What is your favourite distortion plugin and why?

[Zukan]

You can tell a lot about a musician/mix engineer/producer about the plugins they use.

With this in mind, pray, share with us what your favourite distortion plugin is and why?

[TheLegit]

Fabfilter Saturn is good, can really mangle audio in ways I've not heard elsewhere

[Zukan]

Fabfilter Saturn is good, can really mangle audio in ways I've not heard elsewhere

Good man.

[The Elf]

For gain management I'm happy with Cubase's in-channel tube emulation. For anything more overt it's Soundtoys Decapitator.

But I do still miss the simple, humble, free TubeBaby that was the victim of 64-bit.

[Drew Stephenson]

Depends what you mean by distortion. I like SoundToys Devil Loc for mangling sounds, Temper from Creative Intent is good too.
For guitars and instruments I just tend to head to amp/cab emulations - either the free Reaper option or Voxengo's version that was shared on here earlier but I can't currently remember the name of.
I'm just about to buy decapitator as it's the last thing on my plugin list and has just come on sale.

[Luke W]

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

[manwilde]

...Voxengo's version that was shared on here earlier but I can't currently remember the name of.

You probably are talking about Boogex, which I also discovered on that previous thread and am currently using quite a bit myself.

[Airfix]

You can tell a lot about a musician/mix engineer/producer about the plugins they use.

Indeed! What does Zukan distort with?

[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!

In the other various grab bag of different flavours I often sprinkle in -

Kazrog True Iron - Wonderfully subtle touches of warmth, so easy to use.

Blackbox Analog Design HG-2 - Presets feel like cheating, really quick results !

Soundtoys Devil Loc - Technically a compressor, but I usually use just touches of the compression and mostly the distortion. I love the obnoxious crushing-crunching sounds out of it that I season to taste with the mix knob.

[Martin Walker]

Ooh this is a really tricky one for me to answer, as I'm far more likely to reach for a 'preamp' plug-in to add some grungy character than an all-out distortion plug-in. My favourites for this are Fuse Audio Labs VPRE-2C (because you can grunge up the low end, high end or all of it), and Black Rooster Audio VPRE-73, although Kazrog True Iron made regular appearances in my mixes for even more subtle warming (I'm not so keen on it when driven really hard into distortion).

I do use Decapitator occasionally for distortion, but only once again on more subtle settings. My most recent favourite for all-out distortion is the incredibly versatile Fuse Audio Labs Dozer Drive (Fuzzface and Green Screamer stomp pedals in series or parallel), and for more creative destruction Unfiltered Audio Indent 2.

If I had to pick just one I'd go for Dozer Drive:



Martin

[jaminem]

Decapitator. You can always get the sound you need....the black box emulation is quite good too...but it depends...the std Cubase stuff does the job, still love me a quadrafuzz...

[Zukan]

You can tell a lot about a musician/mix engineer/producer about the plugins they use.

Indeed! What does Zukan distort with?

I use different ones for different flavours, but:

Saturn 2
Decapitator
VSM-3
SDRR
Blackbox
BX Saturator V2
SSL X Saturator
J-37

[Drew Stephenson]

...Voxengo's version that was shared on here earlier but I can't currently remember the name of.

You probably are talking about Boogex, which I also discovered on that previous thread and am currently using quite a bit myself.

Yes, that's the one!

[TheLegit]

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

[Aled Hughes]

I have a Softube Console 1 + Fader combo, so I tens to use the drive options on that (I have a couple of extra ‘channel strips’ for it, and since I own it, their Tape plugin also appears as a drive option)

I also like IK’s Saturator X. It does nice things.

[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