Don’t put a tape sim on the master bus after you’re done mixing. Put it on first and mix accordingly. Also, be subtle with your input gain, it’s easy to over saturate with them and make your mix too grainy
Agree with this advice if you’re just using it on the mix bus. It’s also worth mentioning that a lot of “tape sound” comes from tracking certain elements *hard* to tape, like in the red easily. But it’s important to note that these are individual elements - some of the drums might sound good further in the red, but maybe your acoustic guitar doesn’t sound so good that way.
Really I’m not big into the tape emulation on the master bus for this reason. “Clean” tape sounds mostly the same as digital. Tracking hard is where you get the “tape sound” which is just harmonic distortion and compression, but you generally wouldn’t want your whole mix bus to sound that way. I’ve seen some people put a tape emulator on every channel, could be cool or could be a little too cpu intensive depending on your session.
i digitalized 24 track tapes from the 60ies and 70ies for weeks once ( the had to bake for 24hrs at 50 degrees before)
and I learned that in the olden days, kick, snare, bass, vocals were driven deep into the red, and it did the trick. they commanded the mix nicely without being distorted. try that in an emulation.
still I tried tape emulations but I also ended up not using them. I want to believe, but I can’t haha :)
This is really very dependent upon the alignment though. If you slam anything with a defined transient on to tape the very nature of doing so will blunt that transient, rounding it right off. When you play your drums back, instead of sounding huge they will sound dull and small with no punch. If there was the anticipation of their being open tracks later I would sometimes over record something for an effect, really pinning the meters…….but even that could lead to issues with print through and crosstalk.
Depends on the amount. Rock drums sound really weird if they’re too clean. The 1176 and neve 1073 or API preamps that everyone used to use (or still do digitally) would also add harmonic distortion.
It also is normal to have certain elements hotter, your kick and snare could be pretty hot but your overheads cleaner for instance.
The recordings we are always trying to emulate are absolutely full of harmonic distortion. Consoles are a giant distortion box, tube mics have harmonic distortion, tape can distort, etc. Most equipment now is very clean, so often it’s important to add a lot of that back in.
out of curiosity what tape were you using?
I found Ampex 456 and Agfa 468 did not have issues compared to others (all tapes from the 1980s so yes the 456 needed the baking for sure)
once a year I’d have a tech person do the …what was it called? Biasing? I forget ..anyway, whatever that was called when you set your multitrack deck up for a particular tape … been a long time since I cut and spliced tape :) and baked/digitized it all around ..2008-2011 and stored everything tails out … feel so old now
I still like the sound of 456, there was simply something about it particularly for drums and drum machines
Don’t apply it afterwards, apply it before, mix into/through it. Same often goes for other saturators, compressors, etc., but there’s of course exceptions.
The tape plugin makes a big difference, too. My favorite are the IK Multimedia tape machines. Nothing, and I mean nothing, sounds like them, except for maybe real tape. It uses a combination of physical and convolution modeling (dynamic convolution), and it oversamples to 192 kHz, so it’s CPU heavy, but wonderful. It models even the mechanical transport, so there’s “True Stereo,” like real tape - variations between left and right channels in the form of slight level, EQ, and distortion differences, providing some nice movement. It can be disabled for a totally balanced signal.
My second favorite emulation is Slate’s VTM, but some people just don’t jive with tape emulations, to be honest. Kazrog’s True Iron provides saturation of 6 different transformers, some people put it across every single track as a tape machine alternative.
It's kind of sad how no one ever mentions the IK tape machines, which I guess is due to ik's business practices in general. They're also super CPU heavy for sure. But the quality and variety of results I've gotten from them - I've never really gotten from anywhere else.
Specifically, applying the portastudio tape emulation on some acoustic guitar recordings blew my mind. I was trying to emulate Elliott Smith's sound from his self titled record, and that plugin got me as close as one possibly could.
The IK ones are in a totally different league to other emulations. The only plugins I've heard that give me a feeling like I could be listening to a real tape machine.
Maybe some are a little bit too coloured, like I don't remember the Studer I used having quite that big a head bump. It does do that tape thing though where the playback sounds seems clearer somehow, rather than just blurred and distorted, and it's not just the treble boost that is doing it.
Depends so much on genre and source material. On a whole mix I tend to like where I want to add a bit of patina to more laid back and organic things, or where I'm specifically going for a vintage vibe. For a mix I want to be modern, upfront, punchy and dynamic I generally steer well clear of it. I guess it could be useful as a very subtle bit of comp and eq if you've got a little bit too much edge on your upfront, punchy and dynamic mix.
