Airwindows ToTape7: Free Mac/Windows/Linux/Pi CLAP/AU/VST3/VST2/LV2/Rack

[jinxtigr]

TL;DW: ToTape7 is Airwindows tape emulation with Bias and Dubly.

ToTape7 in Airwindows Consolidated under 'Tape' (CLAP, AU, VST3, LV2)
ToTape7.zip(568k)

So about that simplification of ToTape? Nah. But… set everything to the middle and you can ignore all the many controls.

ToTape7 not only upgrades pretty much every single thing about ToTape, but it brings new functionality beyond any previous version (even when they're good) and it lets you go completely bonkers tailoring signature new sounds however you like them. This is the ToTape for people who wanted all the controls, and more. It's the ToTape for salvaging any sort of audio no matter how DAW-like it is… and it's the ToTape that can be stripped right down to serve as its own FromTape, anytime you like, or if you're trying to run lots of channels of it because you want to tape all the things and then mix them down also to tape. Which it's great at, by the way, as it soaks up loudness super well and even has a ClipOnly2 built in so it can serve, standalone, as your ultimate loudness clipper.

ToTape7 has exactly as many controls as you can fit in Airwindows Consolidated, which means it'll also run in VCV Rack. That means there are some possible controls it skips, and exactly one control that's dual-ganged with two things riding on one single knob. It's just a different knob this time: used to be dual-ganged on the knob marked Soften. The controls from top to bottom operate Dubly Encode, Drive, Flutter, Bias, Head Bump, and Dubly Decode. Again, set everything to the middle for 'normal', but you can go way past normal if you want.

Dubly Encode (not the same thing but the same concept as a famous noise reduction system) applies a brightened and compressed boost to the audio pre-tape, with the amount governed by Amt and the highs cutoff by Freq. (Dubly Decode is exactly the same, except it simply subtracts the effect it makes: this is the secret Seventies tape sound, especially when you tune the Dublies to produce effects). Match them to get mostly 'normal' sound, mismatch them for effect: mind that you don't boost Decode Amt too much or it will produce sort of anti-crunch sound, going past 'cancellation' to obvious distortion. (or do it if you feel like it, I'm not your boss)

Tape Drive is your boost (or pad). 0.5 is unity gain. Boost if you want lots of tape drive, or to loudenate. You should have a good ability to do this and make it sound the way you want. Since Dubly was added, it's even better at allowing for clean gain here, as Dubly tends to suppress harmonics from distortion.

Flutter is like Flutter2, but is NOT exactly the same. It's updated, even since Flutter2, for the purpose of letting the '3D tape' emulation (letting tape bend laterally as well as stretch) be more accurate. It's also toned down a bit so 0.5 gives you a reasonable, real-world flutter effect. The two channels will use their randomness to try and chase each other a little, much like how TPDFWide does the same thing to be LESS correlated. Turns out with default settings this is really, really good at getting a spacious tape realism without letting the imaging go too weird. You can also bypass the whole thing by setting Flutter to zero: if you're running at low sample rate, consider doing that if you're running lots of ToTape and losing the extreme highs. I might not run Flutter on multitracks, just the buss.

Bias is usually set to slight overbiasing. It's like GoldenSlew, but it's simplified and it's being run between Dubly encode and decode, so it's acting differently from the standalone GoldenSlew. Underbiasing also works but is a different algorithm that's probably not going to be people's first choice, but you can do it. Slight overbiasing is your best weapon against unpleasant tizzy highs.

Head Bump is like DubSub2, but it too is updated even more to get more out of ToTape7. There's a highpass built in at 0.5 setting that balances the bump against the rest of the audio, making it so if you stack up the plugin it doesn't get too messy, modeled after references of real tape machines doing multiple generations. Anywhere you set the head bump frequency should get reasonable results with Head Bump at 0.5. If you pull it back OR boost it, you begin to drop the highpass as you do that, meaning it will either crossfade over to the original digital bass (with extended subs) as you reduce the bump, or it'll start adding even more exaggerated bump to the original bass as you crank. So, it's a special voicing for doing all of the things, with 0.5 as the 'peak realism' and most restrictive setting. Ouside that, just pick whether you want less 'tape bass', or 'mega bass' by combining the source and the bump.

Said bump still does the thing from DubSub2 where it's also giving a mild notch at double the frequency, which is characteristic of pretty much all real tape machines. You get to pick the frequency, because why would you be tied to a given machine when they're all different frequencies already, and when the heart of the effect is not getting the frequency right, but the unusual Airwindows head bump algorithm that'll work just fine however you voice it?

And Dubly Decode helps you get even smoother, more compressed sound out of the tape saturation, and lets you dial it in by both amount and frequency. Be aware that it's a really gentle treble-slope, so making subtle changes to frequency will have an effect on the character of the sound but won't produce wild effects. Basically, if Dubly mostly balances but Enc is crossing over lower than Dec, there will be a sort of lower midrange hype that comes through: if Dec is lower than Enc, it's going to be drying up that energy and making it a bit tighter. They're supposed to cancel out, but half the reason classic records all sound different from each other is that this system in real life required a lot of fussy tuning, and some people set it up by ear and ended up with distinct tone qualities for their studios when they did. It's not so much 'EQ' qualities as texture. Experiment with it to see if you have preferences.

