What is the most unique distortion algorithm you've ever come across in a VST?

[Futuremotion]

Since I produce bass music, I'm always on the lookout for unique distortion algorithms that go beyond your typical tube/transistor/tape/bitcrush/wavefolding/guitar amp/whatever.

I try my absolute best to push beyond typical sound design, searching for very unique bass timbres and modulation. And that involves finding plugins with interesting distortion DSP algorithms. Since a lot of popular distortion plugins use tube/tape/waveshaping algorithms as I outlined above, the results are less than ideal when applied to bass sounds that already have a lot of high frequency content since these algorithms are inherently "additive", in the sense they add harmonics to the signal.

What's exceptionally rare (and I would like to see more of), are plugins that remove harmonics in interesting ways. Or add harmonics in unconventional ways completely different than analog tube/tape emulations, etc.

Lately I've been gravitating towards spectral tools and abusing them for sound design - going from harmonic removal and then back to re-adding harmonics, and then repeating this process in several iterations.

Here's a breakdown of what I currently use and consider to be unique or interesting:

1. Abusing spectral noise removal plugins to remove harmonics: Waves X-Noise, Waves Z-Noise, RX Spectral De-noise, etc. I've found that feeding noise removal plugins weird noise profiles (using the learn feature) and then applying it to my bass can impart some delightfully squishy sounds.
2. Spectral plugins: SpectrumWorx by Little Endian, IRCAM.fr ASAP Plugins (Spectral Clipping is great, as well as the entire ASAP suite), Unfiltered Audio SpecOps, Unfiltered Audio LO-FI-AF (Specifically abusing the MP3 setting), AberrantDSP Digitalis, AIR Music Technology Spectral, and many more.
3. Abusing filter plugins that have very rapid envelope followers to impart "Fake FM" timbres. What I mean by that is the resulting audio sounds like it was created with some kind of FM synth and has a distinct "flappy/squishy" sound. Sorry for the horrible description. There aren't many that fit this bill, but the ones that do are great: Admiral Quality SCAMP, AudioDamage Filterstation, Cableguys Filtershaper, SoundToys FilterFreak1 and 2, SoundToys PhaseMistress, Fruity Love Philter, and some others.
4. Effects that modulate the incoming audio via FM or PM: Rob Papen RP-Distort2 does this amazingly. Also, arcDev Ghidrah, which is ancient, is absolutely amazing at morphing anything into a purely FM sound. It's kind of been one of my secret weapons for years. It's old and 32 bit, but does something no other effect I've ever heard can do. arcDev Cenobyte can also approximate this but not as well as Ghidrah.
5. Abusing allpass filters: Stacking several instances of kHs Disperser, EnumMusic AllPassPhase, Tone2 AkustiX, etc. This creates a pretty wicked "laser" or "robotic" type of timbre. It's hard to describe the effect exactly.
6. Using a vocoder that is configured to self-modulate (Both mod and carrier set to the same source), or using weird sounds as a modulator - like a deep voice for instance. FL Studio's Vocodex is a great option here.
7. Lowpassing the entire bass and then feeding the result into a wavefolding algorithm (Pick your poison). This is a much more destructive operation but can result with some weird squelching and unique timbres.

Sorry for the length of this post. I also want to note that a lot of good sound design can and should happen during the patch creation phase in your synth of choice as well. It's important to have a good quality base... you can't polish a turd, etc.

Anyway since I just wrote a novel, I'd like to turn things over to the community.

What plugins have you found to be the most interesting or unique in terms of distortion?

Would really love to hear some opinions.

[kevvvvv]

Love this post.
What are the alternatives to the distortions we all use regularly?

[Debutante]

Winkle - Free. Great for bass, as in you can choose how many times the sound breaks

Studio Devil Virtual Tube Preamp - not good for everything but untouchable when it works well...criminally unsung

Pyros - multi-mode and fabulous

Wagner Sharp - oldie and needs a gentle tweak

Headcrusher - fargin' aggressive as hell

[Futuremotion]

Pyros is sick! It's not exactly the most unique distortion in the world but I really appreciate all of the algorithms. Managed to get some nasty distortion out of it.

[NAD]

I'm working on a JSFX that lets you selectively turn off bits of the incoming samples, so for example you could switch off bit 5 and the output would just have a constant zero for bit 5 with the other bits passing through untouched. Anyway long story short it sounds f**king awful, but in a fun way, like some sort of broken bitcrusher. Yeah, obviously that adds a tone of harmonics, but not nice ones.

[Guillaume Piolat]

Sometimes using pitch shifters and low-rate codecs as alternative to distortion to get an uglier sound.

[Liquid lino]

It's an oldie but a goodie. Trash2 has interesting ways to distort a sound, including automation, multiband etc.

[nilhartman]

Voxengo Powershaper is quite a singular beast with loads of timbres at hand.

[TIMT]

Unique implementations of distortion plugins i've come across, hmm.

LVC Audio's HotPhuzz is a bit weird, but i am not sure that weirdness is useful. Definitely not your typical waveshaper solution though, so might wanna check that out

The XXX and Odd sections of Ohmicide. XXX applies the transfer curve to the phase rather than amplitude, and the Odd setting sandwiches the transfer curve between two frequency shifters(a riff on companding)one shifting up a fixed amount of hertz, then the other doing the inverse of that.

Klevgrand's REAMP is a bit weird

AirWindows has a bunch of plugins based on slew rate limiting that will dampen parts of the spectrum by altering their rate of change(you could expand upon the effect by using it with frequency splitting)

Crude waveshapers with limited table resolution found in stuff like Reaktor e.g Deafwish

Anything with a feedback loop that you can optionally stick processing in(i think Klevgrand have a plugin that can do this)

If i think of anymore i will add em to this post

[FapFilter]

most unique?
probably Shinechilla, but Ohmicide is one of just a couple of dedicated distortion units i know with good sounding feedback loops

[Havok]

Probably the most fun I've had with distortion is using the blocks from Toybox Audio, the way you can route and feed and FM everything leads to some insane sounds

https://www.toyboxaudio.com/

[Dombaeb]

I totally agree, wanted to mention that too. I didn’t find anything so complex and inviting to exploration than Reaktor with Toybox modules for aggressive sounds that don’t sucks and sound alive. It contains a lot of modules you can mix, match and modulate in random orders, given the fact that there is a lot of aggressive oscillators as a sound sources that you can process with filters to get the desirable results. Brilliant.

Probably the most fun I've had with distortion is using the blocks from Toybox Audio, the way you can route and feed and FM everything leads to some insane sounds

https://www.toyboxaudio.com/

[carrieres]

Arturia Coldfire has feedback loop

[dubguy99]

The FX version of Softube modular lets you do crazy analog modular style ring modulation, wavefolding and audio rate modulation shenanigans.

Airwindows Vibrato is cool for FMing sounds.

Another interesting technique would be to use very low / instant attack/release times on a compressor or gate. But I've not really tested which ones would sound good for that purpose.

[jules99]

Rift has loads of unique distortion modes and tunable feedback, which takes it to a very different place creatively.

Also, with the right settings in NI Driver you can get your signal to a breaking point that's difficult to achieve with other distortion plugins.

And if these still work on your system, many of the lovely plugins from SoundHack can decimate sound in ways few others can if you fiddle long enough. (In fact, I just checked, and they have been Apple Silicon native since December, wohoo!). I only have the free plugins from them, but judging from the videos of their paid plugins, there are some serious spectral sound manglers in there.