Are you looking for the best distortion plugins? We help you find the best ones available in both free and paid format.
Trash 2 + Expansions Distortion by iZotope (Paid)
Trash 2’s multi-band, dual-stage distortions and advanced post-filtering enable immediate sonic transformation. Trash any track: not just guitars and basses, but drums, synths, pads, vocals, brass, woodwinds, and more.
Features
A Sampling of 30+ Impulses:
- Voodoo, Muck, Gravel, Big Wheel, Magnum, Taxicab, Powerman, Ignite…
A Peek at 70 Patches:
- Electric Blaze, Hard Cider, Parasite, Filter Shred, Bleached, Ugly Couch…
[ Click here to buy + more info ]
Rift 2.0 Distortion by Minimal Audio (Paid)
Rift’s groundbreaking effects, extensive modulation, and all-around musical mindset put sought-after sounds at your fingertips.
Features
- 400+ presets with deep macro control
- Easy-to-use Play View and extensive Advanced View
- A ground-breaking multi-polar distortion engine
- 30 distortion types and up to 6 stages of processing
- Physical modelling feedback and delay
- State-of-the-art morphing filters
- Flexible multi-band effects routing
- Powerful modulation sequencing
- Pitch snapping, transposition, and MIDI tracking
- Beautifully designed dark and light UI modes
- Intelligent randomization for endless preset variation
- In-app tooltips make learning Rift a breeze
- High-quality oversampling
- CPU optimized algorithms and more
[ Click here to buy + more info ]
BLEASS Phase Mutant Distortion by BLEASS (Paid)
BLEASS Phase Mutant is a plugin that can apply the principles of frequency modulation to literally any source material.
Where existing phase distortion plugins create their effect by using an audio input signal to modulate itself, BLEASS Phase Mutant takes things to an entirely new level with the addition of an oscillator that can modulate the input signal or be modulated by it. This allows BLEASS Phase Mutant to fully harness FM’s ability to create complex and colourful harmonic distortions, achingly expressive tonal variations, and fascinating sonic hooks.
[ Click here to buy + more info ]
HEAT 2 Distortion by W.A. Production (Paid)
Presenting HEAT 2 – the original twin distortion powerhouse, now with a stunning refresh. This face-melting plugin features an intuitive new interface, more accurate frequency monitoring and a host of under-the-hood improvements.
Features
- Filtered Twin Saturation & Distortion
- 10 Unique Distortion Types
- Signal Blending & Frequency Filtering
- Responsive & CPU-Friendly
- Click and Pop-Free Bypass
- Resizable Interface
- Factory Presets
- Full PDF Manual & Tutorial Video
[ Click here to buy + more info ]
Pyros Distortion by Audiority (Paid)
Pyros is an aggressive distortion effect ideal to give you a unique sound to your guitars, bass, synthesizers, drums and much more.
Audiority programmed a rich sounding distortion to fit in both vintage and modern music styles.
Features
- 20 Algorithms
- Pre Distortion LF Cut
- Input Biasing
- Bipolar Feedback
- Bipolar Envelope Follower
- Hard / Soft Clipping
- Input / Output / Mix Controls
- Input / Output Metering
- Resizable Interface
[ Click here to buy + more info ]
Tube Screamer Distortion by Otto Audio (Free)
Not your typical green overdrive, modeled after the usual suspects – but with a few extra features.
In the analog world, different guitars with different pickups have very different signal levels at the output (some 0.7 volts some up to 7 volts) so the OTTO8 can have different signal levels at the input, which affects the character of the sound at the OTTO8 output.
In the digital world, the output levels of different guitars with different pickups are normalized to the same level when digitizing and, accordingly, the plug-in input will have the same signal level regardless of which guitar is connected.
Weight – adds a heft that most overdrives are missing. Blend to taste.
Give it a touch or push your amp sims way beyond overdrive with OTTO8.
Features
- Independent Input And Output gain controls.
- The input level control in OTTO8 emulates this real-world feature.
- Input up to 12db gain
- Output to 10db gain
[ Click here to download + more info ]
CHOW Klon Centaur Model Distortion by ChowDSP (Free)
This repository contains a digital model of the Klon Centaur guitar pedal. The goal is to use this circuit as a test bench for comparing/combining nodal analysis, wave digital filters, and neural network circuit modelling approaches.
The model is implemented as an audio plugin and as a guitar, pedal-style effect embedded on a Teensy microcontroller.
This work began as part of a class project for EE 292D at Stanford University.
[ Click here to download + more info ]
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