Strongly recommend this plugin. The formant pitch shifting is pretty much the only way I can get a good femme vocal recording from my testosterone laden cig-y vocal chords. The rest of the Soundtoys collection is pretty fantastic, but replacable. Alterboy is the only plugin I know of that lets you pitch shift the way it does.
Awesome writeup. I knew the whole ST suite is used in loads of mainstream tracks, but I didn’t know those specific examples. I’ve long had the feeling that 10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄ by Bon Iver also uses it for the fucked up drums, although don’t quote me on it.
And yeah, Decapitator specifically has a character to its sound that I just haven’t found in any other plugin. In techno I would throw it on almost any channel on a low setting just to add a little bite to stuff. It also sounds good at almost any setting, from barely noticeable warmth to completely mangling sounds. I really like others in the suite too, for specific needs, but that one is the only really unreplaceable one.
If you could help me get my hands on a good crack I’d be eternally grateful, but otherwise no stress.