IK Multimedia T-racks Tape Machine Collection

[jinotsuh]

Buy Gear Credits using the allowable % of Jam Points, then purchase with Gear Credits.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

If I already own the TRacks MAX bundle how much would it be to add these tape machines to the collection?

Doesn't matter what you own. When IK creates a new T-Racks processor (or most new IK products really), there's a discounted/intro/crossgrade price for all IK customers. You can use Jam Points if you got em to bring the price down further. Or you can wait until IK does a big sale and deeply discounts those products (like their recent promotion where T-Racks 5 was $49 and I was able to take 30% off with Jam Points - but I had to wait a while).

Okay, I own quite a few IK products. So it's normally 199 euros but is promotional introductory at 99 euros.

Does any discount apply considering I own existing IK products? Is the 99 euros a crossgrade price?

The 99.99 price is the lowest (50% off MSRP) but you can use JamPoints from the purchases of other products to take of an additional up to 30% off that price

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Just two things:

1. To clarify Peter's post about the price, the "up to 30%" plus the fact that Jam Points require you to use whole dollars, means that the discount is actually closer to 29%. The difference between a 30% discount on 99.99% and a 29% discount ends up only being 99 cents so not a big deal, but when I see the phrase "up to 30%" without any additional caveats about whole dollars, I think most customers would expect that to mean a $29.99 discount on a $99.99 product (maybe $29.98 if they round down). If you deal with percentages all day at work, that kind of thing sticks out (my brain immediately goes to "$29 is not 30% of %99.99"). Not a complaint per se. Just clarifying for people who aren't used to IK's pricing.

2. Would be nice if IK's payment screen had a "use maximum Jam Points" button for purchases that calculated it for you. When you haven't bought something in a while, you may be like me and think Jam Points can be used for up to 33% of the total purchase. So in this case, I started with $33, then tried $32 then jumped to $30, then finally landed on $29. Again, not complaining about the actual discount, but the payment process could be improved upon for end users just by added a "Use Max Jam Points" button. You could even keep the current button if, for some reason, someone wanted to use a lesser amount.

[mcbpete]

2. Would be nice if IK's payment screen had a "use maximum Jam Points" button for purchases that calculated it for you

Absolutely, would definitely save time - this was *exactly* what I ended up doing (to the dollar!) :

so in this case, I'd start with $33, then try $32 then go to $30, then finally land on $29

[simmo75]

Do I need to download and install T-racks to use Tape Machines properly? I’m a little confused with the difference be that and custom shop... it seems I now have a ton of IK Multimedia products that have appeared in my DAW... I don’t like that.

[Burillo]

that's IK for ya.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Do I need to download and install T-racks to use Tape Machines properly? I’m a little confused with the difference be that and custom shop... it seems I now have a ton of IK Multimedia products that have appeared in my DAW... I don’t like that.

Yeah, it's kind of like the Universal Audio approach of "we force you to install everything and if you want, you can delete plugins you don't want after the fact [until the next update that reinstalls everything]." They're hoping you'll activate the trials for other plugins, fall in love, and buy them. For me, I know what I want already and just don't want additional plugins cluttering up my plugin folder.

It gets on my nerves for both IK and Universal Audio. Slate, Melda, Fabfilter, are a few companies off the top of my head that allow you to select the components you want to install. Much more customer-centric approach IMO.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

2. Would be nice if IK's payment screen had a "use maximum Jam Points" button for purchases that calculated it for you

Absolutely, would definitely save time - this was *exactly* what I ended up doing (to the dollar!) :

so in this case, I'd start with $33, then try $32 then go to $30, then finally land on $29

I bet they could use web analytics to track that. I'd love to see what percentage of customers that use Jam Points incorrectly calculate the amount, and how many attempts before they finally land on the right one. Someone at IK should do that research and reply back to their bosses with that data. Let the customer experience drive the design.

[detriot]

Sounds like this is a combination of modeling and convolution. How is latency?

I am quite curious about this as well.

I finally got some time to check for myself 13.5ms latency per plugin. So not insignificant, not horrible. You definitely wouldn't want to use these in a tracking scenario and monitor through these.

The CPU usage is super high, but I can still run 21 of these in a project with no other plugins on a 4790 (used Studio One and just kept adding these to new tracks until the CPU indicator started hitting red)k. High, but not crazy unreasonable. Definitely the kind of plugin where you want to split up your recording and mixing phases and bounce stems in between and render this as needed. Due to the CPU constraints, I couldn't imagine using this on every track in a mix, but then again, Direct Offline Processing in Cubase seems like it was built for this. I threw the ATR-24 emulation on a near complete mix I'm working on and it pushed the CPU over the limit, but the sound was amazing. Might be totally worth it for a few, key roles in a mix.

Thanks for taking the time to check!
Note that the ms value depends on the sample rate (but I assume you run at 44.1).
I am on the fence about these. I like things that I can use real-time...

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Sounds like this is a combination of modeling and convolution. How is latency?

I am quite curious about this as well.

I finally got some time to check for myself 13.5ms latency per plugin. So not insignificant, not horrible. You definitely wouldn't want to use these in a tracking scenario and monitor through these.

The CPU usage is super high, but I can still run 21 of these in a project with no other plugins on a 4790 (used Studio One and just kept adding these to new tracks until the CPU indicator started hitting red)k. High, but not crazy unreasonable. Definitely the kind of plugin where you want to split up your recording and mixing phases and bounce stems in between and render this as needed. Due to the CPU constraints, I couldn't imagine using this on every track in a mix, but then again, Direct Offline Processing in Cubase seems like it was built for this. I threw the ATR-24 emulation on a near complete mix I'm working on and it pushed the CPU over the limit, but the sound was amazing. Might be totally worth it for a few, key roles in a mix.

Thanks for taking the time to check!
Note that the ms value depends on the sample rate (but I assume you run at 44.1).
I am on the fence about these. I like things that I can use real-time...

You're welcome. And yes, 44.1khz.

If real-time/tracking usage is a must, I couldn't recommend these. If amazing sounding was the primary requirement, then OMG yes.

[DavidCarlyon]

Man these are awesome!! So glad they went with quality over compromise. Otherwise we would have just ended up with another bunch of plugins similar to what we already have.
IK actually make seriously good stuff, this seems to be a big step in the right direction to me.

I love pushing the treble on the record head and getting that silky top end. Dammit these are good.
I mentioned somewhere earlier - some of the existing tape emus have a slightly cartoonish sound, where they have tried to exaggerate the 'tapeness' whereas these sound really natural.
The compression is also beautiful. Didn't expect to be this impressed...and the more i use them the more i seem to like them.
Great job!!

[Aloysius]

Interesting video imho. Reel-to-Reel Basics. 40+ min's long but ya can skip through it.

[v1o]

The noise level does not increase when you feed it low input level signals. Strange.

[Fleer]

Great bundle. Must have tape emulations. And sweet to be able to use my gear credits to get these.

[Elektronisch]

latest t-racks update not only introduced another bug but it broke in to the IK servers and introduced a bug in the support system. Now you cant even report bugs.

Bug in a bug reporting system, IK engineers really dont like when their users see there is some problem

Peter, maybe you can report to the staff the bug and that there is a bug in a bug reporting system?

p.s. tape plugins sound really great (as most of IK effect plugins)