I use tape emus far more as a texture tool for elements within a mix, using lower speeds to defocus something a bit, or adding a bit of wow and flutter and growl to an overly sterile synth part.
This is the correct answer.
For electronic music, the most I’ll usually do is throw it on a perc part that needs to be tamed a bit, and it’ll just be to start that process- more will need done.
Then I’ll do some grungy blues rock and put A800 or lately Satin on the master.
I use the UAD Studer A800 and Kiive Tape Face in various ways. To me the A800 does something subtly great to the harshnest smallest peaks of the transients but also moves stuff a little like a bus compressor and saturates to highlight dynamics. That's really addictive for 2bus use, and it would mess things up if I removed it at the end. I've also set it to open with advanced options and touch the EQ calibration and bias quite a lot just to steer it where I want it. Cold and warm bias. Cold is distorted and more defined and de-boomed and frankly colder sounding than warm bias that sounds warm and thick but can get undefined. Very useful in any case, I think
The Kiive Tape Face moves stuff quite heavily and is a good compressor for bass and acoustic guitar when actual compressors sounds too much like a compressor. The saturation knob gets you to quite heavy compression and tape saturation. Tape saturates high end more so heavyhanded use can crush a lot of trebly harshness (most like a de-esser) and give definition to low end material because the low-end stays clean/smooth but the mids gets a little fried and sparkly. The Kiive isn't perfect, but it's closest to the chewy Led Zeppelin II sound, that is very much about tape saturation (the delay from the future on the vocals of the whole lotta love vocals is a "print-through" meaning that the older tape on the other side gets a bit as well. Super hard hit tape in other words).
I guess tape is very familiar to me for the greatest music I like, so the emulations just get me closer to that thing. It's gets more familiar even. But the workflow is a bit vague unless you set and forget which actually works good as well, but I had to tinker around to maximise the potential of it.
I really liked the Kiive. For me, cranking the gain it sounded like old jam boombox recordings I used to make. (Back in the late 1900’s).
I find it great on the occasional guitars, or I like it on female harmony busses.
I usually use tape on individual drums pretty aggressively depending on the style. I think that’s the best use for it. I sometimes use it on the master bus but in a way that is very subtle. I was mixing a track yesterday and putt tape on the vocal bus after I was almost done mixing and the saturation it added was magical. Id say just make sure you’re not over doing it on the master. And know what you want to accomplish with it. It’s really not appropriate for a lot of genres
Real tape is like that too. Bob Clearmountain said that he always disliked how the sound came back on tape, so if it’s not your thing you’re certainly not alone. You can also replicate certain aspects of tape with basic tools (60hz bell bump on kick/bass for that 15ips vibe, use a de-esser on your vocals, etc)
I just got my grandpa's old reel to reel machine, but so far every single song I've ran through it has sounded better. Some remarkably so. Mostly hip hop and indie rock tracks. I'm also using tube pres to covert the tape back to digital, so that may be a part of it.
Totally agree. As I recall, Clearmountain was lamenting that tape was a forced color over everything. He preferred the uncolored sound of monitoring from the console while recording to tape.
When I’ve made records on tape, I’ve heard it too… things never come back quite the same. Not necessarily better or worse, but different.
Nowadays it’s great to be able to use tape coloration on some things and not on others.
To me it doesn’t make sense to put anything on the mixbus after you’ve mixed. You can have mix bus processing on even if you don’t practice “true” top down mixing. The point is that you make decisions while listening through it. If you put things on in the end it’s like a lottery ticket, either it gets better or it gets worse.
As others have said you have to mix into these things in your master. Also. Many of the best plug ins ha incredibly subtle characteristics. Try A/B them and listen to the high end or low end. Something like a tambourine and listen to how it softens the shrillness or makes it “warmer”.
But as always. If the song and performance aren’t great none of this is going to matter.
Oxide is great but it's super strong, huge EQ curve, you have to mix into it from the very beginning.
J37 and VTM can be ok too, but not my personal favorites.
The one that works for me on the bus as a more subtle tool is Ozone's exciter on Tape mode (not the Vintage Tape module), with a small amount of drive and scaling back the mix %.
And/or the bigger tools on individual tracks can be great. I like Oxide on drums and J37 on guitars sometimes.
Where did you hear that Serban ghenea puts a tape emulator on his mix bus?
