u-he Satin or Slate VTM?

[kvaca]

Haven't read all posts and haven't demo'd (yet!) - so Satin adds a noise floor that can't be switched off?

Yep. But it can be turned down way below the levels of ultra high end tape machines.

I'd recommend a higher level though, it is a large part of what makes analogue equipment sound "3D"

no, the only reason to add some hiss is when using virtual instruments with noisefloor under -140 db

but when using mics and real /and noisy/ instruments like el.guitar there no single reason to add another hiss - because hiss adds and you ends up with record as noisy /or noisier/ as in old times...but if I want my record noisy I would stay in 60-ies and never switched to digital

but theres one good reason to use hearable hiss - to prevent people "hear" aliasing

[hibidy]

Ouch!

Like I said in the other thread, I don't hear all this hiss everyone is talking about. How to reproduce please.....

[kvaca]

Ouch!

Like I said in the other thread, I don't hear all this hiss everyone is talking about. How to reproduce please.....

well,in depends...how namy tracks u use with tapesim, how sensitive to hiss are your ears...
but again - theres zero need to add hiss for the sake of "tape" realism...Massey Tepehead is prime example that its not needed at all

[flugel45]

I guess it's one of those subjective things, but I agree that hiss should be optional in a tape sim. I certainly don't want what amounts to noise when I'm really just looking for some warmth or "glue".

There are tons of lo-fi plugs (like Sonitex STX-1260 for example) that'll give you the dirty side: hiss, pops and crackles, if that's what you're after.

[hibidy]

Ouch!

Like I said in the other thread, I don't hear all this hiss everyone is talking about. How to reproduce please.....

well,in depends...how namy tracks u use with tapesim, how sensitive to hiss are your ears...
but again - theres zero need to add hiss for the sake of "tape" realism...Massey Tepehead is prime example that its not needed at all

Hmmmmm. This is clearly going to require more research........

[hibidy]

I guess it's one of those subjective things, but I agree that hiss should be optional in a tape sim. I certainly don't want what amounts to noise when I'm really just looking for some warmth or "glue".

There are tons of lo-fi plugs (like Sonitex STX-1260 for example) that'll give you the dirty side: hiss, pops and crackles, if that's what you're after.

I hate to sound like I'm just beating a dead horse, but I'd think that SOME hiss is necessary for the overall effect. I understand people thinking plugin/no hiss but isn't that part of WHY you want a tape effect?

Again, not trying to be a dork, just asking.

[Urs]

but theres one good reason to use hearable hiss - to prevent people "hear" aliasing

This is how conspiracy theories are conceived

[kvaca]

but theres one good reason to use hearable hiss - to prevent people "hear" aliasing

This is how conspiracy theories are conceived

no conspiracy needed here...if you have any disharmonic tonal noise level at -70db and white noise at the same level...what do you hear in a mix?

off course its just in theory, Im not telling your plugin suffer from aliasing etc and thats why it uses a lot of hiss...Im just telling that hiss CAN be used to mask aliasing...similar as is used for removing quantization errors via dither

[mandolarian]

but theres one good reason to use hearable hiss - to prevent people "hear" aliasing

This is how conspiracy theories are conceived

no conspiracy needed here...if you have any disharmonic tonal noise level at -70db and white noise at the same level...what do you hear in a mix?

Wat dis-noise? Soft clean mud? Faux-low-level-dubstep? A Cranesong CD? Tinnitus for the hearing-acute? The endless disharmonics of Mayan shepherds? hibby's lost 5k? Am I close? No, don't tell me. This is almost as much fun as a dithering conspiracy.

[Compyfox]

The thing is, that the demand was clearly "add it, else it is unusable to me"

Ah, I must have missed that, sorry if that was the case. I remember respectful FRs regarding this, maybe on another forum? I might have just missed the entitled ones. Not cool.

To cut it short here, these "demands" were actually mostly over at the U-HE board. Like the one posted yesterday with the wording:

The hiss was deal breaker for me, I literally hate it. It was the main reason for me to not buy the plugin.

