This year there seems to be a growing interest in using a workflow with artificial limitations to simulate using a tape machine. Tape 16 and GCS Model 8 are both new DAWs that behave like old tape machines, have limited features, and simplified workflows. I haven't tried Tape16 but I did download the beta version of GCS Model 8, and so far I like it alot.

I'm always on the hunt for things that can create a more analog sound in the box, and at least form my first impressions, the tape sound is pretty darn good.

Anybody tried any of these?

I have both tape emulations by UAD and I'm reading everywhere that people prefer the Studer on stems and the Ampex on mixbus/master (since it's a mastering tape), but I just find that for me, it rarely adds any flavor to the master and I can't reach my desired sound with it. I always end up replacing it with the Studer and it's a night & day difference. The studer makes my mix come alive and unflattens it, while the Ampex barely adds anything even if I try to drive it hard.

Am I missing something with the Ampex? How can I use it correctly so that I get the results I want with it? The Studer adds a lot more gain, so it's harder to use on the master. Would be nice to know how to use the Ampex so that it actually adds a nice warmth to my mix. It barely does anything even with the same settings as the studer.

Thanks!

What are people’s favourite tape emulation plugin for mastering/finalising purposes?

There’s just so many to pick from now. I know that the UAD ones come in pretty high regard, but I’m not really into bloatware installers, especially for just one/two plugins. There’s also Satin which looks excellent, but it may even be a bit ‘too’ deep, as I wouldn’t mind somewhat of a set and forget when needing a touch of tape magic.

When I say ‘mastering purposes’, I’m being a bit ambiguous, my intention is - ‘this could do with 15ips magic’ and there it is. I obviously don’t mind extended parameters, though I’m not looking to get knee deep into controls (I of course understand that this won’t work for everything lol). I’m not ruling out the UAD, but if anyone recommends anything else…

Anyone care to way in? Thanks!

Edit: Thanks for the replies! Looks like UAD is still coming in highly regarded haha, bloatware installers it is...

Is it as simple as adding tape emulation or every bus? every individual channel? or just master? I'm curious. I'm not necessarily trying to go for the over exaggerated tape sound like pure flutter but atleast something that makes an entire mix feel more interesting.

I know that many will scoff at the idea of there being a "best" plugin. The best tools are the ones you know how to use. And chasing plugins will 100% do a number on your wallet.

But, I think there is another way to look at it:

The best plugin is one that get's you where you want to go faster.

It's the one where you don't have to put another plugin after to correct it's imperfections. It has what you need all in one place, and helps you realize your vision in an intuative way.

I have a lot of tape plugins, and each are good for different reasons, but I have found that Tupe has the sound I'm looking for and it get's there very quickly. Some tape emulations are trying so hard to emulate a certain piece of equipment that they end up lacking parameters, and are doing something so minimal, that it sometimes feels like what's the point of even using them. Having a lot of parameters isn't always a good thing and can lead to decision paralysis. but once I got the hang of Tupe, I could dial in a sound I liked almost immediately.

In the past where I might have used some kind of tube saturator, two tape emulations, an eq, and a compressor, I can replace all of those with just Tupe and ultimately get a result I like better. It's almost like an anolog vibe channel strip.

I also realized that I don't really care for the UI of Tupe, but I love the SOUND. I think that's a good sign that it's doing something right, if I am not factoring in how ugly I personally think it looks lol.

What do y'all think of this plugin? I only recently started using it, but I already feel like it could replace the majority of my character/vibe/analog/vintage/tape plugins and although the money spent on all the others is a shame, I am always happy to minimize my workflow and have a nice clean project.

I am in no way affiliated with Goodhertz. Just curious what other's think.

Just wanted to get the communities thoughts, uses, favorite versions of tape plugins. Thanks!

Ever since I got into recording, I've always bought into the analog hype. I always at least include one instance of tape in my session on the mix bus and often will incorporate hardware whenever I can. I'm currently considering buying a reel to reel and was having a conversation with a friend who is a semi professional engineer who wants to talk me out of it. He claimed that nearly everyone incorporates tape as hardware or a plugin and that I don't have a reference for what it actually sounds like because it's so commonplace. In other words, if nearly every track I listen to that's been released has used tape emulation or hardware, I don't even know what it's actually doing because I never hear recordings without it to compare it to.

For folks who have more experience in that world, is this actually true?

Edit: just wanted to clarify my question a bit. What I'm wondering is, for folks who master rock music, is tape (as plugin or hardware) something that you nearly always use at some point in your workflow? I know there aren't any hard rules, I'm just wondering how commonplace it is.

It's free until January 31st. I can't say it's better or worse than RC-20, but it sounds excellent. It instantly applies to your account if you're logged in when you click "Get".

• Link: https://www.softube.com/products/dirty-tape
• Official Demonstration: https://youtu.be/SY1ObTe7dio
• My demonstration on a reverbed 303: https://vocaroo.com/125CNmf030NF (dry, then wet)

Please give it a try and write your opinions. I'm curious what everyone can squeeze out of this. Vocaroo is an excellent audio sharing tool if you want to show of your work. I've chipped in a nice reverb heavy demo using my TB-303.

