Trash 2

Still one of the best distortion effects. But distortion is not the only function where it excels. Its compressor is a top notch. It is transparent and very effective on any source. I have sold other compressors that I had, becuase there was no point to keep dozens of comps for electronic music. In most cases I don't need a coloration on my audio. The color is added before the compression. Trash 2 can be bought very cheap, but its compressor can rival a more expensive alternativies with ease and also easily beats my DAW stock comps. Recommended.

The only issue with the Trash 2 is that it cannot save its own Quality settings, aka oversampling. Each time I load the same project, the settings are reset.

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I purchased Trash this couple of months ago after testing the demo version for a few weeks. Since then, I have not regretted a single penny I spent on it. It's a distortion plugin (including a vast array of speaker/"box" simulations), so it does much more than an amp simulator, but works very well for that latter purpose. My guitarist instincts first didn't like the UI, but after spending some time with it, I think it's vastly superior to any other "amp sim" software. Trash gives you a graphic description of the changes you are making to your sound. Trash consists of several modules: compressor/gate, pre-distortion filters, distortion, post-distortion filters, box sims and delay/echo sims with a choice of several modes (tape/tube-tape/analog/digital delay) which can be put into any order by the user. Tasty. Different filters can be chosen (peak/low-hi cut and shelf and so on...) and put under control of the signal envelope or an LFO for touch- or auto-wah and such. Distortion (everything there from tape saturation to different tube styles, germanium, silicon-modeled distortion to more experimental stuff) can be run in multiband mode, which can improve the sound in some cases. Multiband options also exist for the compressor an the post-distortion filters. In addition, two types of distortion can be chained to achieve pre-and power amp distortion simulation. Sounds are phantastic, and I don't think I even scratched the surface of what this thing can do. The box sims are very "breathy". Comes with a great "Help" file, and iZotope also have "Trash receipes" PDF files available as downloads (separate files for guitar, bass, keys etc.). Get them even if you dont't get the plugin - you can learn a LOT of general stuff about distortion, filters, compression and guitar sounds. The presets are abundant and give a first impression of what this software can do, but I believe you can get even better stuff by tweaking yourself. It's also possible to download presets made by Trash users from the iZotope website, as well as more presets made by the iZotope guys themselves. Customer support is great - I got a fast answer when I wrote them with a few inane questions about CPU usage, and they were really friendly. Cost-wise, it beats almost anything out there. It sounds better (and has more sounds/fexibility) than amplitube, at half the price (considering the low Dollar, it's currently a steal especially in Europe). The only other quality amp sim that comes close is probably the green machine. If you downloaded iZotope vinyl (free from their site), you sometimes are eligible for a discount. Do it! I have not had any stability problems with the program in SONAR 2.2, but it IS a CPU hog - especially if you make use of the multiband options - which probably won't matter if you have one of the newer processors (I do OK with and Athlon XP2000). It IS possible to make this plugin sound like crap, but that is just a reflection of the vast flexibility of Trash...Read Review

This is one of the most usefull effects around. Not only a perfect guitar amp sim, but it is great for any other instrument too. The GUI is so very usefull with the interface familiar to anyone who uses any of Izotope's other great effects (Spectron & Ozone). It is much more versatile than any of the competitors in this class at a price that is a steal, and it comes with a very very good recipies tutorial. My only gripes are that it is CPU hungry and the learning curve is a bit steep (but worth the while). They make up for it with great presets, but further tweaking to those pre-sets is usually required.Read Review