There are many here who use tape on a regular basis so maybe you can answer
a question for me, as I never have. Are there any tape saturation emulators
(plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to emulating the real
thing? How does the best tape sat emulation compare, in your opinion?
Obviously one is simulated, but what are the primary differences between a
good simulation and real tape sat?

Thanks in advance and best regards

James Price wrote:
There are many here who use tape on a regular basis so maybe you can answer
a question for me, as I never have. Are there any tape saturation emulators
(plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to emulating the real
thing? How does the best tape sat emulation compare, in your opinion?

Oh, probably most of them do, at least some of the time. But then some
of us try hard not to saturate tape. If you want to make drums sound
like they went through a fuzzy transformer (which is mostly what "tape
saturation" sounds like), I suppose just about any of the plug-ins will
do that.

I can tell you that one that Yamaha designed for their digital mixers
has absolutely the best graphics, so my vote would be for that one.

On Mon, 29 May 2006 19:23:04 GMT, "James Price"
wrote:

There are many here who use tape on a regular basis so maybe you can answer
a question for me, as I never have. Are there any tape saturation emulators
(plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to emulating the real
thing? How does the best tape sat emulation compare, in your opinion?
Obviously one is simulated, but what are the primary differences between a
good simulation and real tape sat?

How saturated are you wanting? Some subtle harmonics or severely
distorted?

Julian

"James Price" wrote in message
. ..
There are many here who use tape on a regular basis so maybe you can
answer a question for me, as I never have. Are there any tape saturation
emulators (plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to
emulating the real thing? How does the best tape sat emulation compare, in
your opinion? Obviously one is simulated, but what are the primary
differences between a good simulation and real tape sat?

Thanks in advance and best regards

I've read good reviews about Vintage Warmer from he
http://www.pspaudioware.com/.

"Julian" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 29 May 2006 19:23:04 GMT, "James Price"
wrote:

There are many here who use tape on a regular basis so maybe you can
answer
a question for me, as I never have. Are there any tape saturation
emulators
(plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to emulating the
real
thing? How does the best tape sat emulation compare, in your opinion?
Obviously one is simulated, but what are the primary differences between a
good simulation and real tape sat?

How saturated are you wanting? Some subtle harmonics or severely
distorted?

Well, obviously not full saturation, but what I'm really curious about is
how real tape saturation at lower (more musical) levels differs from
emulated saturation?

On Mon, 29 May 2006 21:59:44 GMT, "James Price"
wrote:


but what I'm really curious about is
how real tape saturation at lower (more musical) levels differs from
emulated saturation?

Thanks for clarifying. That's a pretty subtle comparison. I'm not
really qualified to comment. I've had plenty of experience on analog
tape but none on emulated tape saturation software. The software
Ricky Hunt linked to looks extremely interesting.

I'd be interested in what you learn or anyone else who's already done
it.

Julian

Why not use tape?
Afterall...do you want to lookat the picture of the girl in
Playboy..........or...
........DO YOU WANT THE GIRL!
greg
orange sound


"James Price" wrote in message
. ..
There are many here who use tape on a regular basis so maybe you can
answer a question for me, as I never have. Are there any tape saturation
emulators (plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to
emulating the real thing? How does the best tape sat emulation compare, in
your opinion? Obviously one is simulated, but what are the primary
differences between a good simulation and real tape sat?

Thanks in advance and best regards

In article ,
"James Price" wrote:

Are there any tape saturation emulators
(plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to emulating the real
thing?


http://www.cranesong.com/PHOENIX.html


Can't comment on it cuz I've never tried it. But the guy who made it,
Dave Hill, is pretty talented.

Believe it's only available for Protools TDM systems.




David Correia
www.Celebrationsound.com

"James Price" wrote in message
. ..
There are many here who use tape on a regular basis so maybe you can
answer
a question for me, as I never have. Are there any tape saturation
emulators
(plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to emulating the
real
thing? How does the best tape sat emulation compare, in your opinion?
Obviously one is simulated, but what are the primary differences between a
good simulation and real tape sat?