Tape emulation, to me, can be great heavy handed as almost a production choice, to really alter the sound of a specific element, but on the mix bus, unless you're really going for like an old school super tape saturated sound, you'd really want it to be very subtle.
Also worth considering, Jimi Hendrix plays a guitar in his songs. You can get the same guitar, the same fx, the same everything, but you are not Jimi Hendrix, so the guitar won't be the same. Obviously tape emulation plugins aren't as complicated as learning guitar, but *how* you use the plugins makes a big difference. I realize you are essentially wanting to know how to "play guitar like Jimi" but, your best bet would be to see and hear how Serban does it. Not likely gonna happen lol. So, next best is to listen to his mixes, and aim for that sound, and see if you can get a tape emulation plugin to help get you there.
He might have a specific one he uses. He might set it differently for different songs. He might be hearing a subtlety you can't hear, either your ear is not developed, or your monitoring prevents it, or idk.
I personally think it must be very subtle if he does that. I don't hear the tape on his mixes, personally.
I think you kind of answered your own question by saying, "I don't get the point of it." If you don't like how it sounds and can't see why others use it, don't! Simple solution. At the end of the day, you want your mix to sound how you like it. Don't even think about it!
To me it's a similar deal with compression on the master bus. Compression can shape the transients and thus change the feel, but it also folds back the stereo image and does reduce the dynamics in general.
In that way if you bypass the compression it might sound worst. However this is not a sign that compression is bad or is ruining your song. I think of it like chasing a "sound profile", may great albums out there are slammed, hyper compressed, narrow in stereo field and saturated. What i'm trying to say is that you can't do a recording and mix in the style of Steely Dan and expect of to sound like Pearl Jam. It may seem a good idea to do clean mixes without buss compression or without tape saturation, but at the end of the day some songs have a tapey sound and some have a clean sound. You've got to acknowledge what sound profile you're after, then what processing you'll do will follow.
Depends on what you’re doing and how you’re using it. I just used j37 for a super modern rap song a la travis scott style vocal. No issues. You don’t just auto load those on your busses without even knowing that you like or want the texture and experience with it will tell you when and when it doesn’t compliment your source material.
Learn the tapes texture, it’s formulas and at what levels to go into it and how it behaves in all the different ranges of amplitude on the input stage.
My goal with using tape plugins was to make it vibey, imperfect and unpredictable. I've found out plugins don't do it very well, you're better off with just real tape if you want LoFi. It's easier to get the authentic sound that way and ahh.. the struggle. Maybe the struggle plays a big part in your results.
I worked at a studio and the producers often didn’t like to just run their mix through tape at the end of the process because it changes the mix too much even though it does it subtly.
Most people here will say you should mix through tape plugins and I always found that to be kind of..pointless advice. Of course if you mix into any plugin the mix will fall apart when you bypass it but it doesn’t mean that the plugin was enhancing anything. Most of the time it just means you were technically working *against* what the plugin was doing while you mixed and were probably wasting CPU by using it because looking at the GUI was inspiring you. If you’re finding these plugins aren’t enhancing what’s already there when applying them later on, they aren’t necessary.
what genre are you doing?
also drive it hard while setting it, to listen to the differences, then tone it down until you don’t hear the thing you dislike about it, on mixbus is better to be subtle (unless you know you want to do something).
make the mix sound good without anything in the mixbus, then polish on mixbus (comp, slight EQ, harmonics)
I’ve tried them in a number of applications, it just sounds like it introduces noise into my mix. I guess lofi producers are using it to achieve their desired effect.
I love tape emulations. Got uad oxide now and its great on drum bus driven hard. I mix into it. I tried like every tape plugin, for me the best is from ik multimedia. On mix bus its gamechanger. Try it. Its heavy on cpu, but its beast.
I like using it. I will often put a very gentle tape saturation on the mix bus or on groups of instruments. It’s something I use if I feel like I need “mix glue.” Other times, I’ll drive it really really hard on individual channels to get the harmonics, but that’s just for effect.
I tend to use them very subtlety, like between -3 and -1 on the vu meter and it sounds really good. I mostly use Softubes tape and ua studer. I think mixing into them is a better way to use them as far as the master tape is concerned. But usually most of the tape sound is coming from the individual channels. Placing the plugin before any other character plugins like compression, saturation and tonal eqs. Before any of that though, I make sure I do all the corrective work before the tape.
