Satin... Wut? (n00b warning!)

[Beamboom]

Ok so I'm just gonna dive right into it and ask a question that's been burning in the back of my head for a long time: Could someone please explain to me the meaning of the "tape machine" Satin? My itch to purchase more U-He is growing, but I can't figure out this one. I just got a feeling I'd like it if I understood how to use it.

From the description on the homepage it talks about the wonders of magnetic tape recordings. Now, I'm old enough to have actually lived in those days, and my association with magnetic tapes are anything but favourable: Hiss, weak transients, quality loss, frequency issues, bleedings in all directions, loss of clarity, good grief the arguments against those degenrates are neverending!
Why would anyone want to apply such travesy onto their modern recordings?

Also, the audio examples with Satin is very hard to figure out for me - I don't really hear what's supposed to be demonstrated. Maybe cause I don't know what to listen for? What's on display there?

Sure, if you got an oldies band who want max authenticy I guess I can understand. Much like some add record crackles to mimic an old record player. But this is, imo, edge cases.

If anyone could - if possible - explain how Satin is a useful tool in a normal, modern day production, I'd be very thankful. Or, is it in fact a tool only for retro guys?

[yppse]

Well, why are people looking for emulations of say Urei 1176, Teletronix LA2A, old NEVE (to name a few)?!

Some "old" gear has its own sound and you can achiv a sound, you can't get another way. They are to a certain point "colourboxes" or they do what they do in a special way.

With tape simulation like Satin, you are looking for tape compression and saturation. Some are even looking for the sound of tape driven into red. If you record to tape, it colours the sound, sometimes subtle (but sums up when different tracks come together) sometimes obvious. Tape glues different tracks together in its own way, some say it "gels" tracks and mixes.

Technical it may be inferiour to "clean digital", but its the sound, that counts. If you don't like it - fine. Then Satin may not be the plugin for you. Others prefer THAT sound.

[Googly Smythe]

Tape plugins seek to implement the good things about tape, as previously mentioned, whilst leaving out the bad.
Also too, Satin can do more than just saturate - it can do most, if not all, tape-based effects - ADT, through-zero-flanging, multi-tap echo...

[Beamboom]

Thanks alot for your replies, guys! It seems I was roughlyt on track with my understanding after all. Some comments:

With tape simulation like Satin, you are looking for tape compression and saturation.

So far so good. It says so in the description on the site too. But what exactly does that mean? What is "tape compression" as opposed to what you achieve with regular compression? And what is tape saturation as opposed to regular distortion (and/or EQing, I suppose)?

Tape glues different tracks together in its own way, some say it "gels" tracks and mixes.

That too is claimed on the homepage. But how? In technical terms, what is it that it actually does to "gel" the track? Diffusion of some sort? EQing?

Technical it may be inferiour to "clean digital", but its the sound, that counts. If you don't like it - fine. Then Satin may not be the plugin for you. Others prefer THAT sound.

Yes exactly - and I'm totally fine with that (of course...).

But so in essence, if I am to sum it up this is indeed primarily a "retro tool", it can be compared to an "aged" filter in a image/video editing software?

[yppse]

There seems to be some hardware tools, that mimic tape compression the analog way.

I'm no expert in technical things, so I can't tell you the "technical" difference in tape compression and saturation (wich is more than just some kind of distortion, as I understand it - you can't achive tape sat with a simple waveshaper or distortion unit).

There are different compression types on compressors, too: VCA, Tube, FET, Opto, ..., feed forward and backward; each type reacts different, and there is tape wich react in another way. Since there are plugins like it was writen somewhere in the posts above, that introduce tape compression and saturation WITHOUT the hiss, noise and wow and flutter - there you can look at it like just another colour.

The high, lows and mids are "treated" different by tape, you have some kind of dynamic EQ going on. As I wrote, I'm no expert, but U-he and his team are very present in their subforum here at kvr - maybe you get better answers from the programmers, that studied the behaviour of tape to build Satin.

Cheers

[Beamboom]

I need to experiment more with this plugin.

Thanks again, guys.

[#rob]

Not writing this to be a smart@$$, but because it would probably help in answering a few questions: read the user guide.

If you don't wish to download the entire plugin .zip for that, then you can download the user guide separately from Satin's product page. Scroll down a bit, it's located under the awards section. (Priorities, right? )

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

So far so good. It says so in the description on the site too. But what exactly does that mean? What is "tape compression" as opposed to what you achieve with regular compression? And what is tape saturation as opposed to regular distortion (and/or EQing, I suppose)?

Tape compression? You brought up one aspect yourself in your first post: "weak transients." Tape can soften and massage transients in a way some people like. Tape saturation? It's just saturation. Some extra harmonic distortion getting added to the signal, bringing up apparent volume and bringing down the difference between your peaks and the body of your sound (the compression effect of saturation). Hiss? A bit of hiss as music plays sometimes sounds better to me than none at all. Like it's filing space. Wow and flutter? Can add done life and interest or be a great lo-fi effect.

It's cool if you don't like this stuff, or hear a difference. It's not for everyone. You don't have to buy it just because U-he made it, though I'm sure they wouldn't mind. Try it out. If you like it, great! If not, it's ok. It's not the easiest tape plugin to use either, but it sounds very good and is very customizable.

[Boone777]

One thing that some tape emus does is taking off the rough edginess of high pitch sounds. Like distorted guitars for exemple. So it acts a bit like a dynamic eq, multiband compressor or deesser. The saturation it adds are usually pleaseant harmonics making the sound a bit bigger. So yeah you can achieve all those using various techniques in this case its more about personnal preference if you like what it does to your sound or not. The gluing effect usually is used on busses. When for exemple every peice of a drumkit goes into the same piece of hardware or software be it tape, console strip, compressor, etc. The same treatment is being applied on all the sound sources at once making them 'move' together and coloured in the same way wich is part of the gluing effect.

[lentferj]

Not to be forgotten, Satin is a damn good (tape-)delay plugin, too. Today I use it more often as a delay or for ADT in my projects than as a tape (recording) emulation.

[Beamboom]

One thing that some tape emus does is taking off the rough edginess of high pitch sounds. Like distorted guitars for exemple. So it acts a bit like a dynamic eq, multiband compressor or deesser. The saturation it adds are usually pleaseant harmonics making the sound a bit bigger.

Ooooh, this is an interesting user case. I'm definitely going to experiment with it on guitar tracks. Makes perfect sense on such a traditional/"retro" instrument. (I'm typically working within the electronic genres, but do play and add guitars now and then).

Thanks

[Googly Smythe]

Not to be forgotten, Satin is a damn good (tape-)delay plugin, too. Today I use it more often as a delay or for ADT in my projects than as a tape (recording) emulation.

Already been said, but people here are more concerned about the affect (yes, pun intended) tape has on the sound.

[lentferj]

Already been said, but people here are more concerned about the affect (yes, pun intended) tape has on the sound.

Yeah, only saw your comment after writing mine ... you were first !