D16 Redoptor 2: A revamped, retooled and restyled tube distortion plug-in

16 Oct 2018 by Lyubomir Dobrev | Approximate reading time: 2 Minutes

· Source: D16

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Polish developer D16 has released a successor to its Redoptor tube distortion and saturation plug-in. Redoptor 2 adds a lot of new functionality and as you can clearly see, the front panel of this thing is fairly busy, but it’s all clearly labelled and makes sense. The signal flow is as follows:

1. Pre Filter

Signal enters a low cut and high cut filter section, both bypass-able.

2. Preamp

Next follows a tube preamp section with gain and dynamics adjustments, so you can both boost the signal, overdrive the preamp for saturation, and add a touch of compression on the way in. Smart, and it means you can use Redoptor 2 as a bona-fide tube preamp with built-in compression and overdrive.

3. Tube Drive

After this comes a tube drive section where you have control over tube bias, tone, body, and brightness. These controls let you creatively shape the distortion of the already saturated and compressed signal before it hits the parametric EQ.

Redopter 2 GUI

4. Parametric EQ

A complete four-band parametric EQ section is provided for frequency adjustment of the saturated and overdriven signal. There are Gain, Frequency, and Width control sets, with the four bands covering lows, low mids, high mids, and highs. The addition of a complete parametric EQ means that, with appropriate adjustment of the preamp and tube sections, you can use Redoptor 2 as a full-blown tube parametric equalizer in your productions. How cool is that?

5. Limiter

Finally, a simple one-knob limiter is provided so you don’t blow up your speakers by accident. Below the limiter, you will find a Mix knob that lets you dial in how much of the effected signal you want blended with the original. And at the very end, you can adjust output volume.

In addition to these sections, there are a Preset selector and an Options knob which brings up a menu with some choices like processing quality and such.

Overall, a stellar release by D16. Personally, I can’t wait to hear how it sounds on anything I’d throw at it – and I will throw anything at it just for kicks and that phat tube goodness.