I'm pulling the trigger as soon as my demo ends, nothing compares.

https://www.uaudio.com/

 

Last edited: Nov 16, 2017

So exciting ....it’s amazing

 

Just sayn. Also jeez, analog "warmth" *sigh* again? It's just noise, figuratively & literally. Also, vaunting the borked idea of opto?! That idea was dead long ago...

 

Yep. I have a pair in the rack (HW). Lovely little thing.

 

we need a Disto vs EL8 comparison now

 

I thought UAD had the distressor for awhile.. i don't know why Derr didnt make the arousor actually look like the distressor

 

Will do a comparison today, Disto vs Distressor.
Btw, Arousor and Distressor are not the same plugin and modeled differently. Distressor is an exact 'copy' of the Distressor unit.

 

So, i'm trying to get the Disto to sound like the Distressor but it's kinda close to impossible, maybe if i spend a few more days and introduce a limiter and EQ after the compressor i can do it. Distressor on the other hand, retains dynamic range, keeps signal controlled and distorts in a beautiful, warm, unique way with open wide high end. Transients sound incredible. Honestly, i haven't heard any other plugins that can do this till now. Shit sounds so natural, i hope whoever has the HW unit make a b2b with the plugin. So curious to hearing those results. Attack is beautiful and there's almost never pumping no matter how fast the release is.

Link to DRY / WET https://www.dropbox.com/s/xo5d3531t1fo3x6/Distressor.rar?dl=0

(in screenshot shows 6:1 but the compressor was working at 4:1 during loop export)

 

what is the difference between this and Fatso? I though Fatso was the Empiracle labs Distressor.

 

I'd like to test this thing to see if it can pull out some "butter" or "powder" tones = ear candy. The drum loop you used for A/B comparison had noticeably gone through a round of compression and had some sway to it before you hit it with the Distressor. This comparison translates as more of a squeeze test as it can surely be heard working aggressively to shrink the dynamic space. It does sound quite fast. But it also yanks out some scratchy unpleasant tones from the transient source. If I recall correctly, the Empirical Labs Arousor also had a habit of revealing the nasty click in everything regardless what attack and release times were set.

 

Tried the demo last night..... it sounds awesome, definitely the best Distressor plugin I've heard. UAD have done it again

Also found this video checking A/B comparison from the Hardware, UAD & Slate Digital. Imho UAD sounded the better emulation of the two plugins.

 

We compared 2 hardware distressor , Slate and UAD here...

All 4 of them sounded different. The 2 Hardwares resembled the Slate Distressor more than they resembled themselves.

We did a blind test with 8 people and we came up with 8 different opinions.

Nothing sounds better. They are just different.

PS. After calibration of course.

 

Have 4 of these HW for tracking >>> cant beat em for this purpose \m/ one of the 4 is my favorite >>>they all sound killer but not the same ;)

 

@SOJRVT .. I have learned to disregard the visual cue of the meters while using Disto, be it for a drum buss or for just warming up a signal with its trafo dirt and warmification ability. When I used to depend on those red dots to tell me what was what and when, it was always too grabby and clamped down way too hard, it over reacted to the signal. It took some time to find it's sweet spots for the different ratios but now we are golden.

 

Pushed it more than usual, mix knob all the way up to 100% which normally i'd keep it in parallel with those settings on drumbus.
To my ears it still sounds natural (i don't own the Slate one so i can't compare) , feel free to use the loop with the slate one if you have it. I did gain stage the loop before hitting the compressor, dropped gain like 9.5db .

You're kinda right, "better" is very subjective.

True. I generally use ears and 'vibe' when it comes to distortion and compression plugins.

 

Can't say I have the luxury of personally owning 2 Hardware units..... just used to work/train in a studio with them.

Yes, you're always going to have a difference of opinions when you do a blind test with 8 people.

So while I would agree every hardware unit is going to sound somewhat different because of analog circuits. I still think judging from my own personal Distressor Hardware use and UAD comparison against Slates FG-Stress plug... I found UAD done a better job emulating the hardware than Slate Digital. So in my opinion its 'Better' for that reason.

But thats not to say Slates plugin isn't good, and if I didn't have the UAD plugins I would be more than happy to load up Slate FG-Stress Plug.

 

Buddy, I know this could be a long stretch to ask, but here it goes: Can you create some Disto presets or show screen captures of some of your favored settings? I'd like to figure out what your loved settings are. I know I should try harder until I get my own sweet spots, but it's frustrating to spend some time there and not get the love I get from other processors. The end result is that I use Disto less than I could. Thank you a lot in advance.

 

I came to same conclusion. Just played around with UAD Distressor on drums bus, vocals, synths and parallel compression. Sounds just fantatsic on everything. Slammed 20 dB of gain reduction on vocals and got that famous HW Distressor sound. Definitely going to add it to my UAD arsenal

 

The thing is, compressor settings are wholly program dependent, and I don''t believe that what and how, for instance, two bass players playing in two different bands would or could merit the same settings in two independently different renditions of the same song. Balances between the other players, not least grinding out the rhythem section with a different drummer would make whatever I sent you inconsequential or downright wrong for your mix. However, some wonderful folks over at SKnote have provided a bunch, the vocal presets here http://www.sknoteaudio.com/wp/index.php/2017/10/28/disto-s-presets-on-vocals/ and others for bass, drums, etc can be seen at their website.

 

Why nobody uses/compares a forgotten one - SOR8 ?