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

[Dunc]

@ Blue Cat

Have the email notifications to current customers been sent out yet ?

[Blue Cat Audio]

Have the email notifications to current customers been sent out yet ?

Customer emails were indeed all sent earlier this week to registered customers who subscribed upon purchase or registration. Please contact us by email (support[at]bluecataudio[dot]com) if you haven't received it!

[Blue Cat Audio]

I am not a guitarist and this is next on my list, don't really understand whats going on inside but its a fantastic distortion/saturation effect.

Glad that you like it! This sentence will make sinkmusic happy

[fese]

I'm beginning to like Destructor. I am testing it mainly as a guitar amp so far and I find that especially the clean and slightly crunchy sound are really nice and it doesn't feel like there's a blanket in front of the amp as with other amp sims. On some settings I prefer it over S-Gear, which is my sim of choice so far, but it's hard to compare because it's not easy to exactly match the sounds even when I switched of the cab section in both plugins and used WOS for that. With the right settings Destructor feels actually more meaty and organic to my ears.
The higher gain sounds I don't like that much, but as I never need them, I don't care

What I am missing in the plugin is a overall mix knob (for purposes other than guitar) and a global on/off switch for the gate and comp (maybe locked so they stay off when switching presets).

Tempting!

[GreyLion]

Just another quick comment -- After messing with this thing for three or four hours every night after buying it, I'm liking it more and more. The Groove 3 vid reveals some sophisticated unobvious depths to it. This is likely the easiest-to-use and best-sounding ampsim I've played through.

As with my earlier comment, and fese's above, I think that global bypass for the gate and comp are absolutely necessary updates ASAP. I know that preset designers have a reason for using them, but they're annoying as hell. If you're just a preset user, leave them on, but they make tweaking the presets and managing dynamics much less intuitive.

Still, no regrets whatsoever for the purchase.

FWIW, my usual chain here is DC8C - any of several EQs - Destructor - any of several delays - VVV at -10db on bus. Will likely add a second largely uneffected track for direct in, and mix both tracks to preserve clarity and transients. Haven't really needed a gate, since I'm not doing super-high gain and largely use humbuckers.

I'd love to hear other peoples' suggestions for a good chain with Destructor. I really like that it's not loaded down with a lot of extraneous effects, just focused on making great tone.

[wasi]

Absolutely loving this as a guitar amp sim. It really nails that fat tube compression of a heavily pushed clean preamp better than anything else I've heard. I still prefer Thermionik for high gain, but on the lower gain spectrum this it my current favorite hands down.

[woodsdenis]

Great on synths especially synth bass, love it.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Thank you all for your messages. Glad that you like the plug-in!

About a global bypass switch: for the gate it indeed makes sense, as it is mainly used for noise in guitar sounds. The comp however is entirely part of the "modeling" most of the time, so you may want to keep it enabled, and maybe just change the threshold to adapt to your levels.

Also, did you know that you can quickly disable both with right click or alt+click on the ratio knobs? (setting the ratio to 1 simply disables them).

You can also re-save the factory presets that you like in your own folder hierarchy, after having disabled what you do not want to use - it makes it much easier to quickly access your favorite sounds anyway(especially if you are using MIDI to change presets.

[Blue Cat Audio]

BTW, after the first reviews mentioned earlier last week, the plug-in was just rated "excellent" by The Garageband Guide: you may want to check their review that includes many audio examples (not only guitar).

[jens]

Yes, "excellent" would be my verdict too - this is really an outstanding plugin.

I purchased it about a fortnight and when I subsesquently first tried it, I was almost in shock at how good it is - especially since it basically seems to be not much more than a glorified waveshaper with some rudimentary pre- and post-filtering and an enveloper-follower to modulate the drive. But it seems to be a lot more than the sum of its parts.

As a guitar-amp sim I would consider it at least a milestone, if not a revolution in that it is probably the first digital amp that really surpasses its analog relatives.

I don't think any sound-examples can do it justice, as part of what makes it so good and special is the ability to adjust the sound to the own requirements (playing technique, guitar, taste etc.) - by tweaking the respective parameters directly, not by trying out a myriad of different amps - none of which often really nail what one is after.

a major part of that power stems from the envelope follower which is breathtakingly effective. It's really easy to tweak it so that Destructor
rewards the player with outstanding dynamic behaviour. This might not
be noticeable directly for a listener, but it might very well have a huge influence on the quality of the performance. If you watch a formula one race, you won't be able to tell which car had the best steering system, but nonetheless this greatly affects what happens on the race track.

I am confused as to why the post-filtering seems to do quite a good job at cabinet modelling. Would in theory not dynamic filtering be required, given the fact that a miked guitar-cab is a rather nonlinear system?

(I would have quite a few wishes for future versions, and optionally dynamic filters would be one of them).

