THERMAL - Interactive Distortion Plugin by Output

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LoveEnigma18 wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 6:50 pm
martinjuenke wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 6:32 pm Dent is completely underrated!
Indeed. I just got Dent 2 for $0. I am surprised how awesome little monster it is.

No hurry to get Thermal. I paid $55 for Portal (and 2 Expansions), so I definitely won't spend more than that for Thermal.
I also just picked up Dent for nothing ($20 sale price and the $20 voucher they just mailed me!)- now that what I call a no brainer and has totally eased my gear lust for this (no doubt pick it up in a bundle sale sometime).

After demoing all the saturators/harmonic enhancers on sale at PA I ended up not getting any of the as I found EndeavorFX 'Contemporary Colour' sounded the best to me and was under 30 bucks...so I have subtle to extreme!
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thagreatbelow wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 7:20 pm
Hmm interesting I wasn't aware of that. I own both, so now i'm gonna mess with those before deciding to get thermal. Well, I'm going to get thermal, but it becomes a matter of when.
I want to get saturn eventually, the added fx and all the distortion modes really sold thermal for me
saturn seems even more "analog" focussed than thermal (compared to trash at least)

to me it seems like thermal falls somewhere between saturn and trash, though I haven't demoed saturn enough to fairly compare
Check out my website for synth/software articles reviews and presets http://databroth.com (new review every monday)

I also do experimental sound design and demos of plugins (no talking) on my youtube: https://www.youtube.com/databroth

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It‘s a pity that D*rk (PA) is selling Dent and Indent so cheaply. You may think these plugins are kind of unferior. It‘s the opposite: these little gems are really cool. Just saying.

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martinjuenke wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:28 pm It‘s a pity that D*rk (PA) is selling Dent and Indent so cheaply. You may think these plugins are kind of unferior. It‘s the opposite: these little gems are really cool. Just saying.
He isn’t really selling them, he is literally giving them away!
X32 Desk, i9 PC, S49MK2, Studio One, BWS, Live 12. PUSH 3 SA, Osmose, Summit, Pro 3, Prophet8, Syntakt, Digitone, Drumlogue, OP1-F, Eurorack, TD27 Drums, Nord Drum3P, Guitars, Basses, Amps and of course lots of pedals!

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The more I use Thermal the more I love it.
IMHO Dent isn’t in the same league.

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simmo75 wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:10 pm The more I use Thermal the more I love it.
IMHO Dent isn’t in the same league.
In terms of onboard features, likely not. But that doesn't change the fact that Dent sounds damn good and has some range in what it can do. I got it for free today, and I like it. Thermal will be in my dreams, and I'll keep my eye on it.
Doing nothing is only fun when you have something you are supposed to do.

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SLiC wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 7:32 pm After demoing all the saturators/harmonic enhancers on sale at PA I ended up not getting any of the as I found EndeavorFX 'Contemporary Colour' sounded the best to me and was under 30 bucks...so I have subtle to extreme!
I went through that a bit ago and found Klanghelm SSDR did what I wanted more than Saturn (first iteration).
Doing nothing is only fun when you have something you are supposed to do.

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Ok, so thermal is my new favorite plugin, second being portal now. It really sounds amazing and unique, also is super fun (a big criteria for being my favorite)

that said, I need to warn anyone who may be concerned: Thermal has some issues that might render it "unusable" for some people

for one, the multiband separation introduces some phase changes, from what I've seen with other multiband fx, this is somewhat common. You can actually use this as a pseudo "Disperser" effect
I'm not sure how this stacks up with trash or saturn in this regard. But keep that in mind if you're super concerned with phase correlation in your sub range.
(this is a mixing/ sound design effect, not a mastering effect)

Secondly, this is probably less of a concern, but is still troublesome: when modulating the crossover frequencies there is some faint yet audible high frequency "aliasing" noise. It can be heard even with mix at 0%(same applies to the phase offset)

I've noticed this second issue on a select few controls on a few different plugins in the past, I plan on cataloging them at some point

I'm in no way trying to rain on thermal, again, it's already one of my favorites. But it's worth keeping in mind for anyone retentive about these sorts of things
Check out my website for synth/software articles reviews and presets http://databroth.com (new review every monday)

I also do experimental sound design and demos of plugins (no talking) on my youtube: https://www.youtube.com/databroth

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I like Output's simplification of more complicated applications, makes it easy to get sounds quick.

