Best tape emulator?

[nineofkings]

Hmm i can't get any usable sound out of ferox on any type of source. Would be curious to see a pic of your setting?

Sure. Here's a quick drums demo (A sort of imitation of the break from "Young Folks"). 4 bars each of unprocessed-light-moderate-heavy-crushed-destroyed processing. To my ears, the tape sim: glues the buss together, bringing the quiet elements and sustain forward in the mix; adds pleasant saturation to the transients; makes the sound "dense" and heavy; tightens up the low end. Also, significant (like 6dB) peak reduction for the same RMS volume.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/898 ... 20Demo.mp3

Here are the basic settings for the "light" processing, with little adjustments for each successive setting, although the biggest difference among the various levels of processing is simply adding more drive. Ferox can be driven much harder than its metering suggests. Even for the "light" processing, the meters hit +3dB (the beginning of the red) at the loudest peak.

Ferox.jpg

[Robert Randolph]

Hmm i can't get any usable sound out of ferox on any type of source. Would be curious to see a pic of your setting?

Sure. Here's a quick drums demo (A sort of imitation of the break from "Young Folks"). 4 bars each of unprocessed-light-moderate-heavy-crushed-destroyed processing. To my ears, the tape sim: glues the buss together, bringing the quiet elements and sustain forward in the mix; adds pleasant saturation to the transients; makes the sound "dense" and heavy; tightens up the low end.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/898 ... 20Demo.mp3

Here are the basic settings for the "light" processing, with little adjustments for each successive setting, although the biggest difference among the various levels of processing is simply adding more drive. Ferox can be driven much harder than its metering suggests. Even for the "light" processing, the meters hit +3dB (the beginning of the red) at the loudest peak.

Ferox.jpg

The kick drum sounds much worse with every change, and the snare drum sounds flatter.

If that's what ferox sounds like, I don't think it'd be worth the time to try it.

[nineofkings]

Sure, in isolation, but in the mix sometimes it works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY8IS0ssnXQ

Another point, Ferox can sound like a lot of different thing depending on the ratios of the four controls. Hysteresis can be pushed quite high (50-55%) for smooth, slightly less punchy vintagey drums similarly to the Mac Demarco example. Also, a slight EQ bump at 60Hz afterwards restores the lows to the kick, but I didn't want to add confounding variables to the example.