u-he Satin or Slate VTM?

[don1thedon]

[4damind]

More quality tools are a good thing. Congrats again to Urs, Sascha, and the U-HE team.
Cheers,
Steven

This is true. IMO Satin will not replace VTM, it's good for different tasks. I tried it on a bass and on other sounds as a tape delay and leave the rest for VTM+VCC (which is my opinion a good combination).

[TheKid]

Well, Satin looks and sounds very nice.
Which other cheaper, non-ilok (!!! that stuff needs to burn in hell) tape saturation can you guys recommend for recording rock music? As a hobbyist over 150$ (reg. price+vat) for satin is quite a price. TB Reelbus?

[momalle3]

The introductory price is $89 US plus VAT IN the Eu. Is the VAT really more than 60 dollars on an 89 dollar purchase--that is, well over 50%?


Consider that Slate VTM is $150, and it doesn't do delay or flinging. And consider the labor and expertise that went into Satin--$150 is cheap. $89 is a steal.

[Compyfox]

No, VAT is added on top of the 89USD for European customers. And Germany's VAT is 19%.

So... 89USD + 19% (roughly 16,91USD) = 105,91 USD.

Again, only for European customers, or customers where VAT applies.

More quality tools are a good thing. Congrats again to Urs, Sascha, and the U-HE team.

As both Slate Digital and now U-HE user, I can totally agree on that. Those two modules complement each other. And SATIN is currently at it's beginning stages.


I love the delay capabilities, and constant user nagging also let the developers dive a bit deeper into further editing capabilities (slower tape speed comes to mind, access to the saturation settings, etc). So this is indeed a good thing.


VTM is pretty much a fixed set of two specific machines. If you had two of them, they'd still sound totally different. So I consider VTM as "fixed", and Satin as "Toolbox".

Both will get their fair use. And depending on the job, maybe even RoundTone, Magnetic II or Reelbus. Whatever get's the job done.

[Ch00rD]

Perhaps a bit OT, as I have no experience whatsoever with Slate's VTM (iLok is an absolute deal-breaker for me, but let's not get into that here), but for another interesting comparison, allow me to mention some other similar plug-ins for tape emulation here (without spawning another Satin vs. product X thread) with their regular list prices - no iLok, but UAD-2 DSP 'dongle' required:

$349 UAD Ampex ATR-102 (winner of a prestigious TEAC Award 2013)
$349 UAD Studer A800
$299 UAD EL7 Fatso Sr./Jr.
$249 UAD Roland RE-201 ('Space Echo')
$199 UAD EP-34 Tape Echo ('EchoPlex')

(The last two are $50 off this month, btw.)

Can Satin fully replace any of them? Probably not. (Not *yet*, anyway.)

Am I glad I got Satin before buying any of the above? Yes, I definitely am.

Satin can do a lot of what I'd use the above plug-ins for, and is definitely in the same very high quality ballpark, imho. Especially at the current introduction price, I consider Satin to be an absolute steal. Even with UA's current sale, using two coupons UAD gave me for a total of $75 off, the cheapest one on that list comes to $74 ($199 EchoPlex, on sale for $149, minus $75 = $74). Only $15 cheaper than Satin - but Satin has 4 repro heads (i.e. delay taps), EchoPlex has only 1, and also has a shorter maximum delay time (700ms, whereas Satin currently goes up to 1066ms, and may allow for more in future revisions, e.g. if slower tape speeds would be supported in future revisions).

[Compyfox]

but UAD-2 DSP 'dongle' required:

The thing with UAD is recently, their code is getting better, but these plugins will ultimately eat the DSP chip for breakfast. Native plugins are just more versatile this days. With a CPU upgrade almost every half year, the newer CPU's literally laugh at the nowaday creations.

$349 UAD Ampex ATR-102 (winner of a prestigious TEAC Award 2013)
$349 UAD Studer A800

There are the only tape machines from their pool that I consider "tape machines", the rest are tape based effects

$299 UAD EL7 Fatso Sr./Jr.
$249 UAD Roland RE-201 ('Space Echo')
$199 UAD EP-34 Tape Echo ('EchoPlex')

These are mainly tape based effects - echo devices, while the RE-201 is also a plate reverb. Tape machine still, but not in traditional means like a stereo or multitrack recorder.

Can Satin fully replace any of them? Probably not. (Not *yet*, anyway.)

I wouldn't say 1:1, but esque. My Copycat and RE-201 presets are now part of Satin, though they're unfortunately wrongly compensated on output. Just reset the output to 0dB if you have SATIN and enjoy the presets.

Then again, Sascha Eversmeier already mentioned that he is experimenting with lower speed modes. So more consumer oriented tape machines might be possible - if it will be implemented without messing up the engine.



Though still - Satin is a toolbox system. It's not as obvious saturation as the UAD, Slate, Waves or whatever is out there. It's a more technical approach (like their synths). And for that, you got to love U-HE.

[Ch00rD]

...

I agree with everything you said there.

