2016 Tape Saturation Options (what and why?)

[Doc Brown]

Hey all.

I was wondering about TB Reelbus as a tape saturator and from what I've heard it sounds really good. Klanghelm SDRR sounds good to me also. I've also looked into U-he satin and that seems to offer more options with the inclusion of delay and flangers. U-he satin is quite a bit more expensive than TB reelbus also.

I've been working on a retro/ cinematic sounding album using mainly analog synth flavors. I use mainly plugs like Diva and others but I have a hardware synth also. There are some places I would like to saturate to inject some old school imperfections into and also to bring out some more harmonics.

I'm mainly using it for channel duties but I'm also curious as to what it would do on the master.

I'm not using Ilok anything and don't plan to again. I really like Stillwell effects also but a tape simulator is not in the Stillwell arsenal.

So what are you all using? I don't have any experience with tape sims so I'm open to pros and cons.

Thanks

[cereboso]

Love the Slate Virtual Tape Machine and also Fabfilter Saturn.

[JamesPeters]

Try TB Ferox too. It comes with the TrackEssentials bundle.

[sostenuto]

Originally Posted by Doc Brown

Hey all.

I was wondering about TB Reelbus as a tape saturator and from what I've heard it sounds really good. Klanghelm SDRR sounds good to me also. I've also looked into U-he satin and that seems to offer more options with the inclusion of delay and flangers. U-he satin is quite a bit more expensive than TB reelbus also.

I've been working on a retro/ cinematic sounding album using mainly analog synth flavors. I use mainly plugs like Diva and others but I have a hardware synth also. There are some places I would like to saturate to inject some old school imperfections into and also to bring out some more harmonics.

I'm mainly using it for channel duties but I'm also curious as to what it would do on the master.

I'm not using Ilok anything and don't plan to again. I really like Stillwell effects also but a tape simulator is not in the Stillwell arsenal.

So what are you all using? I don't have any experience with tape sims so I'm open to pros and cons.

Thanks

Can't really help, but have super coupon for Plugin Alliance bx_saturator V2. Dunno how to compare to Klanghelm SDRR which is also under serious consideration. Videos on bx_saturator make it seem both powerful and a bit complex

Glad to see your Thread to monitor comments. Good luck!

[richie43]

For my tastes, if you want to keep things affordable AND great sounding, the 2 from ToneBoosters are both phenomenal. Get them both, they both have their strengths.
But of you want to go for gold (in my opinion), still avoid ilok, but not stay as affordable and perhaps begin an endless but satisfying journey down a "rabbit hole", go Nebula.

[Lokasenna]

All of the Variety of Sound plugins are great, one of which - FerricTDS - is a tape saturation simulator. He's also got TesslaSE for transformer saturation if that's your thing, and a couple of his EQs have some tube saturation built in.

[kindafishy]

Originally Posted by richie43

For my tastes, if you want to keep things affordable AND great sounding, the 2 from ToneBoosters are both phenomenal. Get them both, they both have their strengths.
But of you want to go for gold (in my opinion), still avoid ilok, but not stay as affordable and perhaps begin an endless but satisfying journey down a "rabbit hole", go Nebula.

+1

If you don't want to quite get into the expense of Nebula full on, but you want to dip your toes in, check out the CDSM R2R Acqua plugins. Phenomenal.

http://cdsoundmaster.com/site/cds-so...ine/r2rpc.html

These same libraries are also available in Nebula.

[Alxi]

Big TB ReelBuss and Ferox user here.
Highly recommend them both

[richie43]

Originally Posted by kindafishy

+1

If you don't want to quite get into the expense of Nebula full on, but you want to dip your toes in, check out the CDSM R2R Acqua plugins. Phenomenal.

http://cdsoundmaster.com/site/cds-so...ine/r2rpc.html

These same libraries are also available in Nebula.

+1 back at ya.....
If you want to dip only a few toes in and get a smaller set, the APX (Apex) Acqua plugins from CDSM are enough to satisfy ALL of your tape needs...until you want more, of course!

