WAVES
Cobalt Saphira
User Guide
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1 – Introduction .................................................................................... 3
1.1 Welcome ............................................................................................................... 3
1.2 Product Overview .................................................................................................. 3
1.3 Components .......................................................................................................... 5
1.4 WaveSystem Toolbar............................................................................................. 5
Chapter 2 – Quick Start Guide ........................................................................... 6
Chapter 3 – Interface and Controls ................................................................... 7
3.1 Interface................................................................................................................. 7
3.2 Controls ................................................................................................................. 8
3.3 Cobalt Saphira Signal Flow .................................................................................. 12
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Chapter 1 – Introduction
1.1 Welcome
Thank you for choosing Waves! In order to get the most out of your new Waves plugin,
please take a moment to read this user guide.
To install software and manage your licenses, you need to have a free Waves account.
Sign up at www.waves.com. With a Waves account you can keep track of your
products, renew your Waves Update Plan, participate in bonus programs, and keep up
to date with important information.
We suggest that you become familiar with the Waves Support pages: www.waves.com/
support. There are technical articles about installation, troubleshooting, specifications,
and more. Plus, you’ll find company contact information and Waves Support news.
1.2 Product Overview
Cobalt Saphira is the first plugin in the new Cobalt line of groundbreaking products from
Waves. With analog characteristics that only digital can achieve, Cobalt Saphira takes
everything we know about harmonic enhancement and puts you in the driver’s seat with
a digital dashboard. Cobalt Saphira provides instant harmonic depth, richness and
added dimension to the source material, with minimal impact on the other characteristics
of your sound.
Added warmth, “glue,” and depth are but some of the benefits that Cobalt Saphira
contributes to your overall mix:
Warmth: No one can accurately define the word “warm” in a musical setting, but we all
know it when we hear it, and virtually every pair of ears is pleased by the warmth we
hear when a signal is passed through analog circuitry.
Glue: The term “glue” is often used to refer to the benefits of compression. But all it
really describes is when tracks sound more like a coherent mix than a cluster of
individual tracks. Cobalt Saphira is an excellent tool to provide glue for groups and submixes as well as in mastering situations.
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Depth: Achieving balance and clarity in a mix is expected. Achieving depth in a mix is
where they single out the pros. Thanks to Waves’ optimized integration of analog
modeling and digital innovation, Cobalt Saphira allows you to inject real depth into your
mixes with unmatched simplicity.
W
hether mixing or mastering, live or in the studio, Cobalt Saphira gives you rich
harmonic enhancement that can be creatively tailored exactly how you like it – a full
palette of analog colors for you to pour all over your tracks. With its Edge and Warmth
harmonics generation engines, different tape modulations and harmonic filters, Cobalt
Saphira gives you detailed control over the harmonic content of any musical material,
delivering that “little extra something” that can change the entire feel of an instrument or
song.
A
Few Words about Harmonics
Instruments playing a note usually do not produce clean sinusoids. For example, the A
string of a guitar does not produce a pure 110 Hz frequency. Due to uneven string
vibration, guitar body resonance, etc. it also produces additional resonating frequencies,
also known as overtones and harmonics (whole-number multipliers of the frequency:
harmonics are always overtones, but not all overtones are harmonics). These
phenomena add to the rich sound of guitar playing.
Ele
ctrical circuits also add harmonics to the signals that pass through them due to their
imperfect, non-symmetrical components. The harmonic content produced by these
imperfections creates the sense of richness and depth.
T
here are two types of harmonics, even and odd, depending on the multiplier of the
fundamental frequency. For example, if your fundamental signal is a 1 kHz sine tone,
then 2 kHz is an even harmonic, while 3 kHz is an odd harmonic. A sound’s harmonic
structure is determined by certain attributes:
mplitude: Harmonics are very level-dependent in nature. Usually, the higher the
• A
signal, the more harmonics are present.
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