Slate Virtual Tube Collection

How cool would it be if a slate vid had no sibilance 😂 Well then it wouldn't be a slate vid now would it ? I love Slate's dedication and work ethic. I dislike the over the top adjective reaching using keywords... I don't know why but these type of products dont really appeal to me... maybe I am not the customer base this is intended for.. Hope Slate continues to be successful and I hope he can separate the VMR modules into actual individual plugin inserts...

But man a skilled AE is not his market it is kids in their bedrooms with their DAWs.
We call it marketing and its nothing wrong with it.

A skilled AE demos the thing and decides if he likes it or not.

Please not another round of Slate bashing, he is running a business he gives employees money for live.
He needs to make marketing this market is hard, tough.

So I have at least used those things compared to some real tube gear I have here.
And for a plug ins these digital recreations are not bad by any means.... plug ins have come a long way since I stated to use a DAW in 2002.

And I know alt least two kids doing big time sound with their DAWs.
You can do it, but to me using just plug ins is a pain in the ass it just takes too much time.

From my interactions with Steven online I like him and have great respect for his passion, but I REALLY wish he would make a bit of an effort to tone down the misleading rhetoric.

He is selling something, what should he do... telling the customers his tools are bad, unusable...
Reading your posts I get the impression you never used the plug ins we talk about, nor you had to run a company? Do you?

Most of the Slate plugs are subtle to my ear, but you write that they distort...
Take VCC for example I use it and it sounds subtle but good.
I mix into HW on the 2 bus and the slate tools are a god send for this.

I cant wait to try his take on the disstressor.

BTW because of Steven is at least trying to make better plug ins I support his company with 14,99 a month.

Some of the Slate tools are killer bomber on drums is dope.

VTC may does not sounds like Tape but man this thing is great for getting a thicker, and richer tone, roll off some base in the preferences window, bang there you go.

I could write more arguments why I like to use slate plug ins and why I sold my UAD card.

This video is a great example of how not to sell your product. Not only is it literally screaming at you, the track is using the same generic, overly polished, overly loud, and fake-sounding production that's been the norm since 2005 for this type of music. Slate products have been adopted by a lot of metal guys, but I've yet to hear anyone turn out anything great with them. It's not the products' fault, but it is brand association. If someone were making the next Master of Puppets, then I'd say aligning your brand with them makes sense. This kinda production killed off a lot of interest in Metal. There's a good amount of people on forums asking how to get 80s and 90s sounds. It seems anyone can get this sound. It's been done to death. Famous studios and producers who once made sonic masterpieces now churn out sterile, flat, fake-sounding, generic drek that local bands around here with no budget can get at a local cheap studio. I know the product isn't at fault, but, people are hearing this that don't know that. How ironic is it that there's more production creativity on stuff from the last few NOW and Bravo cds than in the whole Metal genre? Well at least no one associated with the new Danzig album has claimed to use Slate products, right? Almost every youtube comment on the new tracks posted by Nuclear Blast is saying how horrible the mix is. Steven, stuff is getting more competitive in plugin land, you'll create a competitive advantage for yourself if you can associate your products with cutting edge acts. This one just feels like I'm being blasted out of my chair, and not in a good way.

You're right. I have a tube headphone amp that I rarely use. It was anything but warm and smooth with the stock Chinese tubes. Was a little better with Mullard tubes but could still sound harsh. I heard a bunch of expensive tube amps at a Head-Fi CanJam. Then I found the nwavguy blog a few years ago and got some objective info on audio and headphone stuff. Turns out that using neutral gear that doesn't mess anything up gave me a much warmer result even with supposedly "clinical" K701 headphones and nothing but a dac and amp. There's a lot of drawbacks to using tubes for listening. In the headphone world, it's a big scam where almost every manufacturer hides all the objective data/measurements and uses buzzwords to sell overpriced junk to consumers they wish to keep ignorant. Nwavguy even found serious design flaws in a few amps. He also measured a cheap Sansa clip and it had impeccable measurements. The dac and amp he designed to give transparent performance with headphones of various impedances can be built cheaply. Audio performance that doesn't mess anything up doesn't have to cost a lot these days. There are people who want stuff that isn't transparent, but it's very misleading when people say tubes are this or that like they're simple. That said, I couldn't make it through the video, nor have I read Slate's write up on VTC. I've never understood the problems so many people on other forums have with Steven's presentations and demeanor. So many people want to jump at him when he hasn't done whatever stupid thing they're accusing him of.

