Tape Saturation Plug-ins (or similar)
 

Can anyone recommend any decent Tape Saturation plug-ins? (or similar)

I would also be interested in peoples opinions in using them.

I use Voxengo's Tape Sim in Analogflux (AFTapebus) on just about every channel.

Definately worth trying on demo.

On a slightly related topic: UAD are due to release their Space Echo emulation, so hopefully they may have cracked true Tape simulation and release a dedicated plug-in...

Cheers Drammy. Rub it in talking about UAD products - I have a new G5 with it's PCI-E issues!

When using the Voxengo plug - I see that you use it on every channel as opposed to overall when mastering. Is this correct?

i belive PSP have something like that.

http://www.pspaudioware.com/

Thats pretty much correct, mostly only with minimal settings.

I suppose busses is more accurate than each individual channel, for example the percussion and drums will be bussed together and the tape sim put over the drum bus, here are a couple of examples:

Drum example 1 is mild tape simulation (voxengo's AFTapeBus, Convincing Drums preset)
Drum example 2 is strong tape simulation (voxengo's AFTapeBus, Smashed Drums preset - I have slightly tinkered this one though)

Both demos have the 4 Bar Loop drum sample (Stylus RMX) dry first and then wet (with only Voxengo's AFTapeBus)

I have tried to manage the levels properly so you don't hear any increase in Gain, just the preset...

Was going to put the UAD Precision Limiter over it, but that would just be dangling the carrot on a stick!

Overall I think it would be fair to say that most VST Tapesims can give a nice sound whilst not really catching the true essence of Tape Saturation.


Drammy

Cheers D. Sounds very useable and interesting. It's the same effect that William Orbit has used throughout his new album. I Will have to wait until Voxengo make an AU version for my Mac!

How do the PSP plugs compare in use?

I use Ozone 3 (www.izotope.com) which includes a harmonic exiter with differents forms of soft saturation and distortion...just like tape sat. I don't know alot about howto use it, but i usually saturate the middle frequencies of the track (300-10000) a bit, and maybe a little in the top too. Is some fatness is needed i delay it with a couple of milliseconds. I usually do this in the stereo imager though.

There isn't a PSP Tape Sim. Not that I know of anyway...

There is a vintage compressor that people have raved about, personally I'm not impressed - it makes things louder but at the expense of sound quality and doesn't sound very "vintage" to me...

They also do a PSP MixSaturator pack which consists of 4 plug-ins - I think it is aimed at mixing as opposed to mastering. D - Out of interest what sort of music do you produce?

Just reading about the Ozone pack on the KVR Audio site. This sounds like a great plug in.

Keep 'em coming.

I enjoy the vintage warmer sound. I think it sounds good on drums and vocals. I even use it as a mastering tool sometimes. To each thier own though. :lol:

Its hard to say what kind of music I do.

I enjoy breakbeat, with big atmospheres but most of my tracks end up completely different to how they started out anyway!

Definately Dance orientated though...


I just enjoy messing about rather than actually getting anywhere towards writing an entire tune. Hence the reason why I created 4BarLoop.com for people like myself. There is a snippet of some of my work on that site, in the files section, I think I also posted a couple fo track in the Forum member's music section here.

Not very good I'm afraid - I just enjoy it. I like the sound and production rather than the songwriting.

I use Ozone on everything. You can use Izotope Trash for tape saturation as well.

Cheers folks for your replies. Got a few ideas now - I have also been looking at the IK T-RackS mastering suite. Anyone used this?

Ozone kicks its ass :lol:

I personally think that Ozone is better than T-Racks, but it's still not very good. Ozone sounds really harsh in the midrange and can really suck the life out of a mix, even on subtle settings.

Waves L3-Multimaximiser is great when used with caution.

Magneto which is one of the standard cubase\nuendo plugins does this pretty well

Magneto is really nice on pads/strings and cutting leads I've found.

Drammy, thanks for sharing those demos. The tape-sat really brought those loops to life, it was freaky!

>>Was going to put the UAD Precision Limiter over it, but that would just be dangling the carrot on a stick!

Go on, we're all geeks and gear whores here! :)

Timo

(Waiting for a Magma eCard-to-PCIe convertor + chassis to be released before being able to buy and use a UAD card on my laptop :roll: )

I'd agree with people on PSP's great... EVERYTHING by PSP is phenomenal. Nitro is the best filter out there. Vintagewarmer works wonders when used for mangling or making the track warmer. I dont care much for Antares Tube.

To warm up the track I also recommend runnning it through emulations of guitar amps... such as Amplitube 2, Guitar Rig 2, or Guitar Rack 2 by Waves. These, when used in conjunction with the Vintagewarmer, give great results.

Remember Vintagewarmer works with ANYTHING... its awesome. It makes distortions more bad ass, mixes more full, compresses, limits... though it doesnt do anything to sexually satisfy you. Unless your music gets you in with your lady.

Probably the *only* useful plugin in the Cubase box...

I dunno, I quite like Cubase's "VST Dynamics" plugin for its compressor. It's, quite literally, the only compressor plugin i've used to date that I can get to 'pump' easily.

Apart from that and Magneto, the rest of Cubase' plugins are shite. That god awful reverb plug for a start... who the fark designed that?! :lol: Metallic, horrid, nasty thing.

I think they take the "optimising the code so that even uber-crappy computers can run it" ideology too far.

Yes, you can run 10000 instances of NaturalVerb, but would you want to?! :lol:

Hmm - maybe you could get soe decent density of them then - but omg teh tone - Ugh!

Many multiple instances..... I think it'd be akin to sticking your head inside Big Ben, it's that metallic and ringy. :)

You wait, whole genres will form because of that reverb in ten years.

This is the reason I will never sell or give away my copy of VST32. Someone will offer me a fortune for the plugins in a few years time! :D

You could always buy one of the Neve Portico Tape Saturators - which im sure would do the job nicely ;) :roll:

Or spend some money on a used aphex 2` tape machine. :mrgreen:

I lust after the Empirical Labs stuff....

Cranesong do a nice tape emulator aswel...

I think Rupert Neve also have something of this sort as released under his new company.