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Dirtgrain wrote: Sat Jun 27, 2020 2:34 am
simmo75 wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:10 pm The more I use Thermal the more I love it.
IMHO Dent isn’t in the same league.
In terms of onboard features, likely not. But that doesn't change the fact that Dent sounds damn good and has some range in what it can do. I got it for free today, and I like it. Thermal will be in my dreams, and I'll keep my eye on it.
The price will dip into generous sale levels... maybe not free, but probably cheap at some point.

Honestly, the one to beat is Trash 2. The workflow can be convoluted thanks to the abundance of choices, but you can get great sounds out of it.

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databroth wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:31 am
as fare as features go these are somewhat different beasts
trash has 2 stages of 4 band distortion, convolution, and 2 eqs, for designing distortion sounds, this is still the way to go

thermal however is a little more fun and easy to use
3 bands of distortion+feedback, but each band can also host an effect, then 2 more effects after that
Makes me think that someone ought to be selling a modular system (band splitting, distortion phases, eqs, reverbs, modulators, etc.), sort of a build your own.

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rj0 wrote: Sun Jun 28, 2020 2:18 am Makes me think that someone ought to be selling a modular system (band splitting, distortion phases, eqs, reverbs, modulators, etc.), sort of a build your own.
I'm not sure what all has multi-band. Unfiltered Audio Triad/Biome, Melda MXXX (not sure this fits for comparison given its price) do. Soundtoys rack doesn't? Probably someone will point out Bitwig can do anything modulated by anything.

With some plugins I have, I do wish there were multi-band functionality. But with some plugins, I'm not sure that the multi-band is desirable. Maybe somebody can dig on a multi-band flanger--I can only make a mess with it. With Melda, I'm pretty sure he just copies and pastes the multi-band code to his plugins--and then charges a good deal more for those versions.

Damn, I'm rambling. :help:
Doing nothing is only fun when you have something you are supposed to do.

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SLiC wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:34 am Yeh, this is where the no demo things becomes an issue, I am interested in the warm/subtle/saturation end more than the outlandish stuff, like to hear some demos of that at least (but ideally like to try it!)
Have you tried Heavyocity's Punish? It's very good at the subtler stuff and is currently only $49.
martinjuenke wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:28 pmIt‘s a pity that D*rk (PA) is selling Dent and Indent so cheaply. You may think these plugins are kind of unferior. It‘s the opposite: these little gems are really cool. Just saying.
They certainly look inferior, I wouldn't even bother.

Creative Intent's Tantrum is my favourite distortion plugin at the moment, although the free version of Sphene is pretty damned amazing in a more specialised way. Tantrum isn't multi-band but you can limit it to just one part of the frequency spectrum via a cross-over function. It's definitely not subtle.

Thermal is just way more than I'm willing to pay for an instrument, let alone an effect plugin. It seems amazing and if it ever goes under $50 I'll definitely buy it but I ain't paying $150 for it, no matter how good it is.
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BONES wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 7:42 am Thermal is just way more than I'm willing to pay for an instrument, let alone an effect plugin. It seems amazing and if it ever goes under $50 I'll definitely buy it but I ain't paying $150 for it, no matter how good it is.
Right. Unfortunately, Output sales are mostly 25%, with 35% being the highest this spring. So, the best you can hope for Thermal price to drop is about $97, assuming an individual/separate purchase, which is still quite high for me as well. I will wait for a 25/35% off sale, then upgrade my bundle, return the other stuff, and hopefully get Thermal for about $55, like I did with Portal.

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BONES wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 7:42 am Have you tried Heavyocity's Punish? It's very good at the subtler stuff and is currently only $49.
Punish is excellent. However the GUI is not scalable, and as it is, almost unusable on a 32" 4k display due to the very small text. I've emailed them several times about a possible new version, but they don't seem to be planning one anytime soon. I'm afraid it'll never be updated.
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