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UAD Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor Compressor (VST/AU/AAX)

Original price was: $299.00.Current price is: $39.00.

Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor Compressor brings the iconic character and versatility of the hardware unit to your DAW. With powerful compression, unique harmonic coloration, and a wide range of settings, it’s perfect for shaping vocals, drums, guitars, and more.

Description

Get the colorful sound of
the world’s most popular compressor

The Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor is revered in studios the world over as the modern, “must-have” compressor. Versatile with tons of color, the Distressor picks up where the legendary UA 1176 and Teletronix LA-2A compressors leave off — giving you a modern tool that’s equal parts utilitarian and creative, as heard on thousands of hit records.

Track and Mix with The only Authentic Emulation of The EL8 Distressor — the World's Most Sought-After Modern Compressor
Radically Shape Guitars, Drums, and Vocals with Nearly Infinite Gain Reduction Variations
Harness Plug-In-Only Features Like Dry/Wet Parallel Processing and Headroom for User‑customizable Operating Level
Creatively Color Instruments and Vocals with Famous “Dist 2” and “Dist 3” Modes
Embellish, Pump Up, or Destroy Bass, Synth, and Room Mics with Custom Detector Filtering
Mix With Presets From Joe Chiccarelli (The Strokes), Vance Powell (Jack White), Jacquire King (Kings of Leon), Jimmy Douglass (The Rolling Stones), And More.

Drum Compression with Vance Powell & the UAD EL8 Distressor

Learn how to Add Energy to Drums
Grammy-winning engineer Vance Powell (Jack White, The Dead Weather) and the Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor plug‑in.

Shape with the Only End‑to‑End
Distressor Emulation

The EL8 Distressor Compressor plug-in gives you all the features and tone of the original hardware. Simply compare other Distressor emulations for yourself, and contrast the original hardware’s ultra-fast attack time to quickly hear where most plug-ins fail, and the authentic UAD Distressor succeeds.

Find the Perfect
Compression Ratio

The crux of the Distressor are its staggering variations in compression — 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, 6:1, 10:1, 20:1 and Nuke — each offering unique sounds. Use the 1:1 ratio to gently warm up synths or strings without compression, while adding musical harmonics. Conversely, the Nuke setting gives explosive excitement to room mics or your entire mix.

Add Color
with Distortion Modes

The Distressor's iconic Dist 2 and Dist 3 modes give you a wide palette of compression textures, letting you shape sources with even or combined even/odd-order harmonic distortion, from delicate thickening to burnished tape to fully saturated.

Focus Dynamics
with Powerful Sidechain Controls

The Distressor’s sidechain control gets rid of unwanted low-frequency pumping — perfect for drum bus processing — while Band Emphasis tames strident vocals and harsh “power region” instrument peaks. You can also harness "plug-in only" features like Dry/Wet Mix for easy parallel compression on a mix bus or instrument group.

TAKE A LISTEN

PRODUCT SUMMARY

Faithful Hardware Emulation - Captures the iconic sound and behavior of the original EL8 Distressor.
Versatile Compression Modes - Offers multiple ratio settings, including the popular "nuke" mode for aggressive limiting.
Harmonic Distortion - Adds rich harmonic coloration with switchable distortion modes for unique tonal textures.
Wide Dynamic Range - Effortlessly shapes everything from subtle dynamics to extreme compression.
Flexible Sidechain Options - Includes sidechain filtering for precise frequency-dependent compression control.
Optimized Workflow - Designed for seamless integration into any DAW with an intuitive interface.