Question for old Tape Machine Pros - Compression

[ProfRhino]

Good point about the levels, I guess I have simply adapted my gainstaging accordingly, using ears and meters. I don't have many old Waves style 24bit fixed point plugs left, so clipping is not an issue as long as you restore a reasonable level later.
About UA, difficult question, as I've started using them way back, even before the Pultec came out.
I guess their main appeal are the unique (partially game changing) plugs like the tapes, the Mk II reissues, API & Neve channels, 224, 140 and so on, but I also love some of the unique FX and others.
The SSLs are also very good, but I use Duende for that myself.
For me the 3rd party UA offerings lack that certain magic so far, debatable.
The DSP savings might not be as significant as in the past, but when e.g. using tapes on each track, 24 Studers (which fit on one quad) would certainly hit a current machine quite hard at low latency.
One thing is certainly true however, unless you want these exact emulations UA provides (guilty ), there are great native alternatives on a comparable quality level, some even free. Bootsie's repertoire gets used just as much as UA here for their unique strengths, just like PCM, Relab and some PSPs or Soundtoys ...
And then there's still hardware for certain applications, like we discussed elsewhere.
These are great days for project studios ...
ymmv,
Rhino

[richie43]

Originally Posted by ProfRhino

unless you want these exact emulations UA provides (guilty ).....
Rhino

I've been trying to resist responding to this.... But if you REALLY want exact emulations and not the almost that UA provides, Nebula all the way.
I "cut my audio teeth" with analog and tape, and Nebula blows my mind.

[ProfRhino]

Originally Posted by richie43

I've been trying to resist responding to this.... But if you REALLY want exact emulations and not the almost that UA provides, Nebula all the way.
I "cut my audio teeth" with analog and tape, and Nebula blows my mind.

why resist ?
I have nothing but respect for their sonic quality, but (and that's a purely subjective argument) I simply don't get along with their framework and workflow at all personally.
Looking forward to the day when somebody combines the virtues of both technologies, it's only a matter of time.
I'm certainly watching Nebula, good stuff.
ymmv,
Rhino

... and about a direct quality comparison, I'm still waiting for a chance to do a real hands-on (blind)test one day, till then I will see both as great tools without a clearly proven winner.

[richie43]

Originally Posted by ProfRhino

why resist ?
I have nothing but respect for their sonic quality, but (and that's a purely subjective argument) I simply don't get along with their framework and workflow at all personally.
Looking forward to the day when somebody combines the virtues of both technologies, it's only a matter of time.
I'm certainly watching Nebula, good stuff.
ymmv,
Rhino

... and about a direct quality comparison, I'm still waiting for a chance to do a real hands-on (blind)test one day, till then I will see both as great tools without a clearly proven winner.

The "virtues" have already been combined! Look into the Acqua plugins by Acustica and related developers. The Nebula "engine" with more familiar GUI's and work-flow.

[ProfRhino]

Originally Posted by richie43

The "virtues" have already been combined! Look into the Acqua plugins by Acustica and related developers. The Nebula "engine" with more familiar GUI's and work-flow.

Thanks, I'll give them a try.
No tapes though (not looking for alternatives myself, but I'll try anything) or tube power amps (which still is an area not completely nailed imho).
cheers,
Rhino

[richie43]

Originally Posted by ProfRhino

Thanks, I'll give them a try.
No tapes though (not looking for alternatives myself, but I'll try anything) or tube power amps (which still is an area not completely nailed imho).
cheers,
Rhino

CDSM has Acqua versions of many tapes and tubes!!

http://cdsoundmaster.com/site/cds-so...r2rplugin.html

http://cdsoundmaster.com/site/cds-so...r2rplugin.html

http://cdsoundmaster.com/site/cds-so.../tbplugin.html

http://cdsoundmaster.com/site/cds-so...nline/vtm.html

http://cdsoundmaster.com/site/cds-so...vtcplugin.html

http://cdsoundmaster.com/site/cds-so...terplugin.html

[Tod]

Originally Posted by richie43

CDSM has Acqua versions of many tapes and tubes!!

So richie, have you tested all this stuff? Or does anybody know of any real tests anywhere?

I find it ironic that back in the old days everybody worked so hard to get rid of all this stuff by better design, and now that it's no longer with us, their trying re-create it to get it back.