I find it unendingly hilarious that people who haven't used tape work so
hard to emulate the very problems and defects we tried so hard to avoid when
using tape for recording, back in the day when that was all that was
available. Do you really think that the reason we got nice results
(sometimes) was *because* of the defects, rather than in spite of them?

Peace,
Paul

"Paul Stamler" wrote in message
...
"James Price" wrote in message
. ..
There are many here who use tape on a regular basis so maybe you can
answer
a question for me, as I never have. Are there any tape saturation
emulators
(plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to emulating the
real
thing? How does the best tape sat emulation compare, in your opinion?
Obviously one is simulated, but what are the primary differences between
a
good simulation and real tape sat?

I find it unendingly hilarious that people who haven't used tape work so
hard to emulate the very problems and defects we tried so hard to avoid
when
using tape for recording, back in the day when that was all that was
available. Do you really think that the reason we got nice results
(sometimes) was *because* of the defects, rather than in spite of them?

So you're saying there's no truth to these stories you hear about this or
that engineer making use of tape saturation as an effect? I thought at lower
levels, tape saturation was actually something desirable by quite a few. So,
regardless the level, tape saturation is typically unwanted?

"James Price" wrote in message
. ..
I find it unendingly hilarious that people who haven't used tape work so
hard to emulate the very problems and defects we tried so hard to avoid
when
using tape for recording, back in the day when that was all that was
available. Do you really think that the reason we got nice results
(sometimes) was *because* of the defects, rather than in spite of them?

So you're saying there's no truth to these stories you hear about this or
that engineer making use of tape saturation as an effect? I thought at
lower
levels, tape saturation was actually something desirable by quite a few.
So,
regardless the level, tape saturation is typically unwanted?

Most of the time, in the old days, engineers tried to run the tape in the
clean region. It wasn't until pretty late in the analog era that people
began using tape saturation as a special effect on things like drums.
Saturation was something we all had to live with, but we tried to minimize
its effects when possible -- and I think most of the folks working in analog
up to the 1980s worked that way. A few exceptions -- George Martin would try
anything at least twice, for example, when working with the Beatles. But
mostly, engineers worked clean, or as clean as the tape would let them.

Peace,
Paul

James Price schreef:

There are many here who use tape on a regular basis so maybe you can answer
a question for me, as I never have. Are there any tape saturation emulators
(plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to emulating the real
thing? How does the best tape sat emulation compare, in your opinion?

PSP Vintage Warmer.

Obviously one is simulated, but what are the primary differences between a
good simulation and real tape sat?

People in here will gripe about the emulation and claim the real tape
saturation sounds better. That's about it.

RS

"Paul Stamler" wrote in message
...

I find it unendingly hilarious that people who haven't used tape work so
hard to emulate the very problems and defects we tried so hard to avoid
when
using tape for recording, back in the day when that was all that was
available. Do you really think that the reason we got nice results
(sometimes) was *because* of the defects, rather than in spite of them?

I thought this same thing when I saw a "tape hiss" emulator. I thought "why
are people buying what we used to pay to get rid of?".

James Price wrote:

So you're saying there's no truth to these stories you hear about this or
that engineer making use of tape saturation as an effect?

It depends on whether it's a new engineer or an old engineer. Old
engineers lived with it and all the other defects in their recording
chain and made the best of whatever they were working with. They were
aware of sounds and if they heard something that worked for the
project, they used it.

The reason why old time engineers aligned their tape decks so as to
drive tape into the saturation region wasn't that they liked the
distortion, it was because that's what you had to do in order to get
the signal/noise ratio down to something tolerable before they had very
quiet mic preamps and used heavy compression. It was a tradeoff and
happened to be the tradeoff of choice much of the time.

When low noise, high output tapes came out, two things happened. First,
the engineers found that they no longer needed to slam the level on
tape (which probably also added some distortion from the electronics
that was a bit nasty) in order to get the noise level down. Second,
when the tape was driven into the non-linear region, it sounded
different from the tapes they had been using in the past, so it almost
became like a new tool.

