THIS MONTH IN SOFTWARE

Output turns up the heat with Thermal, an ‘interactive’ multi-stage distortion plugin

Output is confident that it’s gone beyond the usual “incremental advances” in saturation and distortion technology with Thermal, its ‘interactive’ new plugin.

This offers a multi-stage engine that promises greater capabilities than traditional multiband distortions, but with ease of use pushed very much to the fore. A circular XY control is linked to the distortion parameters, and you get 250 presets.

If you want to go beyond the basic controls you can dig into the Advanced page, which enables you to interact with the distortion on the waveform display, tweak modulation envelopes and add effects. You can choose from 19 analog and digitally-modelled distortion algorithms and add mid/side and time-based width.

“If you’re familiar with Output, you know we like to take traditional ideas and flip them on their heads,” said Output CEO, Gregg Lehrman. “Finding and using distortion