u-he Satin or Slate VTM?

[Inceptic]

I have a question: is Satin something that you mix into from the very beginning or something that you can add to the mixbus after you are done mixing?

Just want to know which is the best way to test it.

[sascha]

I have a question: is Satin something that you mix into from the very beginning or something that you can add to the mixbus after you are done mixing?

It's better to instantiate Satin very early in your projects, at least then you can pay us right away so we don't have to wait until you've mixed it...

Just kidding...

Just want to know which is the best way to test it.

Seriously, there's no 'best' way. Use the plugin as you like. BUT: we'd like to encourage everybody to try it out within a multitrack environment, and run many instances in parallel. The higher the track count, the better, so that all the tiny subtleties that make up the 'tape sound' can accumulate in favour of the 'big picture', instead of doing it all on the master bus which includes the risk of overdoing it. Some people think Satin was relatively clean and subtle, but such are professional tape machines, too. Good tape gear is no distortion device, and this sometimes gets overlooked.

In any case, whatever you do with it, have fun.

[xh3rv]

I've gotten that lo-fi, extreme warbling from Uhbik-T's Haas effect, just tried putting it in front of Satin ... IMO not bad, actually kinda cool

[Raymond Cloud]

Getting back to the topic of Satin vs. VTM, I must say both. Just when I thought I had my tape needs covered by VTM, u-he releases their Satin... U-he and SD are incredible companies and will compliment your projects in an amazing variety of ways. Get VTM if you want to "own" a Studer, get Satin if you are after more features, additional delay/flanger effects...etc. Both sound amazing of course, track by track basis or on the stereo buss.
And to touch upon the Lo-Fi BoC sound that some people mentioned earlier: I have come to find that a program EQ, or just any EQ of your preference works wonders both before and after the tape plugin. If you are looking to get that sparkly, deep, dynamically rich BoC sound, it is not advisable to drive the tape too much on your mix buss, more track by track, maybe a little gluing at the end, and don't forget to use the EQ. It helps if it has a tube stage, something like PSP NobleQ, or IK's Program EQ1, also u-he's Uhbik-Q is AMAZING, very clean, rich sound. Something like that. Tape + Mid-High bell + tiny High Shelf boost = Heaven.

[Skorpius]

Comparing to the last tape plugin I bought the TB Reelbus, makes that one sound very mushy in comparison.

I don't agree with that at all. I did a comparison of Satin and Reelbus at 96 Khz/24 bits, a resolution which is certain to prove any differences in sound. For that, I used default studio presets for both (can't remember their names), put them both on the same track and listened carefully:

With Satin, the lows were more pronounced and the highs were "silkier", while Reelbus pronounced the mids a bit more. The differences were subtle, but audible on my studio monitors. That is, for trained ears. I don't think a non-pro listener would even notice those differences, let alone on a car stereo system or an MP3 player, just to name two examples.

Anyway, I wondered how those slight differences came about, since it is known that Jeroen Breebaart also took great efforts in creating Reelbus. I actually found the answer on his website, where he states that "Reelbus is probably the most accurate and authentic simulation of consumer and semi-professional reel-to-reel tape recorders". There you go: Satin puts its focus on modeling professional studio tape machines.

My conclusion: If your main focus lies on making your tracks or your masters sound like tape, Reelbus will do nearly the same job as Satin. Depending on the settings, of course, the differences will hardly be audible, especially not for a "normal" audience or on standard stereo systems. Which means you can get very similar results for a fraction of the costs of Satin.

Satin, on the other hand, is way more flexible, provides a more professional tape sound, and is actually a lot more than "only" a tape simulation. You can use it as a compressor, a delay, a flanger, and an EQ. It probably has even more uses I haven't explored yet.

So, depending on your demands and your wallet, both will do their job perfectly well.

[djscorb]

I tend not to turn to Reelbus too often, even before Satin came on the scene I kind of went off it. Although I liked it a lot initially, I find the strange plasticky distortion it adds to everything when pushed very unpleasant.

It seems unique to Reelbus as I haven't heard that effect from pushing other tape sims or any consumer cassette deck into the red.

