TB ReelBus - thoughts?

[egbert]

Very nice plugin and very affordable too.

Just on the tape frequency response thing: tape recorders achieve a flat response by dint of the application of a lot of heavy frequency equalization. For a given head gap and tape speed the frequency response has a great big resonance peak - it looks more like a normal distribution curve than a flat line with rolloffs at each end. The Eq circuitry corrects this and effectively boosts the low and high end to generate the flat response. If you associate a high end sheen with top quality tape recorders you are basically saying you like their analog Eq circuitry. (Of course you also may have noise reduction boosting and cutting like crazy along the way.)

[hibidy]

I'm surprised at how many people complain about CPU usage when it's 2012 and CPU power is incredibly cheap. Sometimes it's a case of optimizing code, but I'll just say what I think a lot of others will agree with:

I'd rather have high CPU and great sound than low CPU and 'meh', and don't consider ReelBus CPU usage as problematic even if it was twice as much.

But not everyone can afford a new PC and afaik, other TB plugs are not as hungry. Though, I haven't tested thoroughly.

Don't get me wrong, I think everyone deserves the power even my two plus y/o computer has

[hibidy]

Very nice plugin and very affordable too.

Just on the tape frequency response thing: tape recorders achieve a flat response by dint of the application of a lot of heavy frequency equalization. For a given head gap and tape speed the frequency response has a great big resonance peak - it looks more like a normal distribution curve than a flat line with rolloffs at each end. The Eq circuitry corrects this and effectively boosts the low and high end to generate the flat response. If you associate a high end sheen with top quality tape recorders you are basically saying you like their analog Eq circuitry. (Of course you also may have noise reduction boosting and cutting like crazy along the way.)

Interesting to be sure.

[hibidy]

Forgive my ignorance........I am a "wow that sounds better" kinda guy.

I've noticed that if you put this on a buss (we'll say drums since that is the most popular choice) and have a few presets you like, it's the little things that become noticeable. Like, the hats jumping out a bit more, or what some would call "presence".

Again, I have several templates that have guitars. Anyways, things can appear to "jump" out with certain settings. It's pretty hard to put my finger on.

Oh and EDIT: Not in a harsh or "overly eq'ed" kinda way, seems musical......natural. Yeah, I'd say job well done

[mandolarian]

I've noticed that if you put this on a buss (we'll say drums since that is the most popular choice) and have a few presets you like, it's the little things that become noticeable. Like, the hats jumping out a bit more, or what some would call "presence".

Again, I have several templates that have guitars. Anyways, things can appear to "jump" out with certain settings. It's pretty hard to put my finger on.

Interesting....not sure I want 'jumping' drummers as well as guitarists. Hibiddy, you must play much more athletic music than me.

All kidding aside, I find the tape hiss emulation rather 'hyped'. I have some old 206 that has much a more random, hissy, annoying texture without nearly the bass response. I'm afraid the 'virtual' tape hiss suffers from digital bottom enditis. Sorry for the hiss-trionics.

I purchased this because I miss my old A77 and Nagra and ReelBus has a Swiss preset which makes it "tres, tres precise".

For vintage tape users, the dilemma is how to store this plugin: tail out or in? (And no, Developers, this isn't your cue to create a uber-look-ahead 'print-through' emulation plugin)

[djeroen]

Thanks all for the constructive comments!

let me try to clarify a couple of things that raised a lot of questions.

All controls (e.g. wow and flutter, noise, spectrum and saturation, ...)
are relative offsets for the selected tape unit model. The tape
unit model internally calls up a very large set of parameters and coefficients
to model that particular unit, of which groups of these can be changed relatively compared to their tape unit reference setting. For example
the timbre of the tape hiss can change quite drastically when calling
up a different tape unit model. The same happens for all the other controls
(even the circuitry clipping is device model dependent).

The same is true for the asperity noise; the 'professional' tape unit
has the lowest reference asperity noise level; if you want to have
a reduced asperity noise I would recommend to use this as starting point.