[ashcat_lt]

I'm disappointed that we skipped off from ReaComp the moment saturation was mentioned. With all of the time constants at 0, ReaComp becomes a very flexible saturator. Various combinations of settings for ratio, knee, and threshold can give a pretty wide variety of distortion characters. Put a ReaEQ on either side and the possibilities are nearly endless. It won't get quite to an exactly perfect emulation of your favorite tape machine, but it will give you a lot more control over what it's actually doing than the fancy looking plugins.

The one thing that neither of these things do is slew-rate limiting. I don't know a good way to get that with stock Reaper plugs. I have a JS I wrote, don't remember if I put it in the stash...

[richie43]

Originally Posted by Tod

So richie, have you tested all this stuff? Or does anybody know of any real tests anywhere?

I find it ironic that back in the old days everybody worked so hard to get rid of all this stuff by better design, and now that it's no longer with us, their trying re-create it to get it back.

I have tested and continue to use all of it. For the record, I was one of the "old timers" who actually loved the elements that tape and tube brought to the audio back when it was the norm. Now I can have the nice parts without the maintenance of occasional bad circuitry!
What do you mean by "real tests"?

[Tod]

Originally Posted by richie43

What do you mean by "real tests"?

Real tests to see what happens to the audio. If I had the gear or the software to do it I would do it myself, but I'm not even sure what all a person would need to make comprehensive tests like this.

The thing that bothers me is that if you spend a great deal of money and time to build the proper acoustical rooms, along with the money for the proper mics, pres, and interfaces to handle it, I don't want to throw some plugin on it without knowing what it's actually doing to the signal.

[brainwreck]

Originally Posted by ashcat_lt

I'm disappointed that we skipped off from ReaComp the moment saturation was mentioned. With all of the time constants at 0, ReaComp becomes a very flexible saturator. Various combinations of settings for ratio, knee, and threshold can give a pretty wide variety of distortion characters.

Reacomp for saturation? Are you sure about that?

[ProfRhino]

@ richie43,
thanks, those links look interesting !

@ Tod,
I'm totally with you most of the way about the fidelity aspect, but one of the benefits of working in a pristine DAW enviroment is the freedom of deliberately and selectively reintroducing some non-linearity where it sounds good.
We're talking about subtle here, not a huge fuzz box.
It's nondestructive, just trust your ears.
A good place to start would be some of Richie's free examples and the free but wonderful Variety of Sound plugins.
ymmv,
Rhino

[yep]

I skimmed over a lot of this, so apologies if this has already been covered...

To me, good tape-compression (meaning, a good formulation of tape on a good machine) is some of the best, easiest, most-transparent, and most-natural sonic "glue" and "fire" you can get.

It's like, the harder you hit the tape, the louder it sounds, up to the point where it starts to fart out. My favorite example is old Ramones records: on cassette, or especially on vinyl, they always sounded too loud, at any volume, which was part of the effect. It was like, you couldn't play a Ramones song at soft volume.

They just don't translate well to digital, for whatever reason. Ramones on CD sounds relatively quiet and flat, regardless of playback volume. Similar with "loud" 60s acts like Jefferson Airplane or the Rolling Stones. They sound better on old vinyl or tape than on modern HD re-masters, even through the same playback system.

There is something "volcanic" about analog dynamics, for lack of a better word. Modern digital systems (even very inexpensive ones) achieve a vastly better frequency-bandwidth, dynamic-response, and THD-accuracy... But there is something lava-like, a kind of crackle and crispness, fire and swell, when it comes to things like tubes and tape, that is very difficult produce, digitally.

It's important to note that anything that can be recorded, captured, or reproduced digitally, can, *by definition* be produced digitally from scratch.

There is no such thing as a digital recording that could not be reproduced by someone typing out a string of ones and zeroes. If it can be captured digitally, it can be produced digitally, by definition.


All of which leads me to believe that most or all of the "magical" artifacts of analog are mostly or entirely after-effects of talented people working with what they had. That doesn't make it worthless or wrong or bad, it just means that things have changed.

Recording to tape still has a sound all its own, as far as I know. I still record to tape, sometimes. It's a quicker and easier way to get that sense of "fire" and "fullness" than digital processing, for me. But I've long-since given up doing my editing with a sharpie and a razor-blade.

[ashcat_lt]

Originally Posted by brainwreck

Reacomp for saturation? Are you sure about that?

