KVR Audio

jules99 · Post by **jules99** » Mon Aug 08, 2022 10:46 am

Speaking of brilliant free distortion plugins, Shattered Glass Audio SGA1566 does things in terms of warmth that few paid can. If you then have a machine powerful enough to swallow SGA1566's 4x oversampling mode, you get some of the smoothed saturation.

I'd love to hear what a Valhalla distortion effect would sound like.

Googly Smythe · Post by **Googly Smythe** » Mon Aug 08, 2022 10:47 am

Ordinarily I use the saturation found in pushing "analogue" plugins very hard. Sometimes Plugin Alliance Saturator, underrated if you ask me.
For actual distortion, you can't beat a guitar amp - Buxom Betty does it for me.

Unaspected · Post by **Unaspected** » Mon Aug 08, 2022 11:38 am

Audiority's stomp boxes get plenty of use here.

Igro · Post by **Igro** » Mon Aug 08, 2022 4:54 pm

jules99 wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 10:46 am Speaking of brilliant free distortion plugins, Shattered Glass Audio SGA1566 does things in terms of warmth that few paid can. If you then have a machine powerful enough to swallow SGA1566's 4x oversampling mode, you get some of the smoothed saturation.

I'd love to hear what a Valhalla distortion effect would sound like.

Why you think it's gonna happen? That's very different from reverbs and delays.

jules99 · Post by **jules99** » Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:18 pm

Igro wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 4:54 pm
jules99 wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 10:46 am
I'd love to hear what a Valhalla distortion effect would sound like.
Why you think it's gonna happen? That's very different from reverbs and delays.

Nowhere did I write that it's going to happen. I was just wondering. Because all of Valhalla's product's combine both classic and innovative features. So, I "imagined" what a Valhalla Distort would be like. That is all. No leak, no speculation that there ever will be one.

3lu5iv3 · Post by **3lu5iv3** » Tue Aug 09, 2022 12:14 pm

Using Trash and SZECHUAN SATURATOR a lot these days.

Dirtgrain · Post by **Dirtgrain** » Tue Aug 09, 2022 4:30 pm

The drive and fuzz in Runciter is nifty--I still get surprised by it. Blue Cat's Destructor (and Axiom) does some nasty things and nicer, cleaner things, too. And I use Reamp a lot for saturation. There are so many options though.

SLiC · Post by **SLiC** » Tue Aug 09, 2022 4:59 pm

Amazing how many people still love and use Trash (me included), cant help but feel iZotope are missing an open goal not updating it...

I am also a fan of Output Thermal

Michey · Post by **Michey** » Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:15 pm

OK, I take the discussion to another level :

Instead of just finding the "best" saturator (which is not too dissimilar to threading a needle) I found a way to choose the right one. it works for me EVERY time.

What I do is basically choose (arbitrary) seven of my 50 odd saturation plugs.

Then, I use Monica Geller's ("Friends") method to bring a woman to orgasm. I assign (again, randomly) every plug with a number from 1 to 7. then I go by the following formula (every stage is compared with the previous one. two numbers represent two plugins in sequential order) :

It SOUNDS like that (skip to 1:30) :

When I reach seven I know I reached the best saturation EVER. and it is my go-to.

Aiynzahev · Post by **Aiynzahev** » Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:02 pm

Dist/Sat plug-ins I've enjoyed the most success with are Overstayer Extended and Karacter. I'm also very impressed with Kelvin. Overstayer is pretty easy to set up and works on anything. Karacter is much more tricky to get right, but I find when it works it's really addictive.

The way I use Karacter that works for me:
Low drive / high mix amount, or
High drive with turbo, high gain and low mix amount.
Also placing it after tone shaping / EQ etc and mixing into it that way helps a lot. It gets very muddy if there's mid-range in the material but seems to be quite nice on more smiley face curves.

VELLTONE MUSIC · Post by **VELLTONE MUSIC** » Wed Aug 10, 2022 4:42 pm

Glitchmachines Subvert - combination of few fx for weird distorted sound.
Found it with heavy discount,said to myself 'Why not; 3-4 euro isn't really a price,had no big expectations - now is my favorite,actually the only distortion fx i like and use on buss or directly over instrument.

El°HYM · Post by **El°HYM** » Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:10 pm

+1 for Glitchmachines

databroth · Post by **databroth** » Thu Aug 11, 2022 1:17 am

it's so hard to say, I use so many for different purposes
some favorites:

Newfangled Saturate
Inear Display Gorgon
Minimal Audio Rift
Gclip
Output Thermal
Arturia _Dist Tube Culture
Arturia Tape Mello-fi

and sometimes NI Dirt or KHS Faturator

it really all depends what I'm going for, what kind of texture I'm looking to achieve
and what region of spectrum I want to focus on

eytanmich123 · Post by **eytanmich123** » Thu Aug 11, 2022 6:26 am

Way too many to even list them.

One left-field option that is usually omitted is ConvologyXT (free) convolution engine, with Past2FutureReverbs vintage gear emulations - and on top on that : BpB Saturator.

There are SO MANY tasty impulses over there and it costs a shekel (10$-15$ for one product). the site is a complete mess but the other polar extreme is the IR themselves. Fairchild670, RCA BC-5B, API1608, Lo-Fi to Hi-Fi tape machine, small to medium to large format consoles, EQs.... the list goes on and on.

LFO8 · Post by **LFO8** » Thu Aug 11, 2022 9:38 am

SLiC wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 4:59 pm Amazing how many people still love and use Trash (me included), cant help but feel iZotope are missing an open goal not updating it...

My opinion also. Seems a real waste that they are willing to abandon it. Then again, they have done so with many products. They are incorporating some of the algorithms into Neutron 4, but that’s no way the same as letting it be it’s own elaborate distortion plugin.

What's your 'go to' distortion/saturation plugins?