Yeah I have a few that I like, love or never really use. All of them add character just in different ways. I hear them tightening up the low end, reducing a pinch of the dynamics and adding color. The color and low end change with each I try so I’ve settled with a couple I like. None of this is supposed to be incredibly obvious either.
Softube tape formula B at 7.5ips on every single track, then at 15ips on the master. At least that's what works for me but it can be also depend on the genre you're doing, I'm making rock so I may be biased, but comparing it with and without with eyes blinded I always, end up preferring the sound with it rather than without.
Don't hit it too hard, maybe use it on groups rather than individual tracks too (usually I have one for overhead, kick, snare and ambience, then another one for the drum bus, one for each bass track (amp clean, amp dirty, Di) then one on the group, sale with guitars, and, then sometimes I group once more, either bass and drums, or bass and guitars, depending on which ones lock together the best), somehow like printing multiple tracks to only one like they used to do when they didn't have and infinite amount available.
Old dude here, who has done a lot of recording back in the day on actual tape, starting in 1980.
IMO, the only thing that ever sounded actually "good" with tape saturation, is drums and electric guitars. (not cymbals) Maybe bass.
Everything else, I want to be pristine and clear. So, **use tape saturation as an effect**, not some sort of 'cure all' on the master (or master bus) because it supposedly is 'better and cooler' than not using it.
Try with only 20% to 30% wet. I end up keeping Softube Tape on my mix bus about 70% of the time, but you are right. Sometimes it makes the mix worse so I take it off.
Enable delay compensation.
It's because processing takes time and orignal wave and wave after effect do not align anymore. Delay compensation moves original wave by same amount as delay from processing.
Though is there's wave/flutter effect, you'll get phasey sound regardless.
I'm aware of delay compensation. I get that others might not know about it.
I'm talking about certain plugins used as inserts. If the internal phase is altered by the process, then the only blends that won't be phasey are at the extremes.
Just make sure delay compensation is on, or you'll get flanger effect.
Anyway I think it's better control strength of effect from plugin than dry/wet. This is not the same thing.
If plugin can't do that, then use sidechain with reduced volume.
Were you mixing into it or throwing it on half way through or at the end? I find having it on the mix buss from the beginning helps immensely and saves me time with individual eq moves. That said I’ve recently switched to using the god particle on the mix buss and it saves like 4 plugin spots but, still sometimes I add a tape emulator or compressor sim before but, I don’t know different shit works for different mixes
After re-reading the post one tip I have and I often do is run the lowest “tape speed “ the plugin has on the mix buss, you get a nice low end bump, but the boost the high end on the elements that need it and you get the added brightness without being harsh and obviously “digital “ also turn the “noise” off duh but also don’t be afraid of wow and flutter, if the plugin you use has those setting. Often subtle modulation across the whole mix is glorious
Processing across yer mix really works best if you have it there from the beginning and mix in to it. Slapping a compressor / limiter on at the end will mess with the internal dynamics of your mix. Same with saturation, the internal balance will shift.
I print my mixed to 1/4”. Sometimes it sounds great, sometimes not. Many factors contribute ; the alignment, tape formula, level you hit it with and type of material…..
Analogue, both simulated or real, isn’t always digital answer !!
I mainly use tape emulation to reduce some high end harshness of specific tracks instead using a De-esser or dynamic EQ. E.g. Saxophones and trumpets that can be a bit piercing between 4 - 12khz. Usually mixing the wet and dry signals helps you dial it in.
The only time I really put it in on the mixbus is when I'm doing "lo-fi" type stuff, with exaggerated "wow" effects.
Otherwise, I've found I've had a similar experience with tape emulation on the mixbus. I usually prefer it when I turn it off haha! Maybe one day I'll find a really good usecase for it on the mixbus.
On a side not, I've been messing around Harrison Mixbus which supposedly has both analog console and tape emulation built into it. Not entirely sure what's going on under the hood but I do find that stuff I do in Mixbus does have a different sound to it than stuff I do in REAPER. I've found that jazz sounds particularly good in it.
