KVR Audio

Kingston · Post by **Kingston** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 5:53 pm

that recording school thingy sounds and behaves nasty.

anyway,

my personal favourites, which see constant use in my music, are Voxengo TapeBus, TLs_SaturatedDriver, CamelCrusher, Gclip and Hydratone (the fire button).

Needless to say RetroBand was developed primarily for my personal needs, and that is always the first choice for these type of things. Then again, I know it too well so it's also the easiest choice for me.

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 6:05 pm

CammelCrusher... hm... saturation/Compressor...
Hydratone - EQ... might as well go with Crysonic SpectraQ or HarmonicEQ from Voxengo.

Hm... saturators are basicly either distortion tools, or enhancers. "Analog warmth" is a distorted signal (due to crappy cables or radiations on cables) after all.

You can't see the forest full of trees, it seems.

Kingston · Post by **Kingston** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 6:10 pm

Compyfox wrote:CammelCrusher... hm... saturation/Compressor...
Hydratone - EQ... might as well go with Crysonic SpectraQ or HarmonicEQ from Voxengo.

Spectra-Q and HarmoniEQ do quite the different effect compared to the Hydratone fire thing.

Compyfox wrote:Hm... saturators are basicly either distortion tools, or enhancers. "Analog warmth" is a distorted signal (due to crappy cables or radiations on cables) after all.

You can't see the forest full of trees, it seems.

You've got the right idea definitely. There's a long list of secondary side effects of gear that contribute to "analog warmth", most of them distortions, some of them forms of noise *combined* with distortions.

Wether one considers a particular distortion an enhancement (ie. enhancer) is quite the subjective choice.

jackson · Post by **jackson** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 6:13 pm

Kingston wrote:
smart wrote:
Kingston wrote:
smart wrote:
Kingston wrote:*cough* click my sig image *cough*
...but there's nothing to click
huh? what do you mean?
Hey Mike, I didn't see any sig, so I checked your site to see if it was down, and it is, which is why you signature images isn't showing.
The site is working just fine. I've had reports from people around the world about the site not working on random occasions (about three times this far). I don't know what causes it, but it's not a problem on our end.

Just to let you know, your sig very often doesn't show (has empty placeholder). It was like that 5 minutes ago, but it's showing now.

Kingston · Post by **Kingston** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 6:17 pm

yep,

I've been told many times it's not a problem on the server end, but I've always suspected it's not the whole truth.

Arksun · Post by **Arksun** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 6:18 pm

Compyfox wrote:After watching some tutorials and generally liking the idea to "warm up" the sound (especially in the digital world), I'm looking for some saturators - specifically tape saturators or if there exists one for windows, a simulator that adds "cable hum" (decent, but still).

So far I'm using Baxxpander by Elogoxa. Magneto by Steinberg is nice, but it never had that good of a reputation. Tube saturation would be (one of the better ones IMO) Antares Tube (angel/devil tube - nice idea) - but it really sounds flat and digital, at least to my ears.

So yeah... any recommendations in the free or moderately prices sections? I'd prefer single units rather than multi FX modules - unless there's no other way.

Any comment (unless they're jokes of course) are greatly appreciated.

Can't stand the Antares Tube myself, one of the worst tube emulator plugins i've heard, very flat and digital indeed.

Hydratone's got a nice kinda sound to it. can't really say I've found a really good tape emulator type plugin yet, but check out the Voxengo stuff, they seem to offer the best control and tweakability over the sound you want combined with good sound quality. Aleksy's more subtle approach to warming is the right mindset I think, he's got a good ear.

I tried your Retroband plug Kingston on a full mix, sorry to say it didn't do it for me at all, tried tweaking the demo version hard all its different settings, but I always prefered the sound on bypass

, I think the distortion elements are a little too grainy to add a pleasing layer onto a full mix. For more harsh distortion stuff / rock etc I'm sure it would come in handy though

Kingston · Post by **Kingston** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 6:25 pm

Arksun wrote:I tried your Retroband plug Kingston on a full mix, sorry to say it didn't do it for me at all, tried tweaking the demo version hard all its different settings, but I always prefered the sound on bypass , I think the distortion elements are a little too grainy to add a pleasing layer onto a full mix. For more harsh distortion stuff / rock etc I'm sure it would come in handy though

I don't use it on full mix either, and wouldn't recommend it, not until the 64-bit version comes out anyway.

At the moment the only "saturator" I use on a full mix is my tube pre, but that's a whole 'nother class already.

Arksun · Post by **Arksun** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 6:29 pm

I apreciate very much though that you market your plugin as a distortion plug Kingston, whereas other manufacters would have made all kinds of warmth and saturating over the top claims. Good stuff. I'll check out the 64-bit version demo when it comes out

akisd28 · Post by **akisd28** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 6:51 pm

I recently did a shoot out between a tape machine and VST & TDM tape sim plugs for my MA and the best ones (IMHO) were Voxengo TapeBus and PSP MixSaturator. TapeBus is probably the best value for money, too.

runagate · Post by **runagate** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 7:01 pm

Have your tried evex yet? There's so many things to try that even I haven't gotten around to them all.

Lagrange · Post by **Lagrange** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 9:35 am

RSO's Guis are all so strange looking to me.. But the plugins are actually really amazing! Also their website is sooo internet1.0 looking..

L

.jon · Post by **.jon** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 9:44 am

Voxengo Tapebus
TbT Saturated Driver
Kingston Retroband

I'm rather satisfied with these. I try to combine clean and shredded-warm-roasted elements in a mix to get a nice contrast. Been pretty successful with that, now all I need is a good song

juha_p · Post by **juha_p** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 9:14 pm

Seems like there have been mentioned other type effects than this thread was intend. As an additional information for RSO Extreme Punch, By the RSO :

Extreme Punch was designed to be used on bass, guitars and low frequency drums such as kick drum and toms. It was not designed to be used on vocals.

Extreme Punch will add a very musical density and warmth to your recordings when used correctly.

Unlike many of our plugins Extreme Punch should be used as an insert and not a send.

BTW, is this plug-in made w/ SynthEdit (I looked the code and documentation and couldn't find any traces of SE ...)?

Compyfox wrote:HOLY BAJEBUS! This GUI is huge! And looks so SynthEdit on the right side (x/y field) - then again I remember that "recording school" being releasing stuff on SE basis. They also have a vocal processor.
...

Juha

shamann · Post by **shamann** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 9:27 pm

Judging from the graphics, I'd guess they are made with Synthmaker.

juha_p · Post by **juha_p** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 10:23 pm

W/ SynthMaker by the KVR info - http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2423.html

Juha

Tape Saturators - recommendations? (free, moderate prices)