Can I Put Kramer Master Tape On An Individual Instrument Buss?

[wagtunes]

Somebody at another forum I needed more tape saturation on my mixes. The recommended Slate. I have Kramer. He said that's only for the master buss. Is this true or will it work on individual tracks? There is a stereo and mono version for the plugin that's been installed. Really don't want to buy yet another plugin if I don't need it.

[Etienne1973]

Maybe the free Variety Of Sound FerricTDS more suitable?

[wagtunes]

Maybe the free Variety Of Sound FerricTDS more suitable?

Yeah, I've got that too. Will that be good enough?

[AC222]

Most definitely you can. You can use it for more saturation on individual drum tracks, to add grit to guitar,and to add some dirty to a bass track. That's just to name a few. Think about it, back in the day all tracks were recorded to tape. The idea of outputting them to a buss may have more to do with being dsp-efficient as it will be harder on your computer to put KMT on every single track versus a buss.

[Etienne1973]

Maybe the free Variety Of Sound FerricTDS more suitable?

Yeah, I've got that too. Will that be good enough?

I'm a Mac user. But I heard a lot positive things about it and about the other plugin efforts of the same developer.

[sfxsound3]

Of course you can NOT because it clearly says 'master' on the tin. What is so difficult to understand about that? Just use it on the master buss, FFS.

[wagtunes]

Interesting. One person says I can. Another person says I can't and adds an FFS to make me seem like an idiot, which is pretty much par for the course for this place.

Well, I'll let you guys duke it out. I'm outta here.

[deastman]

Most definitely you can. You can use it for more saturation on individual drum tracks, to add grit to guitar,and to add some dirty to a bass track. That's just to name a few. Think about it, back in the day all tracks were recorded to tape. The idea of outputting them to a buss may have more to do with being dsp-efficient as it will be harder on your computer to put KMT on every single track versus a buss.

Um, no, the concept of busses pre-dates digital audio workstations by a few decades. Because you could only afford one Urei compressor or only had space for one giant reverb tank in your recording facility. Routing signals is not something that was invented by software developers.

As for the original question, come on... you're a smart guy... what exactly would prevent you from placing an effect at a different point in your signal chain, and what disastrous chain of events do you imagine it would unleash if you did?

[deastman]

Interesting. One person says I can. Another person says I can't and adds an FFS to make me seem like an idiot, which is pretty much par for the course for this place.

Well, I'll let you guys duke it out. I'm outta here.

The NOT was obviously sarcasm.

[wagtunes]

Interesting. One person says I can. Another person says I can't and adds an FFS to make me seem like an idiot, which is pretty much par for the course for this place.

Well, I'll let you guys duke it out. I'm outta here.

The NOT was obviously sarcasm.

It's hard to tell around here. As for your question, I was actually told by somebody at Gearslutz that you want to put a buss tape saturation on each track and not Kramer. I didn't ask why. When it comes to FX, that's an area I'm admittedly weak on. Also somebody did mention that putting Kramer on each track would use more CPU, obviously. So yeah, I want to avoid that too, if I can.

Here's the bottom line. Some guy told me if I put tape saturation on every single track and not just the master output, it would give my songs a more analog 70s, 80s sound and more dirt, grit whatever. I was told my mixes sound too "clean" and "general MIDI" whatever that means. So I want to dirty things up a bit. Honestly, I don't really know how. So that's why I'm coming here for help.

Yeah, there are actually things I don't know.

[AC222]

Most definitely you can. You can use it for more saturation on individual drum tracks, to add grit to guitar,and to add some dirty to a bass track. That's just to name a few. Think about it, back in the day all tracks were recorded to tape. The idea of outputting them to a buss may have more to do with being dsp-efficient as it will be harder on your computer to put KMT on every single track versus a buss.

Um, no, the concept of busses pre-dates digital audio workstations by a few decades. Because you could only afford one Urei compressor or only had space for one giant reverb tank in your recording facility. Routing signals is not something that was invented by software developers.

As for the original question, come on... you're a smart guy... what exactly would prevent you from placing an effect at a different point in your signal chain, and what disastrous chain of events do you imagine it would unleash if you did?

I know what a buss is. And I think most people on this forum do. Don't be a dick. The um, no. You come across as a bitch. Nobody respects passive aggressive snipes.

[sergiofrias]

wagtunes,ignore the child...
Placing kramer master tape on every track is a must for that 60's,70's sound,back in the day every channel was recorded to tape ,and very often they were again bounced to tape depending of the tracks avaible. kramer is a emulation of a ampex351 ,the noise it adds is great as well as the high frequency tape compression ,harmonic distortion,and wow /flutter...it gives you that sound because you are adding/subtratcting dbs on each track,to understand better let's look at the frequency response of the ampex 351:



as you can see high frequencies are atenuated/compressed and there is some boost at 5/7k ,if you just use this on the master bus ,you will not notice much diference ,but using it on diferent tracks make the diference(summing/subtracting).
the console color gives a similair effect waves nls is a great option to use on each channel.
don't forget other effects like plate reverb ,spring reverb or chamber.
a lot of factors will give you that 70s sound...to acomplish this you must recreate every step!

[shroom81]

You can put whatever you feel like on the master, you could put Kramer at the mixing stage where you have rendered your individual tracks to audio that way you have plenty of cpu and can easily put it on every track.

I'd use more then just 1 plugin to get different flavors of saturation/distortion, also chaining a few together with subtle settings can yield some nice results.

[do_androids_dream]

Wag - do whatever you feel like doing. If it sounds good to you then do it. There are no rules in my book - I would breaking them all the time if there were.

Do you have Waves one knob Driver? You could try applying just a touch of it on a few tracks/busses to get an overall dirtier sound. Voxengo's free tube amp plugin is good for adding saturation in small, controlled amounts.

[wagtunes]

Okay, please don't shoot me for being an idiot. I freely admit to being one when it comes to this stuff, which is why I am here...but.

What exactly is a buss?

I know what an instrument track is. On that track there is a section where you can add FX. That's where I usually put stuff.

Then you have the master output. It's similar to the instrument track as far as layout goes but anything you put in the FX insert will be applied to the entire mix. I get that too.

I also use group channels where I will take, say, all the different drum tracks (kick, snare, hi hat, toms, etc) and have them all go to that one channel so that if the drums are too loud or too soft, I can raise or lower one fader instead of having to go to each individual drum instrument and adjust those one at a time. Naturally, if the hi hat is too loud or soft I will go in and adjust that. But once I get the levels of each drum relative to each other correct, then I just move the group channel slider to set the level relative to everything else.

Okay, I get all that.

But what's a buss? I hear it used all the time but have no clue what anybody is talking about? Is it similar to a group channel? Is it like nothing I've described? How do I even find it in my DAW? I use Cubase 7.

Sorry if this seems like a really stupid question at this point (having recorded hundreds of songs) but I honestly have no clue what this buss thing is or how it's used.

Thanks for anybody wanting to help this idiot out.