Have you tried it? With all time constants at 0, it analyzes and applies gain reduction on a sample-by-sample basis just like any saturator. With ratio at infinity, it will hard clip at the threshold just like any hard clipper. Pull down the knee knob, and it applies a saturation curve (just like any...) over which you have control. I use it on mix/mastering bus quite a bit nowadays where other folks might stick a tape sim or soft saturator, and I'm quite happy with it.

Of course, it's completely flat. If you want the EQ curve of a tape or transformer or something, you have to put an EQ (I use ReaEQ, of course) on one side or the other or both.

I've even used ReaComp, placed between a couple of ReaEQs, for stompbox distortion emulation. It's extremely powerful. For bonus points, you can mix some little bit of DC signal on the way in to get asymmetrical saturation. You can also use ReaGate for a bit of crossover distortion if you want, though it's not quite as flexible. And of course, if you really want the full analog experience, you have to add noise, and there are all kinds of JS plugs for that sort of thing.

[ivansc]

I have the Slate tape thang. It works OK if you use it very selectively and sparingly. Demo'ed the UAD things and was not that impressed.

There again I don't do balls-to-the-wall rock.

And of course none of them sound like we "remember" actual tape sounding....

[brainwreck]

Originally Posted by ashcat_lt

Have you tried it? With all time constants at 0, it analyzes and applies gain reduction on a sample-by-sample basis just like any saturator. With ratio at infinity, it will hard clip at the threshold just like any hard clipper. Pull down the knee knob, and it applies a saturation curve (just like any...) over which you have control. I use it on mix/mastering bus quite a bit nowadays where other folks might stick a tape sim or soft saturator, and I'm quite happy with it.

Of course, it's completely flat. If you want the EQ curve of a tape or transformer or something, you have to put an EQ (I use ReaEQ, of course) on one side or the other or both.

I've even used ReaComp, placed between a couple of ReaEQs, for stompbox distortion emulation. It's extremely powerful. For bonus points, you can mix some little bit of DC signal on the way in to get asymmetrical saturation. You can also use ReaGate for a bit of crossover distortion if you want, though it's not quite as flexible. And of course, if you really want the full analog experience, you have to add noise, and there are all kinds of JS plugs for that sort of thing.

I have not tried it, but I will be checking it out. Interesting stuff. Thanks.

[ashcat_lt]

Originally Posted by brainwreck

I have not tried it, but I will be checking it out. Interesting stuff. Thanks.

Do keep in mind that it's kind of tweaky stuff. You might need to play with the settings to find something you like, and like most of these kinds of things, if you can really hear it working, it's probably too much.

[hamish]

Originally Posted by ashcat_lt

With all time constants at 0, it analyzes and applies gain reduction on a sample-by-sample basis just like any saturator. With ratio at infinity, it will hard clip at the threshold just like any hard clipper. Pull down the knee knob, and it applies a saturation curve (just like any...) over which you have control. I use it on mix/mastering bus quite a bit nowadays where other folks might stick a tape sim or soft saturator, and I'm quite happy with it.

+1 to that, I discovered ReaComp as a saturator recently too, I also now use it as much as my 'tape' plugins.

However, what brought me to this thread was a search for 'ReaComp GUI' as in the last 3 or so sessions using REAPER 4.71 portable 32 bit on win 7, I am having the GUI on ReaComp going dead, no action in the meters, but still working. Needs a reload to get the meters back. Small project trackwise, but long (1 hr +). Anyone else seen this?

[brainwreck]

Originally Posted by ashcat_lt

Do keep in mind that it's kind of tweaky stuff. You might need to play with the settings to find something you like, and like most of these kinds of things, if you can really hear it working, it's probably too much.

I gave this a go tonight. I think I'll need to play around with it more to see if it's something that will be useful, but I never thought of using reacomp to add some dirt. I always thought of it as a clean compressor.

Edit: I'm liking this in the drum chain, both alone and before ThrillseekerLA. It's doing something good for kick and snare.

[brainwreck]

Originally Posted by hamish

+1 to that, I discovered ReaComp as a saturator recently too, I also now use it as much as my 'tape' plugins.

However, what brought me to this thread was a search for 'ReaComp GUI' as in the last 3 or so sessions using REAPER 4.71 portable 32 bit on win 7, I am having the GUI on ReaComp going dead, no action in the meters, but still working. Needs a reload to get the meters back. Small project trackwise, but long (1 hr +). Anyone else seen this?

Never seen that before (running 32 bit here). Apparently, I haven't been keeping up with new versions for a while (4.61 here).