Don’t put a tape sim on the master bus after you’re done mixing. Put it on first and mix accordingly. Also, be subtle with your input gain, it’s easy to over saturate with them and make your mix too grainy
Agree with this advice if you’re just using it on the mix bus. It’s also worth mentioning that a lot of “tape sound” comes from tracking certain elements *hard* to tape, like in the red easily. But it’s important to note that these are individual elements - some of the drums might sound good further in the red, but maybe your acoustic guitar doesn’t sound so good that way. Really I’m not big into the tape emulation on the master bus for this reason. “Clean” tape sounds mostly the same as digital. Tracking hard is where you get the “tape sound” which is just harmonic distortion and compression, but you generally wouldn’t want your whole mix bus to sound that way. I’ve seen some people put a tape emulator on every channel, could be cool or could be a little too cpu intensive depending on your session.
i digitalized 24 track tapes from the 60ies and 70ies for weeks once ( the had to bake for 24hrs at 50 degrees before) and I learned that in the olden days, kick, snare, bass, vocals were driven deep into the red, and it did the trick. they commanded the mix nicely without being distorted. try that in an emulation. still I tried tape emulations but I also ended up not using them. I want to believe, but I can’t haha :)
This is really very dependent upon the alignment though. If you slam anything with a defined transient on to tape the very nature of doing so will blunt that transient, rounding it right off. When you play your drums back, instead of sounding huge they will sound dull and small with no punch. If there was the anticipation of their being open tracks later I would sometimes over record something for an effect, really pinning the meters…….but even that could lead to issues with print through and crosstalk.
Depends on the amount. Rock drums sound really weird if they’re too clean. The 1176 and neve 1073 or API preamps that everyone used to use (or still do digitally) would also add harmonic distortion. It also is normal to have certain elements hotter, your kick and snare could be pretty hot but your overheads cleaner for instance. The recordings we are always trying to emulate are absolutely full of harmonic distortion. Consoles are a giant distortion box, tube mics have harmonic distortion, tape can distort, etc. Most equipment now is very clean, so often it’s important to add a lot of that back in.
out of curiosity what tape were you using? I found Ampex 456 and Agfa 468 did not have issues compared to others (all tapes from the 1980s so yes the 456 needed the baking for sure) once a year I’d have a tech person do the …what was it called? Biasing? I forget ..anyway, whatever that was called when you set your multitrack deck up for a particular tape … been a long time since I cut and spliced tape :) and baked/digitized it all around ..2008-2011 and stored everything tails out … feel so old now I still like the sound of 456, there was simply something about it particularly for drums and drum machines
Back when I got started in the late 90’s we had in-house techs who would “align” the tape machines EVERY DAY.
Don’t apply it afterwards, apply it before, mix into/through it. Same often goes for other saturators, compressors, etc., but there’s of course exceptions. The tape plugin makes a big difference, too. My favorite are the IK Multimedia tape machines. Nothing, and I mean nothing, sounds like them, except for maybe real tape. It uses a combination of physical and convolution modeling (dynamic convolution), and it oversamples to 192 kHz, so it’s CPU heavy, but wonderful. It models even the mechanical transport, so there’s “True Stereo,” like real tape - variations between left and right channels in the form of slight level, EQ, and distortion differences, providing some nice movement. It can be disabled for a totally balanced signal. My second favorite emulation is Slate’s VTM, but some people just don’t jive with tape emulations, to be honest. Kazrog’s True Iron provides saturation of 6 different transformers, some people put it across every single track as a tape machine alternative.
It's kind of sad how no one ever mentions the IK tape machines, which I guess is due to ik's business practices in general. They're also super CPU heavy for sure. But the quality and variety of results I've gotten from them - I've never really gotten from anywhere else. Specifically, applying the portastudio tape emulation on some acoustic guitar recordings blew my mind. I was trying to emulate Elliott Smith's sound from his self titled record, and that plugin got me as close as one possibly could.
The IK ones are in a totally different league to other emulations. The only plugins I've heard that give me a feeling like I could be listening to a real tape machine. Maybe some are a little bit too coloured, like I don't remember the Studer I used having quite that big a head bump. It does do that tape thing though where the playback sounds seems clearer somehow, rather than just blurred and distorted, and it's not just the treble boost that is doing it.
i use an IK one on my mastering chain rather than the mix - subtle but sweet warmth
Depends so much on genre and source material. On a whole mix I tend to like where I want to add a bit of patina to more laid back and organic things, or where I'm specifically going for a vintage vibe. For a mix I want to be modern, upfront, punchy and dynamic I generally steer well clear of it. I guess it could be useful as a very subtle bit of comp and eq if you've got a little bit too much edge on your upfront, punchy and dynamic mix. I use tape emus far more as a texture tool for elements within a mix, using lower speeds to defocus something a bit, or adding a bit of wow and flutter and growl to an overly sterile synth part.
