is awesome. Thank you so much!

    Reply
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