Your favorite Tape plugin in 2023? [#POLL]

[DCrown]

Waves tapes are not included in the poll, must be a joke!?

That's funny. The first tape emulation I ever got was Waves (I think it was J37 - but can't remember and I've deleted my Waves acct). It was so bad sounding I decided for literally years after that tape was just something that digital could not do.

Finally, in 2018, I found one that I thought sounded really good, and began accumulating tape emus again. Now I have many. None of them Waves.

Different strokes I guess.

Different strokes are ok.
I don't expect a tape to sound,
sound comes from an instrument.
Depth, width, reducing nominal loudness,
thats what I want and withouth high cpu or latency.
Of course, you can use a tape
as an effect by driving wow, flutter or noise hard.
Waves J37 and Kramer do the job for me

[phantom101]

u he satin is great, not cheap but you can have a lot of control.
But I have to try the UAD ones...

[Ramm Darkened]

Softube Tape is awesome

[Spin Boyz]

The uad atr 102 is on another level.

[CrystalWizard]

Reelbus 3
Ferric TDS
PSP Echo with the speed set to 0.

[core]

I'm not so familiar with all the options but I enjoy Caelum Audio's tape plugin https://rekkerd.org/review-tape-pro-tap ... lum-audio/

[nilhartman]

TDR Arbiter + MDWDRC2

[josb]

Impact Soundworks Tape Sculptor, especially as a creative effect.

[jtn191]

Currently, NAM (Neural Amp Modeler) with a variety of profiles. *Does not do wow/flutter so you'd have to achieve that another way. I also use CHOW occasionally, have Softube 's Tape...

[martiu]

Arturia Tape Mello-Fi is very good, also very cpu efficient . . .

Screenshot (1352).png

[Igro]

Arturia Tape Mello-Fi is very good, also very cpu efficient . . .
Screenshot (1352).png

Btw, Waves j37 and Arturia Tape Mello-Fi sound practically identical. I could much them with various settings. The difference comes only when changing various types on J37. But even then, they are too close.
---

As for IK ones. Some of them are full of preringing quality. I don't like that. Some were good though. But hell, CPU..

[misc007]

Hard to pick one
Tape Mello love for Lofi
IK collection feels like I have a real tape Machine collection
I think it’s funny. I get more excited using the Tascam emulations then the more world, renown machine emulations.

NEOLD WARBLE love the wow/flutter and old to new section

[electro]

Deep Vintage Tape (New Plugin)
https://www.threebodytech.com/en/products/deepvintage

Tone Empire TM700 V2 (New Plugin)
https://tone-empire.com/shop/tm700/

A.C.Q.U.A. London Acoustics Taipei
https://www.londonacoustics.com/manuals ... manual.pdf

A.C.Q.U.A. CD Soundmaster R2R & Tapebooster + CD Soundmaster VTM-M2 plug-in
https://cdsoundmaster.com/product/vtm-m ... r-windows/

IK Multimedia Tape Machine Collection
https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/t ... collection

IK Multimedia TASCAM Tape Collection
https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/t ... collection

Jatin Chowdhury CHOW Tape
https://chowdsp.com/manuals/ChowTapeManual.pdf

UADx Studer® A800 Tape Recorder
https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/inst ... order.html

Softube Tape/Dirty Tape
https://www.softube.com/dirty-tape

HoRNet Tape MK2
https://www.hornetplugins.com/plugins/hornet-tape-mk2/

U-he Satin
https://dl.u-he.com/manuals/plugins/sat ... -guide.pdf

G-Sonique Analog Tape ASX-72
https://www.g-sonique.com/analog-tape-a ... lugin.html

Voxengo CRTIV Tape Bus
https://www.voxengo.com/files/userguide ... e%20en.pdf

Steinberg Magneto II (Cubase/Nuendo)
https://www.steinberg.help/r/cubase-pro ... to2_r.html

[motomotomoto]

Waves tapes are not included in the poll, must be a joke!?

That's funny. The first tape emulation I ever got was Waves (I think it was J37 - but can't remember and I've deleted my Waves acct). It was so bad sounding I decided for literally years after that tape was just something that digital could not do.

Finally, in 2018, I found one that I thought sounded really good, and began accumulating tape emus again. Now I have many. None of them Waves.

Different strokes I guess.

Different strokes are ok.
I don't expect a tape to sound,
sound comes from an instrument.
Depth, width, reducing nominal loudness,
thats what I want and withouth high cpu or latency.
Of course, you can use a tape
as an effect by driving wow, flutter or noise hard.
Waves J37 and Kramer do the job for me

The waves tapes should be included no doubt. Aware of one popular hip hop label (not naming any names) that literally runs all releases through j37. conversation with the principal engineer at a major studio I was doing a session at revealed he considers j37 to be the most tape like sound of any plug in, at least in 2023, and he has them all.

Personal favs are j37, sketch tape 2, Arturia Mello Fi, and Chow tape if all else fails.

Personal favs are j37 and

[jens]

I have a new favourite: the APU ColorFX Tape Machine

it sounds really great, is very tweakable and - in the light of this - relatively easy to use.

That's certainly one underrated gem of a plugin.