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

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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.
There is actually no "behind the scenes" interaction, but even though the modules chain looks similar to traditional amp modeling (it's on purpose - it would have been difficult to get started otherwise), you may want to think about it differently. The destruction module is not a static waveshaper, and its quite complex behavior may include non-linearities that could be associated with a cabinet too. You can simulate many types of amp sounds, but you may want to start forgetting how traditional sims do it and to get the best out of the plug-in :-).
b.t.w.: I find the easy view as it is almost useless - I almost always use the fully expanded edit mode instead.
Once you have discovered the plug-in and setup your own virtual amps, you will probably just close the full-edit mode and move the "easy' knobs to adjust the amp settings. But well, everyone is different: some customers only use the easy mode with presets, some keep tweaking the plug-in in details.

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Blue Cat Audio wrote: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).

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Hi, do you have any BF discount for this product this week? Thanks!
Signature blocked until 5000 posts made.

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Blue Cat Audio wrote: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!

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Thank you for listening. :party: :tu:

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urock wrote:Hi, do you have any BF discount for this product this week? Thanks!
No, we do not have BF deals. There will probably have a few end of year deals, though.

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Blue Cat Audio wrote: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
This is awesome news! Demoing again now!
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

"They don't ban hate speech; they ban speech they hate." -an oracle

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As a result of the improved Demo system, I've given this more time. I ended up purchasing it. :tu:

I wrote more here: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-many ... st12279771

Great job Blue Cat Audio, now you just need to make a really cool cab sim plug-in that doesn't rely on IRs or futzing with filter curves. :hyper:

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Robert Randolph wrote:As a result of the improved Demo system, I've given this more time. I ended up purchasing it. :tu:

I wrote more here: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-many ... st12279771

Great job Blue Cat Audio, now you just need to make a really cool cab sim plug-in that doesn't rely on IRs or futzing with filter curves. :hyper:
I read your GS post and pretty much agree with you on the sims that I've tried. Destructor is easily the most enjoyable soundgood ampsim I've ever messed with. It's all I've been playing through since I bought it. Uninstalled Amplitube.

I've run cab stuff through:

Thermionik -- Excellent with the preamp and power amp turned off
Pulse -- I'm not sure whether it's unstable and unpredictable, or if that's just me. Have given up
MMultibandConvolution -- Loaded the Rosen IRs and got some awesome sounds, but have to fiddle with gain quite a bit.

And -- I bought Reverberate 2 this weekend. Still trying to get all the Bricasti fusion impulses downloaded; it's agonizing. However, I'm really looking forward to trying some Rosen and Redwirez IRs in it, because it apparently gives you all sorts of ways to f*ck with them. If it goes as well as I think it might, this might be the answer to setting up a cab sim with IRs that doesn't sound like it's using static IRs. Which is waht you were requesting, I think.

In any case, I'm not looking for any more ampsims. I think Destructor has nailed it, finally.

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GreyLion wrote:
Robert Randolph wrote:As a result of the improved Demo system, I've given this more time. I ended up purchasing it. :tu:

I wrote more here: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-many ... st12279771

Great job Blue Cat Audio, now you just need to make a really cool cab sim plug-in that doesn't rely on IRs or futzing with filter curves. :hyper:
I read your GS post and pretty much agree with you on the sims that I've tried. Destructor is easily the most enjoyable soundgood ampsim I've ever messed with. It's all I've been playing through since I bought it. Uninstalled Amplitube.

I've run cab stuff through:

Thermionik -- Excellent with the preamp and power amp turned off
Pulse -- I'm not sure whether it's unstable and unpredictable, or if that's just me. Have given up
MMultibandConvolution -- Loaded the Rosen IRs and got some awesome sounds, but have to fiddle with gain quite a bit.

And -- I bought Reverberate 2 this weekend. Still trying to get all the Bricasti fusion impulses downloaded; it's agonizing. However, I'm really looking forward to trying some Rosen and Redwirez IRs in it, because it apparently gives you all sorts of ways to f*ck with them. If it goes as well as I think it might, this might be the answer to setting up a cab sim with IRs that doesn't sound like it's using static IRs. Which is waht you were requesting, I think.

