So now that empirical labs are officially releasing a distressor plugin soon, interested?

[Twrogstudio]

It's a great plugin, but they should have made it clear from the beginning that this was not going to be 1:1 Distressor (if they could). It was only at the last minute that the details came out and it seems to have caused a bit of a stir. Having said that (and as a non HW Distressor owner) I think the plugin sound great, but at $349 it's a bit rich for me.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

true.. i'm no longer interested, no brit mode, for that money it should have all the features.

What would have been interesting to me personally, is a 1:1 clone including settings, with simply an added variable detector highpass rather than the fixed of the hardware, and the mix knob. That would have been perfect.

Anyway it's almost 500 aussie bucks, i just realised what i could get for that money and i believe i could get a much better overall variety of compressors with that money than just the one.

I guess my main disappointment is you have to work so hard to get it close to the hardware, and guess what, clicky attack like almost every single other software compressor - hardware distressor is nowhere near this clicky with fast attacks.

[GHOST19]

Great !

I love to see overpriced crap bite the dust.

[whyterabbyt]

There is no iLok 3 that I know of. Just a update to iLok 2.

right...its called iLok 3

You better tell ilok.com then as they're still selling the old one.

https://ilok.com/#!buy

[Endor-8o8]

Anyway it's almost 500 aussie bucks, i just realised what i could get for that money and i believe i could get a much better overall variety of compressors with that money than just the one.

That kind of price doesn't make any sense nowadays. There are so many
competitors (indies and major brands) that such a high price is completely
out of the reality even if it's branded "Empirical Labs". Especially when they suddenly part from the promise of an accurate Distressor emulation. Even Softube doesn't go in such expensive areas. Like you said, for $349 you can get load of great plugs and even start to save that money for a future piece of hardware. It sounds very good and snappy, no doubt about that, but there's nothing that would justify to pay 349 bucks with this plug. Maybe I'm a complete ignorant or mediocre sound technician, but I was way more impressed by the MJUC. To me that kind of dynamic processor should be priced around $249 with an intro price around $199.

[bronxsound]

guys stop whining. be grateful that they did not go subscription route

[Endor-8o8]

guys stop whining. be grateful that they did not go subscription route

[ObsoleteAcc99]

Anyway it's almost 500 aussie bucks, i just realised what i could get for that money and i believe i could get a much better overall variety of compressors with that money than just the one.

That kind of price doesn't make any sense nowadays. There are so many
competitors (indies and major brands) that such a high price is completely
out of the reality even if it's branded "Empirical Labs". Especially when they suddenly part from the promise of an accurate Distressor emulation. Even Softube doesn't go in such expensive areas. Like you said, for $349 you can get load of great plugs and even start to save that money for a future piece of hardware. It sounds very good and snappy, no doubt about that, but there's nothing that would justify to pay 349 bucks with this plug. Maybe I'm a complete ignorant or mediocre sound technician, but I was way more impressed by the MJUC. To me that kind of dynamic processor should be priced around $249 with an intro price around $199.

for me like i said, i was only interested if it was a perfect 1:1 emulation.. otherwise i have plenty of good compressors.. agree with your post.

[Endor-8o8]

Anyway it's almost 500 aussie bucks, i just realised what i could get for that money and i believe i could get a much better overall variety of compressors with that money than just the one.

That kind of price doesn't make any sense nowadays. There are so many
competitors (indies and major brands) that such a high price is completely
out of the reality even if it's branded "Empirical Labs". Especially when they suddenly part from the promise of an accurate Distressor emulation. Even Softube doesn't go in such expensive areas. Like you said, for $349 you can get load of great plugs and even start to save that money for a future piece of hardware. It sounds very good and snappy, no doubt about that, but there's nothing that would justify to pay 349 bucks with this plug. Maybe I'm a complete ignorant or mediocre sound technician, but I was way more impressed by the MJUC. To me that kind of dynamic processor should be priced around $249 with an intro price around $199.

for me like i said, i was only interested if it was a perfect 1:1 emulation.. otherwise i have plenty of good compressors.. agree with your post.

Yes I forgot to say I was with you on that too. A spot on Distressor emulation by Empirical Labs would have been awesome, and might have made some sens at that price. But a comp with the "Empirical Labs Classic Knee Compression"...well I'll pass. I have a lot of dynamic processors too...like many KVRian I guess.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Even Softube finally realised they had to reduce their prices, expensive is the new 'I dont think so'

[jens]

I think it slowly dawns on me why Dave Derr has been making presets for Disto - he already knew that it is and is going to stay the only real Distressor emulation out there.

[penguinfromdeep]

After some initial negative comments mostly seems to gather very positive feedback now on Gearslutz, anymore comments from kvr crowd? Didn't try it myself yet, but will the next coming days ...

[subterfuge]

I have seen and heard Distressor in use since 90s but never wanted one. I could definitely manage without and of course it was totally out of my price range anyway. When Dave Derr announced this plugin coming in last December it got me interested only in wanting to see what they were coming up with. Even if they would've announced a 1:1 emulation of Distressor at $20, it would've not made me wanting it any more than wanting the hw back when.

And they didn't. They never announced releasing a strict copy and were not promising it would be cheap either. But right from the first GS response, people were blinding themselves from the obvious and also setting ridiculous price expectations for themselves...except very few more thoughtful persons, it seemed. Because of the forced delay, demos were not released when planned and the whole thread went to full on price speculation frenzy which did serve to be once again amazed at reasoning and thought processes many seem to possess, nothing else.

Now that the demos are out and popcorn of few clowns is getting stale, I'm not more interested than earlier to even demo it. If it would be something I really need, I would forgive the silly name, everything else was fine already as it ever were.

[ImNotDedYet]

It really is a good plug. I just messed around with it on my drum bus. It's got good weight to it and provides a better 3d space than some others, while not as good as the new Pink. It beats The Glue and Disto for weight and 3D-ness. The Attack Mod is fantastic for really getting the sound to breath and groove, especially in combination with the Saturation/soft clip. As I said, I prefer Pink overall for the sound and weight it brings that the Arouser just doesn't. I was also going to compare it to Disto, but got sick of playing with it. It's definitely not bringing anything to the table my current set don't other than the attack mod. But I'm not willing to part with $350 for that, as cool as it can be.

[camsr]

After some initial negative comments mostly seems to gather very positive feedback now on Gearslutz, anymore comments from kvr crowd? Didn't try it myself yet, but will the next coming days ...

If people say it's better than Disto, then it may have my attention. Although if you know me, I dislike copy protection, and absolutely despise dongles/DRM drivers. Will it live up to the hype?