Decapitator: Is it really the bees knees?

[Leo1999]

Izotope Ozone has a multiband saturation with lots of options.
To be able to select the frequencies on which you want
to apply a certain kind of saturation is a big advantage

[andymcbain]

I think Decapitator is a little underwhelming compared to some newer plugs that have been coming out. ToneProjects Kelvin, and Goodhertz Tupe are very very good, probably my favorites.

Toneprojects Kelvin looks absolutely amazing. So amazing that my brain is now running on it's own thinking that I may choose to wait and save up a tad to get Kelvin instead of Decapitator. I already set up a demo with Soundtoys so I could try out Decapitator, and Toneprojects offers demos on all their stuff, so I guess I'll just try them both out and see if I prefer one over the other.

I wanted to buy Toneproject's wonderful compressor when it came out but didn't have the money at the time. The amount of control on it was astounding and no matter what I did it sounded fantastic. It was that rare plugin that you could see yourself learning everything about and getting to know so well that it became your Number One compressor that you used on everything; like literally thirty instances of the thing in a project and no other compressors loaded up anywhere.

Thank you very much for sharing your experience and recommendations, otherwise I have no idea when I would have heard about Kelvin. Maybe never.

Kelvin is great, but I don't think I've ever got it to sound quite like Decapitator - which like all Soundtoys plugins seems to do a dark gritty sound that either works or it doesn't. Kelvin will happily sit on your master bus - that's how well it will hold the original signal together. I think both of them have their place.

[MattLeschuck]

Just my opinion but Decapitator > Saturn 2. Much faster to use and get results. I just feel like it always sounds better to me.

If you snag the updated free Waves Studio Rack, you can run Decapitator in Multiband mode and do things similar to Saturn in that regard.

So on sale I do recommend it. I also noticed Devil Loc is on sale for $29. That is definitely one to check out as well for drum compression.

[DCrown]

Soundtoys Radiator and Devil Loc are my fav saturation plugins, prefer them over Decapitator

[vitocorleone123]

No, other than being the first genuinely good saturation and distortion plugin (so lots of people got used to using it and it became their go to), there’s nothing particular special about Decapitator anymore. It’s certainly not bad at all.

I prefer others and never purchased it after a demo.

TWK, Big Al, Saturn 2 (more for targeted mayhem), VPRE-73HE, The Scream, etc. - just depends on the sound I’m aiming for.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I feel like Arutria's Culture Vulture is probably the closest thing to a "Decapitator but better". Or at least, "Decapitator alternative". If you already have the Arturia FX Collection, don't sleep on that.

[mholloway]

A big part of the appeal of Decapitator is the extreme ease of use. It's uncluttered, easy to understand, and QUICK to get good sounding results with.

A lot of the competition mentioned in this thread includes stuff with a lot more knobs / UI depth than Decap, and often lots of tweaking required -- they may ultimately 'sound just as good' but workflow + ease of use is important to many, and for those who value such things at a premium, Decapitator is likely still the best.

Even SDRR2, while extremely good, takes a lot more tweaking for me to get where I want it. This is likely just personal, but in the case of Saturn 2 -- I've never gotten along with it. The FF UI concept is not my thing. What works perfectly for one plugin -- Pro-Q -- does not, for me, work in other effects. I spend way too much time tweaking and navigating around to pretty-yet-non-obvious controls to eventually (maybe) wind up with a decent sound. I know others mileage will vary wildly, that's just how it's been for me.

Haven't tried Arturia's recent Culture Vulture -- but I'm curious now.

[Mind Riot]

Thanks for selling me some PA plugins a little bit ago, btw.

Ah ha, small world on these forums. Hope you're finding them to be worth what you paid for them.

[EDIT] Okay, maybe I'm stupid, but is there a way to multi-quote more than one post on this forum and I'm just not finding it?

[Mind Riot]

Plugin Alliance will soon release a plugin based in this unit, just in case you have too much money in your pockets:

Looks complicated.

You don't have to worry about money. Just give PA a month or so and they'll be putting it on sale for $30, bless their hearts.

I know their extreme price cuts hurt the perception of value of their plugs for a lot of people, but I for one still think a lot of their stuff is brilliant. I think their channel strips are top notch, I have four of them and they're all amazing. I've got a couple of their saturation plugs and EQs and they're excellent as well.

[seangm]

Decapitator is said to have been used on a bunch of hit records.
It has a very popular aliasing in addition to saturation
and people just love it, opposed to a lot of other plugins
its aliasing is not an annoying side effect, but an integral part
of its character.
I heard people even try eq out the aliasing of Decapitator to
add it to a sound.

