Best tape emulator?

[wolverine6]

Variety of sound's SlickHDR in combination with TesslaProMKII to add transience (at about 10%?). But the SlickHDR has some crystal clear "drive" emulation. i highly reccomend it.

[V0RT3X]

In some blind tests on Gearslutz most people prefer VTM and finding it sounds more 3D. Satin sounds for some users flat and some others thinking it was the original.

Satin sounds flat? Hm thats interesting, i've always found it do exactly what a studio tape machine should do.

I mean it's subtle, it's supposed to be emulating a "studio" tape recording machine like a studer multi-track system.

As for slate well..

Nothing against slate personally, but i find his business a bit too aggressive. It kind of gives off warning signs, and so i just avoid.

Kind regards

[Robmobius]

I like both Satin and VTM.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

Just be aware that if you do parallel processing you *can't* put satin in the parallel chain (basically no where where you have 2 identical tracks in parallel), because it will cause phase problems.

You can't mix a dry signal with a signal recorded on an analogue tape machine in parallel without phaseing. It's a property of tape to be "not zero phase". It's the laws of physics.

You *can* put kramer and VTM on parallel chains

Please file a bug report with Waves, they evidently got their tape model wrong then. If it doesn't phase, it simply ain't tape.

Oh yes, indeed, I'm biased here. But I'm not the aggressor, I'm the victim. I just point out false advertisement for the very reason that our evidently more accurate model is perceived as somewhat inferior to an algorithm that says "tape" but only has "whatever" in it.

That said, I'm sure it's a great effect and it may be very useful for many people. But it simply isn't what it says.

this again.. why does it matter.. with uad, waves, slate, toneboosters, all the others actually, you can use in parallel with pdc.. SO, real tape doesn't do that, we know.. Big deal? What is the big deal to use the advances we have with plugin technology to not have the same limitations of the hardware?

why NOT make a version of saturn that has latency like the others and can phase lock in parallel? What's it going to hurt to have the option?

We have been through this before and you claimed that all others have fake tape emulations then.. I still have the topic.. the thing is..that they are doing what's write for a modern DAW with pdc. I can't use satin in parallel, but I can use all the others.

Tell UAD their tape emulation is fake. Please email them and tell them that to their face

I am just stating facts.. i said you can;t use saturn in parallel as it will cause mix problems.

WHERE, in this OR the other topic, did i ever say satin was NOT realistic or did NOT sound like real tape? WHERE did i say that real tape did not behave the way satin would if put in parallel?

No you are not a victim, cause i am just stating facts. I never said anything untrue nor did i ever claim sati was unrealistic. In fact, if you bother to search my posts on satin, besides that one thing, i only say good stuff about it and how good the saturation itself sounds. Check it out. I have said it multiple times.

But yeah for me, i don't use plugins that have any chance of causing any phase cancellation whatsoever.. it's why i don't use zero latency oversampled plugins either (for example) - if available I use the same plugins in linear phase mode or don't use the at all (for example voxengo gives the option to have linear phase oversample, which solves the phase issue in certain mixing scenarios and adds 11ms latency - which is fine by me.. he gives the user the choice)

[4damind]

In some blind tests on Gearslutz most people prefer VTM and finding it sounds more 3D. Satin sounds for some users flat and some others thinking it was the original.

Satin sounds flat? Hm thats interesting, i've always found it do exactly what a studio tape machine should do.

I mean it's subtle, it's supposed to be emulating a "studio" tape recording machine like a studer multi-track system.

As for slate well..

Nothing against slate personally, but i find his business a bit too aggressive. It kind of gives off warning signs, and so i just avoid.

Kind regards

Yes, it's the opinion by a lot of users that Satin sounds flat compared to other tape plugins. But in my opinion the idea behind Satin was never to design the best sounding and most accurate tape emulation.

Steven Slate knows how to play the game to be very successful in this business. Yes, he is sometimes an aggressive salesman but he has also excellent products so many people will say "wow, this crazy guy.. but I must have this stuff" People are interested to improve their sound, Slate has the tools and so it's a win-win situation. Btw... besides his acting as an aggressive and handsome salesman he has also a very funny side if celebrating his love for bacon (and v-necks) on Facebook

[EvilDragon]

Yes, it's the opinion by a lot of users that Satin sounds flat compared to other tape plugins. But in my opinion the idea behind Satin was never to design the best sounding and most accurate tape emulation.

Wrong on both accounts. Satin is not "flat" at all.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

Hmm i am with evil on this... Satin's saturation especially sounds nicer to my ear than VTM.. particularly when "recorded hot".

