CHOW Tape Model by Jatin Chowdhury

[BLUE-S-MAN]

Is there a preset for the orginal behaviour of the tapemachine.

[s28]

I really love this plugin, thank you for it.

I seem to be getting pops and clicks during use and on render from it, with low cpu otherwise in the project.

Anyone else experiencing this? I will keep using it to try to work out exactly when it's happening.

[Vortifex]

Edited

[chowdsp]

This new build is causing a large volume spike for me (Reaper64, running on Linux/Wine 5.0) when starting playing, also at the start of a rendered track.

Thanks for the kind words! I'll take a look at volume spike bug, I know that can be super annoying... I've opened a GitHub issue for the bug; any future updates will be there. Unfortunately, I can mostly only test in Ableton Live 10, but I'll do my best.

Is there a preset for the orginal behaviour of the tapemachine.

Not at the moment, but that's a great idea. I'll try to make a few presets (including the original) for the next release. It would be great if folks on this thread want to contribute some presets as well! To keep things organized, please add your presets here.

[cantaloupe]

Hi, I just wanted to jump in to say firstly that this is the most authentic-sounding (IMHO) tape emulator I've tried, so thanks so much for making it available!

Yeah, this is remarkable. Sounds so real.

[s28]

Hi, I just wanted to jump in to say firstly that this is the most authentic-sounding (IMHO) tape emulator I've tried, so thanks so much for making it available!

Yeah, this is remarkable. Sounds so real.

This is why I hope the pops/glitches get fixed (i'm sure they will as the dev response has been great).

This thing sounds so good on busses. Do wish a 1x option was there though as it's a bit heavy but less plugins is never a bad thing.

[chowdsp]

Hey folks,
I've got some updates in progress here: Trying to fix the behavior that's been reported re: pops/clicks, and volume spikes. Also, trying out a 1x oversampling option. Updated Windows builds are available here.

Some technical notes:
- Re: pops/clicks/spikes, I think these issues were being caused by an approximation of the tanh function that I was using, that behaved poorly at extreme values. I've switched to the C++ standard library implementation which is slightly more computationally expensive, but I think it's worth it. I also adjust the way the tape handles oversaturation at very extreme input levels, so in this case ithe output won't explode, but will have some nasty artifacts (I don't think I'm going to try to "fix" these, since it's pretty close to what my tape machine does when I try to (ab)use it at these types of levels).

- Re: 1x oversampling, I had mentioned earlier that I was discretizing the hysteresis nonlinearity with the bilinear transform which can be unstable at the Nyquist frequency without oversampling. I've switched to using an alpha transform with alpha=0.9, which introduces some damping near the Nyquist frequency to avoid this instability. In theory, the alpha transform should also introduce some high frequency damping (when not oversampled), which is definitely audible in simpler systems, however in my simulations and listening tests with this system, the difference is pretty much indistinguishable. With oversampling, the difference is unnoticeable. For more info on these types of transformations, this paper is pretty good (though very technical): https://www.ntnu.edu/documents/10012011 ... ion_52.pdf.

[Vortifex]

Edited

[sprnva]

Here's updated Mac builds for the latest commit.

[onerob]

Great work. I hope you can fix that pesky "divide by zero" error that crashes the AU validator, at some point.

[chowdsp]

I tried the new Windows VST2 64 bit version in FL Studio. When I adjusted the Thickness control to maximum it caused a dropout and I had to disable/re-enable the plugin to get sound back. I've not been able to reproduce it so I'm not sure what caused it.

Edit: it just caused a pop when my DAW was idle.

Hmm, yeah I know FL has been especially tricky for a few people. I'd rather not have to install FL on my machine since I'm running low on memory as is, but I'll try to keep digging on this...

Great work. I hope you can fix that pesky "divide by zero" error that crashes the AU validator, at some point.

A buddy of mine has been examining this for me on Mac. Seems to be happening only on some MacOS versions. Any additional support from Mac devs would be much appreciated! I'll keep you guys updated as I know more.

Here's updated Mac builds for the latest commit

Thanks so much for continuing to post these .

[kingocounty]

There doesn't appear to be any change for me with the new build, but I certainly appreciate your continued effort! And to clarify for my situation, there is only one loud spike when first hitting play or at the very beginning of a rendered track; the plugin runs smoothly after that.

[focusrite]

There doesn't appear to be any change for me with the new build, but I certainly appreciate your continued effort! And to clarify for my situation, there is only one loud spike when first hitting play or at the very beginning of a rendered track; the plugin runs smoothly after that.

+1 doesn't happen with previous versions

[poshook]

I have Softube, Back Rooster, Beatskillz, Waves, TOneboosters, but this one is really something special. thank you

[nilhartman]

It sounds pretty, pretty, pretty good indeed. Would love to read how you guys are using it / setting it, this beast is deep.

@chowdsp : Jatin, would it be possible to add the number of the build somewhere in the GUI please ?