Empirical Labs^® EL8 Distressor

Big, fat and awesome...

Truly makes my mixes sound larger than life.

Smashing!

Great tones and dirt come out of this plugin with ease!

master of compression!!!!

if you know the original hardware, you can understanding what I mean!

Swiss army knife of comps

After demo'ing it and reading many reviews I finally bought it. It's a great investment.
I produce my own music, which is metal, and the distressor is used everywhere. It's the only compressor I like on my vocals.

Mmmm.... butter

Butter those bass lines into submission

Immediate Goto

Drums / Bass buss glue on every project from now on. Fantastic.

My new go-to comp

For quite some time I had a feeling that I'm missing a really good comp in my mixing chain. Previously I was using Waves H-comp ("character" compression) and C1 ("transparent" compression), then I started demoing some comps from UA. Distressor is the one that made my things (mainly vocals) really shine. You can make it characterful, you can make it transparent and gentle, in case anything is missing, you can always go to something else, like 1176 or LA-2A.

And yes, I'm a UAD acolyte, the only non-UAD things in my mixing chain for now are FabFilter Q-3 and iZotope RX tools, because UAD simply beats everything I tried.

My Favorite Plugin

I love this plugin on kicks! It's Like Magic to me! But I use it for other stuff as well! Amazing!!!

To be honest I was looking to get a hardware unit of the distressor but then a friend of mine invited me to his Studio to try out this uad plug-in. So we did that a b comparison and I honestly can say it was so close this comparison right here actually had me go and get the Apollo twin quad core. Enough said I have beat around the bush for years on uad not anymore.

Yes, VCA at it´s best

The better 1176.
Very wide usablility. Nuke is not All-button-mode of 1176.

Outstanding is an overused word

... but if you want a compressor that will make your drums pop and pump, this is the one.

Perfection!

Sometimes I wonder how the audio world survived all those years without Distressor!

Eh...

I own the real thing and use it every day. The plugin is okay, but when pushed hard (which is kinda the point of the distressed portion of this box), it starts to show. Not overly impressed with one compared to say the LA2A collection. Decent, but the gift of the hardware is that it stays quite invisible unless you don't want it to (whereas the software version feels more heavy-handed).

Sold my hardware unit

i owned the hardware for about 8 years, i own two other software emulations.......The UAD Distressor emulation......Lets just say, i processed a few drums through it and i think GOOGLE translate said "it's time to sell your hardware" when i pressed play. This and the manley massive passive made me a UAD believer.

Love It!!

It adds so much to my tone!!

Finally!

long awaited plugin version of this classic. i'm so happy to have this and it does sound just as amazing as the real deal!

my new lover

i really like the way that give live to drums , control synths and even voices

Tight Punch

Love this compressor. The fact that I could use this on multiple channels while mixing is plus for me without having to purchase multiple units. Great addition to my setup.

This kills

Literally
Nails the hardware tone and now being able to put a ton of Distressors all over my mix?! I’m in love

I Love It!!!

It has become my main compressor on every single element of the drums !! Fantastic also on the bass and, with a bit of attention, a little on all the instruments including vocals and guitar! Great emulation of the namesake Hardware to have at any cost !!