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Post by geoff738 on Jun 22, 2024 16:07:18 GMT -6
So what are people using and liking. The ones I know of are the UA Studer and the Oxide, which I don’t know what its modelled after, if anything. And the ATR 102 which isn’t native The Slate one that is long in the tooth. The Kiive Irish one. Not sure exactly what that is modelled after. The Softube one which I think is Studer plus? I know dan likes Tupe plus some other Tascam maybe? I did see someone had a Porta One sim. I guess they have a sound. Anyhow, pondering the Softube one if it’s good/better than the UA. Cheers, Geoff |
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Post by copperx on Jun 22, 2024 17:43:07 GMT -6
TAUPE and IK tapes are the ones I like the most, although I've been trying Nebula with AX102 (CupReels) and I think I like it better than the others.
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Post by andersmv on Jun 22, 2024 18:11:20 GMT -6
The UAD Studer is great, but you have to subtly stack it through the production process to get the most out of it (that’s easier to do when you’ve got an Apollo and you can burn it in during tracking as well). When I REALLY want something super tapey, the Waves J37 is really solid. Using the 7.5 IPS setting to round off some high end and distorting things like shakers and tambourines is amazing. I’ll mix into the UAD Ampex here and there, but I’m doing that a lot less now that I have a real Otari MTR-12 2 track.
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Post by sean on Jun 22, 2024 18:17:21 GMT -6
Now that Satin is finally AAX Silicon it's been my go to
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Post by smashlord on Jun 22, 2024 18:20:59 GMT -6
Satin is great. Lots of parameters that kind of make it like a channel strip in a way. I like the UAD Oxide's color, too, and the Waves J37 is still an oldie but goodie.
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Post by Dan on Jun 22, 2024 18:40:18 GMT -6
#1 is still Satin. The delays and flanger are awesome.
Fuse TCS-68 gets me what I need. IK Tascam sounds good but softens everything through linear phase convolution.
Goodhertz Wow Control and Tupe sound like a cartoon like slate but way better.
Softube is still okay. Bad Tape is cool. The whole “Bad” bundle is cool.
Neold Warble is fun to mess things up. More of a lofi hip hop effect.
Kramer and Chow Tape are still wtf. You want tape that sounds like a guitar pedal and a lofi consumer r2r? You got them.
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Post by seawell on Jun 22, 2024 18:43:57 GMT -6
Cranesong Phoenix has stood the test of time around here.
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Post by antipodesjosh on Jun 22, 2024 18:46:14 GMT -6
I like the J37 too but I got WUPed when upgrading to my M1 Mac. No more waves for me!
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Post by geoff738 on Jun 22, 2024 19:51:38 GMT -6
Yeah. No more Waves for me either. Craptacular business model.
Cheers
Geoff
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Post by bossanova on Jun 22, 2024 19:56:49 GMT -6
Satin is great all around, the delay/flange is top-notch and it has a nice Dolby Trick function as well.
I like Softube Tape a lot for high end softening. IK’s Tape machines have more of that upper mid bite and lots of options. The IK Tascam/Teac pack is useful for subtle lo-fi.
Nebula Cupreels AX102 is it’s own cool Hi-Fi thing on the 2-bus/master.
I always liked TB Reel Bus 4. Very tweakable and great for giving an already balanced mix that last bit of glue/polish.
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Post by mrgkeys on Jun 22, 2024 20:13:15 GMT -6
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Post by russellcreekps on Jun 22, 2024 21:42:03 GMT -6
The UAD Studer is great, but you have to subtly stack it through the production process to get the most out of it (that’s easier to do when you’ve got an Apollo and you can burn it in during tracking as well). When I REALLY want something super tapey, the Waves J37 is really solid. Using the 7.5 IPS setting to round off some high end and distorting things like shakers and tambourines is amazing. I’ll mix into the UAD Ampex here and there, but I’m doing that a lot less now that I have a real Otari MTR-12 2 track. Great tip on the Studer and burning it into tracking. I also mix into the Ampex, love the HF knob! |
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Post by ragan on Jun 22, 2024 22:10:52 GMT -6
I still have a Zulu parked on my mixbus. I dig it.
For plugs I still think Slate VTM is good. And somewhat like Softube Tape. UAD Studer and Oxide sound good. Ampeg isn’t native so I haven’t heard it in years.
I need to try Satin again. Only demo’d it once when it came out, years ago.
