State of digital saturation today (reel to reel update)

[jmh]

If you only knew

It would help the situation if the money started rolling in, but I'm battling several bureaucracies just to get the money rolling, so long it's been nearly 3 months and there's still paperwork going on...

I've lost my sense of humor in being in this situation, hence the attitude towards certain things in this thread.

[syncopated_silence]

you bunch of fags

-kingston thats a bad example

[shamann]

Which one is which?

http://www.michaelkingston.fi/files/shootout1.mp3
http://www.michaelkingston.fi/files/shootout2.mp3
http://www.michaelkingston.fi/files/shootout3.mp3

I'm generally terrible at these things, since I know nothing of which I speak, but I'll guess:

1 - Tape
2 - Original
3 - Voxengo Tapebus

[beej]

Thought I'd post an enlightening example of good saturation on a multiband drum-mixdown, inspired by a recent saturation thread.

One thing is clear... you need a decent drummer...

Seriously, the second one was not really to my taste, but drums are such a subjective issue no-ones ever going to agree.

I'm following these saturation threads because I'm also interested in the issue and striving to achieve a better mix sound that "gels" more than just summing a few tracks in a DAW, and following Charles Dye's comments on HDL, MILAR and the PSN podcast interviews he did. He's cetainly a cool guy and one can learn much from him (not to say his way is the only way, but it's a great source of his perspective, which is generally much more accomplished than mine!)

I'm trying to achive a better sound without "mushing" it so much (I was never too keen on what happened to my audio when it used to come back of multitrack tape). I want subtle improvements, not big changes, and these threads are great because it gives more input and things to try on your own personal quest for better mixes and what works best for you.

[Kingston]

you bunch of fags

-kingston thats a bad example

thanks for your opinion and contribution. What's a better example then, since you seem to know so much better?

One thing is clear... you need a decent drummer...

Seriously, the second one was not really to my taste, but drums are such a subjective issue no-ones ever going to agree.

Yes indeed it's a subjective issue. I liked them like that, but knew perfectly well not everyone would do the same kind of saturation. I started this thread in order to spark conversation on this topic. Everybody feel free to do other types of examples.

[KingofBeers]

One thing is clear... you need a decent drummer...

Lol and I was being nice not to mention it

But yes, subtly is the way to go beej for these saturation type plugs.



Cheers.

[Kingston]

Hey guys, Kingston I put your clean loop though my soft saturation(subtle) process..to emulate a Console channel...(not drive the thing to death - I know you did it in context)..the eq's/comps and tape plugs can do that later.

http://www.mediatypes.freeserve.co.uk/king-kob.mp3


Cheers.

Quite subtle indeed. That wasn't my goal at all, as you can hear quite well. I want to hear the crunch, the good type if at all possible, great sounding tape being the ultimate goal. I really don't want to "do that later", but right there and then in the mix. I want to drive things like I can hear in dub, beatles, rolling stones, and all of motown pre '70s. A lot of that is completely fux0red by tapes, and my example is actually rather subtle in comparison.

[KingofBeers]

Understood Kingston.

[KingofBeers]

Kingston if you are using plugins..isn't that after the fact?? when I mean "do it later" I am doing it in the mix (Chain would be ..sat/comp/eq/tape) or are you running them live while someone plays into the computer?

Cheers.

[shamann]

So, how'd I do, was I even close? No one else going to take a guess?

[Kingston]

Kingston if you are using plugins..isn't that after the fact?? when I mean "do it later" I am doing it in the mix (Chain would be ..sat/comp/eq/tape) or are you running them live while someone plays into the computer?

Cheers.

Right, I meant the same thing of course, nothing printed on the tracks, if at all possible.

So, how'd I do, was I even close? No one else going to take a guess?

seems a bit quiet so I'll just blurb it out already. You got it right, well done. I actually spent this afternoon tweaking tapebus further, trying to match it as good as possible, and did manage to get it even closer (but still not quite there). Here's two tapebus presets: http://www.michaelkingston.fi/files/tapematch.rar

The one labeled "final" is the one I think was closer. In order to mimic the Otari sound, touch nothing but "rec gain".

(note, that these are slightly improved settings to compared to the examples I posted earlier)

[loopdon]

@kingston: can you please re-up the presets?

[Kingston]

(it's .rar, not .zip)

[krank]

http://www.michaelkingston.fi/files/king-saturated.mp3

Now who says you can't get a good saturated drumsound on a DAW?

Edit: listened a couple times more. Don't know what to think. Better keep my trap shut then.

[shamann]

You got it right, well done.

Hooray for me!

I cheated though. I only could listen on cheap earphones, so there's no way I could have heard any significant details in the audio. But looking at the waveform in an audio editor, it was immediately apparent which was which. The tape clip was the only one where every bit of the audio was transformed, as only can be had by transfering to a new media. Tapebuss was way too accurate (and in fact did very little to the audio below its threshold).