Saturation

Shape category, instrument-level.

Rounds the peaks of the signal instead of letting them through cleanly. Gently applied it reads as warmth. Pushed, it reads as overdrive and then fuzz.

Controls

Drive. How hard the signal hits the waveshaper. Turned down it softens the peaks and adds harmonics you hear as warmth rather than distortion. Turned up the clipping gets aggressive: first crunch, then fuzz. The character changes along with the amount, not just the intensity, because gentle drive favours the harmonics that sound warm and hard drive favours the ones that sound buzzy.

Mix. Balances the saturated signal against the original, and it is the control that keeps saturation musical. Fully wet with high drive, everything is distorted. Bring the original back up and it carries the body and definition while the saturated layer adds harmonics on top. That is parallel saturation, and it is how you get grit that survives a small speaker without losing a clean low end.

Presets

Warm, Crunch, Fuzz, Tape.

When to use it

A little warms up bass and keys. More gives guitar and synth leads an edge. Pushed to the top it turns anything into a fuzz tone.