New engineers analyzed the sound of tape non-linearity, put a name to
it ("analog tape saturation") and called it an effect. They could use
it or not. And as we know, most effects are now available in software.
So use it if you like it, but don't use it if you don't need it - just
like any other effect.

But, believe it or not, there was a period where recorded music had
greater dynamic range than what we have become accustomed to today.
They wanted both clean recordings and quiet recordings, so there was
less need to run the new tape hot to get the dynamic range. Today,
engineers who slam drums and guitars on to tape do it to get a retro
sound without having to fool with plug-ins and can just push a RECORD
button when tracking instead of pushing a mouse.

Ricky Hunt schreef:

"Paul Stamler" wrote in message
...

I find it unendingly hilarious that people who haven't used tape work so
hard to emulate the very problems and defects we tried so hard to avoid
when
using tape for recording, back in the day when that was all that was
available. Do you really think that the reason we got nice results
(sometimes) was *because* of the defects, rather than in spite of them?

I thought this same thing when I saw a "tape hiss" emulator. I thought "why
are people buying what we used to pay to get rid of?".

Even worse: I record to cassette tapes to get that hiss and distortion.
It can make for quite a roomy atmosphere.

RS

david correia wrote in
:

In article ,
"James Price" wrote:

Are there any tape saturation emulators
(plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to emulating
the real thing?

http://www.cranesong.com/PHOENIX.html

Can't comment on it cuz I've never tried it. But the guy who made it,
Dave Hill, is pretty talented.

Believe it's only available for Protools TDM systems.

If it's anything like the tape emulation hardware on the HEDD or Spider, it
sounds excellent.

"Richard Smol" wrote in message
oups.com...

I thought this same thing when I saw a "tape hiss" emulator. I thought
"why
are people buying what we used to pay to get rid of?".

Even worse: I record to cassette tapes to get that hiss and distortion.
It can make for quite a roomy atmosphere.


I've heard of people doing this for "analog dithering" by recording a hissy
guitar amp with an SM57 and mixing just around audible level in a mix. In
fact, I think someone even sells a CD to do the same thing I thought it was
Empirical Labs but that's not it.

Ricky Hunt wrote:

I've heard of people doing this for "analog dithering" by recording a hissy
guitar amp with an SM57 and mixing just around audible level in a mix. In
fact, I think someone even sells a CD to do the same thing I thought it was
Empirical Labs but that's not it.

It was Crane Song. But it's not exactly a recording of a hissy guitar
amplifier with an SM57. The spectrum of the noise on the Crane Song
Analog Dither CD is like the inverse of a Fletcher-Munson hearing
sensitivity curve.

http://www.cranesong.com/analogdither.html

James Price wrote:
There are many here who use tape on a regular basis so maybe you can answer
a question for me, as I never have. Are there any tape saturation emulators
(plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to emulating the real
thing? How does the best tape sat emulation compare, in your opinion?
Obviously one is simulated, but what are the primary differences between a
good simulation and real tape sat?

The plugins bear no resemblance at ALL to what real tape does. What makes
tape interesting is mostly what happens well below the saturation point.

For the most part, I consider tape saturation to be a bad thing, and I
avoid running at elevated levels. At reasonable (3 dB over 185 nW/M)
levels, I can get a huge variety of different sounds out of analogue
tape, though, by adjusting how the machine is set up.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

James Price wrote:

Well, obviously not full saturation, but what I'm really curious about is
how real tape saturation at lower (more musical) levels differs from
emulated saturation?

At lower levels there is no tape saturation. Tape saturation used to be
called "overload" and would get you fired as a house engineer. Now it's
all the rage.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote:
James Price wrote:
There are many here who use tape on a regular basis so maybe you can answer
a question for me, as I never have. Are there any tape saturation emulators
(plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to emulating the real
thing? How does the best tape sat emulation compare, in your opinion?
Obviously one is simulated, but what are the primary differences between a
good simulation and real tape sat?