[FarBeyondMetal]

I like reelbus enough to not purchase any others. That being said I am not a professional that can justify spending too much on plugins. But reelbus is stable, has a nice range of tones and is low on cpu.

I demoed satin a while back and liked it, for both it's normal tape sound and also the delay and flange effects. If you want those types of tape effects I think satin is probably the route to go. If you want just a regular tape sound I think reelbus is more than good enough.

[lolilol1975]

Originally Posted by cereboso

Love the Slate Virtual Tape Machine and also Fabfilter Saturn.

I think he said at the beginning he wants no more iLok nonsense, so I believe that would rule out Slate Digital as it is iLoked AFAIK.

Apart from that, there searching "Slate VTM vs Satin" on Youtube gave me 5 or 6 several comparisons between virtual tape machines.
For instance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DLcZgsacRg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOO9tt7DeKs

[Win Conway]

SDRR is a good component saturator, not so much for tape saturation, but TB Reelbus is pretty much the king of tape saturators, not a particularly intuitive UI, but sounds excellent

[Doc Brown]

Thanks for the suggestions all.

I was doing some digging and discovered a plug that gets a lot of praise and mention and that's UAD Studer. When I went to their site I discovered it's only a paltry $350.00! Wow. The best part is you have to buy hardware to use it! Yikes. That's one expensive plug.

I'm looking into the Nebula route also but so far it's comings off as snake oil sounding which I'm not saying it is but I need to read and hear more demos...

[drtedtan]

The Nebula stuff is really good, but it is a massive pain to use (and requires a massively powerful computer unless you want to bounce tracks left and right).

Personally, I'm using the TB plugs: Reelbus and Ferox.

[Doc Brown]

Originally Posted by JamesPeters

Try TB Ferox too. It comes with the TrackEssentials bundle.

What's the difference as far as usage between the two? Are they generally used together or is Ferox like a more compression style saturation?

[JamesPeters]

Originally Posted by Doc Brown

What's the difference as far as usage between the two? Are they generally used together or is Ferox like a more compression style saturation?

ReelBus takes about 10% more CPU on average that I've noticed, but the CPU usage will depend on the settings you choose; the TB plugins generally only use the CPU they need for the settings used.

ReelBus is more subtle; Ferox is more straight-ahead obvious saturation (it can be used subtly but it seems its intent is for more noticeable effects).

Download and try both! The demos work fully, except for saving/recalling presets.

I only bought Ferox since I got the TrackEssentials bundle. I didn't really care that Ferox was in the bundle since I wasn't looking for a tape saturation plugin, but after registering the bundle, I tried it and I appreciate it. I've used tape sims years before and they were...not-really-very-tape-like. This is the first plugin I've heard which is fairly tape-like (although I haven't tried other newer plugins of this type).

[citizenkeith]

I recently picked up Satin and really like it. I record to 2" tape, and I think u-he did a great job with the plugin.

[Lucian]

Originally Posted by Lokasenna

All of the Variety of Sound plugins are great, one of which - FerricTDS - is a tape saturation simulator. He's also got TesslaSE for transformer saturation if that's your thing, and a couple of his EQs have some tube saturation built in.

I would give VoS Tesla a test drive. For strictly a tape sat effect, it is my go to plugin and it is free. VoS Ferric (also free)is nice too but I find it is more suited for Busses and gentle stuff. Try both

[SoulOne82]

+1 for Reelbus and Ferox. Amazing plug-ins ! !

[sostenuto]

TB Reelbus (Ferox too) are great solutions.

Just want to encourage those with no major cpu worries (like me ) to reconsider Nebula3FREE to at least understand what it can do across so many FX categories.
The FREE Library includes lots of darn good choices AND most 3rd Party producers offer some generous content as Free/Demo/very low-cost options.

Have used it for over one year and visit A-A Forum to stay aware of top selections and settings. Whether to move up to Neb3 Pro or Server is apart from this Thread. Having some very cool Tape Saturation emulations to compare is the point.

