Blue Cat's Destructor - Beyond Distortion and Amp Simulation, Now Available!

[Blue Cat Audio]

Dear KVRers,

We are happy to introduce today Blue Cat's Destructor, our new comprehensive distortion and amp sim modeling plug-in, capable of simulating any kind of distortion.

This new plug-in gives access to an unlimited number of non-linear processing models, ranging from harsh digital destruction to smooth analog compression or guitar amp simulation (and it works for clean tones too).


It is delivered with hundreds of presets and predefined models, many of them inspired by real gear. It offers the ability to create completely custom distortion simulations beyond these models, thanks to its flexible yet simple signal processing chain - no need to purchase extra presets or amp models to build the perfect custom tone.


Based on a perceptual model rather than on electronic designs or impulse responses, it simplifies the process of tweaking the tone and making it fit into the mix. Thanks to its exclusive adaptive shaper, it is reactive to the playing of instrumentalists, providing a very natural feeling, similar to analog gear.

In order to make the look and feel of the plug-in match the tone, the plug-in is bundled with more than 1400 visual styles that can be selected separately for each module.

The plug-in is currently being demonstrated at the 141st AES Convention in Los Angeles, on booth #410. It will be available for purchase and download on October 11th, delivered as a plug-in in multiple formats for Windows and Mac.

You can get more information and listen to the plug-in on bluecataudio.com.

Whether you are a guitarist, bassist, into electronic music, or mixing and mastering, this plug-in was designed for you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euXcf4dSY2I

Main Features:
- Powerful distortion and amp modeling tool.
- Simulate any kind of distortion: analog or digital, guitar and bass amps, saturation, clipping, compression, bit crushing...
- Works for "clean" sounds too.
- Get started with several hundreds of fully editable presets, inspired by real gear.
- More than 1400 visual styles to customize the user experience.
- Control the dynamics with the input gate and compressor.
- Control the tone with the pre and post filters.
- Exclusive shape dynamics control: adapt the tone to the dynamics of the signal.
- Use the internal or external side chain to trigger the distortion.
- Protect your ears with the output brickwall limiter.
- Comprehensive visual feedback: real time spectrum analysis, dynamic distortion curve display with embedded signal histograms.
- Load reference curves for tone matching.
- No latency.

System requirements:
- Intel Mac running Mac OS 10.5 or newer.
- PC running Windows XP or newer.

Pricing:
Blue Cat's Destructor: 79 EUR or $99 (excl. VAT)

[h2ogun99]

I love every Blue Cat product. This will be on my 'want' list, no doubt.

L

[Blue Cat Audio]

Thanks!

Btw, if you want to get more details about Blue Cat's Destructor before you can try the demo in a bit more than a week, you might be interested in this in-depth Q&A session about the "dark side" of Blue Cat's Destructor!

[jens]

Oi??? That looks impossible to resist...

[Burillo]

this looks very interesting. i'll be sure to demo it. the price is sexy as well.

[morelia]

That GUI looks sweet but I was mainly curious about how cabinet simulation is achieved. Does it have an IR module or is it a fixed component of each distortion block?

[Burillo]

it looks to be neither. it's a post filter of some sort.

[Zookes]

Liking this new GUI style. Will be available also for analysis pack plugins soon?

[morelia]

it looks to be neither. it's a post filter of some sort.

Yep I saw that too, but can that really achieve a decent cabinet sound. The demo video looks promising but as there is no mention of it (that I personally saw) I thought maybe an external IR plugin was being used.

[jens]

Personally I would by far prefer some smart kind of filtering over IRs - can IRs achieve a decent cabinet sound?

[Sim.Sky]

Personally I would by far prefer some smart kind of filtering over IRs - can IRs achieve a decent cabinet sound?

You bet, they can! If you only couple a random (guitar) preamp plugin with an IR loader with Rosen Digital impulses, you can achieve a more than serious guitar sound. IMO IRs are THE crucial part when it comes to guitar tones through software (and part of why Guitar Rig sounds so dated nowadays is, in my view, because they use ancient and cheap sounding impulse responses). Of course, if you care a lot about dynamics during guitar playing, a good preamp sim is mandatory, too. But the overall sound is defined massively by the IR you're using - just like in the real world. A 3000$ amp with a 100$ speaker still sounds like crap.

That said, the filtering in Destructor sounds astonishingly convincing - maybe this might be a glimpse where guitar amp software could be heading in the future?

[Ivan_C]

The sound in the video is made without any IR + convolver. The "cabinet sim" part in the plug-in is really convincing, I was a bit surprised by that, it works very very well (I have been in the beta testing of Destructor). It's not just a simple filter, you can see it easily by demoing the software. It can be tweaked a lot and there are tons of presets for various cabinet models.

[jens]

Personally I would by far prefer some smart kind of filtering over IRs - can IRs achieve a decent cabinet sound?

You bet, they can! If you only couple a random (guitar) preamp plugin with an IR loader with Rosen Digital impulses, you can achieve a more than serious guitar sound. IMO IRs are THE crucial part when it comes to guitar tones through software (and part of why Guitar Rig sounds so dated nowadays is, in my view, because they use ancient and cheap sounding impulse responses). Of course, if you care a lot about dynamics during guitar playing, a good preamp sim is mandatory, too. But the overall sound is defined massively by the IR you're using - just like in the real world. A 3000$ amp with a 100$ speaker still sounds like crap.

Just as the preamp and the power-amp, speakers and microphones (and then of course also the microphone preamp) are - due to their physical nature - non-linear systems, so it is technically impossible to comprehensively emulate such a chain (of recording a miked amp) with normal convolution, which is why I would - contrary to your ciam - rather say "they can't".

While I still use IRs for cabinet simulations for convenience reasons, I feel they are (by far) the weakest link in the chain and I think there's still a long way to go and a lot of room for improvememt. Destructor's description gives me the feeling that this one might indeed offer the revolutionary new apporach I have been wating for for some time. I might be wrong - we will see.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Post filtering is indeed crucial to achieve realistic guitar sounds, as it defines the final shape of the spectrum (especially with high levels of distortion). However, our plug-in does not use impulses responses but a filter which can be fully edited: you can get better control over it and actually achieve a much wider range of tones.

In the following video (and the video above), it's just the plug-in, with only a bit of reverb/delay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16RGQ87YdGg

[jens]

This sounds mightily fine in any case - especially the cleanish sounds.