Free Phase Distortion Vst
Distortion is one of those effects that can have a use in any recording or music production setting. Even if you aren’t particularly into brash and dirty sounds, distortion plugins will have value for warming up sounds and introducing a bit of analog-style tone and response to your productions.
Here we rundown some of the best free distortion VST plugins available. Whether you are looking to give your tracks a slight edge or you are after total industrial mayhem, these plug-ins will deliver at a price that your wallet will love.
Phase Distortion is here to deliver phase melting mayhem! Traditionally, most distortion units overdrive and shape the amplitude of a signal in various ways to generate a rougher sound. Phase Distortion instead lets the signal modulate the phase of itself, essentially resulting in.
Is a digital replica of the SansAmp Bass Driver DI pedal, which is a very popular bass preamp DI box with distortion, presence, and EQ controls. This is a very simple plugin which works great and doesn’t really use much CPU power. The free plugin is available in VST, AU, and AAX formats, with support for both 64 and 32 bit. Free VST plugins PhadiZAlgoMusic's PhadiZ is a free phase distortion synth (think Casio CZ101) with lots of stereo options including a very unique panning/filter swoosh sound for great pads. 2 Oscillators, 6 Envelopes and 2 LFO's along with a built-in delay and ringmodulator make this a unique synth with a sound all of it's own. The phase distortion plugin TEMPER (VST, AU) by Creative Intent is now free and open source! Temper is a modern digital phase distortion audio plugin with a rich saturation and phase distortion. The variable saturation curve can give the sound warmth and edges, but the phase distortion should provide for character and clarity in the mix.
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Introduction: About Distortion Plugins
Distortion plug-ins replicate the sound of analog circuitry being pushed to the limit.
With tube amps or op-amp circuits, feeding excessively high levels early on in the chain results in a warm, gritty, and present sound that sounds bigger, louder, and more exciting.
Distortion is used to marvelous, effect by guitarists, but it can also add life to synth parts, drums, and even vocals. In fact, if you work in a studio long enough, you would be hard pressed to think of a sound source that wouldn’t benefit from varying degrees of distortion in some way.
Free Distortion Plugins
The List
Distortion Plug-in Roundup
Creative Intent’s Temper Distortion is a distortion plug-in that has a rich saturation stage.
The variable saturation curve helps produce a warmer and edgier sound than most distortion plug-ins are capable of.
It also employs phase distortion that helps enhance clarity and produces a more characterful drive. /free-transpose-plugin-vst.html. A resonant lowpass filter and a feedback control further aids in tone shaping.
One of the best qualities of Temper is how it can be pushed to extreme levels of distortion while still retaining clarity.
As far as digital distortions go, this is one of the few that manages to be pleasant sounding even as it mangles your sound.
TNT by Ourafilmes was originally intended as a drum and distortion plug-in that is also useful for creating special effects.
It is actually a suite of distortion plug-ins consisting of a single band and a multi-band unit, each of which come in mono and stereo versions. The single band version is further enhanced with the addition of a tone knob.
Later versions of the plug-in come with a 6dB crossover filter that enables the separation of the low and high bands.
With the ability to set different saturation algorithms for each band, TNT is quite a bit more versatile than your typical distortion plug-in.
Audio Damage is well known for its quality plug-ins, and FuzzPlus 3 holds up the company’s reputation admirably.
An updated version of the company’s original FuzzPlus pedal emulation, the FuzzPlus delivers the same great-sounding fuzzy distortion and enhances it with a filter modeled after the filter on Korg’s classic Microsoft-20 analog synthesizer.
Along with the ability to feed the processed signal back to the distortion circuitry, this results in increased sound-shaping possibilities.
The FuzzPlus 3 works amazingly well for processing drum loops and synths, transforming them into weird and wonderfully bizarre rhythms and textures.
But it is also quite capable of restraint, producing subtle saturations and tonal coloration when adjusted to moderate settings.
Distorque’s Plusdistortion is a plug-in emulation of the MXR Distortion+ pedal, which is favored by guitarists for its wide range of tones.
From light grit to all-out fuzz, the Distortion+ pretty much covers all the bases, and Plusdistortion is every bit as versatile.
The secret to the Distortion+ is the germanium diode clipping circuitry and the lo-fi op amp that produce the pedal’s distinctly characterful tone. The Plusdistortion somehow manages to capture the spirit of the pedal, with the added tweakability afforded by software.
Also from Distorque is Rangebastard, which is an emulation of another classic guitarists’ tool, the Dallas Rangemaster.
Like the Plusdistortion, the Rangebastard builds on the tone-shaping capabilities of the original with added features and tweakability.
With 2x oversampling, stereo and mono modes, and controls for input filtering, transistor, and even grid current, the Rangebastard is pretty much the Dallas Rangemaster on steroids.
Free Bass Distortion Vst
More mangled textures are in the offing from Distorque, by way of the Face Bender.
Fans of classic fuzz pedal circuits will recognize the name as a combination of the Fuzz Face and Tone Bender MKII, both of which are still highly regarded in the guitar world.
Like those two pedals, the Face Bender delivers nasty, spitting distortion that walks the fine line between musicality and all-out sonic mayhem.
Full-on, retro-style fuzz is the primary domain of this plug-in, but it can also be dialed back for more tasteful saturation.
Finally, DistoCore’s Disto::FX is every bit the “Dirty Sound Destructor” as the marketing copy so proudly boasts.
Designed for all-out sonic assault, this is a loud and proud distortion plug-in that specializes in a surprising variety of distortion flavors.
Top Pick
Creative Intent’s Temper Distortion is the clear winner in this roundup. With the ability to get as down and dirty as any of them, it also cleans up nicely for more sedate and sensible saturation.
