Tape start/stop effect in Satin

[mabian]

It looks like it's the perfect plugin to host this feature: one button to emulate a tape start and another to emulate a tape stop (eventually with definable times and curve).

Also something like a tape scratch knob would be interesting.

Any plan to add this? Or can something be already done in the plugin as it is?

Thank you,
Mario

[M.L.M.]

+1

[recursive one]

+100500

[Urs]

We've got it in our ever growing list of feature requests, but no decision for any ifs or whens yet.

One objection that was raised is, if we add too much glitch, lofi and clutter, it may damage Satin's reputation as a mastering tool. We will have to weigh that in on our decisions.

[mabian]

We've got it in our ever growing list of feature requests, but no decision for any ifs or whens yet.

One objection that was raised is, if we add too much glitch, lofi and clutter, it may damage Satin's reputation as a mastering tool. We will have to weigh that in on our decisions.

Well, time for a track oriented Satinette?

- Mario

[Sendy]

Wouldn't taking the output of Satin and just pitch dropping or scrubbing it in a wave editor do pretty much the same thing?

[mabian]

Wouldn't taking the output of Satin and just pitch dropping or scrubbing it in a wave editor do pretty much the same thing?

Sure, but this is not the point... since Satin is an allround tape emulator it could also emulate such effects adding all the nuances it already have for modeling the other real tape features.

- Mario

[Simon-Claudius]

We've got it in our ever growing list of feature requests, but no decision for any ifs or whens yet.

One objection that was raised is, if we add too much glitch, lofi and clutter, it may damage Satin's reputation as a mastering tool. We will have to weigh that in on our decisions.

I guess splitting it into two separate plugins would make it easier to keep the separation of "tool for serious mixing and mastering" ranging from lower quality studio tape machines to pristine high-end gear without too many lo-fi options, and "tool for serious sound sound design" ranging form the worst answering machine cassettes to somewhat lo-fi studio tape machines with loads of options for more prominent distortion, glitch and wobble, "horrible" wow and flutter, speed drops, tape starts and stops, and so on.

There'd have to be some overlap in the middle but this way the two products could be pitched to their respective markets. Everything surpassing the range of uses the respective plugins were intended for could be seen as a bonus.

I personally would LOVE to have a separate lo-fi plugin for sound design. Considering how thoroughly you appear to have emulated the behaviour of tape machines it just seems like such a great idea to drive the model into the red zone... Just like the 'pristine' model we already have that can be used to create tape machines that do not exist in the real world, this might introduce a whole new dimension to that kind of lo-fi sound design. Where else would it be possible to entirely misuse something that does not exist - and still have it sound believable and 'credible'?

Of course I understand the hell of supporting and updating yet another product... But there seems to be a niche to be filled. The two plugins would have entirely different purposes and therefore would take the marketing issue that comes with the introduction of additional lo-fi options to the current version Satin out of the equation.

They two plugins would be acquired by customers with different goals in mind: One would be there to make good sounding things sound great (in post). The other one would be there to enable great creative sound-design (during the main production/composition). Because of that clear separation the products could be marketed to different crowds of people altogether and no "dancing around" would be required at all. Both would stand for the quality of U-He products, but in completely different departments.

This post way longer than I intended it to be... Sorry.

[Simon-Claudius]

Another idea: Tape speed modulation via LFO.

[Ch00rD]

+1, and as I have mentioned earlier, why stop at stop - why not also allow to reverse direction?

We've got it in our ever growing list of feature requests, but no decision for any ifs or whens yet.

One objection that was raised is, if we add too much glitch, lofi and clutter, it may damage Satin's reputation as a mastering tool. We will have to weigh that in on our decisions.

I really don't understand that argument. It seems to start from the premise that some 'mastering engineers' are likely to just slap on some effect without really knowing what they are doing, only because it may have a reputation for being a great mastering effect / tool. Imho that would be more telling about the reputation of those mastering (engineers) than of Satin.

[Sendy]

There's something to be said for applying glitchy FX to a master track. Remember when Windowlicker came out and then everyone was doing it?

FWIW I don't like the idea of a seperate plugin. I'd rather have a 'top secret' modding page like the mod page in Diva, where you can scale up parameter ranges and generally get all medieval and stuff.

You could have some "circuit bent" style GUI elements and legending done with sticky tape and stuff to make it look all messy and lofi, in contrast to the elegant sheen of the frontend.

[sascha]

From the user perspective, valid arguments were uttered. So far, so good. But I personally don't subscribe to the 'we do it because we can' attitude which is so common in this plugin business.

Frankly, I'm not keen on putting weeks of effort into a feature that only a small minority of potential customers would use. [People might shout 'how do you know?' but a lot of my past and present work is based on my own intuition, and turning that off would mean crippling my main ability in this field.]
Every new time-intensive feature must lead to a serious revenue, since we're doing this for a living. Geekery is nice but needs to pay off at the end of the day. So, with every new feature add-on, we have to outweigh if it's really worth it, if it's good for the entire concept or whether it might perhaps distract people from looking closer because they feel overwhelmed. The best we currently can do is maintain the product for a while in its current state, gather user experience, and re-calibrate our own view. We would definitely kill it by constantly implementing new features in this young state, as if on auto-pilot, so that we probably wouldn't recognize it any more ourselves in the end. It's not even out for a month by now, which is nothing. It needs to mature. But that takes time. *We* also need time.

[knowix]

I'd love a lofi version of Satin, but it's possible it would come out much too late to financially reap the benefits of the obsession with lo-fi tape that came with the Chillwave/Glo-Fi style of music, which was very big a few years ago.

Arguably there just aren't enough good plugin developers out there to create all the great products that should exist. U-He have never been about lo-fi sounds imo. Maybe Plogue would be a better party to ask?

[zvenx]

isn't the 1.1 update allowing a lo fi version?
rsp

[mabian]

Talking about start/stop, just search the KVR forums to see how much this feature is requested, almost always the answer is "TapeIt 1", ancient VST plugin, or "do it your self tweaking the playrate or pitch parameter through automation"...

I thought Satin was the right plugin to host this feature, because it already models a tape machine, and supposing it wouldn't be a nightmare to implement it, it could attract many customers because the tape emulation would be even more complete with it.

- Mario