I agree the plugin is a bit CPU hungry. If you are not interested in
wow and flutter simulation, set its control to zero (full left). It will disable the wow and flutter simulation, and save up some CPU load.

The 'hybrid' model was constructed by taking bits and pieces of various
simulations and construct a new, non-existent tape recorder out of it.
You may have seen empty slots in the tape unit selector, so we can add
more later on, even new hybrid ones. So if you have good suggestions
of combinations of properties that you would like to see in a new hybrid model,
just post them here Given the requests for lower asperity noise levels,
we could consider to add a 'low asperity noise' model for example.

[shanecgriffo]

nice one thanks jeroen!

[milosh_]

I am very impressed with this plugin!
It not only saturates ane EQ but it adds some random movement to the tracks which is great!
Just like there was a real tape moving over the record and playback heads!

About the empty model slots..
Is it possible to emulate the audio path of Video casette player/recorder?
I know that there are rotating playback heads.
When you watch an old VHS tape you can hear these strange holes in the sound.
It would be cool to be able to emulate this in the plugin.

cheers

[3ee]

OK, I'm off to buy it, thanks to Mercado_Negro
Turns out I was driving it a bit too hard, particularly on buses.

Atm, my favorite model is the Hybrid so I would love to see more similar models, please!
A good hi-shelf eq boost before the Swiss 77 - 15IPS is just lovely!

I actually still have the old Ferox and I was testing it against the new one and the ReelBus the other day.

To keep things short; I love the what the hysterisis control did to the sound, (especially to the hi-hats, shaker loops, as a character ess control on vocals)
Would it be possible to have a model based on generous amounts of hysterisis? ..or simply a hysterisis control if not asking too much, or it won't complicate things

Thanks for the plugin!
Cheers,
3ee

[Bronto Scorpio]

About the empty model slots..
Is it possible to emulate the audio path of Video casette player/recorder?
I know that there are rotating playback heads.
When you watch an old VHS tape you can hear these strange holes in the sound.
It would be cool to be able to emulate this in the plugin.

cheers

This may not 100% fit within the concept of the plugin but I'd love such a model too
Including really drastic wow and flutter
I love wow and flutter but there are surprisingly few VSTs for that kind of thing out there. I still use that old synthedit thingy.

Cheers
Dennis

[milosh_]

I forgot to say..
Noise/ Tape hiss is great in this plugin!!

I put this plugin on track with no audio now and put EQ after it.
Turn Tape hiss to max and play with EQ.
Great fun!

You can treat this as an hiss/noise instrument.
In a song I would do this with sidechain compression on the hiss/noise track + automated EQ.



cheers

[milosh_]

About the empty model slots..
Is it possible to emulate the audio path of Video casette player/recorder?
I know that there are rotating playback heads.
When you watch an old VHS tape you can hear these strange holes in the sound.
It would be cool to be able to emulate this in the plugin.

cheers

This may not 100% fit within the concept of the plugin but I'd love such a model too
Including really drastic wow and flutter
I love wow and flutter but there are surprisingly few VSTs for that kind of thing out there. I still use that old synthedit thingy.

Cheers
Dennis

Yes that's what I meant!
Or the wow and flutter and crackles in the sound from old movies played 100 times in an ancient cinema.

[bpblog]

Is it possible to emulate the audio path of Video casette player/recorder?
I know that there are rotating playback heads.
When you watch an old VHS tape you can hear these strange holes in the sound.
It would be cool to be able to emulate this in the plugin.

ooooh, +1 for that!

i recently recovered my old VCR from the basement, just to record some stuff on it.

[filter303]

I know there are a lot of feature requests already, but could you please consider adding a tape feedback like in waves mpx (with tempo sync of course)?
Reeltape would be amazing tape delay..

[whyterabbyt]

I know there are a lot of feature requests already, but could you please consider adding a tape feedback like in waves mpx (with tempo sync of course)?
Reeltape would be amazing tape delay..

In case you didnt know, he already does that, in Ferox.