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.

free max for live compander by April:    • Free Max For Live Device: COMPANDER!  

compander saturator bitwig grid preset: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JgJp...

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