What is your favourite distortion plugin and why?

[yeroc]

Saturn 2 is penultimate for me. Sound design craziness, subtle warmth, pinpoint accuracy, and flexibility. It would be my desert island only saturator choice!
.

Did you find it a major upgrade from Saturn

I never used Saturn 1, but judging from the old GUI and the consistent quality from FabFilter I trust that their new versions are meaningful improvements!

[al_diablo]

I'm quite lazy and often just use the Logic overdrive or bitcrusher, or both. Often both. SPL twintube is good for more saturated rather than gnarly sounds

[Funkyflash5]

Most used is the bus saturation knob in Mixbus32c, followed by the saturation and soft clip options within uhe presswerk.

[alexlimbert]

I like the distortion that comes out of Amplitube 5 or Bias FX 2. I also like Trash 2 and some of the presets in EZMix for guitar sound pretty good.

[groovelator]

Scuffham Amps S-Gear is fantastic for guitar, I haven't tried it on other instruments but I imagine it would be great if you're after an overdriven amp sound with speaker IR.
I also use Trash 2 quite a lot, very flexible from subtle to totally wild with loads of interesting options for sound mangling including filters, delay, eq, IR options, etc

[Mike Stranks]

Funny ol' world innit?

I spend my time trying to ensure my recordings are distortion-free; you do the exact opposite!

[Zukan]

Funny ol' world innit?

I spend my time trying to ensure my recordings are distortion-free; you do the exact opposite!

Embrace the smearing Mike, embrace the smearing....

[Drew Stephenson]

It's like ice-cream. You don't always want vanilla.

[ore_terra]

Brainworx bx_saturator v2 for me. Covers just about everything from subtle to stupid and the M/S options are really handy.

I have to spend more "quality time" with that one. the times I've opened I've found it just to complicated for a distortion plugin

my go to's are either Decapitator or the drive knob in Console 1, if I'm using it already.

I have also liked a lot Soundtoys Radiator in subtle to not-that-subtle distortion duties, and for pretty obvious effect, placing Cubase grungelizer before a "soft" decapitator sounds really good to me.

[soundproofed bob]

Brainworx bx_saturator v2 for me. Covers just about everything from subtle to stupid and the M/S options are really handy.

Does it sound as good as Soundtoys, I'm just superstitious about lower dashes?

[Martin Walker]

Brainworx bx_saturator v2 for me. Covers just about everything from subtle to stupid and the M/S options are really handy.

I have to spend more "quality time" with that one. the times I've opened I've found it just to complicated for a distortion plugin

Me too, although it worked wonders in beefing up a stereo drum recording when I needed more welly on the kick and snare but leaving the cymbals relatively intact.

Martin

[Peevy]

I frequently turn to Kush Audio’s Omega 4-Pack. Model TWK in small amounts is warm and cuddly on anything basically, especially to sit a vocal in the mix, just bringing it slightly forward. Just one knob to turn which suits me fine.

I like Soundtoys Decapitator too.

[ore_terra]

Brainworx bx_saturator v2 for me. Covers just about everything from subtle to stupid and the M/S options are really handy.

I have to spend more "quality time" with that one. the times I've opened I've found it just to complicated for a distortion plugin

Me too, although it worked wonders in beefing up a stereo drum recording when I needed more welly on the kick and snare but leaving the cymbals relatively intact.

Martin

with the M/S processing, right?

[Martin Walker]

with the M/S processing, right?

Yep, as far as I remember.

Martin