Well I guess my hearings gone because...(Tape VSTs)

[Dark Fiber]

idk, "tape" plugins can be useful for taming spiky transients at times.

The thing is, most Tape plugins actually boost the transients when you don't push them into the red. I've tested ten of them and they all do this. It's actually quite rare to have a tape plugin tame transients AND sound good at the same time.

IK Tape 24 and Tape 80 boost transients by 4db
Ozone Vintage Tape and Wave Kramer Tape boost transients by 3.5db
Reelbus 4 boosts transients by 2db
etc.

[bmanic]

It's definitely not just you. I've been trying to tell people that high-end tape machines, bought for "mojo", is a complete waste of money, space and time. Heck I myself fell into that trap many years ago when I was able to get hold of two Telefunken M15 recorders.. I don't regret the purchase as I have the space and had time to explore them.. and I paid 100 euros for two fully working machines so no loss there.

.. but it's just incredible how transparent they are. Other than a clearly audible noise floor, the way they reproduce whatever I put into them is ridiculously transparent.

So if anybody really wants that tape vibe I always suggest much lower end units. The best are usually high-end cassette decks as they are good enough to not be totally bonkers lo-fi yet not good enough to not have a clear effect on the audio. Other good options are the various tascam and revox reel to reel recorders, especially if they come already setup to be a bit on the hot biased side with an input preamp. Those are awesome for driving things nicely. And you can gently modulate them by simply applying a tiny amount of pressure on the reels (though be careful here so as not to over heat the motors or bend the reels) with your hands while playing back things you've recorded. Naturally this will skew the timing but if you keep it light and don't work at strict tempos then it can be awesome fun and give some real character to stuff.

[bmanic]

As for plugins, definitely try sketch cassette or IK Multimedia Tascam 388. Those can give you buckets of character.

[bmanic]

idk, "tape" plugins can be useful for taming spiky transients at times.

The thing is, most Tape plugins actually boost the transients when you don't push them into the red. I've tested ten of them and they all do this. It's actually quite rare to have a tape plugin tame transients AND sound good at the same time.

It probably depends a lot on how you have the bias set. Especially if you under bias tape and don't drive it hard enough, it can have the boosting effect. This happens in the real world too.

Sometimes it's difficult to find a good sweet spot of bias, driving the tape and shaving off the transients without getting too much distortion. One thing you can do to help it a bit is trying to figure out what area of the frequency spectrum you want to tame and then use a symmetrical EQ (that boosts and cuts with identical EQ shapes) to exaggerate those frequencies going into the tape and then compensating with a 2nd inverted EQ plugin on the output.

[ChamomileShark]

@bmanic. I think you are right, "tape magic" only becomes obvious at lower fidelity. It's obvious on the ReVox.

I also have a collection of very lofi cassete hardware, some of which I found in drawers, walkmans, cassete machines for DX9 tape dumps, dictaphones.

[fceramic]

IK's Tascam collection has loads of character and sound what I remember tape sounding like. The EQ on the 388 is awesome too.

[foosnark]

It's definitely not just you. I've been trying to tell people that high-end tape machines, bought for "mojo", is a complete waste of money, space and time.

Absolutely... the reason those were high-end tape machines is they didn't distort or color the sound, had a very low noise floor, very little wow and flutter, etc.

I think more lo-fi tape effects can be useful, but it's more of an intentionally destructive thing, not just to add some kind of fairy dust.

[sokoleski]

Give - Airwindows ToTape6 - ... a try!

I enjoy..it

...and its free

[kritikon]

It's definitely not just you. I've been trying to tell people that high-end tape machines, bought for "mojo", is a complete waste of money, space and time.

Absolutely... the reason those were high-end tape machines is they didn't distort or color the sound, had a very low noise floor, very little wow and flutter, etc.

I think more lo-fi tape effects can be useful, but it's more of an intentionally destructive thing, not just to add some kind of fairy dust.

Absolutely. If I'd recorded at studios where the tapes were so bad that they colored the sound and altered dynamics, they were by definition a bad studio with poor equipment. The really good tapes were pretty comparable to digital i.e. CLEAN. To get tape coloring, then a cheap end reel or just cassette should be the option. And cassettes were shite, I mean c'mon, whoever aimed for cassette quality masters? We only ever used cassette multitrack because we couldn't afford anything better, not because it made our recordings good. So a high end 2" tape plugin emulation actually makes no sense at all...

[jancivil]

...Also the perceived depth of the soundstage which can sound deeper with tape.

I have a hunch that this is totally the noise floor of tape. It's sort of the equivalent of "room tone" that's recorded to add to dubbing tracks in movies. It's nearly impossible to experience pure silence, which is why a fully digital recording with a huge s/r can sound strange.

this. exactly.

also, I find silence (and I do have long-ish moments where things are not sounding) beyond odd but disquieting and at this point I don't remember *not* having Replika XT in Tape mode/Noise ON in a project. including right at the start before much if anything has sounded.
Controllable via the "Tape Age" potentiometer. AFAIC it's unbeatable for tape noise. I used to use some .wavs by whatsisname in Atlanta who makes plugins distributed by Acusticav (these are sorted by the specific tape machine name and IPS) before NI came out with that one.

[donkey tugger]

Interesting (thought it was just me being weird... ). I always like to get some 'air'/noise into a song an will not generally cut out parts in between bits of acoustic guitar/vocals etc (save for the coughing fits and the odd fart..) because I feel it does miss something if they're gone. Similarly I'll often mic up the electric guitar itself in addition to the DI/amp and mix a bit of this in with the track.

[electro]

Just me?

The purpose of tape is its cumulative hifi effect over multiple tracks. That's the difference you should be assessing.

[osiris]

They only add noise you can't hear, except for Nomad Magnetic 2. That LFO won't stop beating and if pushed too far will actually register on the db meter as a steady beat.

[El°HYM]

If you cant hear Tape then try a Dictaphone.

[zerocrossing]

Just me?

The purpose of tape is its cumulative lo-fi effect over multiple tracks. That's the difference you should be assessing.

Fixed that for you. Tape can’t increase the fidelity of a sound. You may prefer the degradation it produces, but don’t be fooled into believing it is increasing fidelity.