The plugins bear no resemblance at ALL to what real tape does. What makes
tape interesting is mostly what happens well below the saturation point.

At which point tape is merely an imperfect recording medium. The
plugins emulate *saturated* tape very well, especially on mixes.

For the most part, I consider tape saturation to be a bad thing, and I
avoid running at elevated levels. At reasonable (3 dB over 185 nW/M)
levels, I can get a huge variety of different sounds out of analogue
tape, though, by adjusting how the machine is set up.

I suspect that those differences are mostly imagined. People often
adjust their perception to what they *expect* to hear or see, which can
go pretty far.

RS

Scott Dorsey wrote:

For the most part, I consider tape saturation to be a bad thing, and I
avoid running at elevated levels. At reasonable (3 dB over 185 nW/M)
levels, I can get a huge variety of different sounds out of analogue
tape, though, by adjusting how the machine is set up.



In the world of analog multitrack, tape compression is another part of
an engineer's arsenal. As one of my pals has said for years, the best
compressor ever invented for grand piano is 456.

Does some pretty wonderful things for electric bass and drums tracks too.





David Correia
www.Celebrationsound.com





p.s. Hey, I just noticed from someone's post that it's JUNE!!!!! Hooray
for the onslaught of warm weather!!!

Richard Smol wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:
James Price wrote:
There are many here who use tape on a regular basis so maybe you can answer
a question for me, as I never have. Are there any tape saturation emulators
(plugins) anyone can think of that come somewhat close to emulating the real
thing? How does the best tape sat emulation compare, in your opinion?
Obviously one is simulated, but what are the primary differences between a
good simulation and real tape sat?

The plugins bear no resemblance at ALL to what real tape does. What makes
tape interesting is mostly what happens well below the saturation point.

At which point tape is merely an imperfect recording medium. The
plugins emulate *saturated* tape very well, especially on mixes.

It's the imperfections that make it interesting.

Saturation is just a particular imperfection, but it's not one of the more
useful ones to my mind.

For the most part, I consider tape saturation to be a bad thing, and I
avoid running at elevated levels. At reasonable (3 dB over 185 nW/M)
levels, I can get a huge variety of different sounds out of analogue
tape, though, by adjusting how the machine is set up.

I suspect that those differences are mostly imagined. People often
adjust their perception to what they *expect* to hear or see, which can
go pretty far.

Not at all, they are quite measurable. You can create gross frequency
response changes and all kinds of different distortion signatures too.
And because you have a scope and the MRL tape, they can be repeatable.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

david correia wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:

For the most part, I consider tape saturation to be a bad thing, and I
avoid running at elevated levels. At reasonable (3 dB over 185 nW/M)
levels, I can get a huge variety of different sounds out of analogue
tape, though, by adjusting how the machine is set up.

In the world of analog multitrack, tape compression is another part of
an engineer's arsenal. As one of my pals has said for years, the best
compressor ever invented for grand piano is 456.

Does some pretty wonderful things for electric bass and drums tracks too.

See, I never liked running 456 hot... it always seemed to get glassy to
me. Lots of folks like that... I have been told that "it's the rock sound."
But it never did it for me.

I always wound up using 456 down at much lower levels.. and if you're going
to do that you may as well just use 406 instead and save a few bucks.

Anyway, this just goes to show you that you can get all sorts of different
sounds out of a single machine and the great thing about analogue tape is
you can pick the sound that matches your taste and the piece of music
you're working on.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Thu, 01 Jun 2006 03:32:34 -0400, david correia
wrote:


In the world of analog multitrack, tape compression is another part of
an engineer's arsenal. As one of my pals has said for years, the best
compressor ever invented for grand piano is 456.


Piano especially. Since it is mostly the peaks you want to control,
the saturation is very brief and more natural sounding than other
instruments where the saturation is more constant. A hint of glassy
on a piano can be a good thing.

Julian