Multiband Saturation or Distortion

[Dark Fiber]

What do you mean by CPU time?

In FL Studio you can monitor the plugin performance.
It monitors all plugins and displays how much they use the CPU.
Great tool if you want to know which plugins use a lot of CPU.

From the manual:
Columns:
% - Audio buffer percentage required to process the plugin. See CPU Panel for a detailed explanation of this value.
Time - The most recently recorded processing time measurement for the plugin (not all plugins are active all the time). The value is processor time per-second.
Peak - The highest processing time measured.
Total - Sum of all time measurements for this plugin. This allows you to compare processing across whole projects.

See the attachment for a track i'm currently working on.

[Vortifex]

Edited

[kidslow]

D16 Devastor 2 is multiband.

Have to correct you here. It's not a multiband distortion in strict sense. Only a single type of distortion can be routed in a variety of ways.

https://d16.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=54 ... b5263645d2

Thanks for setting me straight. So if I was trying to do what you're proposing, using the tools in my kit, I would use Klevgrand Gaffel to split the bands. Then you're not limited by a single distortion plugin, but could mix and match ... or use multiple instances of Distructor. I can't speak to how relatively CPU efficient Gaffel would be compared to the alternatives you've tried, but way way more flexible.

AFAIK band splitting also can be done within certain hosts. I was just reading that Studio One supports splitting a channel into multiple frequency bands and I'm sure Reaper has a way (or three) to the same end. Guess Fruity Loops doesn't have any such mechanism?

Anyway, you might give Gaffel a spin. Klevgrand is running a 50% off sale this weekend with the code LoveHurts2022 . . .

[donkey tugger]

AFAIK band splitting also can be done within certain hosts. I was just reading that Studio One supports splitting a channel into multiple frequency bands and I'm sure Reaper has a way (or three) to the same end. Guess Fruity Loops doesn't have any such mechanism?

Anyway, you might give Gaffel a spin. Klevgrand is running a 50% off sale this weekend with the code LoveHurts2022 . . .

In FL Studio it's called Distructor. But there is no alternative for multiband distortion. I was using

If you're using FL remember you have the frequency splitter plug-in. Dead easy to set up (in patcher) separate effects for each band.

[Dark Fiber]

D16 Devastor 2 is multiband.

Have to correct you here. It's not a multiband distortion in strict sense. Only a single type of distortion can be routed in a variety of ways.

https://d16.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=54 ... b5263645d2

Thanks for setting me straight. So if I was trying to do what you're proposing, using the tools in my kit, I would use Klevgrand Gaffel to split the bands. Then you're not limited by a single distortion plugin, but could mix and match ... or use multiple instances of Distructor. I can't speak to how relatively CPU efficient Gaffel would be compared to the alternatives you've tried, but way way more flexible.

AFAIK band splitting also can be done within certain hosts. I was just reading that Studio One supports splitting a channel into multiple frequency bands and I'm sure Reaper has a way (or three) to the same end. Guess Fruity Loops doesn't have any such mechanism?

Anyway, you might give Gaffel a spin. Klevgrand is running a 50% off sale this weekend with the code LoveHurts2022 . . .

FL Studio has a frequency splitter too. However, i don't like the idea to use more channels than I need to. It's 2022 and I want the technology to help me the best way it can. Therefore I just keep using MDistortionMB for multiband duties and in the rare occasion where I have some CPU power left i'll use Ozone 9 Exciter

[kidslow]

I hear where you're coming from, but seems like you've created some arbitrary limitations for yourself. Not to criticize, just observe. Whatever works for you. Clearly Gaffel not a good option though.

[Ploki]

https://www.effectgrid.com/

Multiband plugin chainer

[Winstontaneous]

My favourite Multiband plugin to date is FXPansion's Maul. Tad ironic choice though since the crossovers are implemented poorly

Haha, I remember people complaining about the Maul crossovers when it was released. I got the single-band freebie from Sweetwater and thought it sounded great.

Voxengo DrumFormer has 1-3 bands of saturation & compression, output clipper, 5-band EQ, up to 8x oversampling, and an excellent gate. Much more versatile than the name implies.

When I figured out how to use DrumFormer I saw it as a more fully-adjustable version of PSP VintageWarmer, which is a 1 or 3 band saturator.

[Ah_Dziz]

melda would be my goto for this sort of thing. They have many different distortions and they can all be used as multiband processors.

[expermental]

Melda indeed.

[Dark Fiber]

My favourite Multiband plugin to date is FXPansion's Maul. Tad ironic choice though since the crossovers are implemented poorly

Haha, I remember people complaining about the Maul crossovers when it was released. I got the single-band freebie from Sweetwater and thought it sounded great.