Plugin companies are a lot less shady than headphone-based companies and their customers are a lot more informed than the average head-fi poster. You even have Andy from Cytomic educating people on how to analyze plugins for problems. 

That said, I may try this out at some point. Just didn't hear anything that made me think it was doing anything new. Don't see a justification for the price. I don't have a need for the subscription. There's already so much tube and preamp stuff out there. Companies are also releasing new stuff left and right. There might be something coming out this month that is doing 2 or 3 different things with a lower cpu hit while improving upon previous software like TapeDesk. 

Any news on that FG-Stress plugin? At this rate, my subscription is going to expire before I get my hands on it.

This ^^^

Give the guy a break.

So, I have a Tabfunkenwerk V78M, UA 610, DBX 386 and started with a DBX 376. I have a good idea about what tubes sound like and do. I have a lot of plugins emulating that sound. Some are good, some bad. I own the UAD 610A & B and stevenslate's FG76.  I also have the Soft tube saturation knob among others.  I LOVE TUBES be they in preamps or microphones. I love that saturated sound.  I'm not even going to go into emulations of tube compressors and EQs.  I played with the new VTC.  I really like the London.  It's thick and warm.  I found I prefer it to the FG76 which I've been using with my VMS.  I also really like the UAD's 610A which I feel sounds more like my real UA 610 than the UAD 610B. 

I like a lot of the Slate stuff.  It's more CPU friendly than WAVES and you don't run into DSP issues like UAD.  If your interested, try the everything bundle.  It costs as much as a typical UAD plugin.  I found I enjoyed some of his plugins that I wouldn't have even looked into otherwise, as I had others that did those jobs already.  Is it going to beat out real gear?  Probably not, but that's a matter of taste & aesthetic.  My only real issue with Slate is that Steven gets so excited about the emulations they are working on that he starts discussing them or even announces them and then gives no date when they can be expected.  Dates also continually get pushed back and even my dealers don't know whats going on.  So that's frustrating.  FG-Stress is the big one everyone talks about.  I know I'm waiting on my ML-2 and Classic Tubes 3 which has the two Emulations that I really need, FG49 & FG67M.

As for me, I realize that I'm moving toward real gear and away from plugins one purchase at a time, but for the time being the Slate everything bundle is part of my typical channel strip; VCC, FG-N, Revival. I'm looking forward to using the London emulation in conjunction with my Focusrite Octopre, which I find bright and sterile, but gives me an extra 8 channels of recording.  Maybe I'll do some experimenting and compare my V78M or UA 610 vs the Octopre with the London.  That could be fun. 

Hi John, thanks for the comments. So you say "Tube Color is not a thing" and that it is the "most linear amplifying device" and that tube gear is "NOT anything obvious that you can put in a plugin".

But here you are painting all tube circuitry with a single broad brush, and in our experience it does not work that way.

When we are coding analog plugins, we first must remove all subjectivity and romance out of the picture so that we can rely solely on objective science.  That means studying the actual components and circuit paths of real tube gear, and using special test files to determine exactly what happens in their audio path.  Then we examine the results, and attempt to create a DSP process that replicates the audio circuit.

And the conclusion of those tests with the tube gear that we specifically studied does not match your statements.  I'm sure you could find SOME tube gear that does, but not in our case.  The tube gear we studied had very specific nonlinearities, sometimes quite fascinating nonlinearities, that lead to them having a specific 'sound' that we really liked. 

Ultimately, I would suggest you give them a real try, because you might actually like how they sound on your music! 

Thanks again guys for the great discussion.  And if you guys have some great music that you'd like featured in our future videos (all music in videos is from customers), please feel free to give me a shout!

Steven