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Description
Step into the world of sonic chaos with the SoundToys Devil-Loc, a distortion plugin that transforms your tracks with a blend of grit and character. Inspired by the quirky charm of vintage mic levelers, this plugin captures the essence of analog unpredictability. Devil-Loc doesn't just add distortion—it redefines it, bringing a unique blend of compression and saturation that breathes life into otherwise flat loops and drum tracks.
Whether you're looking to inflate room ambience or conjure extreme gating effects, Devil-Loc delivers with flair. Push it to its limits and witness loud hits crush into silence, only to bloom into a wild, fuzzy crescendo. Yet, the true magic happens when you dial it back to discover those sweet spots that add a warm, vintage halo to your sound.
Perfect for producers who love to experiment, the Devil-Loc is your ticket to unleashing creative mayhem. Its intuitive interface makes it easy to dial in the perfect amount of chaos, while the switchable release times and tone controls let you shape the distortion to suit your needs. From thundering drums to driven lo-fi loops, Devil-Loc is a versatile tool that fits seamlessly into any production setup. Compatible with major DAWs, this plugin invites you to explore the boundaries of sound design.
Key Features:
- Vintage-inspired distortion and compression effects
- Intuitive controls for mixing original and processed sounds
- Switchable release times for dynamic control
- Compatible with popular DAWs like Pro Tools, Logic Pro, and Cubase
- Ideal for drums, loops, and mix bus applications
Product specs
| Software Type | Extreme Compression effects |
| Platform | Mac, PC |
| Upgrade/Full | Full |
| Download/Boxed | Download |
| Bit Depth | 32-bit, 64-bit |
| Format | AAX Native, VST, AU, AudioSuite |
| Authorization Type | iLok Account required |
| Hardware Requirements - Mac | Intel processor |
| Hardware Requirements - PC | Intel compatible processor |
| OS Requirements - Mac | OS X 10.10 or later |
| OS Requirements - PC | Windows 7 SP1 or later |
FAQs
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What is the SoundToys Devil-Loc plugin primarily used for?
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The SoundToys Devil-Loc is used for adding extreme compression and distortion, especially effective on drums, to create huge, gritty, and aggressive sounds.
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Is the SoundToys Devil-Loc compatible with my DAW?
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The SoundToys Devil-Loc is compatible with most major DAWs as it supports AAX Native, VST, AU, and AudioSuite formats.
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What are the system requirements for using SoundToys Devil-Loc on a Mac?
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To use SoundToys Devil-Loc on a Mac, you need an Intel processor and OS X 10.10 or later.
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Does the SoundToys Devil-Loc require any special authorization?
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Yes, the SoundToys Devil-Loc requires an iLok account for authorization.
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Can SoundToys Devil-Loc be used on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems?
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Yes, SoundToys Devil-Loc supports both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.
Videos
soundtoys
Soundtoys Devil-Loc: Little Tip
Reviews
PROS
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Excellent for adding punch and girth to drum tracks
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Versatile for various instruments: drums, bass, guitar, vocals, piano, and synth
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Mix and darkness controls enhance usability and creativity
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Perfect for achieving Tame Impala and Ben Frost-style crunchy drums
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Inflates room ambience, adding excitement to rhythm tracks
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Capable of creating extreme gating effects at higher settings
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Simple yet effective tool for enhancing mix bus
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Offers a unique blend of distortion and compression in one plugin
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Easy to use with noticeable effects even at low settings
CONS
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Lacks output gain control, leading to volume spikes
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Limited range despite additional controls
Owner Insights
We analyzed real musician discussions from forums and Reddit to find what players love, question, and tweak about SoundToys Devil-Loc.
Use cases and applications
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Devil-Loc is particularly effective when used on the side snare mic rather than the entire drum kit to avoid heavy-handedness.
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Users achieve a Tame Impala-style sound by sending individual drum mics to a bus and applying Devil-Loc in parallel for a controlled effect.
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Devil-Loc's effect is often too intense for cymbals; it's recommended to exclude them and focus on shells like kick, snare, and toms.
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Devil-Loc is notably effective for parallel compression, especially when seeking an extreme smashing effect on specific tracks.
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Features and functionality
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The Devil-Loc Deluxe version includes a mix knob that allows users to blend the effect subtly by dialing in the desired amount of wet signal.
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Devil-Loc's compression curves are among the most aggressive in plugins, creating a uniquely gritty and harsh saturation effect not found in many other plugins.
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User experience
Comparisons
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Decapitator offers analog-type saturation with options for subtle to destructive tones, while Devil-Loc is more of a one-trick pony with its intense compression.
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Some users find Tone Empire's Locness V2 to offer a preferable aggressive drum processing experience over Devil-Loc, especially valued for its current price of $25.
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Slate Digital Heatwaves is noted as a viable free alternative for similar aggressive processing, though not a direct substitute for Devil-Loc's unique characteristics.
