Satin - tech question about differences when rendering / bouncing

[Ch00rD]

But, as mentioned before, then you can simply bounce to audio, and any halfway decent DAW is able to give you 100% the same result whenever you play the same audio file(s) with the same settings.

Seems like you didn't read or understand my first post. When bouncing using exactly the same settings, Satin doesn't give the same result twice. I outlined the reason why this might be a problem in a mastering scenario also in my first post.

I think I did understand, but should probably have been even more explicit: I meant bounce to audio including Satin's processing, then play the same audio file(s) at the same speed, volume, panning etc. - I did not mean to re-process the bounced audio to be bounced through Satin again.

Btw, for me, the question is a resounding "NO!" whenever I'm using emulations of analog gear, btw. Much like I'd expect e.g. the oscillators of a virtual synth to be free-running, resulting in non-nulling audio files if I'd record the same sequence multiple times, whereas I would expect bit-idential output when using a sampler.

I understand, but again see my first post for reasons against. It would be a great optional extra, a setting you could turn on if you like, but personally i want a seesion to be the same each time. I undestand about analog imperfections / emulations etxc, but i don't notice any DAW makers advertising the fact that each time you open a session it'll be subtly different! Actually very few peole want that, unless it's built into a plugin, like an analog synth or tape delay or whatever. And Satin is a plugin that has one very big eye on the mastering market, therefore it should (in my opinion) have features that make it appeal to mastering dudes like my self.

Sure, I understand and respect your workflow considerations. But it seems that you may not fully appreciate that Satin actually *is* intended as an analog tape emulation with built-in analog imperfections, and that it is a plug-in, not a DAW. A DAW can never guarantee bit-identical output from running the same process on a plug-in twice. A DAW can only guarantee that when bouncing audio through the plug-ins once, and simply playing back the same resulting audio twice. So, it seems to me that you basically have a feature request for Satin to *not* behave like an analog emulation. I'm not sure how realistic that is (pun intended).

[Urs]

Here's what I think:

The magic of tape is somewhat related to random aspects during recording and playback. In a multitrack machine, while on playback all tracks share the same wow and flutter, those are individual for each track (or rather, take) on recording. This has a part in the overall "warmth" of tape, as opposed to purely digital recordings. This is only possible to recreate if each instance of Satin has individual sources of randomness.

Similarly, imperfections like hiss need to be individual for each track so that they are not correlated. If the noise sources were correlated then the infamous "hiss" would grow by 6dB per instance, not 3dB.

Both aspects IMHO are vital for recreating the sound of tape. Both aspects necessarily require that if an instance of Satin is added to a project, the randomness of all Satins is affected and thus the outcome during mixdown won't be nullable to previous mixdowns.

I will however suggest a global seed of randomness on playback start if anyone can convince me that two mixdowns with reasonable settings in Satins (i.e. not lofi) sound audibly different

[Sendy]

I'm in a bit of a superposition on this one. On the one hand, it seems crazy to expect a machine that emulates tape to null between renderings. On the other hand, part of me wishes that ALL LFO's, random number generators etc in every single plugin ever were 100% deterministic based on song position and some pseudorandom seed.

LFOs that move slowly give me a lot of problems, when they're free running. I'd like the highs and the lows to be consistent on each playback so I can compose around them. But then I also think intonation should be covered by the MIDI spec and a bunch of other crazy stuff which could happen but probably won't because most people don't need or want to be able to specify an exact pitch over midi.

[iamyourfather]

please stop asking for analog emulation to be less analog... what silliness

[Arksun]

Hi Urs,

Loving Satin!

I have a technical question:

With most plugins, if i render to a wav file, the wav file will be identical each time. But not with Satin.

Clear as mud, right? Let me explain:

Imagine i have a track in Samplitude with Satin loaded on it. Now i export to a wav, naming that wav "Export_A.wav"

Once the export is complete, i export again, naming the second wav: "Export_B.wav"

So now i have two identical wav files, right? - WRONG!!!

If i compare wav A & wav B, they're not the same, not even remotely, then don't even come close to nulling if i flip the phase on one.

Why is this important?

Well, it's very important:

In mastering, i might often master an album with Satin on various songs. Say the artist asks me to change only one song. So, I'll open up the session, change that one song, and then re-render the whole album. But now (as we know from the experiment above) that all songs on the album will sound slightly different from the first version. The difference is tiny and not audible when you A/B in a normal way. However, sometimes situations occur when artists or producers are going to check if the manufactured CD has the same sound as the reference files they received from me (via a null test or some other method). So this is going to be a bit of a problem. Obviously they compare to the first set of refs they approved. I can't send them all wavs from the album again to check, when they only asked me to change one song! Or otherwise i'll have to explain: "please note that all the other songs, even though they weren't changed, are slightly different, due to a technical issue, so please check them again" - well, that sounds a bit weird!

Obviously i could only re-render the one song the artist wanted changed, but for work-flow reasons this isn't ideal and makes thing complicated.

I should just mention that my other tape sim Kramer Tape doesn't exhibit this behaviour, it will re-render an identical wav file each time.

Could you let me know your thoughts on this?

Thanks! ........ Mr D

What your findings show is that Satin is actually doing a wonderful job at bringing to the mix the non-linear organic behaviour of tape!. Honestly I would be shocked if it DID perfectly null!.

It also says an aweful lot about Kramer Tape plugin, one which I would definitely avoid now

Null tests are useful for some things, but definitely NOT even remotely useful for comparing plugins which introduce a lot of random behaviour, especially one such as this!. You'll find quite a few reverb plugins won't even remotely null either, and that too is also a good thing. If you're comparing basic eq's sure, the null test could provide some interesting results in differences.

[djanthonyw]

Hi Urs,

Loving Satin!

I have a technical question:

With most plugins, if i render to a wav file, the wav file will be identical each time. But not with Satin.

Clear as mud, right? Let me explain:

Imagine i have a track in Samplitude with Satin loaded on it. Now i export to a wav, naming that wav "Export_A.wav"

Once the export is complete, i export again, naming the second wav: "Export_B.wav"

So now i have two identical wav files, right? - WRONG!!!

If i compare wav A & wav B, they're not the same, not even remotely, then don't even come close to nulling if i flip the phase on one.

Why is this important?

Well, it's very important:

In mastering, i might often master an album with Satin on various songs. Say the artist asks me to change only one song. So, I'll open up the session, change that one song, and then re-render the whole album. But now (as we know from the experiment above) that all songs on the album will sound slightly different from the first version. The difference is tiny and not audible when you A/B in a normal way. However, sometimes situations occur when artists or producers are going to check if the manufactured CD has the same sound as the reference files they received from me (via a null test or some other method). So this is going to be a bit of a problem. Obviously they compare to the first set of refs they approved. I can't send them all wavs from the album again to check, when they only asked me to change one song! Or otherwise i'll have to explain: "please note that all the other songs, even though they weren't changed, are slightly different, due to a technical issue, so please check them again" - well, that sounds a bit weird!

Obviously i could only re-render the one song the artist wanted changed, but for work-flow reasons this isn't ideal and makes thing complicated.

I should just mention that my other tape sim Kramer Tape doesn't exhibit this behaviour, it will re-render an identical wav file each time.

Could you let me know your thoughts on this?

Thanks! ........ Mr D

Thanks for posting this! It just goes to show what an awesome product Satin really is.

P.S. When using any time based effect such as delay or reverb, you shouldn't get bounces that null either (if the product is good).

[deastman]

I wonder how people ever managed to master anything back in the days of all-analog recording technology? I heard that The White Album almost didn't get released because the mastering engineer said the tracks wouldn't null.