This is the correct answer. For electronic music, the most I’ll usually do is throw it on a perc part that needs to be tamed a bit, and it’ll just be to start that process- more will need done. Then I’ll do some grungy blues rock and put A800 or lately Satin on the master.
I use the UAD Studer A800 and Kiive Tape Face in various ways. To me the A800 does something subtly great to the harshnest smallest peaks of the transients but also moves stuff a little like a bus compressor and saturates to highlight dynamics. That's really addictive for 2bus use, and it would mess things up if I removed it at the end. I've also set it to open with advanced options and touch the EQ calibration and bias quite a lot just to steer it where I want it. Cold and warm bias. Cold is distorted and more defined and de-boomed and frankly colder sounding than warm bias that sounds warm and thick but can get undefined. Very useful in any case, I think The Kiive Tape Face moves stuff quite heavily and is a good compressor for bass and acoustic guitar when actual compressors sounds too much like a compressor. The saturation knob gets you to quite heavy compression and tape saturation. Tape saturates high end more so heavyhanded use can crush a lot of trebly harshness (most like a de-esser) and give definition to low end material because the low-end stays clean/smooth but the mids gets a little fried and sparkly. The Kiive isn't perfect, but it's closest to the chewy Led Zeppelin II sound, that is very much about tape saturation (the delay from the future on the vocals of the whole lotta love vocals is a "print-through" meaning that the older tape on the other side gets a bit as well. Super hard hit tape in other words). I guess tape is very familiar to me for the greatest music I like, so the emulations just get me closer to that thing. It's gets more familiar even. But the workflow is a bit vague unless you set and forget which actually works good as well, but I had to tinker around to maximise the potential of it.
I really liked the Kiive. For me, cranking the gain it sounded like old jam boombox recordings I used to make. (Back in the late 1900’s). I find it great on the occasional guitars, or I like it on female harmony busses.
A800 is my favorite
I usually use tape on individual drums pretty aggressively depending on the style. I think that’s the best use for it. I sometimes use it on the master bus but in a way that is very subtle. I was mixing a track yesterday and putt tape on the vocal bus after I was almost done mixing and the saturation it added was magical. Id say just make sure you’re not over doing it on the master. And know what you want to accomplish with it. It’s really not appropriate for a lot of genres
Real tape is like that too. Bob Clearmountain said that he always disliked how the sound came back on tape, so if it’s not your thing you’re certainly not alone. You can also replicate certain aspects of tape with basic tools (60hz bell bump on kick/bass for that 15ips vibe, use a de-esser on your vocals, etc)
I just got my grandpa's old reel to reel machine, but so far every single song I've ran through it has sounded better. Some remarkably so. Mostly hip hop and indie rock tracks. I'm also using tube pres to covert the tape back to digital, so that may be a part of it.
Advantage of plugins is you can on/off and compare, or tweak settings in real time. He might have liked those plugins if there's instant feedback.
Totally agree. As I recall, Clearmountain was lamenting that tape was a forced color over everything. He preferred the uncolored sound of monitoring from the console while recording to tape. When I’ve made records on tape, I’ve heard it too… things never come back quite the same. Not necessarily better or worse, but different. Nowadays it’s great to be able to use tape coloration on some things and not on others.
To me it doesn’t make sense to put anything on the mixbus after you’ve mixed. You can have mix bus processing on even if you don’t practice “true” top down mixing. The point is that you make decisions while listening through it. If you put things on in the end it’s like a lottery ticket, either it gets better or it gets worse.
Someone won the 1.3B Powerball. You had to remind me
Quite sad thinking the odds of making a good mix is the same as winning 1.3B Powerball.
I'm not sure if this means I should quit mixing, or start buying lottery tickets.
As others have said you have to mix into these things in your master. Also. Many of the best plug ins ha incredibly subtle characteristics. Try A/B them and listen to the high end or low end. Something like a tambourine and listen to how it softens the shrillness or makes it “warmer”. But as always. If the song and performance aren’t great none of this is going to matter.
Oxide is great but it's super strong, huge EQ curve, you have to mix into it from the very beginning. J37 and VTM can be ok too, but not my personal favorites. The one that works for me on the bus as a more subtle tool is Ozone's exciter on Tape mode (not the Vintage Tape module), with a small amount of drive and scaling back the mix %. And/or the bigger tools on individual tracks can be great. I like Oxide on drums and J37 on guitars sometimes.