[kamalmanzkie]

I have the free nebula, and the free saturation knob one from whoever makes that, but the one i keep coming back to is IVGI by klanghelm, which, as you may have guessed, also freeeee

[Bearcub]

Satin (U-he) is a step above the rest for me.

[ilporcupine]

Done!

[sostenuto]

What about Waves Cobalt Saphira now on sale for $49. ??

Does anyone know if PA bx_Saturator V2 can accomplish Tape Saturation both easily and effectively ?? Does not seem 'easy' to use properly, but that may be overreaction after watching video demo. My Demo expired so no way to test further.

[Doc Brown]

Originally Posted by drtedtan

The Nebula stuff is really good, but it is a massive pain to use (and requires a massively powerful computer unless you want to bounce tracks left and right).

Personally, I'm using the TB plugs: Reelbus and Ferox.

Why is Nebula a massive pain to use? Isn't it essentially physical modeling in a mini host sort of like Reaktor? What am I missing?

[pattonfreak1]

The free one from CDSoundMasters is really good

[Judders]

Originally Posted by Doc Brown

Why is Nebula a massive pain to use? Isn't it essentially physical modeling in a mini host sort of like Reaktor? What am I missing?

Because of the high CPU use, it takes a lot of freezing to use more than a handful of instances. Also, having to load a separate program for every EQ band and stuff like that (I used the free version a few years ago, not sure if the more recent paid-for version is any different).

[vdubreeze]

Originally Posted by SoulOne82

+1 for Reelbus and Ferox. Amazing plug-ins ! !

+1.

You really can't go wrong getting the full toneboosters bundle. It's such a good deal even if there are only 2 or 3 that you favor over other options, but I find more make their way into mixes pretty often. I like Reelbus subtly on the master sometimes, or else bussing half the tracks to it hard and not the rest. Ferox is the first thing I'll try on instruments instead of a distortion plugin. Better than most for crunching vocals too.

[Doc Brown]

Originally Posted by Judders

Because of the high CPU use, it takes a lot of freezing to use more than a handful of instances. Also, having to load a separate program for every EQ band and stuff like that (I used the free version a few years ago, not sure if the more recent paid-for version is any different).

Gotcha. I'm going to do some more looking into this.

[richie43]

My 1 year old i7 4790 can handle large projects that have over 70 instances of Nebula, so this whole thing about "only 5 or 6 instances" is if you are on an older CPU. Is Nebula as simple on work-flow as algo plugins? No way. But my ears have learned that it's time well spent. I do work for clients, not only personal projects, so the work-flow is not THAT terrible or I would never use it. But the sound.......

[Dannii]

I recently upgraded my iZotope Ozone 5 advanced to the full music production bundle which includes Ozone 7 advanced and I really like the tape saturation plugin in that. One of the things I particularly like is that you can adjust the harmonic content balance between 2nd and 3rd order. This thing sounds great when dialed to mainly 2nd order.
I don't know what the individual non bundled price is though but the tape saturation plugin is quickly becoming one of my most frequently used.

[Judders]

Originally Posted by richie43

My 1 year old i7 4790 can handle large projects that have over 70 instances of Nebula, so this whole thing about "only 5 or 6 instances" is if you are on an older CPU. Is Nebula as simple on work-flow as algo plugins? No way. But my ears have learned that it's time well spent. I do work for clients, not only personal projects, so the work-flow is not THAT terrible or I would never use it. But the sound.......

A few years back, with a dual 3 GHz 2009 iMac (which I'm still using), there were some demo Nebula reverbs that I just couldn't run at all, even with a 1024 sample buffer. That was back in the days before 64bit RAM allocation though.

I know that they say the paid-for version is more CPU-friendly, but the performance of the demo really put me off spending any money on it. There was that 3rd-party offline Nebula batch app (I forget the name) that, at the time, seemed like it would be a compulsory purchase to get it running with any level of efficiency on my system.

[wildschwein]

Originally Posted by Lokasenna

All of the Variety of Sound plugins are great, one of which - FerricTDS - is a tape saturation simulator. He's also got TesslaSE for transformer saturation if that's your thing, and a couple of his EQs have some tube saturation built in.

