Wasted Audio Releases 3 FREE Distortion Plugins

[satya]

https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2023/10/26/wasted-audio-distortions/

https://wasted.audio/software

Wasted Audio releases three freeware distortion plugins for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

CRSHR is a bit crusher, as you might have guessed from the name. Rather than handing over finer granular control to the end user, you have a single knob for how crushing is applied and a mix knob.

FLDR is a wave folder and can go from smooth and sedate to absolute mayhem. Thankfully, this one has a limiter built-in so you can avoid overages. Like CRSHR, this is also a single-knob plugin in spirit.

SMTHR, which functions more like a traditional overdrive pedal. Like FLDR, it integrates a limiter directly into the signal path, so you can prevent overages.

[Magic Russ]

Can I buy a vowel?

[CSistine]

Nowadays everything is about distortion and saturation! In the 80s our aim was as little distortion as possible (except for guitar sounds)! 😄

[El Diablo]

I thought it read Waves Audio.

[Carl Ewing]

11 hours ago, Sistine said:

In the 80s our aim was as little distortion as possible (except for guitar sounds)! 😄

As an 80s punk & industrial fan I am triggered by this comment.

[CSistine]

12 minutes ago, Carl Ewing said:

As an 80s punk & industrial fan I am triggered by this comment.

As mentioned above my comment targets only the recordings/recording equipment, not the instrument sounds!

[TheSteven]

13 hours ago, Sistine said:

Nowadays everything is about distortion and saturation! In the 80s our aim was as little distortion as possible (except for guitar sounds)! 😄

Back in the day every producer, engineer & artist was trying to the cleanest, punchiest tracks they could and it was a constant battle.
2" 24 track machines gave you more tracks but with the narrower tracks you had more crosstalk, higher noise floor & less dynamics.
2" 16 track was considered to be audiowise superior but for more tracks it was a sacrifice most people were willing to make.   
Once 30ips tape machines became available (which had a lower noise floor and better dynamics)  - people didn't record at 15ips because they loved the sound they did it because magnetic tape was expensive and they had tight budgets.  Some producers would even mix on 1/2" 2 track (30ips) because the wider tracks had less tape noise & better dynamics than 1/4".
In the '80 I worked at the only studio in Southern California that had a 2" multitrack (Ampex MM1000 16 track) that could run at 7 1/2 ips. 
That speed was utter total garbage but the studio owner loved it because anyone who used it could never go to any other studio to work on their project.

IMHO while there are some artistic uses of clipping/ saturation/ distortion /tape emulation, etc. most of the hype is snake oil - misrepresenting the efforts and technology of the past to push plugin sales. 
If this was the food industry they'd be advertising:
"Now days, food has lost its flavor.  Everything is too clean and sanitary. Bring back that vintage taste of farm cuisine! Just add a touch of Farm Magic! A delicious blend of vintage ingredients (American soil, excessive salt and sugar, that touch of cow, hog, & chicken excrement that granny couldn't remove because her house lacked running water,  plus minute quantities of lead from buckshot and paint chips). Farm Magic brings back that taste of great grandma's cooking where it took her half the day and she still sometimes scorched half the meal on her wood burning stove.  Yum Yum! Use it on every dish!" 

 

Edited October 27, 2023 by TheSteven

[Larry Jones]

On 10/27/2023 at 4:17 AM, TheSteven said:

In the '80 I worked at the only studio in Southern California that had a 2" multitrack (Ampex MM1000 16 track) that could run at 7 1/2 ips.

I'd love to hear about that studio! I was Kitchen Sync on Sunset at Western. We had a 3M 16-track, but it ran at normal speeds (15 and 30). We did a few projects for folks who thought the 2-inch 16-track format was the ultimate. Who was I to argue?

[TheSteven]

On 10/29/2023 at 7:48 PM, Larry Jones said:

I'd love to hear about that studio! I was Kitchen Sync on Sunset at Western. We had a 3M 16-track, but it ran at normal speeds (15 and 30). We did a few projects for folks who thought the 2-inch 16-track format was the ultimate. Who was I to argue?

Hi Larry,

For multitrack they weren't wrong (sonic wise) as 2" 16-track has the same specs per track as 1/4" 1/2 track that was used to mix masters.

That studio was Mystic Sound on Selma (which ran parallel between Hollywood & Sunset) & Vine in Hollywood.
We had an Ampex MM1000 2" 16track ran at either 15 or 7.5 ips.  Also had a swapable headstack for 1" 8 track. 
Mixing console was a Spectra Sonic Spectra Sonics Model 1012
Control room monitors: JBL 4320

If you'd like to discuss it further we probably should discuss it in a PM or open a thread in the Coffee House

[PavlovsCat]

45 minutes ago, TheSteven said:

If you'd like to discuss it further we probably should discuss it in a PM or open a thread in the Coffee House

I have zero to add, but if you guys take this conversation elsewhere,  please link to it in this thread. I enjoy reading these stories and learning more about your musical/engineering histories. 

[Larry Jones]

5 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I have zero to add, but if you guys take this conversation elsewhere,  please link to it in this thread.

Peter - I don't have much to say about those days, and I never have been a technical guy anyway. I was learning by doing in the 70s and 80s, from building the studio to aligning tape machines to running sessions to marketing the operation to customer, um, relations. I sold the place right around the time digital recording became viable for schmoes like me, and I haven't looked back.

[PavlovsCat]

8 minutes ago, Larry Jones said:

Peter - I don't have much to say about those days, and I never have been a technical guy anyway. I was learning by doing in the 70s and 80s, from building the studio to aligning tape machines to running sessions to marketing the operation to customer, um, relations. I sold the place right around the time digital recording became viable for schmoes like me, and I haven't looked back.

My only studio experience is from playing drums and telling engineers how I liked my drums mix. Zero hands on experience -- I was a drummer. Every piece of hardware gear I bought back in the day, from mics to hardware effects own was recommended to me by sound engineers. I didn't learn a thing. I had an injury in 1999 that stopped me from being able to play. I always did my own multitrack recording and had an Atari computer back in the 80s with a sequencer, then an Alesis hardware sequencer and bought an early version of Cakwalk then the first version of Sonar, but I still am only starting to learn about mixing all of this years later when I really can't play well due to tendinitis and not being able to practice. But I'm learned more in the past 3 years than the previous 30 years. When you guys talk about mixing, I listen. I used to be connected to Ken Scott on Facebook through a mutual friend and thought I might learn something from Ken -- but we never talked music!