Softube Tape

[Compyfox]

But compare some of the 1985 era digital classical recordings (good luck finding them) with 1980 era EMI recordings. Your opinion might differ from mine but I very much prefer the "late analog" recordings to the "early digital."

For rock it is much worse. Records from as late as 1992-5 suffer from shit digital recording and mastering. The Ramones sound much better than The Pixies and My Bloody Valentine's Loveless is a masterpiece but the cassette release sounds better than the CD!

I think even this can be explained in a fairly simple way: compensation for mediums.

Tape (especially at 15ips and 7,5ips) had a specific frequency bump. Vinyl released had to be mixed/distributed "different" as well due to the RIAA playback curve (which was different from various qualities of record players and their needles). Some with more emphasis, others with a lack of certain frequencies. If you simply copy over the material with the "handling" for a specific medium (vinyl to CD for example), but you do not re-compensate, it's no wonder that frequencies are missing or others too prominent.

Most known examples are metal recordings from that era. Including the infamous "And Justice for all" album (with a complete lack of bass - even more so than on vinyl), or Pantera. Heck even a lot of pop and orchestra material from the switch from analog to digital made that apparent - at least those that didn't use 60ies mixing techniques but had a crap-load of lowend to begin with. And yes, you can also find that in Jackson's first release of "BAD" (though here at least "some" compensation happened). I've also heard night and day differences with the "Last Unicorn" soundtrack (mainly the title theme) on both compact cassette tape and CD, and Band Aid's 1984 release "Do they know it's Christmas?" both on vinyl and CD (vinyl had more lowend - reason: RIAA equalization curve)

People then said "ugh, digital releases sound lifeless and sh*t", even though the digital medium has the biggest advantage of replayability without quality loss (unless you stumble into discussions "which HDD sounds better" *cough*). It took a while until the audio engineers got the most out of the new medium. But it happened.

Only to be completely lambasted around mid to late 90ies... with "bending the rules" during recording/mixing, and ultimately the Loudness War...




But to get back to the "but why male models..." er, sorry... "but why tape machines?" question...

Magnetic Tape does a couple of things to the audio material - in fact, several things all at once (especially if you push the limits of the medium). Adding imperfection is of course the hypernym.

Not only do you get the frequency "reproduction" from various tape formula (and therefore varying degrees of hiss and noise), or the infamous "head bump" depending on the speed of the machine on top of that (which influences the sound even more if the signal is slightly hotter than at the ideal hotspot). No, if you push signals on a tape machine beyond their hotspot ever so slightly, you also get more pleasant analog distortion (saturation), therefore the transients of signals are being altered, which in turn feels like as if signals are being "compressed" or "sagging in just the right way".

If you ever used a plain compact cassette tape and "under-driven" the signal, you will realize that the sound is fairly "clean", maybe lacking certain frequencies (mostly low-end), sometimes just too much noise. But boost it into the red-zone... all kinds of effects. From positive frequency bumps, to absolute destroyed signal (which is a creative thing in itself - see tape delays and "self oscillation")


This is something that plain digital environments will never be able to do... you exceed the limit of this medium, and you have (barely non-recoverable) digital distortion. This... is why old equipment is so loved and desired ITB, this is why gain staging is such a huge topic (again, thankfully!).

Then again - engineers were also more than happy to drop "tape machines"... why? Maintenance, calibration, handling (moving to certain positions on the tape, cutting takes, etc), storage space, tape degradation (also happening during playback and "bouncing", else magnetic influence while in storage), "recovering" signals from old tapes (baking, etc)...

It wasn't all roses - still isn't. But there is a revival of tape machines again... which I'm actually looking forward to.

[simmo75]

Here's what Softube support answered me concerning the grouping function in Tape :

"This is Maxus from the Softube support team.
Thank you so much for reaching out.
Of course, I can't comment on upcoming releases or features. I'd advise you to keep checking for updates!"

Don't know if it means that they're gonna add it...maybe if other people ask about it they'll make it happen. They should do that, it's the only thing I'm missing with this plug-in.

I wrote to them to and got this from Softube support:
"This is Maxus at the Softube Support. Thanks for reaching out! First of all, thanks for taking the time so share your thoughts and ideas with us! Getting to know how people use our products and what kind of features they'd like to see implemented in the future is really valuable.
I will add your mail about linking/grouping in Tape to our Feature Requests folder, and make sure it gets seen by the Product Developers."