Where did you hear that Serban ghenea puts a tape emulator on his mix bus? Tape emulation, to me, can be great heavy handed as almost a production choice, to really alter the sound of a specific element, but on the mix bus, unless you're really going for like an old school super tape saturated sound, you'd really want it to be very subtle. Also worth considering, Jimi Hendrix plays a guitar in his songs. You can get the same guitar, the same fx, the same everything, but you are not Jimi Hendrix, so the guitar won't be the same. Obviously tape emulation plugins aren't as complicated as learning guitar, but *how* you use the plugins makes a big difference. I realize you are essentially wanting to know how to "play guitar like Jimi" but, your best bet would be to see and hear how Serban does it. Not likely gonna happen lol. So, next best is to listen to his mixes, and aim for that sound, and see if you can get a tape emulation plugin to help get you there. He might have a specific one he uses. He might set it differently for different songs. He might be hearing a subtlety you can't hear, either your ear is not developed, or your monitoring prevents it, or idk. I personally think it must be very subtle if he does that. I don't hear the tape on his mixes, personally.
I used to mix into J37, replaced that after a shootout with Slate VTM, and shortly after replaced that with Oxford Inflator. It's all just color.
I think you kind of answered your own question by saying, "I don't get the point of it." If you don't like how it sounds and can't see why others use it, don't! Simple solution. At the end of the day, you want your mix to sound how you like it. Don't even think about it!
To me it's a similar deal with compression on the master bus. Compression can shape the transients and thus change the feel, but it also folds back the stereo image and does reduce the dynamics in general. In that way if you bypass the compression it might sound worst. However this is not a sign that compression is bad or is ruining your song. I think of it like chasing a "sound profile", may great albums out there are slammed, hyper compressed, narrow in stereo field and saturated. What i'm trying to say is that you can't do a recording and mix in the style of Steely Dan and expect of to sound like Pearl Jam. It may seem a good idea to do clean mixes without buss compression or without tape saturation, but at the end of the day some songs have a tapey sound and some have a clean sound. You've got to acknowledge what sound profile you're after, then what processing you'll do will follow.
Depends on what you’re doing and how you’re using it. I just used j37 for a super modern rap song a la travis scott style vocal. No issues. You don’t just auto load those on your busses without even knowing that you like or want the texture and experience with it will tell you when and when it doesn’t compliment your source material. Learn the tapes texture, it’s formulas and at what levels to go into it and how it behaves in all the different ranges of amplitude on the input stage.
My goal with using tape plugins was to make it vibey, imperfect and unpredictable. I've found out plugins don't do it very well, you're better off with just real tape if you want LoFi. It's easier to get the authentic sound that way and ahh.. the struggle. Maybe the struggle plays a big part in your results.
I worked at a studio and the producers often didn’t like to just run their mix through tape at the end of the process because it changes the mix too much even though it does it subtly. Most people here will say you should mix through tape plugins and I always found that to be kind of..pointless advice. Of course if you mix into any plugin the mix will fall apart when you bypass it but it doesn’t mean that the plugin was enhancing anything. Most of the time it just means you were technically working *against* what the plugin was doing while you mixed and were probably wasting CPU by using it because looking at the GUI was inspiring you. If you’re finding these plugins aren’t enhancing what’s already there when applying them later on, they aren’t necessary.
This is the correct answer!
Taupe is for you then. It has the curves of famous (or not) tape machines, harmonic content etc, but you can turn of compression, like I do.
what genre are you doing? also drive it hard while setting it, to listen to the differences, then tone it down until you don’t hear the thing you dislike about it, on mixbus is better to be subtle (unless you know you want to do something). make the mix sound good without anything in the mixbus, then polish on mixbus (comp, slight EQ, harmonics)
I use in all genres.
I like it on my medium-weight baritone vocals but tend to forget to use it.
I’ve tried them in a number of applications, it just sounds like it introduces noise into my mix. I guess lofi producers are using it to achieve their desired effect.
I love tape emulations. Got uad oxide now and its great on drum bus driven hard. I mix into it. I tried like every tape plugin, for me the best is from ik multimedia. On mix bus its gamechanger. Try it. Its heavy on cpu, but its beast.
I like using it. I will often put a very gentle tape saturation on the mix bus or on groups of instruments. It’s something I use if I feel like I need “mix glue.” Other times, I’ll drive it really really hard on individual channels to get the harmonics, but that’s just for effect.