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Post by the other mark williams on Jun 22, 2024 23:07:32 GMT -6
I still have a Zulu parked on my mixbus. I dig it. For plugs I still think Slate VTM is good. And somewhat like Softube Tape. UAD Studer and Oxide sound good. Ampeg isn’t native so I haven’t heard it in years. I need to try Satin again. Only demo’d it once when it came out, years ago. I still dig my Zulu, too. I’m still not crazy about the workflow, but I do like the sound. Satin is really good. I love u-he’s Colour Copy, too. It’s bumped a couple other delays down the pecking order over here (Repeater, Echoboy). |
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Post by Blackdawg on Jun 23, 2024 2:08:36 GMT -6
Pretty much use Tupe by goodhertz all the time.
J37 is cool sometimes.
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Post by keymod on Jun 23, 2024 6:22:14 GMT -6
The UAD Studer is great, but you have to subtly stack it through the production process to get the most out of it (that’s easier to do when you’ve got an Apollo and you can burn it in during tracking as well). When I REALLY want something super tapey, the Waves J37 is really solid. Using the 7.5 IPS setting to round off some high end and distorting things like shakers and tambourines is amazing. I’ll mix into the UAD Ampex here and there, but I’m doing that a lot less now that I have a real Otari MTR-12 2 track. How are you using the MTR-12? Mixdown only, or tracking as well? |
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Post by thehightenor on Jun 23, 2024 6:54:26 GMT -6
None of them - I just don't see the point.
Tape is an entirely different recording medium and that's it's whole elan and reason to be - not digital.
If you want saturation and an EQ curve then there's far betters ways to achieve it with hardware that
doesn't require emulating dragging rust stuck to tape over a magnetic head.
But if a plugins little skeuomorphic reels going around on the GUI are inspiring then hey I can go along with that,
nothing wrong with some inspiration.
I like the Tape knob on the HEDD 192 because Dave Hill "got it" and just went for the couple of pleasant side effects of using tape
without trying to emulate using a totally different medium with a totally different medium!
Guess you could say I've never been convinced by "tape plugins" (two words that doesn't work in the same phrase for me)
Just my humble 2 cents and highly subjective preference.
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Post by andersmv on Jun 23, 2024 7:21:50 GMT -6
The UAD Studer is great, but you have to subtly stack it through the production process to get the most out of it (that’s easier to do when you’ve got an Apollo and you can burn it in during tracking as well). When I REALLY want something super tapey, the Waves J37 is really solid. Using the 7.5 IPS setting to round off some high end and distorting things like shakers and tambourines is amazing. I’ll mix into the UAD Ampex here and there, but I’m doing that a lot less now that I have a real Otari MTR-12 2 track. How are you using the MTR-12? Mixdown only, or tracking as well? Both. I've not had it very long, but I've done two sessions where I had an artist overdub some vocals and use it. I've figured out a pretty accurate sample delay of the distance between the record and repro head, so I send them to tape and record the repro head live back into ProTools. As soon as the take is finished, I click on the waveform, hit ALT-H to bring up the shit menu and shift it back earlier by 7972 samples. After you type all of that in once in the Shift menu, it usually saves all of the menu settings for the rest of the session when you bring it up. The waveform shifts back and is in time! I'm planning on doing some smaller, specialized sessions where we overdub a song 2 tracks at a time (since it's a 2 track machine) and doing some things completely to tape like this. Record off the repro head in real time, quickly shift the waveform back the right amount of samples after each take, and it's just like working on the CLASP system more or less. Mixdown is great as well. I had a mix yesterday where I had gone back and forth on some decisions on my master bus. Things were just a little too bright and snappy on the top end, and a little muddy. I had one version that was close, but I had taken out a little too much low mids and it still sounded a little harsh in a couple of spots. Ran it through the Otari and didn't hit it very hard, it sounded perfect! |
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Post by doubledog on Jun 23, 2024 7:26:50 GMT -6
if you want the low end bump, then the Slate VTM does that thing well (sometimes too well)
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Post by seawell on Jun 23, 2024 9:38:14 GMT -6
None of them - I just don't see the point. Tape is an entirely different recording medium and that's it's whole elan and reason to be - not digital. If you want saturation and an EQ curve then there's far betters ways to achieve it with hardware that doesn't require emulating dragging rust stuck to tape over a magnetic head. But if a plugins little skeuomorphic reels going around on the GUI are inspiring then hey I can go along with that, nothing wrong with some inspiration. I like the Tape knob on the HEDD 192 because Dave Hill "got it" and just went for the couple of pleasant side effects of using tape without trying to emulate using a totally different medium with a totally different medium! Guess you could say I've never been convinced by "tape plugins" (two words that doesn't work in the same phrase for me) Just my humble 2 cents and highly subjective preference. Phoenix was derived from the code in HEDD. You should check it out, I think you may be pleasantly surprised! “Iridescent has a similar magnetic character, but with a fatter bottom and mid-range. This [process] is the most similar to the Tape knob on the HEDD-192.” www.soundonsound.com/reviews/crane-song-dave-hill-plug-ins |
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Post by ericn on Jun 23, 2024 9:41:22 GMT -6
Want the sound of tape? Buy a used Teac, Revox or Otari, every simulator will pale in comparison.
