if I drive the output volume cubase produces this very nice overdrive. How can I can achieve that effect with plugins? I’ve tried pushing waves compressor/limiter but that doesn’t work
edit: GClip comes close. is that basically what cubase does? just clips the waveform?
Yup, that’s what happens when you try to push a digital signal beyond the number of available bits, hard clipping, should be plenty of FSU-plugs out there with that feature.
You could shell out some shekles for Voxengo Elephant which has a clipping feature option/preset, and get a very excellent all round mastering limiter to boot 
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You can download it here: Limiter Plugin, Maximizer for Audio Mastering [VST, AU, AAX] - Elephant - Voxengo
It will function in demo mode but makes a noise every so often.
Cheers,
Mauri.
Or try the Sausage Fattener