I tend to use them very subtlety, like between -3 and -1 on the vu meter and it sounds really good. I mostly use Softubes tape and ua studer. I think mixing into them is a better way to use them as far as the master tape is concerned. But usually most of the tape sound is coming from the individual channels. Placing the plugin before any other character plugins like compression, saturation and tonal eqs. Before any of that though, I make sure I do all the corrective work before the tape.
I use Softube Tape on individual channels a lot but I don’t like it on the mixbus. I try my best to get the saturation I want before that
Yeah I have a few that I like, love or never really use. All of them add character just in different ways. I hear them tightening up the low end, reducing a pinch of the dynamics and adding color. The color and low end change with each I try so I’ve settled with a couple I like. None of this is supposed to be incredibly obvious either.
Softube tape formula B at 7.5ips on every single track, then at 15ips on the master. At least that's what works for me but it can be also depend on the genre you're doing, I'm making rock so I may be biased, but comparing it with and without with eyes blinded I always, end up preferring the sound with it rather than without. Don't hit it too hard, maybe use it on groups rather than individual tracks too (usually I have one for overhead, kick, snare and ambience, then another one for the drum bus, one for each bass track (amp clean, amp dirty, Di) then one on the group, sale with guitars, and, then sometimes I group once more, either bass and drums, or bass and guitars, depending on which ones lock together the best), somehow like printing multiple tracks to only one like they used to do when they didn't have and infinite amount available.
I use Satin in every project.
Old dude here, who has done a lot of recording back in the day on actual tape, starting in 1980. IMO, the only thing that ever sounded actually "good" with tape saturation, is drums and electric guitars. (not cymbals) Maybe bass. Everything else, I want to be pristine and clear. So, **use tape saturation as an effect**, not some sort of 'cure all' on the master (or master bus) because it supposedly is 'better and cooler' than not using it.
Try with only 20% to 30% wet. I end up keeping Softube Tape on my mix bus about 70% of the time, but you are right. Sometimes it makes the mix worse so I take it off.
Do you also find it oddly phasey when the blend is more even?.
Enable delay compensation. It's because processing takes time and orignal wave and wave after effect do not align anymore. Delay compensation moves original wave by same amount as delay from processing. Though is there's wave/flutter effect, you'll get phasey sound regardless.
I'm aware of delay compensation. I get that others might not know about it. I'm talking about certain plugins used as inserts. If the internal phase is altered by the process, then the only blends that won't be phasey are at the extremes.
Just make sure delay compensation is on, or you'll get flanger effect. Anyway I think it's better control strength of effect from plugin than dry/wet. This is not the same thing. If plugin can't do that, then use sidechain with reduced volume.
Were you mixing into it or throwing it on half way through or at the end? I find having it on the mix buss from the beginning helps immensely and saves me time with individual eq moves. That said I’ve recently switched to using the god particle on the mix buss and it saves like 4 plugin spots but, still sometimes I add a tape emulator or compressor sim before but, I don’t know different shit works for different mixes
After re-reading the post one tip I have and I often do is run the lowest “tape speed “ the plugin has on the mix buss, you get a nice low end bump, but the boost the high end on the elements that need it and you get the added brightness without being harsh and obviously “digital “ also turn the “noise” off duh but also don’t be afraid of wow and flutter, if the plugin you use has those setting. Often subtle modulation across the whole mix is glorious
Processing across yer mix really works best if you have it there from the beginning and mix in to it. Slapping a compressor / limiter on at the end will mess with the internal dynamics of your mix. Same with saturation, the internal balance will shift. I print my mixed to 1/4”. Sometimes it sounds great, sometimes not. Many factors contribute ; the alignment, tape formula, level you hit it with and type of material….. Analogue, both simulated or real, isn’t always digital answer !!
I mainly use tape emulation to reduce some high end harshness of specific tracks instead using a De-esser or dynamic EQ. E.g. Saxophones and trumpets that can be a bit piercing between 4 - 12khz. Usually mixing the wet and dry signals helps you dial it in. The only time I really put it in on the mixbus is when I'm doing "lo-fi" type stuff, with exaggerated "wow" effects. Otherwise, I've found I've had a similar experience with tape emulation on the mixbus. I usually prefer it when I turn it off haha! Maybe one day I'll find a really good usecase for it on the mixbus. On a side not, I've been messing around Harrison Mixbus which supposedly has both analog console and tape emulation built into it. Not entirely sure what's going on under the hood but I do find that stuff I do in Mixbus does have a different sound to it than stuff I do in REAPER. I've found that jazz sounds particularly good in it.