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Post by drumsound on Jun 23, 2024 9:52:39 GMT -6
If you're in Pro Tools, HEAT is really simple and great. It's a Dave Hill creation, so there are similarities (I assume) to Pheonix and probably HEDD. I like to set it Pre, so it's similar to putting a tape plugin in the first slot. The top knob, Drive, when moved to the left of center is meant to sound like a tape deck. The bottom, Tone, is for transformer sound.
I didn't know this when I first tried it. But I landed on 2 or 3 'clicks' left on the Drive knob and really thoughts it added a lot to the mix. Turns out, it was probably my tape background that made me drawn to that sound.
Then I looked up a video of Dave Hill discussing it and his MCI JH24 remote was right there. I used a JH24 for 15+ years. The man was brilliant!
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Post by Dan on Jun 23, 2024 11:26:57 GMT -6
None of them - I just don't see the point. Tape is an entirely different recording medium and that's it's whole elan and reason to be - not digital. If you want saturation and an EQ curve then there's far betters ways to achieve it with hardware that doesn't require emulating dragging rust stuck to tape over a magnetic head. But if a plugins little skeuomorphic reels going around on the GUI are inspiring then hey I can go along with that, nothing wrong with some inspiration. I like the Tape knob on the HEDD 192 because Dave Hill "got it" and just went for the couple of pleasant side effects of using tape without trying to emulate using a totally different medium with a totally different medium! Guess you could say I've never been convinced by "tape plugins" (two words that doesn't work in the same phrase for me) Just my humble 2 cents and highly subjective preference. They are not simple saturators and an eq curve. Many of these are incredibly weird things with hysteresis solvers and emulated bias tones that do very cool things, subtle to a cartoon, on certain sources. No amount of simple saturators will do even what primitive stuff like Phoenix / Ploytech, McDSP Analog channel, and Metric Halo mix head / SPL Machine Head / Steinberg Magneto do. Those have a bunch of things going on at once. Now something crazy like Satin or Chow Tape, it’s not even a tape sim, more of a tape synth that is its own crazy thing and something like Satin is absolutely crazy and multi rate and meant to run on even old dual core cpus with parts of it at 384 kHz, ac bias aligned to sample rate so that lower level aliased partials land directly below wanted partials and are therefore inaudible and this thing is over 10 years old. I feel the same way about the over 15 year old pro audio dsp dsm. They were made with effort when most things now are a pale imitation of something else. Eventually all parts for these things and new tape (like the old discontinued tape stocks) will be gone and only the emulations will remain. This has already happened with cassettes. The NOS type II can be expensive. The pots to repair the tascam ones are inexistent. |
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Post by geoff738 on Jun 23, 2024 11:40:30 GMT -6
Thanks all for chiming in. Given the positive opinions on the UA and Slate stuff, I’m gonna hold off on the Softube and maybe wait for Satin to go on sale. And try the Slate again perhaps.
And yeah Dave Hill, RIP. Love my Trakker. Wish I had a pair.
Cheers,
Geoff
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Post by Dan on Jun 23, 2024 11:42:42 GMT -6
Thanks all for chiming in. Given the positive opinions on the UA and Slate stuff, I’m gonna hold off on the Softube and maybe wait for Satin to go on sale. And try the Slate again perhaps. And yeah Dave Hill, RIP. Love my Trakker. Wish I had a pair. Cheers, Geoff Did you get bad tape for free when it was free? Bad tape is cool. The free Variety of Sound plugs are cool but Windows only. |
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