How do you categorize your distortion plugins?

[VirtualMark]

With regard to distortion, i like to have a lot of different types. Sometimes i'll try one plugin, won't sound too good on a bassline, try another and it sounds great. From what i've read, there are a few different types. I'm looking to organise these types into sonic characteristics and would be interested in hearing how other people do it.

Firstly, what are the main types? I'm thinking bitcrushing, overdrive, saturation, tube, waveshaping, compressing/limiting(some distortion plugins use limiting a lot), multi(lots of different types in one plugin), multiband(fabfilter saturn, ohmicide), guitar amp, transistor, fuzz.

There's probably a lot i've missed out there but i wouldn't want to split them up too much. Just trying to build a library of sound types really and looking for some insight. The problem is that a lot of the types i listed overlap, so i'm interested in hearing how other producers organise their sounds. My reasoning is that i'll eventually know what type of distortion might work better for a type of sound, and hopefully speed up my workflow.

[Today]

i tend to draw for tube emulators or cabinets in the mix, and waveshaping inside a synth during sound design

[bassinine]

analog emu and sine wave saturation for adding overtones and making it brighter in general. tube emu's are great as well.

cabs are amazing for giving vocal sounds.

ohmicide is great as well, but i usually use it as more of a "i wonder what this will sound like..." kind of way. but when i actually get it right, it feels like those reeses are ripping my speakers apart.

wave shaping is good to automate and get movement.

fux teh bit crushers.

[shroomhead1]

decimators are good for "drying up" a sound, i don't use them too often though. Waveshaping and Hard Clipping can sound good on bass but they don't have to- it depends on the kind of bass you're making. if you're going for a soothing sub with harmonics that doesn't leave that "gap" to the mid range, a Sine Shaper used in moderation will do a hell of a job.

[AxeD]

By only using the one provided by Reason

[Eat Bass]

By only using the one provided by Reason

There's 2 now. Pulverizer

[Artie_Fufkin]

Great thread topic! I really would like to know more how the different distortions work, what they do to a waveform, what shape it will turn a sine wave into, etc. as well. I don't really know much of the technical stuff and most of what I've figured out comes mostly from feeding a sine wave into different distortions and looking at an oscilloscope/frequency analyzer and just hearing and looking at the sound.

With Renoise's native distortion effect, there's four types:

Razor: Razor mode cuts off the top of the waveform by amplifying and clamping the signal, also known as clipping. This gives the traditional digital overdrive sound that is quite harsh and full in character.
Shape: Similar to Razor mode, except that instead of clipping, the signal is saturated. This results in a warmer sounding overdrive that emulates analogue distortion.
Fold: Instead of clipping or saturating, part of the waveform is folded back towards the DC line, giving the waveform a slightly triangular shape. This is an aggressive foldback type distortion that mangles the sound and growls fiercely at high gain.
Shift: Shift mode generates a new waveform from the original by folding amplitudes below the DC line. The introduced DC offset is corrected by shifting the signal. This is a noise-floor distortion with a very scratchy sounding character.


I find myself using the razor and shape distortion with a mix of the dry signal at the start of the signal chain for reeses a lot. The shape distortion(soft clipping?) with a low drive setting and about 50/50 wet/dry mix can get a similar sound to two instances of Ferric TDS with the saturation turned all the way up.

I'd be interested to hear/see more about what the scream distortion in Reason does. I've seen tutorials where someone would use it, but I'm not entirely sure how to translate it to another distortion outside of Reason. Would you guys be interested in swapping wav's of before-and-after samples of different distortions?

[Volatile Psycle]

By only using the one provided by Reason

Make a combi that makes use of Malstroms shaper.

1. load up a new combinator

2. make 2 line mixers and two malstroms.