Seems like they're listening, well, Maxis is anyway..

Yeah that's my feeling too. Actually it's really weird that grouping instances is
a kind of "bonus" for a specific daw. It should be a stock function for everyone. Cumulative effect and multitrack uses are just obvious for this kind of tool. Especially when they say that the light CPU footprint gives the opportunity to use it on several tracks...

I presumed it would be standard. Bought it... Was wrong.
Hopefully they'll add it soon.

[n9]

Great article on digital and tape: http://recordinghacks.com/2013/01/26/an ... s-digital/

[Aloysius]

... Including the infamous "And Justice for all" album (with a complete lack of bass - even more so than on vinyl)...

Fake News.

I read the story about that. Certain band members mixed out the bass on purpose because of band infighting. Or more accurately in the case of Meh-tallicA ... bitching.

[Shalotta]

Sent questions to Softube support, on focus:

1. tape as offline installer in account after purchase ?
2. to be continued in parallel to Gobbler ?
3. what does non support for Win 7 exactly means ?

Hope I catched the core questions and I`ll copy & paste,
if more topics of real interest, lemme know and I`ll pick them up on reply.

Here`s what we have, Mattias from Softube support:

"1. Offline installers for the Tape is available.

2. We have been able to return to supporting Win 7.
When we started using the Gobbler system, they din't support Win 7, so we couldn't really do that either.
We also wasn't able to do proper Win7 testing again until just recently."

My question on further direction like offline installers remains open
but I guess Softube subjects to Gobbler`s actions.

Would be nice if db3 kindly place short sum.

[Igro]

Don't know if need to buy it. I've got TB Reelbus and if someone can say if this Softube is much superior then I might buy it.

[Ghostwave]

Don't know if need to buy it. I've got TB Reelbus and if someone can say if this Softube is much superior then I might buy it.

Don't let "someone" tell you if it's worth it or not. Let your ears (and your wallet) make that choice.

[Igro]

Don't know if need to buy it. I've got TB Reelbus and if someone can say if this Softube is much superior then I might buy it.

Don't let "someone" tell you if it's worth it or not. Let your ears (and your wallet) make that choice.

Thanks. Just thought if someone has compared them already. Softube GUI is sexy, this may affect the judging

P.S: I hope i don't need Ilok for this one.

[Skorpius]

I'd feel cheated if I bought it. Studio One users get extra features. Not fair.

One more reason not to buy from Softube any more. The first reason is the fact that Softube no longer supports Windows 7.

[chk071]

Most known examples are metal recordings from that era. Including the infamous "And Justice for all" album (with a complete lack of bass - even more so than on vinyl), or Pantera.

Interesting. Back when i was into Metallica (yeah, probably more than 25 years ago), i always thought And Justice For All was their best sounding album. I agree though that it shares some of the sound of the Pantera albums. Not sure if the reason for that is really the production related reasons you mentioned though. Couldn't it be that it was just hip to sound like that for a while? I remember Metal, and especially extreme Metal was always quite tedious, and difficult to mix, because you have a lot of that double bass drum stuff, and lots of guitar layers, and producers really struggled with that, and tried all sorts of stuff.

Edit: http://loudwire.com/sound-mixer-metalli ... ass-sound/

Actually, IMO, a lot of Thrash/Death/Whatever Metal albums sounded pretty weird at that period of time.

[Spitfire31]

I'd feel cheated if I bought it. Studio One users get extra features. Not fair.

One more reason not to buy from Softube any more. The first reason is the fact that Softube no longer supports Windows 7.

Read Omkar's post above…

/Joachim

[bmanic]

Well.. I just tried the demo and there's no doubt at all that this thing sounds amazing. Very easy to use and get only the "best" parts of tape.

Even set to it's most subtle and non-authentic settings (no noise, no wobble etc) it's very pleasing. This is something I didn't find with Satin, which requires more of the full simulation to be "pleasing". Especially asperity noise and some electronics saturation. If you minimize all these, the actual saturation isn't all that impressive in Satin (which just shows that it's a truly epic total-emulation.. as it needs all the parts to sound like tape, which it does emulate brilliantly).

For quick pleasing results the Softube Tape is in a league of it's own. I can dial in pleasing and more importantly, predictable results in just a few seconds. This is not at all the case with any of my other pluins.. the only exception being IK Saturator X which is dead simple to use but a bit limiting.

I may have to purchase this. Anybody know how long the introductory price lasts?