And yes, I have Satin, and also grabbed your presets before Howard adjusted them. Thanks again for your efforts! Btw, for more RE-201-esque effects (but without aiming for any sort of authentic emulation whatsoever), I have also played around with combining a reverb (have only tried Vee3 so far) with Satin in Delay mode, with feedback set to 0, and some clever routing in the host taking care of the cross feed / feedback. Getting some very nice results.

[TheKid]

The introductory price is $89 US plus VAT IN the Eu. Is the VAT really more than 60 dollars on an 89 dollar purchase--that is, well over 50%?


Consider that Slate VTM is $150, and it doesn't do delay or flinging. And consider the labor and expertise that went into Satin--$150 is cheap. $89 is a steal.

AS stated reg. price+VAT is 150+$. With VAT intro price is still 105$. Slate VTM is not an option, f*cking iLok. I'm just a hobbyist and I don't earn any money with my music so a cheaper option would be appreciated.

[Tp3]

Consider that Slate VTM is $150, and it doesn't do delay or flinging. And consider the labor and expertise that went into Satin--$150 is cheap. $89 is a steal.

...And consider that you need iLok2 (more money, for first timers)

[Compyfox]

Consider that Slate VTM is $150, and it doesn't do delay or flinging. And consider the labor and expertise that went into Satin--$150 is cheap. $89 is a steal.

...And consider that you need iLok2 (more money, for first timers)

And consider that Slate Digital STILL sells VTM with a bundled iLok for no extra fees (except international shipping, which is still less than the iLok plus shipping).

And yes, I have Satin, and also grabbed your presets before Howard adjusted them. Thanks again for your efforts!

The pleasure is all mine. I wanted such presets myself - so I went for it.

Btw, for more RE-201-esque effects (but without aiming for any sort of authentic emulation whatsoever), I have also played around with combining a reverb (have only tried Vee3 so far) with Satin in Delay mode, with feedback set to 0, and some clever routing in the host taking care of the cross feed / feedback. Getting some very nice results.

I can't find anything in service manuals, promo sheets or the official circuit (so still no info on the speed - though I do suspect 9,5cm/s or 3,75inch/s now, though I now have the confirmation that the tape was 1/4inch! Loocked wider in videos).

But I have two impressions:

a) the reverb is in parallel and therefore independent of the tape delay
b) the reverb is in series and therefore influences the echos


Though from quick testing the GS-201, I really have the impression that the reverb (just like the EQ) is post(!) delay, and also post-feedback knob. Turning up the echo intensity (feedback), just the reverbed signal would have modulated on top of each other, but it doesn't do that.

That means... you could use Satin and any spring reverb to your liking. As example, I could recommend the GSi Spring Reverb Type4 (which is actually a 2x Spring Reverb built for Hammond and Fender!), or SKnote's Necklace (which is a physical modeled up-to 6x Spring Reverb without boundaries).

Use the reverb pre SATIN (as tape delay) => Reverb being modulated by the tape delay (on tests, a bit unlikely) - can produce cracy washed out sounds

Use the reverb post SATIN => Reverb messes with the Tape Delay Signal - the "space" effect.

Use the reverb in parallel => Reverb is independent and you have a better control over what's going on. Mix to taste.




Roland RE-201 in a nutshell? Heck no, we don't break the rules - we bend them! Thank you digital environments.

[lingyai]

I was wondering whether any owners would be kind enough to post a simple A/B comparison of a short snippet of an entire mix (preferably something acoustic, or rocky, but non-electronic), where A has no Satin whatsoever, and B, has only one instance of Satin, in tape sim mode, on the master buss, which is how I usually use tape sims. The demos on the product page are more elaborate (with mutliple instances going and / or additional Satin modes going) or only use Satin on an isoltaed track (e.g drums, vocals).

Also, what's the CPU hit like? I could imagine the use of multiple instances could be quite taxing.

[Skorpius]

Hi,

I already have Kramer Master Tape and ToneBoosters ReelBus, but I'd like to have something like VTM (or Satin) that you can use for every channel AND busses.

So what you guys think, should I purchase Satin or Slate VTM?

I also have Reelbus, but the Satin features do sound promising.

However, if the price wasn't about 4 times as high as the introductory offer for Satin, I'd probably go for Steinberg's Vintage Open Deck, which - from what I've read so far - must be the Mercedes (or even Rolls Royce?) of tape emulation:

http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/vs ... _deck.html

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[lingyai]

I was wondering whether any owners would be kind enough to post a simple A/B comparison of a short snippet of an entire mix (preferably something acoustic, or rocky, but non-electronic), where A has no Satin whatsoever, and B, has only one instance of Satin, in tape sim mode, on the master buss, which is how I usually use tape sims. The demos on the product page are more elaborate (with mutliple instances going and / or additional Satin modes going) or only use Satin on an isoltaed track (e.g drums, vocals).

Also, what's the CPU hit like? I could imagine the use of multiple instances could be quite taxing.

Any one?