Tape Emulation Plugins

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UAD's licensing deal with Roland ran out. They discontinued the Space Echo for a while and then reintroduced it under a different name: Galaxy Echo. It is the same plugin internally.

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Gamma-UT wrote:UAD's licensing deal with Roland ran out. They discontinued the Space Echo for a while and then reintroduced it under a different name: Galaxy Echo. It is the same plugin internally.
Cool. That's what I figured. Are there any other added benefits of using an UAD

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do_androids_dream wrote:
resistent wrote:I think a lot of people expect sounds from emulation a real tape do not deliver. Also everybody should keep in mind that a good gain staging and careful mixing is necessary to achieve the desired sound.
I'm going to put myself on the line a bit here and destroy this myth.. I've used almost all the tape emus on the market. Either with careful gain staging or by just slapping these plugins on hot mixes - in essence, you get the same sound - just to a lesser or greater degree. Changing the way you gain stage a mix is not going to suddenly change the sonic character of a plugins saturation. I've not been impressed by anything I've tried really - satin included. I would rather run some of my stems through an old cassette machine to get some nice character..
There's a huge difference in sound depending on how you gain stage most analogue modeled plugins. If you can not hear it I suggest a bit more critical listening practice.

.. or maybe I misunderstand your point? It can be objectively proven. Just blast a few instances of Sonimus Satson / Slate VCC / Klanghelm SDRR / U-he Satin / Toneboosters ReelBus / <insert any properly done analogue emulation here> and compare it to the exact opposite, where you do NOT drive the input by miles. Render and phase reverse.. pay special notice to frequency response and the transients.

Gain staging is no joke. Frankly I'm very surprised that so few seem to understand this. The more tracks your mixes have or the more complex the routing is, the larger the difference. In some cases it can be almost as if you've mixed it completely differently. Keep in mind that anything that starts soft clipping is going to act as a compressor.. and if it produces tons of harmonics it's going to shape the tonality. And if it only touches the transients, it's going to define those transients character (read: Brightness and impact or lack of impact, depending on the plugin in question).

On a good analogue desk you can actually choose to use less compression on a snare simply by driving the console hard.. or vice versa but in the analogue domain you are kind of bound by the noise limits so you can't use too low levels which actually is an option in many plugin emulations. This is one of the reasons I really like Nebula because I can sample some nasty noisy hardware and then hit it with lower level signals that I would never have been able to do in the analogue domain and still get those sweet primary harmonics without invoking all the higher order ones. Well.. it mostly works that way but there are other problems though..

Anyhow, I hope I understood your post wrong but in case I didn't: Gain staging, in the analogue modeled plugin world we live in, is no joke.
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

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djmino02 wrote:
Gamma-UT wrote:UAD's licensing deal with Roland ran out. They discontinued the Space Echo for a while and then reintroduced it under a different name: Galaxy Echo. It is the same plugin internally.
Cool. That's what I figured. Are there any other added benefits of using an UAD
There are plenty of benefits if you go the Apollo route. It's a pretty solid system now. Very good for realtime tracking of musicians who all want their individual headphone mixes with tons of effects and stuff to enhance their performance.

Not so sure about getting just the DSP platform though. It's underpowered (was already at release) and very costly considering what you are getting.

Have you tried the IK Multimedia model of the space echo? I'm not really into tape echos myself so I have no idea about these. We've had a few of the real units in the studio but I never felt the need to own a real one. They can be extremely quirky and man are they noisy. None of the plugins I've heard have been even remotely as noisy as the few real pieces we've had. Probably badly maintained units.. but the owners were always happy with them just the way they were. :D
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

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+1 for the J37 for certain tracks. I find it very versatile.

Nothing wrong with having several to choose from. In most cases, having choices is a nice luxury.
...and the electron responded, "what wall?"

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I found that what I'm really looking for is a saturation plugin.

I like Softube's Saturation, but I don't want to download all their other crap. 758 MB for one plugin? WTH?!

UHE Satin is pretty rad too. Probably more than I'm looking for though.
Last edited by djmino02 on Mon Sep 26, 2016 11:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

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With a moderately fast internet connection, you can just start the download in the background, and before we discussed whether a 758 MB download for a free plugin is justified, you will already have it on your harddisk anyway. ;) Unless you have some kind of volume restriction for your internet connection of course. It's really worth it though. I tried some other freebies, and also magware, and the stuff from Klanghelm, but i still prefer Saturation knob.

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I saw that Don't Crack dot com have Nomad Factory Magnetic bundle for sale right now. The whole bundle is 49$. Magnetic 2 is a great tape simulation and saturation plug. If I am not wrong you could also buy only Magnetic 2 (not the whole bundle) for 29$
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sinkmusic wrote:You may also try TB Ferox, which is free, and gives very interesting results.
It's not free... See here: http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-ferox/
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Any love for Empirical Labs Arousor? I just stumpled on it and it looks pretty great.

Too bad it's way over priced AND you have to use a stupid ilok dongle.

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ganym3d wrote:
sinkmusic wrote:You may also try TB Ferox, which is free, and gives very interesting results.
It's not free... See here: http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-ferox/
the pre-tooneboosters version was free, you can still find it on the webs, look for jb ferox

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bmanic wrote:
Gain staging is no joke. Frankly I'm very surprised that so few seem to understand this. The more tracks your mixes have or the more complex the routing is, the larger the difference. In some cases it can be almost as if you've mixed it completely differently. Keep in mind that anything that starts soft clipping is going to act as a compressor.. and if it produces tons of harmonics it's going to shape the tonality. And if it only touches the transients, it's going to define those transients character (read: Brightness and impact or lack of impact, depending on the plugin in question).

On a good analogue desk you can actually choose to use less compression on a snare simply by driving the console hard.. or vice versa but in the analogue domain you are kind of bound by the noise limits so you can't use too low levels which actually is an option in many plugin emulations. This is one of the reasons I really like Nebula because I can sample some nasty noisy hardware and then hit it with lower level signals that I would never have been able to do in the analogue domain and still get those sweet primary harmonics without invoking all the higher order ones. Well.. it mostly works that way but there are other problems though..

Anyhow, I hope I understood your post wrong but in case I didn't: Gain staging, in the analogue modeled plugin world we live in, is no joke.
It is no joke, however, it's dead easy to pull off in software. I think it's a little goofy to harp on. In the analog domain, with even a relatively simple signal chain, there are many pitfalls one can be a victim of. With digital.. It's pretty freakin simple. Don't hit the plugin with stupid loud signal, if the signal is to quiet, turn up the gain (most plugins that are sensitive to input level have a gain control).

Ok yes, there a lot of goofballs on YouTube who are giving tutorials while their master channel is in the read, but in general, most problems can just be avoided by not running your levels super hot. I think the amount of bad mix situations generated by bad gain staging in the digital domain is pretty small.

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djmino02 wrote:I found that what I'm really looking for is a saturation plugin.
Time a thread title change. 8)
This is the start of a whole "new" discussion.
Try Satson/Klanghelm (inc the freebie).

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There's also a magware version of Sonimus Satson, called Satson CM, and it's available with every new issue of Computer Music mag (3,99 at Google Play Kiosk and others, and you get the whole DVD content via digital download option). It's a bit more limited than the payware version of course.

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Ayorinde wrote:
djmino02 wrote:I found that what I'm really looking for is a saturation plugin.
Time a thread title change. 8)
This is the start of a whole "new" discussion.
Try Satson/Klanghelm (inc the freebie).
I think a tape saturation with an oil can vibrato would be perfect

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