I used to love VTM but i think it might have been a bit of Steven placebo because it breaks apart more nastily than even kramer when pushed... and the latency really makes it a chore to put on busses and the master in Logic. (when uad has 1/4 the latency using studer and ampex in the DAW than slate, you know something is wrong LOL)

I have to be very careful what I say about slate, but over here you guys are a bit more easy going with him (on the other hand if i said something bad about URS i am sure i would have my head bitten off )

No seriously, all i said at gearslutz was, in these words "for me, UAD is the most accurate 1176 emulation on the planet".

Wow did i get my head bitten off for "dissing" VTM even though i didn't even mention it LOL.. for apparently not appreciating the effort Fabrice goes to for his "second to none" modelling.. and so on and so on.. it was quite bitchy.
SO i won't say anything bad about VTM there, but i can say it here: after almost 2 years of ownership,it's never made the master buss of a mix, and rarely makes individual tracks. In fact, kramer gets more use.

But VCC after more than 2 years has just grown on me more and more and i can't live without it.. best invention ever for me.

Oh, and satin sounds great! And can do more than just tape emulation.

I am pretty sure satin was designed to be THE most comprehensive tape emulator possible, ie to be able to actually mimic any kind of tape, like a toolkit type of thing.

[Heartfeltdawn]

In some blind tests on Gearslutz most people prefer VTM and finding it sounds more 3D. Satin sounds for some users flat and some others thinking it was the original.

What does a less three-dimensional sound actually sound like?

[wolverine6]

Hmm, well it sounds to me like I should spend some money - These are great effects for rap.

[transmetropolitan]

Yes, it's the opinion by a lot of users that Satin sounds flat compared to other tape plugins. But in my opinion the idea behind Satin was never to design the best sounding and most accurate tape emulation.

Wrong on both accounts. Satin is not "flat" at all.

Agree with ED.

I think u-he went to obsessive lengths to make the best sounding, most accurate emulation. To suggest otherwise is a little bizarre to me.

Who makes a plugin and goes "I will make a conscious choice to not design the best sounding plugin"?? It's just illogical.

There are some other good products on the market but nothing I'd swap Satin for personally.

[sascha]

But in my opinion the idea behind Satin was never to design the best sounding and most accurate tape emulation.

You may voice your opinion, but I find the above inappropriate (to say the least), since you know next to nothing about the inside - neither the product nor anybody in person involved.

this again.. why does it matter.. with uad, waves, slate, toneboosters, all the others actually, you can use in parallel with pdc.. SO, real tape doesn't do that, we know.. Big deal? What is the big deal to use the advances we have with plugin technology to not have the same limitations of the hardware?

why NOT make a version of saturn that has latency like the others and can phase lock in parallel? What's it going to hurt to have the option?

Satin, not Saturn... the latter is another company
Well, the latency observed with some other products are - as far as I can reverse engineer from here and know or suspect about other developers and their prefered methods - based on FFT and impulse-response based modeling, maybe just partly. Whenever a process uses convolution, there's latency involved.
Mind you, I'm just assuming, and I would appreciate other devs to clarify, if possible.
UAD is another case, as their architecture is different from how native processing works, as there are a couple of technical layers in between to ensure a constant data flow.

As Urs pointed out, tape implies phase smear, and it can't be corrected by any static inverse process. No free lunch. If there's one, it's not tape. Period. You can insist further, but repeating a wrong thing doesn't make it more true.

No you are not a victim, cause i am just stating facts. I never said anything untrue nor did i ever claim sati was unrealistic. In fact, if you bother to search my posts on satin, besides that one thing, i only say good stuff about it and how good the saturation itself sounds. Check it out. I have said it multiple times.

Oh, please don't feel offended. We really appreciate every serious discussion on this matter. Whenever we start a new project, we learn ourselves, it's research as it should be. We love passing over gathered knowledge to customers and let them know how stuff works, we love this transparency, it reflects the way we function and like to work. Ok, we sometimes get emotional ourselves, but - frankly - I'm glad we are.

[Urs]

why does it matter..

In another thread and on another topic someone once bluntly posted "Diva is not optimized". The person who posted this had drunk the kool aid by one of our competitors (something like "our product is highly optimized, unlike the competition"). So someone might have made a bad choice based on the misinformation spread by someone else. Standing up against such misinformation matters.

[Urs]

Yes, it's the opinion by a lot of users

Could you also give us a rough estimate one the percentage of users who find Satin flat sounding? That would be very helpful for us and you seem to have this knowledge.

[4damind]

Yes, it's the opinion by a lot of users

Could you also give us a rough estimate one the percentage of users who find Satin flat sounding? That would be very helpful for us and you seem to have this knowledge.

It's the blind test you find on Gearslutz for tape emulations. If you are really interested why so many people came to this conclusion you should listen to the test files and form your own opinion.
People prefer VTM, Reelbus in this order. Why? You must ask the listeners

[sascha]

Link please?