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4.5 out of 5
Based on 3 Reviews and 8 Ratings
1798
Smash and crush
I don't want to blow my speakers by clipping my gear all the time. The Devil-Loc as well as the Decapitator help me achieve that sound. I love the crunchy drums on Tame Impala records and on Ben Frost albums, but since I can't find a Level-Loc available and I'm very selective about what I buy, the Devil-Loc is a great alternative and is a near-perfect emulation.
Great VST , Must Have
Simple, devious and often unpredictable, Devil-Loc is a little plug-in that makes drums sound big. Drop it on a drum kit or loop and listen to Devil-Loc inflate the room ambience, pumping excitement into an otherwise drab rhythm track. Push it to its limits to create extreme gating effects where loud hits crush the signal to silence and the output blooms into a fuzzy mess.
Now back off the controls. You’ll find some amazing sweet spots where Devil-Loc shows its angelic side, adding a vintage halo to loops and drums. You can even try it on your mix bus—if you dare!
Artist usage
Add artist
This article on the making of Marr's 2018 Call the Comet album by MixOnline.com touches on some of the gear used during the recording process. "An SM58 is pointing away from the kit toward the opposite wall, where there are some big windows. This is the only thing that gets squashed and distorted with a Soundtoys Devil-Loc or Decapitator. Slate SSL or Neve plug-ins or Fairchild is used to level off the drums." (While the engineer is providing this feedback, the gear is housed in Marr's own Crazy Face studios, which contains gear he's collected over his decades in the music industry.)
“…I love all the SoundToys plugins, I use a lot of Decapitator, Radiator, Devilok…”
Odesza talks about their track “On Across the Room” and how they used Devil-loc on the vocal chops
Used on "Apeshit", as stated by producer Stuart White in this September 2018 Sound on Sound interview.
The first four aux tracks feature SoundToys effects, namely Little Microshift, two EchoBoy delays, and a delay from the Little PrimalTap. Next are a Hall Reverb aux and a Church Reverb aux, both using Waves’ RVerb, an EMT plate from Audio Ease’s Altiverb, four aux tracks with the Waves H-Delay and various other plug-ins on them as well, and four more reverb auxes with the Avid Revibe II, two Avid D-Verbs and another RVerb.
White: “I use the Little Microshift in pretty much every mix, with the left-right micro pitch-shift effect that’s similar to the classic effect in the Eventide H3000 shift where you pitch one side down six cents and one side up six cents to create width. It’s a good way to get your vocals wider without them being out of phase. It thickens up vocals, and is kind of like a doubler. I do quite a lot of filtering on some of the EchoBoy delays, for example with the Waves REQ, and I am adding colour with the SoundToys Devil-Loc, which is great if you want to colour the delay so it is separate from the main vocal, and compress it with the UAD LA3A and mix that in to taste.”
(...) Beyoncé’s lead vocal tracks consist of three aux tracks, four ‘dirty’ and eight ‘clean’ audio tracks. The audio tracks only have the EQ3 on the inserts and a few of them have a send to the Church Reverb. All White’s processing is done on the three aux tracks. “All lead vocals are sent to the ‘B Aux’ track and the ‘B Parra Aux’ tracks. On the former I have the McDSP DS 555 de-esser. I use the Waves de-esser the most, but in this particular track, because I wanted to compress her voice really hard, I felt that the 555 would work the best. I am rolling off until 6144Hz into what it is detecting; it’s like a side-chain filter. The FabFilter Pro-DS is doing a little more gentle look-ahead de-essing.
“After that there’s some pretty heavy EQ from the EQ3, with a high-pass at 142Hz, a 9dB cut at 244Hz and a 2dB cut at 3kHz. My cut at 244Hz is because she is singing in this husky, low voice, so there’s not a lot of energy in that. I get the energy from the RComp compression, and the EQs, including from the SSL E-Channel, are there to make her sit in the track, rather than making it sound filtered. I love the RComp, mainly because it doesn’t sound like compression to me. The SSL E-Channel adds a bit more compression, and the [Crane Song] Phoenix II Tape Emulation is really cool because while it doesn’t actually sound like tape, it smoothes out transients in a signal just like much analogue equipment does. It enables me to get a fatter vocal sound that again makes the vocal sit in the mix. The final EQ3 has a notch at 3.2kHz to take out some harshness. I also have sends to the Verb aux track, which are the D-Verb and [Waves] H-Reverb, and the Delay 1-4 aux, with the EchoBoy.
The other aux track, ‘B Parra Aux’, is a parallel compression track, with the RCompressor and the CLA 76, which I mixed in low. Both these aux tracks then go to the ‘LD ALL Aux’, on which I’m doing some more surgery with the McDSP AE400 [dynamic EQ], which allows you to set a threshold, just like on a compressor. It’s like turning a volume knob down on a frequency the moment it gets out of control. Finally, there’s the Waves C4, for some control, to keep the vocal even. This track has a lot of energy, so this is an example of using compression for energy, mood and attitude. I also worked a long time to get the compression on Bey’s breaths to pump on the beat. I wanted her breaths to be another percussive element in the track, and getting the attack and release on the compressor right was key to getting that feel and pumping effect.”
