Found an interesting effect!

[TonyCrazyMan]

Hi all!

I just found a very interesting effect I have thought have been almost impossible to get. I haven't had a clue of how you produce that special sound. It's an effect you can hear on many 80's albums, an effect which in combination with a really good rhodes, compressor and reverb can sound fantastic! The effect is called Tape Saturation! I don't know much about this effect, but I guess it is a natural sound of those analog tape recording machines back in the 80s?

What's the best digital tape saturation effect I can find? I have to find the best because I love this fantastic effect! :cool:

[Funkwave]

You might want to try the Steinberg Magneto VST plugin. It gives recordings an analog type warmth and if you tweak it up, you can get different levels of tape saturation.

[rhythminmind]

i've tried a bunch, my fav is the PSP vintage warmmer..

[greendoor]

I have Magneto, and can't say I like it. When pushed, it just sounds fizzy to me. I much prefer PSP MixSaturator too.

However - tape saturation is more than just simple over-drive, it's about smearing transients too. Convolution, using impulse samples taken from high end tape machines, is a good way to capture the phase and eq characteristics of tape. But simple convolution alone isn't adequate.

The best solution, I think, at the moment is Voxengo Analog Flux Tape Bus. This uses a combination of overdrive/saturation with convolution of tape samples. It takes a lot of CPU, therefore I recommend offline processing, but it sounds fantastic.

[Phil O'Keefe]

If you're willing to consider hardware, you should look into the Empirical Labs EL-7 FATSO. http://www.empiricallabs.com

Or, you could look for a decent three head analog deck and get "the real thing". ;)

Not that I dislike some of the plug ins mentioned - I'm just tossing out a couple of other options to consider. :)

[rhythminmind]

the neve Portico™ 5042 is anouther..

http://www.rupertneve.com/porticorange.html

for plugs the VM and samplitude sims are my fav..

[TonyCrazyMan]

Thanks all for your suggestions! I have to use my own ears from here based on the units you recommended. I have a feeling though that something from PSP or Voxengo might be what I'm looking for. I am interested in that Voxengo Analog Flux Tape Bus the most, but if that is not "in my taste" for some reason I think either the PSP MixSaturator or PSP Vintage Warmer will be what I choose. If I'm not satisifed with any of these I might look into some hardware.

[TonyCrazyMan]

Here's a comment by Justin Niebank about the FATSO (Studio Engineer in Nashville, Engineer on Faith Hill's latest album selling big time right now!)

"The thing that's so cool about the Fatso is,
I want to try it on all sorts of different things;
it's not just my drum mix compressor. But when I track,
I tend to put it across my overhead mics. When I mix,
I've used it as a drum submix compressor.
I've also had it after another compressor on the submix
to give that little bit of tape-compression sound.
I use it across the kick and the snare for that tape-saturation sound,
and I've also used it across vocals to warm them up ever so slightly.
It's got a wide range. You could use it strictly for tape saturation — almost like a limiter —
but it also adds a little different distortion that's very pleasing.
You can also use it as sort of a high-end de-esser; once again,
emulating tape compression of the high end."

What's bad about the Fatso is the price, 3000 Euro is a lot of money.

[Stbean]

I've used the tape sim function on cakewalk sonar. It sounded impressive, you can adjust the warmth , hiss...
It works well if you have a cold, sterile sounding track.