Distortion guide

Table of contents

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Saturation

Saturation basically simulates the non-linear response of analog components, whether these are tubes, transistors or magnetic tapes. When not pushed too hard, these processors can warm up your audio materials, brightening it up a little and providing some higher harmonics. They are often used during both mixing and mastering and can supply an analogue feel to just about any material.

MSaturatorMB is a multiband version of MSaturator, which is more like a saturator than limiter (the name needs to be kept for the sake of backward compatibility). MSaturatorMB also features the powerful modulators.

Amp simulations

Amp Simulations attempt to simulate the good features of distorting analogue devices - amps, speakers etc. Our plugins do not simulate any specific analogue equipment, instead we specialize in generalized algorithms, that take the best from both the analogue and digital worlds and avoid the bad characteristics.

MAmp is a very easy-to-use but superb sounding amp simulator designed for everyday mixing.
MDistortionMB combines generalized guitar amp & speaker simulation with several purely digital algorithms. It is especially useful for guitars and bass, but can be creatively useful on any other instrument, such as drums.

Wave-shapers

Wave-shapers do exactly what the name suggests - they change the shape of individual waves. That results in various degrees of creative distortion.

MWaveShaper and MWaveShaperMB let you literally draw the shape you'd like making the distortion an art on its own.
MWaveFolder and MWaveFolderMB are based on certain analogue devices, which create specific wave shapes and usually provide a huge amount of distortion and higher harmonics. These devices were mainly used for creative sound design, but our simulations seem to be very useful for all kinds of audio material.

Purely digital distortion

There are certainly many things that can be done only in the digital domain. These can result in extreme amounts of distortion with very specific character.

Frequency shifters

Frequency shifters, unlike most other distortion processors, do not produce higher-harmonics; instead they shift the whole spectrum up/down, which changes the harmonic relationship between individual frequencies and results in distortion-like sound. These are mainly useful for creative sound design.

Ring-modulation

Ring-modulators are in principle similar to frequency shifters, but they produce richer and a more inharmonic spectrum. They are generally used in creative sound design, mainly on percussive material.