Just to name one person.

but again - theres zero need to add hiss for the sake of "tape" realism...Massey Tepehead is prime example that its not needed at all

Massey Tapehead (to my understanding) is a compressor, that is aiming at the "tape head compression" aspects. It is by no means a tape machine.

But it is currently useless in Wavelab8 (all 64bit/PC):
VST2 version outputs just hiss after a short time of usage.

Can't confirm this. Needs more description of what's going on and the revision number at the top right.

VST3 version doesn't work at all.

I can confirm this. At least up until v1.0 (haven't testes 1.02 yet).

[Endor-8o8]

The thing is, that the demand was clearly "add it, else it is unusable to me"

Ah, I must have missed that, sorry if that was the case. I remember respectful FRs regarding this, maybe on another forum? I might have just missed the entitled ones. Not cool.

To cut it short here, these "demands" were actually mostly over at the U-HE board. Like the one posted yesterday with the wording:

The hiss was deal breaker for me, I literally hate it. It was the main reason for me to not buy the plugin.

Just to name one person.

but again - theres zero need to add hiss for the sake of "tape" realism...Massey Tepehead is prime example that its not needed at all

Massey Tapehead (to my understanding) is a compressor, that is aiming at the "tape head compression" aspects. It is by no means a tape machine.

But it is currently useless in Wavelab8 (all 64bit/PC):
VST2 version outputs just hiss after a short time of usage.

Can't confirm this. Needs more description of what's going on and the revision number at the top right.

VST3 version doesn't work at all.

I can confirm this. At least up until v1.0 (haven't testes 1.02 yet).

Come on you're still on that man ??
You must have some time to waste...

[Compyfox]

I actually wasted even more time, to find a possible solution for everyone. And I think this might actually work. I wrote this over in the U-HE subboard, but I'll post it in here as well. Though if you want to further debate it, please do it over there.



Link to the thread:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 78#5486578



Here's some data I just generated with Cubase 7, SATIN v1.00, most current Slate VTM, and a modified MeldaProduction MNoiseGenerator stream.

Read below.

Code: Select all

Plugins Used:
- MNoise Generator (Pink Noise at -53,3dB) -> MBandPass (HP @2,5kHz 6dB/Oct)
- Slate VTM (Noise Reduction 0dB, Hiss Auto Mute off, Calib @-15dB/default, 16 track, 15ips, FG456 tape)
- SATIN (SE A827 30ips preset)


Technical:
- RMS values measured with bx_meter (k-weighted) and RME DigiCheck (non weighted)
- Mono channels were used
- Pan Rule 0dB
- Measurement Point: 1st Insert on Summing Bus


NOISE FLOOR

1 instance              non Weighted    k-Weighted
MNoiseGenerator (filt)  -68,5dB RMS     -65,4dB RMS
Slate VTM               -65,1dB RMS     -68,2dB RMS
SATIN                   -68,7dB RMS     -71,4dB RMS



8 instances
MNoiseGenerator (filt)  -59,4dB RMS     -56,4dB RMS
Slate VTM               -58,2dB RMS     -55,1dB RMS
SATIN                   -60,9dB RMS     -58,9dB RMS



16 instances
MNoiseGenerator (filt)  -56,4dB RMS     -53,4dB RMS
Slate VTM               -55,2dB RMS     -50,2dB RMS
SATIN                   -58,0dB RMS     -55,9dB RMS



24 instances
MNoiseGenerator (filt)  -54,7dB RMS     -51,6dB RMS
Slate VTM               -53,5dB RMS     -49,8dB RMS
SATIN                   -56,3dB RMS     -54,3dB RMS

What does this data tell us:
1) Noise is adding up if you run it in parallel (confirmed)
2) Even if the tape machines are linked (like Slate VTM), the noise of the whole machine doesn't stay the same - each channel is treated as "own machine" rather than "one system" (currently, no tape machine handles that!)
3) The noise actually gradually somewhat decreases over a certain ammount of tracks (see instance ammount)
4) Since the noise is most prominent in the mids to highs, chances are you roll of a lot of the noise "sound" (harshness) with in series connected console emulations (which add their own noise btw!), or another "to tape" instance (since it's part of the original tape sound)



How to prevent noise:
The most read comment so far is "hiss auto mute". While I understand the reason for it on stopped playback, I don't understand it if there is no signal present while playing (which in turn would make it unrealistic, and mess with the tape/console/pseudo-mastering chain on the summing bus).