But if you have tons of plugins as you wrote,
you probably won't need it,
but always keep in mind
that Decapitator could have been
or generally could be
to some extent the reason
for a Grammy award!!!
it's a different era now,
Decapitator was released long ago,
now plugindoctor rules.
Plugins and mixes are analysed before
the ear gets in action.
Music is mainly a visual matter now and
a very important question has also become
whether two plugins null or not,
"to null or not to null, that is the question"
as Shakespeare would say.
In future music will probably be listened to
with sound bypassed,
people just watching moving eq curve
spectrums changing the colour from
time to time....?!
And when telepathy will get the main way
to communicate,
the ear will get more and more useless
anyway.
So final conclusion is,
that two plugins who null are less attractive,
that could make decapitator more attractive again,
it depends on what plugindoctor will say....
Maybe I should add my experience with Decapitator,
it either works very well on a signal,
or doesn't work at all,
kind of best choice - worst choice.
And if the question whether you urgently need
decapitator causes you quite a headache or
sick feeling you more likely might urgently need to
go to a doctor or shrink, well,
plugins and purchase addiction is a big topic

You're very good with the Enter key. You do have some good points though.

[briefcasemanx]

Yeah, both Culture Vulture and ColdFire from Arturia are great. ColdFire is mostly known for insane distortion but can do very nice saturation with some of the subtler analog models.

[onerob]

This is great but, like some of the others mentioned, not as straightforward as Decapitator. OTOH it can do more.

https://www.audiority.com/shop/pyros/

[_leras]

I feel like Arutria's Culture Vulture is probably the closest thing to a "Decapitator but better". Or at least, "Decapitator alternative". If you already have the Arturia FX Collection, don't sleep on that.

The UAD Culture Vulture is really great. Lovely organic saturation/distortion. Haven't heard the Arturia, but the hardware must be great.

Interesting how people prefer different types of saturation.

I didn't get on at all with the sound of Saturn, and Kelvin was ok but maybe I didn't find it's sweet spot or need to keep trying.

PA have great saturation plug ins. Blackbox, the quirky Phil's cascade and the mix saturator Vertigo VSM3.

The other sound toys radiator and devil lox are perhaps more towards distortion but also sound great.

[vitocorleone123]

A big part of the appeal of Decapitator is the extreme ease of use. It's uncluttered, easy to understand, and QUICK to get good sounding results with.

A lot of the competition mentioned in this thread includes stuff with a lot more knobs / UI depth than Decap, and often lots of tweaking required -- they may ultimately 'sound just as good' but workflow + ease of use is important to many, and for those who value such things at a premium, Decapitator is likely still the best.

Even SDRR2, while extremely good, takes a lot more tweaking for me to get where I want it. This is likely just personal, but in the case of Saturn 2 -- I've never gotten along with it. The FF UI concept is not my thing. What works perfectly for one plugin -- Pro-Q -- does not, for me, work in other effects. I spend way too much time tweaking and navigating around to pretty-yet-non-obvious controls to eventually (maybe) wind up with a decent sound. I know others mileage will vary wildly, that's just how it's been for me.

Haven't tried Arturia's recent Culture Vulture -- but I'm curious now.

Saturn 2 is definitely not as simple, and many times simple is all that's wanted. That's why I qualified it in my earlier reply! It's also not as good as many others when you move beyond the mid-level saturation/distortion (ie not so good for heavy distortion). When I want to go deeper than throw something on and turn a knob, which is definitely less than half the time, that's when I think "maybe Saturn 2". And, even then, I'm rarely diving deep into the modulation options vs. the easy to use multiband aspect.

I hear you on the FF UI not always working for every plugin... I think their new UI works reasonably well on Saturn 2 and Volcano 3. However, I regret buying the new Timeless because, akin to what you said with Decapitator, something like Valhalla Delay/Echoboy/Replika XT are just so easy to get typical, great sounding results. Timeless 3 just makes me ask "WHY, FF, WHY??".

Soundtoys just never quite clicked with me. Think I still have a license to a couple, somewhere. But I think I understand why they did/have with so many others. I'm all for highly usable + great sounding products. If someone is only going to get one, and only one, saturation/distortion plugin, Decapitator would have to be one of the top recommendations.

[briefcasemanx]

Does anyone else categorize different saturation plugs as "hard" or "soft" sounding?

A lot of times I tend to use "softer" sounding plugs on sources that already sound very strident if I want to mellow them out a bit at the same time as give them more character.

I tend to use "harder" sounding saturation plugs on sources that I want to stand out in the mix while getting more character.