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Any VSTs out there that are good for distortion/effects. I need some new VSTs to work with. I use Massive and i feel like they all sound the same or close enough. Need some VSTs to add some flavor. Also need a good bitcrusher VST, anyone help?

FM8 i hear is meant to be fairly decent for bass. But to be honest most VSTi's these days are more about workflow than sound (to a degree) most of them can produce pretty much the same thing as their getting so powerful and non-linear these days. For distortion, I'm not too sure really, I used amplitube for a while but I've sorta fallen out with it as its just not that good imo (maybe I'm not using it right) seems to fuck up the stereo width on a lot of the stuff I'm tryna distort. Camel crusher is meant to be pretty decent for distortion but i don't have that.

Bit of googling came up with this: http://www.ohmforce.com/ViewProduct.do?p=Predatohm and if you're looking for free http://www.camelaudio.com/camelcrusher.php Google is your friend. You should try it some time

Oh and effects? Timeless/Volcano.

my weapon of choice is Ohmicide, its the best distortion plug in ever! It distorts by frequency so you have so much control over what you are actually distorting.

Yeah, Ohmicide is amazing, and camelcrusher is pretty cool. Tridirt is a good free distortion plugin.

As far as VSTi, Albino 3, blue, omnisphere, sytrus, fm8 are all good.
And read massive's manual. If you think all those sounds sound basically the same, you're not doing something right. Promise.

Depends on what you're doing. If you're willing to learn FM synthesis than fm8 is great, it can make growl sounds and weird metallic stuff really well. If you just want to use a subtractive synth to make some good wobs then Albino and Zeta+ will probably sound better than Massive.

As for effects, I have made sounds just fine with all free VST's. For distortion I can replicate the Camelphat distortion unit almost exactly by using TAL Tube, Fruity Waveshaper (or Cyanide if you're not on FL), CMT Bitcrusher and Modern Exciter then tweak the dry/wet of each of them until I get a good sound. I also like to add some light chorus (TAL Chorus), reverb (Karmafx Reverb), and saturation (FerricTDS). Also there's a VST called Dub Expander which does the same thing as Massive's dimension expander.

Basically if you make a cool patch in Albino with notch automation, then add a very light chorus, various distortion types, reverb, saturation and dimension expander then add a filter and LFO to cutoff you will be able to make way better wobbles than anything from Massive.

Jacobs pretty on the money, I will add though that Massive has some pretty good built-in disto on the inserts, and is great for 'formant wubs' as I call them, everyone else just likes to call them 'Skrileks Bass'.

But to counter Jacob's claim, Turnipish was right in saying it's a lot about workflow, which Massive is king of. Not sure about his 'all synths are the same' line tho.

i find massive good for the heavier more industrial sounds, wheres something like albino sounds better for something more grimier. personally, i find it easier to use the ASDR in albino on bass rather than massives.

Yesh! Ohmicide for crazy distortion, but get the full the fabfilter bundle, you won't be sorry I promise!! Fabs synths are great too but also Z3ta 2, Zebra, Fm8, ect..

Izotope trash + atalantus filter/distortion/crazy combo effect

Forgot about Atlantis Filter. Great plugin, very versatile and free. Something about it kind of bugs me though, the sound quality seems a bit cheap maybe?

How about a change of synth? Sytrus is AMAZING, once you get your head around the fine aspects of FM synthesis. the Waveshaping of oscillators and the awesome slide... Try modulating a sub sine with a wonky custom wave. Madness.