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

[bagpipe200]

- and on top on that : BpB Saturator.

+1 for BPB Saturator. That's the one I usually try first - really easy to dial in also.

[anttimaatteri]

a whole chain of fx depending on the audio source i choose from it

neold plugins
lindell plugins
decimort2 ( absolute killer tool for drums)
u-he satin

there are some other lttle things too, but i rarely use them
waves berzerk
chow tape
izotope trash2
variety of sounds plugins

[Tobi MM]

NI Bite (and occasionally Dirt) for most of the stuff, Wavesfactory Spectre if i have enough time to challenge myself, but have even better results.

[martinjuenke]

May I ask what happened to Calenberger, in here?

He has decided to retire after selling his music production business to Francesco Partners and sips Mojito on his Hazienda.

[Septic Underground]

audiority pyros, it is fukking awesome.

for the 2bus Softube M-A-S and IK Multimedia tape 80

[Halonmusic]

Audio Damage FuzzPlus 3
Camel Audio CamelCrusher
Klanghelm IVGI/SDRR
Sound-Base Audio LLC Qontrolr
Signal Noise SN06G OpAmp
VoS Ferric TDS/TesslaPRO mkIII/Tessla SE

[Nameerf]

+1 Audiority Pyros - so versatile and quick and to tweak - definitely a go-to.
And I like u-he Satin for subtle stuff.

[kevingham]

If it hasn't been mentioned yet (I haven't read this whole thread) I recommend the new Arturia Tube Culture from the new fx3 bundle, esp if you upgraded from fx2 but haven't played with it much yet. I got it thickening the low mids and adding glue to my drum bus beautifully this week. The kinda thing I've used Decapitator for in the past, but the Arturia plugin is more subtle and blends really nicely.

[Aqua1014]

I'm still stuck to Trash 2 for trashing synth basses lol. For a more digital flavor, I love TAL-DAC for decimating drum breaks into choppy messes great for IDM. Messing with the levels in the gain structure is super rewarding!

[Lotuz2019]

Reelbus 3 - still prefer this to Reelbus 4 on the master and individual tracks

People should definitely give ReelBus v4 a try. It has 7 types of saturation and a 'drive-EQ'. If you want, you can use just the saturation without all the tape properties.

[imrae]

+1 for ReelBus 4 as an under-rated and flexible tool. You can really play around with targeting different elements of the sound using the drive EQ.

Other than that, SDRR2 and True Iron get some use for conditioning a signal a bit. Spectre gets used mostly for adding harmonics to low end; with pre/post EQ it's like a more tweakable MaxxBass/RenBass.

Lots of nice analogue modelling compressors add their own saturation so if the signal needs compressing anyway I might go for something like a Fuse Audio compressor and kill two birds with one stone.

Recently I picked up Saturn 2 so hopefully that will get used a lot. I see a lot of enthusiasm for Pyros in this thread; I don't neeeeed it but the GAS is kicking in.

To really smash stuff hard I used to use Dent and Trash but now would tend to go hardware; I have a drawer of guitar dirt pedals that provide all kinds of fuzz and distortion flavours. And then there are Eurorack clippers and wavefolders... An important difference to be aware of is that guitar gear generally includes some frequency manipulation to avoid blowing up on low notes. Modular synth stuff on the other hand is generally a direct transfer function which should provide the same waveshaping at any octave. The same reasoning should apply if you use guitar pedal emulations or virtual modular! (There are exceptions of course.) The Helix plugin has a pretty good selection of dirt pedals.

[MattLeschuck]

-Reelbus4 (multiple "types" that all just sound great)
-KHS distortion (especially in Multipass for MB saturation)
-BPB Saturator (the best free Saturator that i have personally heard)
-Ozone's Exciter (great for shaping and adding presence / sheen)
-Audiothing Wavebox (everything is just great about this plugin, sounds incredible and gives you a lot of control).

[Igro]

As others have already mentioned, ReelBus 4. I wish it had a sample and bit reducer as well. That would be the ultimate drum tool then.

[Igro]

-BPB Saturator (the best free Saturator that i have personally heard)

I wish this had an automatic volume compensation though.

[MattLeschuck]

-BPB Saturator (the best free Saturator that i have personally heard)

I wish this had an automatic volume compensation though.

It does have the trim knob though which is good. Id prefer a mix knob personally.