Multiband Saturation or Distortion

[Dark Fiber]

Audio Damage have just released a lot of their older plugs as freeware including kombinat dva. Could be worth checking, three bands with multiple types for each. No support and stuck at vst2 but sounds good and free...

Nice freebie, very light on the CPU. Similar to the Melda's.
It has some difficulties to behave subtly though; only "tube clip" is usable for me.

[Unaspected]

Audio Damage have just released a lot of their older plugs as freeware including kombinat dva. Could be worth checking, three bands with multiple types for each. No support and stuck at vst2 but sounds good and free...

Nice freebie, very light on the CPU. Similar to the Melda's.
It has some difficulties to behave subtly though; only "tube clip" is usable for me.

Maybe you're going in too hot. Some plugins require dialling back input gain to find their sweet spot.

[The Noodlist]

HY has some free multi band offerings.
HY-MBDrive

HY-MBMFX free

[SiliconDeath]

I'd say give Kelvin and Tupe a try.

[jakeron]

Trash 2 was recently free. It's a very comprehensive saturation and distortion plugin. Havent even tried all of the features yet.

[Dark Fiber]

Trash 2 was recently free. It's a very comprehensive saturation and distortion plugin. Havent even tried all of the features yet.

I have it since a few years now and it is indeed a nice sounding plugin with loads of options from subtle to the extremest extremes. However, as with all the other exciters from izotope, it is CPU intensive. Maybe because Trash is sort of a mothership containing two separate EQ's, convolution, delay and a compressor.

[highkoo]

Theres a lot of plugins in this 'zone' that are great but sit at slightly different places on the spectrum from soft saturation to brutal distortion. Overall, the most versatile and useful in my opinion is Saturn 2. Itll go either direction pretty well.
Kombinat and Trash for free is a really crazy deal. Those are tops for sure.

[simon.a.billington]

I'm with others that Trash 2 is a really good choice. But then there there is Wave's Multimod. You really haven't lived until you've thrown Berzerk into a multiband!! Then there is StudioRack from the same company, which gives you more flexibility by allowing you to include other plugins into the chain. Though, sadly, only Waves plugins as there is no VST support... yet?!?

[GusGranite]

I use Melda MSaturatorMB for this as well. Very happy with it. Demoed it against Saturn 2 which I also own on iOS and decided to stick with Melda.

[zerocrossing]

Audio Damage have just released a lot of their older plugs as freeware including kombinat dva. Could be worth checking, three bands with multiple types for each. No support and stuck at vst2 but sounds good and free...

I was going to post the same thing. Totally worth it when it was a paid plugin, and now… everyone should grab it.

[TIMT]

Audio Damage have just released a lot of their older plugs as freeware including kombinat dva. Could be worth checking, three bands with multiple types for each. No support and stuck at vst2 but sounds good and free...

Nice freebie, very light on the CPU. Similar to the Melda's.
It has some difficulties to behave subtly though; only "tube clip" is usable for me.

Maybe you're going in too hot. Some plugins require dialling back input gain to find their sweet spot.

I don't think that is what he means. I think he is talking about the fact it suffers from quantisation issues. The first Kombinat did anyways and i don't think the algos changed much till Kombinat Tri

I don't like Decapitator for similar reasons

[Unaspected]

Audio Damage have just released a lot of their older plugs as freeware including kombinat dva. Could be worth checking, three bands with multiple types for each. No support and stuck at vst2 but sounds good and free...

Nice freebie, very light on the CPU. Similar to the Melda's.
It has some difficulties to behave subtly though; only "tube clip" is usable for me.

Maybe you're going in too hot. Some plugins require dialling back input gain to find their sweet spot.

I don't think that is what he means. I think he is talking about the fact it suffers from quantisation issues. The first Kombinat did anyways and i don't think the algos changed much till Kombinat Tri

I don't like Decapitator for similar reasons

I never used it as I was already a happy Ohmicide customer at the time but that does surprise me.

He does suggest that the tube clipping algorithm works fine, whereas, I imagine other waveshapes will influence more of the dynamic range.

I tried Decapitator but wasn't all that impressed either - though I checked that out later, after picking up HG-2.

[zerocrossing]

Audio Damage have just released a lot of their older plugs as freeware including kombinat dva. Could be worth checking, three bands with multiple types for each. No support and stuck at vst2 but sounds good and free...

Nice freebie, very light on the CPU. Similar to the Melda's.
It has some difficulties to behave subtly though; only "tube clip" is usable for me.

Maybe you're going in too hot. Some plugins require dialling back input gain to find their sweet spot.

I don't think that is what he means. I think he is talking about the fact it suffers from quantisation issues. The first Kombinat did anyways and i don't think the algos changed much till Kombinat Tri

I don't like Decapitator for similar reasons

I never used it as I was already a happy Ohmicide customer at the time but that does surprise me.

He does suggest that the tube clipping algorithm works fine, whereas, I imagine other waveshapes will influence more of the dynamic range.

I tried Decapitator but wasn't all that impressed either - though I checked that out later, after picking up HG-2.

Decapitator was decent in it’s day, but lack of oversampling keeps me from using it these days. Too much aliasing. If you use it on lower frequency stuff and keep the filter down a bit, it can still give good results. I hope they eventually update it with some decent oversampling.

[Unaspected]

Decapitator was decent in it’s day, but lack of oversampling keeps me from using it these days. Too much aliasing. If you use it on lower frequency stuff and keep the filter down a bit, it can still give good results. I hope they eventually update it with some decent oversampling.

I understand it was very influential in the Techno scene at the time - and I see that UAD have a Culture Vulture emulation but I never invested in that system.