Shameless Plugs released The Dom, a freeware high-gain distortion and overdrive effect in VST3 plugin format for digital audio workstations on Windows.
The Dom delivers aggressive distortion. It’s intentionally designed as a no-holds-barred audio degradation effect, but you can also get some more gentle signal coloration out of it with the right settings.
See also: BPB Saturator Is A FREE Tube/Tape Saturation VST PluginThat said, if you want to distort your audio without any second thoughts, The Dom will definitely do the trick (as will our free BPB Dirty Filter plugin, too!).
The great thing about The Dom is its simple user interface. There are four control knobs in total, so you don’t have to worry about trying a million parameter combinations before finding the perfect setting. The developer describes this as “keeping the Paradox of Choice at bay.”
From left to right, the plugin features a low-cut filter, a drive knob, a high-cut filter, and the master volume control. The parameters are self-explanatory, so I’ll just emphasize that I thoroughly enjoy using plugins that sound good and don’t confuse the user with unlimited options.
When I see a plugin with twenty knobs, fifteen sliders, four ADSR envelopes, customizable LFOs, and a modulation matrix, my creativity tends to chill in the background while my OCD prepares for a thorough manual-reading session.
That’s not to say that complicated plugins aren’t good. I’m just more creative when using music tools that don’t provide too many controls.
Anyway, back on topic.
You can use The Dom as a guitar distortion effect in front of an amp sim, or as a straight-up audio mangling tool for synths, drums, or whatever your sound design needs are. Shameless Plugs provided a couple of interesting “use scenarios” on their website, one of which relies on a combo of The Dom and their excellent Tilde~Q plugin (a freeware tilt equalizer).
Before you go, here’s how The developer describes the plugin in a couple of sentences:
“The Dom is a frankly brutal distortion, overdrive, and amplifier plugin. It is not here to sit quietly in the corner and gently handle all your audio bits with the greatest care; it is here to rock & roll.”
All things considered, The Dom is well worth the download if you’re looking for a capable distortion effect. It’s free, easy to use, and capable of some serious sonic destruction.
Download: The Dom (1.71 MB download size, ZIP archive, 64-bit VST3 plugin format for Windows)
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7 Comments
Dom
onThanks for the awesome write up Tomislav!
Tomislav Zlatic
onCheers, Dom! :)
HITESH BANDHU
onHi Tom. I have a suggestion. As you see yourself sometimes due to so many comments it is hard to read every comment. How about adding a category section along with Name and Email section. So if someone has news, he can just select news. These comments can be read on high priority. Hope you’ll see and reply.
Brenny C
onI like this idea. That way a plugin release page’s comment section doesn’t get clogged up with irrelevent comments that have nothing to do with the plugin at hand.
Tomislav Zlatic
onI like it too, definitely making this happen! I’ll just give it a few days to work out a proper format.
Tomislav Zlatic
onHi Hitesh, thanks for your suggestion. I’ve always wanted to do something similar, and, eventually even build a proper forum for BPB but these can be hard to maintain properly (requires moderation, maintenance, etc.). But I think we can definitely do something similarly useful but in a smaller format, along the lines of what you suggested. How about this? I can make a post that’s titled Reader’s tips, or BPB Insider Tips, or BPB’s Reader Lounge, or something like that. I would monitor this section for the latest comments and everyone else can come here to see the latest news and info from the readers. What do you think?
MRG
onInstructions purple on black unclear, plugin stuck in DAW. *cough* Nice grit, eats the bass a lot, even with the Low at minimum. Which is fine, actually. Gets aggressive without overdoing it, sweet without going flat. Very useful as an exciter. Would benefit from a Dry passthrough, if your DAW doesn’t have one. Easy, fast, non-nonsense, enough controls to get by. Like it.