Either way, Destructor as an amp-sim sounds mightily good to me and makes it quite easy for me to basically get any sound I want via one generic interface, and it will usually sound at least as good as any of the more dedicated amp-sims
out there and imo often surpass them - at least from the player's perspective.

And so far I have only been talking about guitar-amp simulation.

Destructor however is just as good when it comes to simulating bass-amps - and
in addition it can do a whole lot more - everything with the same flexibility and ease of usage.

For me it's the best plugin of the year.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Thanks for the feedback, glad that you like it so much!

As explained on our blog, it was part of our main goals to let you tweak the tone easily and get not only the best sound but also the right feeling while playing thru the plug-in, so that's great if that's the way it works for you too .

I am confused as to why the post-filtering seems to do quite a good job at cabinet modelling. Would in theory not dynamic filtering be required, given the fact that a miked guitar-cab is a rather nonlinear system?

You should think about the plug-in as a whole: all modules interact with each other, so for example the dynamics of the destruction curve is not just a simulation of the behavior of the amplifier : it also impacts what you would call a "cab simulation" in a "regular" amp simulation. Also, we took a lot of time elaborating the post filter curves to get realistic tones, and the comb filter helps quite a bit too.

[bobbackwards]

Another vote for freakin' awesome...I can't believe there hasn't been more conversation about Destructor. It is great on guitar, it is great on synths, it is great on drums, it is great on vocals, it is great on the main bus...

The factor that puts it over the top for me is its tweak-ability you can tweak everything (excepting the aforementioned bypass of the gate and compressor), to my knowledge there is not another ampsim/distortion/awesomizer that has the kind of control over every component that this plug does (I am sure someone will tell me I am wrong, Izotope Trash maybe?) I love, love, love it. I have just about every paid/free ampsim out there and Destructor holds its own against any one of them and did I mention you can use it on anything? This is up there with Jamstix for me as far as "use on every song" status is concerned. BC hit it out of the park as far as I am concerned...

edit: redundant redundancy again

[bobbackwards]

Oh, yeah...I almost forgot, what Jens said - it sounds lovely on Bass guitar. I am a bassist by trade and Destructor may be the only ampsim I have ever played that I think sounds good. For the first time ever I am not just playing my Fender Jazz straight into the DAW. The Bass sounds are seriously good.

[ftech]

^Yep, and not just bass guitar but bass full stop. Getting some wonderfully aggressive synth bass tones happening, and it also gives some nice heft to electronic drum/percussion parts.
Definitely a keeper!

[Robert Randolph]

I just finally got around to demoing this and it sounds amazing, however the demo is awful and there's some weird design decisions IMO.

Bad stuff

• Impossible to try and record with it since it cuts out constantly.
• Difficult to A/B against other amp sims in the same project (in Cubase or DP) since it constantly un-bypasses itself! This really confused me for a while.
• Difficult to learn what different presets are doing since switching presets closes all panels.
• Gate section resets with any preset changes. Fairly strange since I'm usually going to be auditioning presets with the same input signal and very likely want the same gate settings. A lock would be nice
• Oversampling seems to be broken, the latency reported to the host is off by a few samples it seems. Noticed when trying to use Destructor on 2 tracks and couldn't figure out why there was some weird comb filter effect happening.
• Frequently, knobs won't respond. Have to click a different knob then go back to what you want.
• The midi-mapping system is awful compared to other products I've used. An idea situation is simply move control, move midi... done. Some hosts facilitate this on their own, some don't. However some plug-ins allow this workflow regardless.
• The gate is cool, but actual noise-suppression would be better on a thing that amplifies any garbage already in your signal.
• Preset browser sucks. Can we stop using menus for this stuff forever, please? Go look at the U-he patch browsers for an example of how to do it. (Like Bazille or Ace)
• The 'help line' next to opacity and under the preset name doesn't update for all parameters.
• The E button stands for both "Easy Mode" and "Edit Mode"... hmm.

Good Stuff

• Sounds amazing.
• I really enjoy the approach this uses in the context of an amp sim. Fiddling with fake mic positions, auditioning dozens(100s) of cabs, pedal simulations etc... is just annoying.
• GUI is pleasant to look at, and it's easy to recognize various elements out of the corner of your eye.
• The price.
• The window opacity is exceptionally useful. It only took me about 5 minutes of using it at 75% to begin wishing every single plug-in I have would do that.
• Spectrum modes are useful.

I nearly just uninstalled the thing after the first few cutouts. Then when I couldn't figure out why the project kept changing sounds drastically when Destructor was bypassed, I closed my DAW and walked away planning to uninstall and forget about it.

I persevered though, and discovered that it sounds fantastic and is a rather useful plug-in.

Will I buy it? I normally refuse to support companies with bad demo policies, no matter how great the product is. I'm unsure if I will make an exception this time or not.