I love those -- use them a lot. Very natural sound if you don't go crazy with them. The Klanghelm IVGI is pretty awesome too.

[PitchSlap]

I'm another big fan of ReelBus.

SKnote Disto (Distressor/Fatso emu) is nice too, but it's a bit tricky to separate the saturation from the compression. There's a nice update that should be really soon and it's only $30 until that's released.

UBK-1 is also great, but again more of a saturating compressor than a tape emulation.

[sostenuto]

Originally Posted by richie43

My 1 year old i7 4790 can handle large projects that have over 70 instances of Nebula, so this whole thing about "only 5 or 6 instances" is if you are on an older CPU. Is Nebula as simple on work-flow as algo plugins? No way. But my ears have learned that it's time well spent. I do work for clients, not only personal projects, so the work-flow is not THAT terrible or I would never use it. But the sound.......

Glad to see a credible voice speaking to this issue. Sorry for those who have marginal DAW systems as daily work must be tough. OTH, running (3) desktop systems daily (i5, i7, SSD, (1) HDD Hybrid, and no issues with mulitple Nebula3 instances. No problem seeing legitimate Neb3 criticisms ... geez, nobody thinks it's perfect. Just hate to see it hammered unfairly when it has so much to offer.

[richie43]

Originally Posted by sostenuto

Glad to see a credible voice speaking to this issue. Sorry for those who have marginal DAW systems as daily work must be tough. OTH, running (3) desktop systems daily (i5, i7, SSD, (1) HDD Hybrid, and no issues with mulitple Nebula3 instances. No problem seeing legitimate Neb3 criticisms ... geez, nobody thinks it's perfect. Just hate to see it hammered unfairly when it has so much to offer.

Plenty of credible voices here!! Nebula is far from perfect from a work-flow viewpoint. But as I have said many times on many forums, work-flow is not THE issue for me if the trade-off is for sounds that I love and value. To each their own, for sure.

[sostenuto]

Originally Posted by PitchSlap

I'm another big fan of ReelBus.

SKnote Disto (Distressor/Fatso emu) is nice too, but it's a bit tricky to separate the saturation from the compression. There's a nice update that should be really soon and it's only $30 until that's released.

UBK-1 is also great, but again more of a saturating compressor than a tape emulation.

Site info looks cool. $30 is a great price but would sure like to fiddle with a Demo. Didn't see one.

Mentioned bx_Saturator V@ earlier & only $39. with my personal PA Code from Dec.
Nobody seems to know this one even with full 14-day Demo.

Thanks for your Post.

[Judders]

Originally Posted by richie43

Plenty of credible voices here!! Nebula is far from perfect from a work-flow viewpoint. But as I have said many times on many forums, work-flow is not THE issue for me if the trade-off is for sounds that I love and value. To each their own, for sure.

It definitely sounds great, but the workflow killed it for me. Because of that, I invested in alternatives, so it will be a long time before I consider it again.

If what people are using their tools for sounds good, then I see no reason for partisan bickering about how they've chosen the "wrong" tools.

[richie43]

Originally Posted by sostenuto

Site info looks cool. $30 is a great price but would sure like to fiddle with a Demo. Didn't see one.

Mentioned bx_Saturator V@ earlier & only $39. with PA Code from Dec. No body seems to know this one even with full 14-day Demo.

Thanks for your Post.

ToneBosster offers awesome demos (SKNote none, but will give refund based on trust). ToneBooster stuff can be used for free but will not save settings, load presets, etc until paid for.

bx Saturaor is not a "tape simulator", so that's probably why no one is answering your questions about it! I have it and use it quite a bit, but not for "tape" needs. It's more like a harmonic content enhancer (how I use it). And since it does M-S processing, it is especially useful for subtle widening.

[richie43]

Originally Posted by Judders

If what people are using their tools for sounds good, then I see no reason for partisan bickering about how they've chosen the "wrong" tools.

Couldn't agree more.

That's why I said "To each their own, for sure. "