In any case, I'm not looking for any more ampsims. I think Destructor has nailed it, finally.
Reverberate is what I use for loading IRs myself. It's awesome. You can do some really interesting and useful things with it.

I do kinda wish the IR 1/2 serial mode had a mix parameter for IR2, that would be amazing.

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Blue Cat Audio wrote:
b.t.w.: I find the easy view as it is almost useless - I almost always use the fully expanded edit mode instead.
Once you have discovered the plug-in and setup your own virtual amps, you will probably just close the full-edit mode and move the "easy' knobs to adjust the amp settings. But well, everyone is different: some customers only use the easy mode with presets, some keep tweaking the plug-in in details.
What I meant is that e.g. I ocassionally (potentially more often than not) feel I need to adjust the slope of the "Tone" depending on the frequency (because otherwise what I put throught it sounds... er... how could I say this? Like poo, you know?), so depending on the tone-setting I need to switch back to the "edit" mode anyway...

and this is just an example - it is just a result of - as you basically said yourself - all the parameters being so inter-dependable and so much affecting each other.

So rather than my lack of familiarity with Destructor, it's its "Easy"-mode's COMPLETE lack of any sort of macro functionality whatsoever.

Look at the easy mode of other complex plugins that offer an "easy" view (let's say IKMM's ancient CSR plugins) to see what I am on about.

Just out of curiousity: did this not come up during beta-testing at all?

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Yes, tough crowd, I know... :oops:

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Robert Randolph wrote:As a result of the improved Demo system, I've given this more time. I ended up purchasing it. :tu:

I wrote more here: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-many ... st12279771

Great job Blue Cat Audio, now you just need to make a really cool cab sim plug-in that doesn't rely on IRs or futzing with filter curves. :hyper:
:tu: If not modeled after impulses or spectral curve, what kind of model would you use? Physical? :o That's probably even more difficult to use if not an expert in acoustics / physics!

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@jens: many people actually use the easy view and like it as it is (and I do too, either using factory presets or once a preset is almost fine). The tone parameter is probably the one I use the least though: if I want to add/remove treble I will usually use the treble gain instead.

I think I understand what you are saying about "macro" functionality, but the intent here was indeed exactly the opposite: the easy view offers a subset of parameters while others remain unchanged (as predefined by the designer of the preset). It's not "meta"-parameters that do things under the hood, which most people won't understand. I think it makes designing presets easier, and switching between easy and edit modes do not require you to understand additional parameters.

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Blue Cat Audio wrote:
Robert Randolph wrote:As a result of the improved Demo system, I've given this more time. I ended up purchasing it. :tu:

I wrote more here: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-many ... st12279771

Great job Blue Cat Audio, now you just need to make a really cool cab sim plug-in that doesn't rely on IRs or futzing with filter curves. :hyper:
:tu: If not modeled after impulses or spectral curve, what kind of model would you use? Physical? :o That's probably even more difficult to use if not an expert in acoustics / physics!
I can see that I was rather unclear.

When I said 'futzing with filter curves', I was talking about the frontend (GUI) of such a product. How the DSP is done is irrelevant really.

Amplitube's 'Cab Room' is a very cool concept that's kinda similar to what I was hinting at.

For now though, I'm using Reverate as an IR loader and all is well, it's just tedious.

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When I said 'futzing with filter curves', I was talking about the frontend (GUI)
I think we both talked about the same thing. The problem with "physical-modeling-style GUI" is that you have to choose your microphones, cab models, placement, room etc. That's exactly the kind of thing that the perceptual model that was chosen here is supposed to avoid, so that it is much faster to get the tone you want, without being an expert in acoustics or physics :-).

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It's definitely a different approach from existing amp sims, and that's also why the plug-in is much more than that. But I think that once you have done the shift, it's very hard to come back to "old style" simulations that try to mimic the real world - the workflow is in many cases much more efficient - but you have to get used to it first.

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