To actually reduce the noise in general, "the old days" used noise gates on a per-track basis. Just filtering the noise, then just above the noise floor. Though this was highly impractical for multitrack machines beyond 8 tracks, as you'd waste racks only for reducing the noise.

For this, the Dolby NR modes were introduced. A Compressor/Expander system (or compander), which took care of the signal so that it didn't go into the noise floor, and was "recovered" on playback with the Expander (which created it's own unique sounds). Either that, or simply running the tape hot all the time, and wasting noise gates like there is no tomorrow (again - impractical in hardware form, possible in software form).

Another alternative is to simply turn back the "hiss" (noise) in the plugins. Though this is not always possible, and certain other aspects also interfere (like bias, pre-emphasis noise, etc). Also, certain plugins are not linked in that section.




SUMMARY:
I'm surprised that actually SATIN is considered as "too noisy", while former tape plugin creations (Slate, Nomad Factory, UAD, Waves) are considered not.

Again, I understand a need for "auto mute on stop". But not while playback. Else, if the plugins would be intelligent enough to know "oh wait! We're linked, so no noise in parallel, just one noise floor over all instances", then we wouldn't have this debate.

The sad thing is however, there is no real documentation up until this day, if these machines were measured with "one" channel, and directly at the channel output, or the stereo output. I assume the latter.

So actually, this whole issue can be easily handled for the time being with a globally linked "hiss" knob over all instances (as it is possible with Slate VTM as soon as it realizes "several instances are present, link functions") and an appropriate RMS meter on output (example: summing bus) to find the correct spot for the whole machine. Set up once, use templates in your host.

And the presets need to have the info "this machine uses - xx dB RMS as noise floor, if you use it as multitrack machine rather than individual machine, so please adjust accordingly for realism".

I think I'll do that with my future presets (if the info field will be scrollable).





With that said, I wasted several hours on this - just to find a possible solution where everyone might be happy.

Possible Solution (FRs):

- Introduce a "Noise Control" panel (Service Panel), which includes:
- a "Hiss Auto Mute on Stop" switch
- a "hiss link" switch, so that people can decide to use channel individual hiss (example: Studer A800 channel modules!) or global hiss (example: small scale R2R tape machines)

With these, I think all users will be pleased, as it would offer the best of both worlds. Along with the ability to have a noise floor of > -80dB RMS already, this should be more than enough.

[sascha]

Just in short (I don't have time reading all these novels, especially not on the weekend which belongs to the family):

- we can make the hiss control go down to -120 or lower (although I find it ridicolous and counter-productive, but anyway)
- we will think about auto-mute for the hiss control (doesn't mean we do it, at this stage)
- we won't make hiss global. First, we can't. There's no way to collect several parallel buffers of their instances, at least not with the APIs we know. Otherwise we'd easily implemented crosstalk with neighbouring tracks (not only stereo per instance). Second, we wouldn't want to. This is not the way physics works. Hiss is random orientation of the particles and alteration of the remanence field due to their uneven structure. This greatly interacts with the source signal, especially since we're using a model consisting of virtual coils, hysteris loop, HF bias and eddy currents / self-erasure. Putting static over a global signal does not interact like individual noise and is pretty much like a song with vocals compared to karaoke (to draw an analogy).

[PeterL]

But it is currently useless in Wavelab8 (all 64bit/PC):
VST2 version outputs just hiss after a short time of usage.

Can't confirm this. Needs more description of what's going on and the revision number at the top right.

I think I just nailed the Wavelab8 bug:
Activate "Tempo Sync" in the delay mode, after that Satin goes crazy wih lots of hiss (also when you switch "Tempo Sync" off again).
Can anyone confirm this ?

[Compyfox]

Yes, I can confirm that the "Sync" button in WL8 does not sync, but rather nuke the plugin. (on my end: audio stream off!)

The devs are aware of that already.