Five of the 22 Beyoncé ad lib, backing and harmony vocals below her lead vocals also go to the above-mentioned aux tracks, while the rest have their own signal chains. These audio tracks are sent to several aux tracks, often with tons of plug-ins, and all aux vocal tracks in the end get sent to the ‘Voc All’ group aux right at the top of the session, which has an RCompressor, with ratio at 10:1. There are more group aux tracks, like ‘TrackAux’, ‘FX Voc Aux’, ‘FX’ and ‘Music Aux’, which all get sent to the ‘All Aux’. This in turn gets sent to the ‘no limiter’ mix print track, and finally there’s a Stereo Master track.
Justin Meldal-Johnsen mentions using the SoundToys Devil-Loc in his creative process on Instagram, highlighting its integration within the Effects Rack for limitless combination possibilities.
Used on "APESHIT", as stated by producer Stuart White in this September 2018 Sound on Sound interview.
The first four aux tracks feature SoundToys effects, namely Little Microshift, two EchoBoy delays, and a delay from the Little PrimalTap. Next are a Hall Reverb aux and a Church Reverb aux, both using Waves’ RVerb, an EMT plate from Audio Ease’s Altiverb, four aux tracks with the Waves H-Delay and various other plug-ins on them as well, and four more reverb auxes with the Avid Revibe II, two Avid D-Verbs and another RVerb.
White: “I use the Little Microshift in pretty much every mix, with the left-right micro pitch-shift effect that’s similar to the classic effect in the Eventide H3000 shift where you pitch one side down six cents and one side up six cents to create width. It’s a good way to get your vocals wider without them being out of phase. It thickens up vocals, and is kind of like a doubler. I do quite a lot of filtering on some of the EchoBoy delays, for example with the Waves REQ, and I am adding colour with the SoundToys Devil-Loc, which is great if you want to colour the delay so it is separate from the main vocal, and compress it with the UAD LA3A and mix that in to taste.”
(...) Jay-Z’s part consists of just two tracks, one lead, and one ad-lib, with an additional ‘reverse’ track, and a ‘jay clean’ track. White: “The main lead vocal track has the SSL E0-channel, Waves C4 multiband compressor for some control, FabFilter Pro-Q2 EQ, with a few notches, and McDSP AE400. Where Jay raps ‘Tell the Grammy’s fuck that 0 for 8 shit / have you ever seen a crowd goin’ apeshit?’, you can hear some stuff in the background, which is another example of me adding flair and energy. That actually comes from the third ‘Voice Sample’ track further up the session, on which I have some automated plug-ins, the ReVibe, Waves S1 Imager, and filter sweep from the EQ3. It’s subtle, but it gives you a little ear candy.”
In this Tape Notes podcast at 20:54, Wayne Sermon mentions the use of SoundToys Devil-Loc.
Used for Quavo and Offest's features on Beyoncé and Jay-Z's "Apeshit", as stated by producer Stuart White in this September 2018 Sound on Sound interview.
The first four aux tracks feature SoundToys effects, namely Little Microshift, two EchoBoy delays, and a delay from the Little PrimalTap. Next are a Hall Reverb aux and a Church Reverb aux, both using Waves’ RVerb, an EMT plate from Audio Ease’s Altiverb, four aux tracks with the Waves H-Delay and various other plug-ins on them as well, and four more reverb auxes with the Avid Revibe II, two Avid D-Verbs and another RVerb.
White: “I use the Little Microshift in pretty much every mix, with the left-right micro pitch-shift effect that’s similar to the classic effect in the Eventide H3000 shift where you pitch one side down six cents and one side up six cents to create width. It’s a good way to get your vocals wider without them being out of phase. It thickens up vocals, and is kind of like a doubler. I do quite a lot of filtering on some of the EchoBoy delays, for example with the Waves REQ, and I am adding colour with the SoundToys Devil-Loc, which is great if you want to colour the delay so it is separate from the main vocal, and compress it with the UAD LA3A and mix that in to taste.”
(...) “The Migos vocals came in as seven audio tracks, with the Avid D-Verb on each of them. Putting a D-Verb on a track before EQ is not something I normally do, but it sounded great. So I adjusted them a bit, but otherwise left them as they were. The tracks also came in with the Aux track above, and the EQ3, with a high pass at 60Hz and notches at 430Hz and 1.41kHz and a high boost, the Waves API 2500 compressor, the RComp, the Waves Q10 EQ, following a slightly similar curve to the EQ3, the Waves De-esser, the Waves Aphex Aural Exciter, and the Avid Dyn3 expander/gate. I added the EQ3, with another high-pass filter at 144Hz, and the RComp, with a ratio of 10:1.”
Album Usage
The SoundToys Devil-Loc has been featured on the following albums:
Genre Usage
Based on how artists on Equipboard use this gear, it is most commonly found in the following genres.
Used With
Based on how musicians on Equipboard use SoundToys Devil-Loc, it is most commonly used with the following gear.
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