MSaturator for tape saturation?

[garrettendi]

Is there a way to use MSaturator for an approximate tape saturation sound? I like to use Melda as much as I can.

[sparella]

Is there a way to use MSaturator for an approximate tape saturation sound? I like to use Melda as much as I can.

It can be a deep subject to dive into, but my current opinion is that the first step and most important step to emulating tape is recreating the unsaturated EQ curve. If you send that into your saturator, you'll get much of the way there.

Jack Endino did some nice work to document the response curves of various units at multiple speeds. You might recreate them with MEqualizer. Some IRs also might be floating around the internet to simplify this task.

https://www.endino.com/graphs/

[dmbaer]

You get tape saturation mostly when you crank up the input such that the magnetic medium cannot record more than a certain level of signal. This is peak distortion, and up to a point, it can make the music sound more pleasant. The easiest way to induce this effect is simply using a wave shaper (like the free MWaveShaper) with a curve that gently (using a soft knee) goes flat above some max. level. There's much more happening in real tape processing, of course, but this technique should get you mostly there.

[garrettendi]

Thanks to both of you, and apologies for the late reply as for some reason I didn't get a notification of your replies!