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

[bmanic]

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.

This is what I did. Still waiting for a new demo so that I can properly test it.

[jens]

I might have been doing the same as I agree: a badly restricted demo is a no-go.

Fortunately, I made the right decision here and never tried the demo but instead just purchased it.

[Robert Randolph]

I might have been doing the same as I agree: a badly restricted demo is a no-go.

Fortunately, I made the right decision here and never tried the demo but instead just purchased it.

I'm tempted, but I also don't like feeling like I'm being bullied in to being able to try out the plug-in.

As it is, it's not possible to do 2 very key things:

• See what it sounds like in a full mix
• A/B it to other similar products

In order to evaluate the plug-in properly, I'd have to buy it.

Yes, it's cheap. Pocket change really. However, on principle I'm not at all enthused by the idea of being bullied out of my pocket change. I'm not keen on grade school behaviour entering my studio.

[jens]

I guess it's just bad judgement - pretty sure they're willing to overthink this...

something actually unrelated:

what other similar products do you have in mind? I can't really think of any...

Trash is similar in a way, but lacks the dynamic function (and doesn't sound as good - but yes, there's the culprit about the bad demo egain)

Saturn is similar in a way but lacks the filtering options (and doesn't sound as good - yes, the demo, I know)

[jens]

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 read though that page right at the beginning - it played a significant part in my decision to purchase Destructor (without trying it first)

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.[/quote]


The manual says that too, however I don't understand why or how - is there some underlying function, perhaps some trade-secret you do not want to reveal?

I really struggle to understand in which way the destruction module affects the post filtering if these filters do not include any signal-depended function. Would I get a significantly different result if I used a flexible enough EQ after Destructor instead of the Post-Filter (using the same settings of course)?

[Robert Randolph]

I guess it's just bad judgement - pretty sure they're willing to overthink this...

something actually unrelated:

what other similar products do you have in mind? I can't really think of any...

Trash is similar in a way, but lacks the dynamic function (and doesn't sound as good - but yes, there's the culprit about the bad demo egain)

Saturn is similar in a way but lacks the filtering options (and doesn't sound as good - yes, the demo, I know)

Personally I'm only interested in Destructor for the guitar amp simulation options. I'm quite happy with sdrr, NLS, satin, rp-distort and saturn for my "normal" distorting duties.

So as far as my interest goes, I'm comparing it to other amp sims, and I've yet to find a single amp sim that I'm happy with.

[jens]

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?)

No, Trash (I have it) is - at least in theory - A LOT (and then some) more poerful in regards to the
waveshaping but it lacks the dynamic control Destructor offers.

[jens]

So as far as my interest goes, I'm comparing it to other amp sims, and I've yet to find a single amp sim that I'm happy with.

Yes, I was mainly talking about that application too -which both Saturn and Trash can do in a kind of "generic" way, just as Destructor - what I meant is, that if that is what you want - one generic Interface (where you could theoretically smoothly blend from a kind of 5W 6inch Tweedish amp to a (sort of) 100W 4x12 high gain amp - any anything in between), there's nothing else like it out there as far as I know - not even close...

b.t.w.: I find the easy view as it is almost useless - I almost always use the fully expanded edit mode instead.

(now if you could create your own (multi-parameter) macro-controls, that would be a completely different Story of course... )

[jens]

Oh, something else that just came to my mind:

another great advantage Destructor offers over dedicated amp-sims:

the more you use it, the better you will learn how the individual parameters affect the sound and in which way they interact with each other and the easier it will become for you to effortlessly and quickly come really close to the sound you are after...

[farfadetfarfelu]

Very cool plugin.

+1 on a lock needed for the input level (priority) and also to be able to lock the compressor and gate off would be nice.

Something else, the rectify control tends to bring the overall output level down, it would be nice if this was internally compensated in some way so that when you turn up the rectify control the ouput level stays somewhat in the same ballpark. It makes it more readily useful.

Thanks !

[Robert Randolph]

I woke up this morning fresh and ready to go with a positive attitude.

Opened up a DAW, popped Destructor on a track, turned on my pedal board, get some tea that was brewing, grabbed my guitar, selected a tweed preset in Destructor, turn up the volume on my guitar, hit a single note and...

No tweed sound.

So I set my guitar down (turning down the volume as I do by habit) and went to double check everything. Pedal board output correct? Yep. Guitar outputting sound? Yep. Cables ok? Yep. DAW setup correct? Yep.

Pick up my guitar and turn up the volume... Oh, there's that familiar hum. Amp-ish sound? Yep.

I guess I managed to perfectly time it and ended up playing for about 3 seconds during the bypass. I'm quite certain I'd have noticed what was happening if I didn't always turn my volume knob every time I grab my guitar. 15 minutes wasted troubleshooting an idiotic demo limitation.

The whole scenario seems quite comedic as I'm sitting here typing it out, but I wasn't very enthused when I realized what happened.

I don't think I've actually spent this much effort trying to like a product that annoys me so much before. Enough of that.

[bmanic]

Indeed. This is the second company in the past year that for some ridiculous unexplained reason decided to make the dropout 4 seconds long (!!!!!!!!!!!!). There is absolutely no bloody point in that. A 0.5 second dropout is exactly as effective in protecting the demo. The explanation was that the user would think the shorter drop out is a glitch.. well just flash a damn "DEMO" on the screen and make sure the drop out is mentioned on the website. Nobody is bitching about Voxengo demos because he made it smart, yet has the dropouts too.

Like I said earlier in the thread, it blows my mind that so talented developers who deal with complex math and programming end up doing these kinds of decisions. It hurts my brain even thinking about it. How can somebody be so stupid yet so smart at the same time.

[Liero]

Indeed. This is the second company in the past year that for some ridiculous unexplained reason decided to make the dropout 4 seconds long (!!!!!!!!!!!!). There is absolutely no bloody point in that. A 0.5 second dropout is exactly as effective in protecting the demo. The explanation was that the user would think the shorter drop out is a glitch.. well just flash a damn "DEMO" on the screen and make sure the drop out is mentioned on the website. Nobody is bitching about Voxengo demos because he made it smart, yet has the dropouts too.

Like I said earlier in the thread, it blows my mind that so talented developers who deal with complex math and programming end up doing these kinds of decisions. It hurts my brain even thinking about it. How can somebody be so stupid yet so smart at the same time.

It's the same general problem with GUI's in my opinion. Great engineers almost never make great UI or user experience designers, and the demo limitation stuff is pure user experience design.

I think the problem developers don't see is that when I as a customer spend money, I want to feel like I'm giving the money to a nice person, someone I like because they have made my life easier with their product. When their product or demo annoys me because of a very poor design decisions, I no longer feel like the developer is a nice person, so I'm not as ready to spend my money. It's all about emotions

[juhhie]

Yes, it's cheap. Pocket change really. However, on principle I'm not at all enthused by the idea of being bullied out of my pocket change. I'm not keen on grade school behaviour entering my studio.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Hi there! You might be interested in knowing that Blue Cat's Destructor has just been updated: V1.01 mainly brings improvements to the demo version (removing some of the limitations) and fixes a few issues found in the initial release (full details below).

The update is free for existing customers and can be found at the same location as the initial full version (link received by email upon purchase).

What's New:
- Changed demo limitations: up to 5 instances allowed, bypass time changed to half a second, and bypass parameter is not affected anymore.
- Fixed: no more comb filtering when using the mix knob with oversampling.
- Fixed smooth bypass crossfade (used to produce clicks).
- WARNING: On Mac the plugin now requires Mac OSX 10.7 and newer - support for 10.5 and 10.6 has been dropped.

Enjoy!