And that's ToTape7! Ought to hold people for a while, and be a decent upgrade from ToTape6, even though people really like that one (and it's still there so you can still have it anytime you want).

I'm taking a couple weeks to just rest up, during which there won't be plugins or livestreams, but I'll be back early in September, to resume work on ConsoleX. That's the next thing I'll be working toward, and I think it's going to be exciting. Enjoy ToTape7 and see ya in September

Airwindows Consolidated Download
Most recent VCV Rack module
download 64 Bit Windows VSTs.zip
download Signed M1/Intel Mac AUs.dmg
download Signed M1/Intel Mac VSTs.dmg
download LinuxVSTs.zip
download LinuxARMVSTs.zip for the Pi
download Retro 32 Bit Windows VSTs.zip
download Retro PPC/32/64 Mac AUs.zip
download Retro PPC/32/64 Mac VSTs.zip
Mediafire Backup of all downloads
All this is free and open source under the MIT license, brought to you by my Patreon.

[Vitaly]

Thanks Chris, I always look forward to your works!

[stoobos]

you're the best

[JerGoertz]

Appreciate what you do, Chris!

[dysjoint]

This is a goodie, thanks Chris.

[jrdrake]

Great work Chris!

[thecontrolcentre]

Thanks Chris.

[TBlake]

the default setting aliases like a mofo

[jinxtigr]

Gonna copy this from a gearspace thread…

"Let's bear in mind that oversampling is NOT necessarily going to sound better.

I'm pretty sure most of the time it's going to sound more plastic and fake. Part of the sound of ToTape7 is that, though there's a lot going on, it's very minimalistic in signal path (and can be simplified through bypassing stuff). The way I will always use it is at 96k, on material that's more midrangey, not driven very hard, without any oversampling at all.

Anyone who is trying to do the combination of extremely bright post-2020 DAW sound, AND driving it hard, AND running at 44.1k as if we still used CDs, should look into oversampling as that's a worst-case scenario and not how I get my sounds at all. And you can do all those things! I like seeing people using stuff totally differently from how I'd do it.

I just designed it to work optimally for my sounds, and that requires leaning in to the 'subtle' end of things while passing non-grating audio through it and then always running at 96k. If you do those things you ought to get a better sound without oversampling, because you'll be able to hear what the minimalism brings (assuming your recordings, mics, pres etc. are also up to par) <3"

So: maybe you're using it wrong? or, rather, maybe you're attempting to make that worst case scenario work? Bear in mind it's difficult to get test tones and digitally-bright content to be good even on REAL tape, and typically you have to make many compromises to get halfway there. With ToTape7 you'll fail about as much as with real tape, just in somewhat different ways.

Or you could just break it on purpose to get different sounds, that's fine too

[El°HYM]

‘You, our friend, our intelligence, our invisible protector’, said he, ‘accept this commission; you have merited it more than any of us by your wisdom and your counsels...‘

[TBlake]

Aliasing has no place in any sort of analog emulation. It's a digital artifact that does not occur in analog equipment. And this plugin doesn't just alias a little, it aliases a ton at the default setting.
The cumulative effect of this plugin on multiple channels at the default setting will effectively ruin your mix. The lack of effective oversampling built into a saturation plugin these days is simply an excuse.

[holmer]

the default setting aliases like a mofo

How does that sound, aliasing?

[TBlake]

the default setting aliases like a mofo

How does that sound, aliasing?

It's audible digital harshness that doesn't exist in analog equipment being added to your track.

[jinxtigr]

Doesn't exist in low frequency sounds either. Aliasing is entirely input-dependent, especially when you're looking at soft-clipping which introduces harmonics in series, not all at once.

I'm not gonna say 'trust me' as that is not what you're here for. I'm going to say NOPE. No, I will not add oversampling to the plugin, I'll be running it at 96k and running properly mixed stuff (or non-pathological raw tracks) into it. Fight me There is a reason people were buzzed about this plugin and I'm not going to betray the design principles that got me there.

You can say what you want. And you can run full scale sine waves at 19k into the plugin. And that ain't music, and you can go use something else if that's your idea of what sound is for. Anyhow looking at your other posts you know full well lots of oversampling is garbage and sounds bad, and there are times you even dislike the sound of 'overly high quality' oversampling. Well… believe me, so do I, more than you even. So I'll just be skipping it entirely then, and relying on bandwidth limitation, 96k, and softer transfer functions inside the plugin to get my more low-overprocessing sound

[TBlake]

You can say what you want. And you can run full scale sine waves at 19k into the plugin. And that ain't music, and you can go use something else if that's your idea of what sound is for. Anyhow looking at your other posts you know full well lots of oversampling is garbage and sounds bad, and there are times you even dislike the sound of 'overly high quality' oversampling. Well… believe me, so do I, more than you even. So I'll just be skipping it entirely then, and relying on bandwidth limitation, 96k, and softer transfer functions inside the plugin to get my more low-overprocessing sound

assuming I must be running the worst possible case scenario is just more excuse making. You know full well that quality oversampling is possible. You also know that leaving oversampling to a third party solution is a hack move. it even still aliases at 96k!! I used to have great respect for you Chris. But you've cured me. I now regret ever supporting your Patreon.