Voxengo DrumFormer has 1-3 bands of saturation & compression, output clipper, 5-band EQ, up to 8x oversampling, and an excellent gate. Much more versatile than the name implies.

When I figured out how to use DrumFormer I saw it as a more fully-adjustable version of PSP VintageWarmer, which is a 1 or 3 band saturator.

The downside being there's only 1 saturation type and the price is $80, although there's currently a flash sale which makes it $67. Not that i'm saying it is expensive for what it is, but it is if you're only looking for multiband saturation.

[Unaspected]

D16 Devastor 2 is multiband.

Have to correct you here. It's not a multiband distortion in strict sense. Only a single type of distortion can be routed in a variety of ways.

https://d16.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=54 ... b5263645d2

Thanks for setting me straight. So if I was trying to do what you're proposing, using the tools in my kit, I would use Klevgrand Gaffel to split the bands. Then you're not limited by a single distortion plugin, but could mix and match ... or use multiple instances of Distructor. I can't speak to how relatively CPU efficient Gaffel would be compared to the alternatives you've tried, but way way more flexible.

AFAIK band splitting also can be done within certain hosts. I was just reading that Studio One supports splitting a channel into multiple frequency bands and I'm sure Reaper has a way (or three) to the same end. Guess Fruity Loops doesn't have any such mechanism?

Anyway, you might give Gaffel a spin. Klevgrand is running a 50% off sale this weekend with the code LoveHurts2022 . . .

FL Studio has a frequency splitter too. However, i don't like the idea to use more channels than I need to. It's 2022 and I want the technology to help me the best way it can. Therefore I just keep using MDistortionMB for multiband duties and in the rare occasion where I have some CPU power left i'll use Ozone 9 Exciter

You don't need to use multiple channels in your mixer - just wrap everything in Patcher and then open as a single preset whenever you need it.

[Dark Fiber]

D16 Devastor 2 is multiband.

Have to correct you here. It's not a multiband distortion in strict sense. Only a single type of distortion can be routed in a variety of ways.

https://d16.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=54 ... b5263645d2

Thanks for setting me straight. So if I was trying to do what you're proposing, using the tools in my kit, I would use Klevgrand Gaffel to split the bands. Then you're not limited by a single distortion plugin, but could mix and match ... or use multiple instances of Distructor. I can't speak to how relatively CPU efficient Gaffel would be compared to the alternatives you've tried, but way way more flexible.

AFAIK band splitting also can be done within certain hosts. I was just reading that Studio One supports splitting a channel into multiple frequency bands and I'm sure Reaper has a way (or three) to the same end. Guess Fruity Loops doesn't have any such mechanism?

Anyway, you might give Gaffel a spin. Klevgrand is running a 50% off sale this weekend with the code LoveHurts2022 . . .

FL Studio has a frequency splitter too. However, i don't like the idea to use more channels than I need to. It's 2022 and I want the technology to help me the best way it can. Therefore I just keep using MDistortionMB for multiband duties and in the rare occasion where I have some CPU power left i'll use Ozone 9 Exciter

You don't need to use multiple channels in your mixer - just wrap everything in Patcher and then open as a single preset whenever you need it.

Trying this...
Added Frequency splitter, created three sends in patcher and connecting an instance of distructor to each send. Then route everything to an instance of Balance. Works, but the control surface is a pain in the ass.

Created 5 buttons, two for the frequency splitter (low-mid and mid-high controls) and 1 for each distructor pre-amp control. Then one slider for the Balance level. So far so good.

How can you link the oversampling amount to a control? When I right click it won't activate a control. Wanted to create 1 control for the every distructor pre-amp oversampling amount.

Funny thing though, set up this way it uses more CPU than Melda's MDistortionMB or MSaturationMB.

[Unaspected]

CPU use is definitely a downside to using Patcher. Mind you, same is true of FL Studio in general.

If the oversampling control isn't available for automation then I doubt you will be able to link it using the control surface. I think I have FL Studio updated to the version with Distructor so I'll check that later when I'm at my DAW PC, if someone else doesn't confirm beforehand.

EDIT: Checked and, indeed, oversampling cannot be automated so no ability to link.

I'm also unaware as to whether automatic PDC is working in Patcher. Last time I checked (over a year now so might have been fixed) oversampling latency of certain Image-Line plugins wasn't being reported correctly in the DAW itself so compensation had to be performed manually. This impacted PEQ2 and Waveshaper.

You'll have to test this, especially if you are performing multiband processing and are not processing other bands. If, however, you are using the same plugin with equal oversampling for each band, that shouldn't be a problem.

[GaryG]

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...