I know some of the models in Reelbus exhibit this plasticky artifact more than others but once I heard it on the more noticeable ones, my ears got sensitive to it and I've largely gone off the plugin as a whole as it's there to a greater or lesser degree all the time.

Going back to projects where it was only driving things subtly I noticed this artifact straight away and it bugged me enough that I decided to remove most instances.

Cheers

Scorb

[Sea]

So what's the verdict?

If you HAD to pick only one... Which plug would it be and why?

1. U-he Satin

or...

2. Slate VTM?

SEA

[blackflag]

Personally I'd go with Satin since you really can't go wrong with U-he products.

[HcDoom]

VTM

[gmontano]

another + for Satin is that it gets updated somewhat regularly.

[MFXxx]

Both.

Very different beasts... when you get down to it.

Value for money Satin wins hands down and is due for a fresh lick of paint if I recall correctly.

But you won;t catch me removing VTM anytime soon...

[zvenx]

I have both and use VTM all the time for tape emulation (non flanger or delay duties)
rsp

[kmonkey]

I don't agree with that at all. I did a comparison of Satin and Reelbus at 96 Khz/24 bits, a resolution which is certain to prove any differences in sound. For that, I used default studio presets for both (can't remember their names), put them both on the same track and listened carefully:

With Satin, the lows were more pronounced and the highs were "silkier", while Reelbus pronounced the mids a bit more. The differences were subtle, but audible on my studio monitors. That is, for trained ears. I don't think a non-pro listener would even notice those differences, let alone on a car stereo system or an MP3 player, just to name two examples.

I read this twice and i still can't believe what you said above...

So let me get this straight...you used default preset for both plugins( you do realize the both model completely different hardware, i mean you do realize there is quite a few tape machines out there), so you loaded them and you listened how both sound different at their default values ? And you developed review based on that

Well...Congratulations

Are you serious or something?

I mean..you do realize that your testing method is completely irrational let alone right ?!?! It's like you said you loaded Zebra with default preset and Dune with default preset and (surprise) they sound different...(and like it should matter on which resolution you are working on - if plugin is decent it will have decent oversampling which will produce equal sound on all sample rates)

Come on this need to be bad joke or something..

I mean even a person tortured by a real canon fire - can hear obvious difference between the two, especially on default preset. No, you really do't have to be trained for that and i can assure you it will be audible in mix and on mp3..

Oh well..i still can't believe is this some kind of bad attempt on joke or something.

And to contribute - i absolutely love Satin. I tried all UAD tapes (and imho Ampex is well worth it while Studer is complete garbage, not anything like real Studer sound), i have almost all Nebula tape programs, tried every native solution including Slate VTM.

Slate VTM is indeed good sounding but i would change it anyday with Satin because Satin is equally good and far more flexible. Tonal bliss.

And yes i do have Reelbus and it is great addon. I think after Nebula, Satin and Reelbus are pretty much best tape emulators in Native world..I am not finding Reelbus mushy at all.

[xx JPRacer xx]

[AC222]

Slate VTM is indeed good sounding but i would change it anyday with Satin because Satin is equally good and far more flexible. Tonal bliss.

And yes i do have Reelbus and it is great addon. I think after Nebula, Satin and Reelbus are pretty much best tape emulators in Native world..I am not finding Reelbus mushy at all.

I think this sums it up pretty well. I prefer Satin over VTM because of its flexibility. It is possible to slap it on the end of a chain and achieve subtle smoothing of transients while adding harmonics (to make the final signal sound a little more likely). I find VTM to be a great tool but it has a bit more personality that you might not necessarily want. On some sources, I found it adds some kind of veil onto the signal that I don't particularly care for. Reelbus is pretty cool and for what it's worth I am actually a big fan of Steinberg's Open Deck that is a bit more subtle than VTM, for instance, but imo nails the tape compression effect. My favorite single tape program is Michael Angel's Ampex program (now ported over into native vst and au) that is powered by Nebula. It just makes everything sound more lively and adds rich harmonics. However, it doesn't really have that natural tape compression so I end up adding both Steinberg Open Deck or Satin in front of the Ampex program to model the dynamic effect.