Welcome To Dist Tube-Culture; The Culture Vulture And Ultra Vulture - Arturia DIST TUBE-CULTURE User Manual

1. WELCOME TO DIST TUBE-CULTURE

Thank you for purchasing Dist TUBE-CULTURE. This audio effect plug-in for VST, AU, and AAX
formats precisely recreates the sound of the Ultra Vulture harmonic distortion processor
from Thermionic Culture. We have also added some extra features of our own to make the
plug-in even more flexible sonically.
Dist TUBE-CULTURE can impart subtle harmonic enhancement to your tracks, adding that
ever-elusive quality often called "warmth." It can add pronounced fuzz or completely break
up the sound as well. Most importantly, it can produce any effect in between these two
extremes. The manufacturer of the original hardware called it "the best harmonic distortion
money can buy." We agree, which is why we chose to model it in every detail using our
exclusive TAE® (True Analog Emulation) process.

1.1. The Culture Vulture and Ultra Vulture

The Culture Vulture is a hand-built studio audio processor that adds vacuum tube (a.k.a.
valve) harmonic distortion to line-level signals that are run through it. First introduced in 1998,
this boutique piece of equipment quickly earned a reputation for bringing life back to music
recorded with the digital technology of the time — which could otherwise sound quite sterile.
In fact, it did this job so well that it was adopted by mastering engineers — who might be
the last people you would expect to gravitate towards a processor with "distortion" in its
description!
The original Culture Vulture was a stereo rackmount unit that featured three vacuum tubes
on each channel: an EF86 as the input preamp, a 6AS6 for the distortion, and a 5963 on the
output. It featured three distortion modes (Triode, Pentode 1, and Pentode 2) plus adjustable
drive and bias. Bias referred to the amount of current flowing into the 6AS6 distortion tube;
more of it generally creates a richer sound. One of the Culture Vulture's design quirks was
that turning the Bias knob up actually decreased the current. The Bias and Drive knob
interacted in ways that allowed for sound-sculpting not possible with simple gain-staging
and EQ.
Thermionic Culture released several updated versions over the years, culminating in the
most recent one: the Ultra Vulture. This is the version we have chosen to model in Dist TUBE-
CULTURE.
The Ultra Vulture was quieter and featured extended frequency response, making it even
more suitable for mastering applications. It gained another distortion mode (Pentode 3),
which could get more extreme than the others.
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