EDIT: There's just something about how the sub bass and bass in general gets tucked in that is very appealing in this plugin. It does it better than anything else I have lying around.

[ViciousBliss]

This is probably the tape emulation I like best in terms of pure tape. It essentially reigns in dynamics and smooths out the highs while getting the clarity just right. And that's without much tweaking. But, this is me using it in sessions that also feature HG-2 Black Box, Halcyon, Bx_console, Tapedesk with the N-80, and Nomad Pulsetec with the clipper on. All the other tape sims seem thinner than I would like. So far swapped in Satin, AC202, Magnetic II, VTM, Kramer Tape, and Abbey Road vinyl lite. Based on what I remember of Reelbus, Phoenix II, NLS, and J37, none of them do what Softube tape does.

[Compyfox]

... Including the infamous "And Justice for all" album (with a complete lack of bass - even more so than on vinyl)...

Fake News.

I read the story about that. Certain band members mixed out the bass on purpose because of band infighting. Or more accurately in the case of Meh-tallicA ... bitching.

I didn't ignore that fact (I've also read various stories and saw several interviews about this - incl. the 1 hour long 2014 ScuzzTV one with J.Newsted). As mentioned, the vinyl had "more bass" compared to the first CD release because of possible lack of compensation during the transfer-to-CD process, and the RIAA equalization curve that could vary from record player to record player (especially consumer ones).

I still remember debates with friends and fellows about this difference. In fact, there should be videos on YT comparing the vinyl release compared to tape, and later even the "Guitar Hero: Metallica" releases.

So no "fake news"...

Interesting. Back when i was into Metallica (yeah, probably more than 25 years ago), i always thought And Justice For All was their best sounding album.

From the pre- Bob Rock years, I actually like "Master of Puppets" (Flemming Rasmussen "years") the most soundwise, while "Justice" definitely has way more story elements (Hetfield), melody and also reflects the loss/anger/sadness of Cliff Burton's death - something that should be repeated with "St. Anger" and "Death Magnetic" (the reimagining of the band)... However, even here (pre- Bob Rock years) the sound has been fairly "thin" in the lowend section (bass barely cutting through). Which only got worse with "And Justice for all".

I agree though that it shares some of the sound of the Pantera albums. Not sure if the reason for that is really the production related reasons you mentioned though. Couldn't it be that it was just hip to sound like that for a while? I remember Metal, and especially extreme Metal was always quite tedious, and difficult to mix, because you have a lot of that double bass drum stuff, and lots of guitar layers, and producers really struggled with that, and tried all sorts of stuff.

A bit of both I'd say.

The sound of "And Justice..." resulted not only from band struggles (as mentioned a couple of times at this point), but also "lack of communication" / collaboration with the Swedish producer (Scandinavian metal scene - see commentary below). Who is ultimately to blame, we'll probably never know (no objective documentation in this case).


However, looking at the "Thrash" competition around that time:

In case of Pantera, pre "Cowboys from Hell" (1990, two years post "And Justice..."), the band sounded very hair/glam metal only to get the ripping "no mids" sound and clicky kick drums starting in 1990. And then reinforcing that sound with "Vulgar Display of Power" in 1992. Even so, it had "more lowend" in general (both kick and bass were balanced out). In direct contrast: Slayer's "Reign in Blood" (1986) and "South of Heaven" (1988) - way more balanced frequency wise - and I'm fairly sure it's not only due to Rick Rubin being the producer.


Add to that, that the Scandinavian metal "scene" always sounded completely different to what North America or the UK was/is still doing. Throw in the uprising metal scene from Japan (which took heavy inspiration from the 80s UK Metal scene sound wise, mixed with the J-Pop "sound" they established for years at this point), and you just don't know anymore as to "who influenced whom".

Actually, IMO, a lot of Thrash/Death/Whatever Metal albums sounded pretty weird at that period of time.

There are "fan remasters" of Slayer's, Pantera's and also Metallica's albums from the 80s/early 90s with "more balanced out frequencies" on Youtube. Just search for them, there are plenty... you'll be surprised how great this material can sound even today, without squashing the material to sh*t.

Which only reinforces my comment on the "lack of compensation while transferring to a different/new medium". Which was really(!) apparent with bands like Metallica.





We can continue this discussion in a separate thread - I'm sure this would be an interesting one. But for the time being, let us please get back to this plugin release.

[Aloysius]

Very fake news