3. Label mixer one as 'INPUT' mixer two as 'OUTPUT' and the malstroms 'LEFT' & 'RIGHT' respcetfully (thats what i'll call each from here on)

4. Flip it round and wire the 'to devices' within the combi to the first channel on 'INPUT' then wire the mixers left output to the shaper input on 'LEFT' and the mixers right output the shaper input on 'RIGHT'

5. Then take the left output of 'LEFT' and wire to the left of channel one on 'OUTPUT'.

6. Then take the left output of 'RIGHT' and wire to the right input of channel one on'OUTPUT'.

7. Now hook up 'OUTPUT' master out to the 'from devices' in the combi.

8. Flip it back round and turn off the ocsilators and filters on LEFT and RIGHT.

9. Now we need to set up the macro controls on the combi to control both malstroms.

10. Label the Rotaries on the front as ----> INPUT -- SHAPER TYPE -- SHAPER AMT -- OUTPUT and button 1 as SHAPER I / O

11. in the progammer set Rotary one to control 'INPUTS' master output

12. set Rotary 2 to control both LEFT and RIGHTS shaper type.

13. Set Rotary 3 to control both LEFT and RIGHTS shaper amount.

14. Set Roaty 4 to control OUTPUTS master output.

15. Finally make button one control the on/off switch for the shaper on LEFT and RIGHT.

Save that shit up and now you have yourself a waveshaping distortion unit.

* Be warned that this can really mash shit up and that the input gain can make a big difference to the sound *

[Today]

Maelstrom's Noise shaper is fucking awesome
just a little bit basically makes stuff sound analogue

[TragicTravisty]

are there plugin distortions like the fold one in renoise? i used that on some DAW my stepbrother downloaded years ago (one like that) and loved the sound...

[Artie_Fufkin]

You were using renoise or another tracker? I tried a bunch of distortion vsts I have and the closest I could get just now was with Tridirt. I'd imagine you could get it with Cyanide, but I really have no idea what I'm doing with that most of the time with that one.

[Today]

i forgot all about reason's foldback distortion
no idea how it works or what it does
usually sounded kinda lousy but i could see it coming in handy
i've forgotten all about it, kinda interested to see what i could make it do now.

[AxeD]

By only using the one provided by Reason

There's 2 now. Pulverizer

I sure don't have it. And yeah there's the foldback distortion one too, but scream distorts quite nice on it's own.

By only using the one provided by Reason

Make a combi that makes use of Malstroms shaper.

1. load up a new combinator

2. make 2 line mixers and two malstroms.

3. Label mixer one as 'INPUT' mixer two as 'OUTPUT' and the malstroms 'LEFT' & 'RIGHT' respcetfully (thats what i'll call each from here on)

4. Flip it round and wire the 'to devices' within the combi to the first channel on 'INPUT' then wire the mixers left output to the shaper input on 'LEFT' and the mixers right output the shaper input on 'RIGHT'

5. Then take the left output of 'LEFT' and wire to the left of channel one on 'OUTPUT'.

6. Then take the left output of 'RIGHT' and wire to the right input of channel one on'OUTPUT'.

7. Now hook up 'OUTPUT' master out to the 'from devices' in the combi.

8. Flip it back round and turn off the ocsilators and filters on LEFT and RIGHT.

9. Now we need to set up the macro controls on the combi to control both malstroms.

10. Label the Rotaries on the front as ----> INPUT -- SHAPER TYPE -- SHAPER AMT -- OUTPUT and button 1 as SHAPER I / O

11. in the progammer set Rotary one to control 'INPUTS' master output

12. set Rotary 2 to control both LEFT and RIGHTS shaper type.

13. Set Rotary 3 to control both LEFT and RIGHTS shaper amount.

14. Set Roaty 4 to control OUTPUTS master output.

15. Finally make button one control the on/off switch for the shaper on LEFT and RIGHT.

Save that shit up and now you have yourself a waveshaping distortion unit.

* Be warned that this can really mash shit up and that the input gain can make a big difference to the sound *

I'll try that some time, thanks.

[Augment]

I love my ohmicide, use it on most of the basses I make