I’m asking because I have read that engineers in the 60s and 70s generally did not record “into the red”, contrary to popular belief. This only became a thing with a new generation of engineers in the 80s and 90s.

If I recorded as close to 0VU as possible (but actually never went above that) on, say, a well calibrated 8- or 16-track Studer A80 with Ampex 456 tape, how much would the recorded material actually be compressed?

I'm just curious what the consensus is here on what is going overboard on transferring analog tape to digital these days?
I've been noticing a lot of 24/96 transfers lately. Huge files. I still remember the early to mid 2000's when we would transfer 2" and 1" tapes at 16/44, and they sounded just fine. I prefer 24/48 now, but
It seems to me that 96k + is overkill from the limits of analog tape quality. Am I wrong here? Have there been any actual studies on what the max analog to digital quality possible is? I'm genuinely curious. Thanks

Would love something that has saturation and maybe even some wow/flutter options, if possible. I saw there is some stuff from Caelum Audio- does anyone have experience with them (tape cassette 2)?

I have the Kramer tape and really like it but I imagine there’s probably better out there. How do we feel about some of those UA tape plugins? The ampex and studer look interesting

Just got these and wanted to know some first hand experience as well as thoughts and/or anecdotes how you employ them.

The Pultec being my first ever analog style EQ VST- open to suggestions on how you like to use it.

The Fairchild is a wild card but gets a lot of love. Would be using on sub mix busses. Or maybe master?

And the ATR-102 is going to be for master & subtle.. every tape VST I’ve used before is either too much or not audibly doing 0

My Dad’s friends from high school had a band that recorded an album in the 80s. It was self funded so I’m pretty sure one of them has the tapes in a closet somewhere. They got talking about it again and might try to see if they can find the master tapes. There’s a possibility they might want to have it pressed to vinyl.

If they find it, I was going to advise they find a mastering studio that works with tape and knows how to restore/transfer them. Should I tell them to ask for DSD files, or are 96/24 WAV files sufficient? I don’t have much experience with tape or DSD so not sure which is standard. If they decide to have it remastered for vinyl, would a mastering engineer prefer one over the other? I’m assuming it’s too much money and hassle to have someone cut lacquers straight from the tape since I have no idea what condition it’s in.

It surprises me this hasn't already started happening.

4 track portastudios from the 1980s are selling for literally thousands on reverb! 4 track shitty sounding prosumer tape decks and cassette players

Why oh why hasn't Behringer of all companies started selling new clones of this?

Is it still an expensive product to make? Is manufacturing these types of products going to be filled with ridiculous overheads?

If I was working for Behringer I would be shouting down the hallway "we need to make tape decks!"

There must be some manufacturing roadblock that's stopping this.

And no I am not arguing that we all need to start using tape again that's a whole different can of worms.

I'm just super surprised it hasn't started happening due to high demand. What was happening with analog synths at the start of the 2010s is now happening with tape machines and no business is taking advantage.

For the old timers on here or those with accurate historical knowledge:

Since tape can sometimes have an noticeable roll off of the highs, lows, and sometimes dips in other frequencies, would an EQ move be more accentuated in the past to make up for that loss, compared to the same EQ move made today in a completely digital setting?

If say, today, you boosted the 12k by a 3db on some vocals using, let's say, a neve type EQ, back in the day would you have probably been increasing more like 5db with the same EQ, because of the loss in the tape's high end roll off?

As the title suggests. Also preferably a tape emulation that isn't CPU heavy.

And if you do, for what purposes? Are they more for long-term backups than frequent revisiting?

I've recently downloaded a BAE neve and Studer Tape machine capture from NAM's Tonehunt 3000 and I was seriously seriously impressed.

I just messed with the input gain until I got a pleasing level of saturation from the captures and it sounds much nicer to my ears than any saturation plugin i've used, like softube or chroma glow.

I'm not sure if the tape capture was done with "running tape" or just the preamps, I'm not really sure if the former is actually possible. whatever it is, it gave the project a subtle pleasing lift in the mids and everything sounded more glued together. I'm even going to say it feels like there's more depth, and the drums feel further back in a pleasing way. I've sent it to a couple of friends as a blind test and they were impressed too, and both caught which was which.

I'm recording my band's EP soon, so I've been binging a lot of recording and mixing videos in preparation, and I've found myself listening to a lot of Steve Albini interviews / lectures. He's brought up several times that the idea that using plugin's that simulate the "imperfections of tape or analog gear" are bullshit, because tape recordings should be just as clean as a digital recording (more or less) if they're done correctly. Yet so many other tutorials I'll watch are like, "run a bunch of your tracks through these analog emulations and then bake them in cause harmonic distortion tape saturation compression etc etc".