This is not to say that the rest of the entrants are slouches. Ourafilmes’ TNT and Audio Damage’s FuzzPlus 3 are certainly quite capable of delivering everything from a slight touch of grit to end-of-the-world sonic devastation.
Distorque’s pedal emulations for their part are all potentially useful for more traditional, stomp box flavors. And you just gotta love Disto::FX’s ability to make a heaving, bristling mess out of anything.
So while Temper Distortion gets the nod as our “top pick”, we wholeheartedly suggest that you download them all and have all your distortion bases covered.
After all, you can’t beat the price!
Phase distortion (PD) synthesis is a synthesis method introduced in 1984 by Casio in its CZ range of synthesizers. In outline, it is similar to phase modulation synthesis as championed by Yamaha Corporation (under the name of frequency modulation), in the sense that both methods dynamically change the harmonic content of a carrier waveform by influence of another waveform (modulator) in the time domain. However, the application and results of the two methods are quite distinct.
Casio made five different synthesizers using their original concept of PD synthesis (with variations). The later VZ-1 and co's synthesis method Interactive phase distortion is much more similar to the aforementioned phase modulation, rather than a direct evolution of phase distortion; see below.
Free Phase Distortion Vst Plugin
Generating harmonic content[edit]
Casio's implementation of PD used oscillators generated by modulator and carrier waveforms, synchronised to each other per-cycle. The modulators were various angular waves that could 'distort' the carrier's sine into other shapes, to a degree derived from the 'DCW' envelope. In doing so, many harmonics were created in the output. As modulators were rich in harmonic content, they could create spectra more linear, i.e. more similar to traditional subtractive spectra, than Yamaha's phase modulation (PM/FM) synthesis. PM does not require oscillator sync but was for a long time limited to sine waves, which meant output spectra bore the non-linear hallmark of Bessel functions. PD is a different type of PM - whose very different modulators caused significant difference in operation and sound between PD and PM. Thus the two aren't directly equivalent.
The phase transforms are all assembled from piecewise linear functions under binary logic control and shows characteristic sharp knees (and for some transforms, even sudden jumps) as they move from minimum to maximum, where the frequency counter's accumulator wraps around and starts over. The sharp knees are smoothed by the roundness of the modulated sine wave and not too noticeable in the resulting signal.
Simulating a resonant filter[edit]
As well as being more capable of generating traditional linear spectra, the CZ synthesizers can also emulate resonant filter sweeps. This was done using sine waves at the resonant frequency, synchronised and windowed at the fundamental frequency. Frequencies could be controlled but not resonance amount.
Figure 19 from the 1985 CZ-series patent shows how to emulate the variable resonance found in analogue voltage-controlled filters:
- (a) The base frequency counter, wrapping around every period.
- (b) The resonance frequency counter at a slightly higher frequency, being reset (or 'synced') when the base counter wraps around.
- (c) The resonance frequency counter used as a sine wave readout. Note the sudden jump at the reset, which causes significant distortion.
- (d) The inverted base frequency counter.
- (e) Multiplying c by d. The sudden jump incis now leveled out.
To summarize in other terms: The resonance is a form of digital hard sync, composed of a sine wave at the resonant frequency, amplitude enveloped by and hard-synced to a window function at the fundamental frequency. The window function can take various shapes, including sawtooth and triangle, thus determining the 'basal' spectrum upon which the resonant effect is superimposed. Since the amplitude of all available window functions ends at zero, this removes sharp discontinuities in the synced sine wave, which is a well-known way to reduce aliasing in digital sync. However, some aliasing is still present due to discontinuities in the function's derivatives[clarification needed]. Thus, filter sweep effects are generated the same way as sync effects: by modulating the frequency of the resonance (DCW envelope), the timbre changes, adding and subtracting harmonics to/from the chosen fundamental spectrum around the chosen resonant frequency.
Comparison to other types of synthesis[edit]
As outlined above, phase distortion broadly applies similar mathematical concepts to phase modulation synthesis, but their implementation and results are not equivalent. Whereas PM - pioneered by John Chowning and commercially used by Yamaha - uses an oscillating modulator that can have its own period, PD applies an angular modulator of straight-line segments hard-synchronised to the same period as its corresponding carrier, i.e. modulating each cycle identically. PM/FM produces Bessel function-derived spectra unless linearised by the application of feedback, whereas PD produces more linear spectra. This manifests in PD synths' reputation for being easier to produce traditional subtractive sounds, such as those typically associated with analogue synths, which are characterised by linear spectra. These facts demonstrate how although the broad concept - alteration of phase - is the same, implementation and results differ greatly.
Casio's own later engine named Interactive Phase Distortion (iPD), which featured in their VZ synths (VZ-1, VZ-10M, and VZ-8M; the first two also rebadged by Hohner as the HS-2 resp. HS-2/E), actually bears very little resemblance to 'actual' PD, being based around an idiosyncratic type of PM instead. In iPD, multiple oscillators are combined in various configurable routings (similar to Yamaha's 'algorithms') and can modulate each other using PM or ring modulation (the latter not available in Yamaha's system). However, unlike in Yamaha's implementations, direct PM is restricted to a carrier:modulator ratio of 0:1 (the carrier's frequency is forced to zero, essentially turning it into a simple waveshaper) - with other ratios requiring workarounds and often making some oscillators contribute little or nothing to the desired sound. iPD has some added features that give it advantages in some contexts, but it is generally not as versatile as Yamaha's method for 'pure' phase modulation.
External links[edit]
- pdhalf − The Canonical Csound Reference Manual. «The pdhalf opcode is designed to emulate the 'classic' phase distortion synthesis method of the Casio CZ-series of synthesizers from the mid-1980s.»