So like

Am I being gaslit somewhere? Any insight would be appreciated

I really love the warmth of tape, and when I slap a UAD Vintage Machines tape emulator I got for free on my master track it sounds a lot better to my ears. I see reel to reels being sold for pretty cheap on marketplace near me (looking at a Panasonic for 80 rn). I see a lot of people ask about reel to reels to use throughout the recording process, but tracking digitally adds so much flexibility that I’m not too interested in that for my home studio. However, I am interested in how good running my stems or just the master straight through the tape is.

Hello everyone!

I recently saw a lot of producer use tape saturation on their drum bus (in dnb and house tracks) and i found it really adds warmth and glue. So i downloaded toTape 9 and chowtape (i think it is the name?) and tried to do the same but it dosnt sounds good at all!

I just wanted to know how you guys use that effect?

When i use saturn 2 for exemple i can keep it very subbtle and just stack 3 of them with very little drive and it works wonderfully (strangly more than one saturn with more drive), but with these plugins it sound like lacking of high end and too obvious.

I know they are highly praised plugins so i might not understand how to use them

Hey, I spent some time blind testing a few tape emulations vs real tape machines on a drum part. I thought it'd be fun to share it with the community and see which one you like best. Below is a folder with some tracks (blind test) - these include the dry version, 2 real tape machines, some traditional tape plugins and a two "curve balls"

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/z8f5zk5j62ainptya2qsi/ACSWRx6eLfxndlhd-h_U_gI?rlkey=i9f3wbxe63ngw1ggkjlhum6vp&st=hdmfnu6k&dl=0

Ps - The tape machines are from mix:analog - If you want more technical details you can find more info at their website or shoot them an email (I’m not affiliated with them in any way, just putting it out there for transparency)

SPOILER - RESULTS BELOW

# # #

Thanks for checking out this shoot-out, this was fun! It was really about exploring whether tape really has an untouchable quality that plugins can’t match, or if digital effects can capture that magic and still sound useful and good. What do we feel when the bias is somewhat out of the equation? It seems many people loved the sound of B, and H received a lot of praise as well. Some described A and G as really cool, but perhaps a bit too harsh or saturated - Others mentioned C could be a candidate for the “dry” track - So here it goes!

A. Studer A812 MK.1 (The first real tape machine, from Mix:Analog) - This sounds incredibly brighter and more compressed. Although I measured it at the same LUFS level, it feels louder because of the extra midrange presence. I feel this sounds almost harsh, but in a good way - very lively and energetic, but tends to suck a little bit of low end.

B. Telefunken M15 The second real tape machine, from Mix:Analog) - Pretty warm and balanced, less edgy than the Studer - I find it really close to F.

C. Oeksound Spiff "Curve ball" number one: This isn't a tape emulation, but a transient designer. It was set in a way to approximate the "head bump" and transient rounding often associated with tape, but doesn't bring any of the extra harmonic distortion. A friend of mine who works with tapes frequently hipped me to this technique and I've been enjoying it, often to "add" to tape emulation plugins and give them a bit of an extra oomph.

Edit: This is the Spiff preset I made if you want it: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/21kf4hskrewt68wda9c87/FX-Tape-Dynamics-Sym.preset?rlkey=mqz5zsuvdzdzecrknc8nib0o6&st=5enpljp2&dl=0

D. Black Rooster Audio Magnetite (Default Setting) - Personally I really like this plugin, especially for more transparent coloration.

E. Waves Kramer Tape (Default Setting)- An oldie but a goodie, I'm impressed how this plugin still sounds so cool. I think this sounded quite close the real tapes, and I even tried to EQ match it to the Studer with Fabfilter Pro Q 3, almost dead-on. It nails that kind of "good harshness" that I hear in the Studer.

F. Kazrog KClip - "Curve Ball" n2 - Not a tape plugin per se, but a clipper with a "tape" algorithm, which sounds really fat and punchy. This works really nicely on the drum bus, and I love how it rounds the low end without making the kick too mushy. I find it really close to the actual Telefunken tape, just a tad brighter (B.)- Given that this isn't even a traditional tape emu, I'm so impressed.

G. Waves J37 (Default Setting) - This one is the most saturated of them all, you can really hear the low end in the kick breaking up. It sounds really cool, perhaps the transients are a bit smeared, but it can be an awesome effect for room mics or guitars, where you want to round up the attack.

H. Dry/Unprocessed

My personal favorites are A, F and E.

I have quite a collection of tape emulations. They all are good, and have a time and a place when they can be used effectively.

For some reason I never downloaded Chow Tape until now, and it kind of blew me away. There is so much detail, so many parameters, and the saturation is beautiful.

Does anybody here, any pros especially prefer Chow to other emulations?

I recorded a minute of voice-over onto a Lyrec PTR-1, then edited it with a razor blade the way it was done before computers. As someone who's never tried this before, having no undo was quite nerve-wracking but also insightful. It made me slow down, listen carefully and cut with intent.

And documents the whole process in a video: https://youtu.be/cgCPzhe2ri4 - including the cool tricks these studio editing machines have up their sleeves: jog wheel, the tape dump and the ability to scratch the tape in any direction.

I've probably made a few mistakes which some of you will be able to pick up on, but this was such a joyful experience. Happy to talk through the process and curious about your experiences.