That famous Beatles tape saturation

[Marco Raaphorst]

Waves-J37.jpg (104.91 KiB) Viewed 3309 times

The Waves J37 plugin is an interesting one. A modelled tape machine which was used by The Beatles. I tried to simulate its tape saturation in Reason. This can be done, check:
http://melodiefabriek.com/blog/beatles-tape-saturation/

[EthicistBeats]

cool,ill try this out

[Ostermilk]

I'm not sure if it was Tape Saturation that The Beatles were actually famous for, or whether using Reason to emulate a charcteristic of a plug-in that is trying to emulatie a particular studio tape machine will make me as famous as The Beatles.

I guess it's worth a try just to see what happens though.

[slightlyprog]

I have tried to find everything useful online on the subject of emulating the analogue recording process and a good article I ran across recently is this one from Sound On Sound (I think from 2010 so any plugins mentioned may be out of date, but the interesting part is about what each component does to the sound: http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/analogue-warmth

[EthicistBeats]

how do you route audio into thor's shaper? Is it possible?

[Blast]

how do you route audio into thor's shaper? Is it possible?

You have to route the audio to filter 1 and filter 2 via a midi trigger (using the sequencer to do this) in order to hit the shaper.

[selig]

I have tried to find everything useful online on the subject of emulating the analogue recording process and a good article I ran across recently is this one from Sound On Sound (I think from 2010 so any plugins mentioned may be out of date, but the interesting part is about what each component does to the sound: http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/analogue-warmth

This is one of my favorite articles on saturation/color - got it bookmarked and have poured over it many times. Interestingly, I'm not all that into tape saturation, having lived with it and "fought" it for so many years. I'm more attracted to saturation based on circuited, particularly tube (LA-2a, Putnam/Urie 610 preamps) and the often overlooked transformer saturation (always loved the way Neve 1272 and API preamps overloaded).


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[Loque]

how do you route audio into thor's shaper? Is it possible?

You have to route the audio to filter 1 and filter 2 via a midi trigger (using the sequencer to do this) in order to hit the shaper.

Note, that the Signal to filter 1 is mono. You need 2 Thor for stereo shaping.

[Marco Raaphorst]

how do you route audio into thor's shaper? Is it possible?

You need to trigger a note so the filter opens. Check this (and deleted the osc and filter and put the Shaper on):
http://melodiefabriek.com/blog/reason-noise-generator/

[Marco Raaphorst]

I have tried to find everything useful online on the subject of emulating the analogue recording process and a good article I ran across recently is this one from Sound On Sound (I think from 2010 so any plugins mentioned may be out of date, but the interesting part is about what each component does to the sound: http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/analogue-warmth

thanks. will read that. I myself are not really interested in getting it to sound 100% the same. what I love is to take some parts of the analog world and bring it into digital. same for guitar amps. impulse responses might not be like a real speaker cabinet but in a way that can be even better.

[Kategra]

I think that The Beatles had a pretty bad sound and I can barley tolerate listening for enjoyment, but their melodies are great.

[slightlyprog]

Yeah I find it all very interesting. One thing in there that got my attention is the bit about tape altering the high frequency transients. I have sometimes been stumped by the high end on certain analogue recordings that seem quite 'crisp', definitely bright enough and yet are not harsh and I suspect the aspect of transient highs could be the answer in those cases. And that's not something that can be just EQed, I'm not sure how else to achieve that effect and still retain the same average level of high frequencies.

Just for grins I am going to try reviving an old Akai 1/4 inch machine I have - just record a single track, like a vocal or snare drum and then fly it back into Reason.

This is one of my favorite articles on saturation/color - got it bookmarked and have poured over it many times. Interestingly, I'm not all that into tape saturation, having lived with it and "fought" it for so many years. I'm more attracted to saturation based on circuited, particularly tube (LA-2a, Putnam/Urie 610 preamps) and the often overlooked transformer saturation (always loved the way Neve 1272 and API preamps overloaded).


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[selig]

Yeah I find it all very interesting. One thing in there that got my attention is the bit about tape altering the high frequency transients. I have sometimes been stumped by the high end on certain analogue recordings that seem quite 'crisp', definitely bright enough and yet are not harsh and I suspect the aspect of transient highs could be the answer in those cases. And that's not something that can be just EQed, I'm not sure how else to achieve that effect and still retain the same average level of high frequencies.

Just for grins I am going to try reviving an old Akai 1/4 inch machine I have - just record a single track, like a vocal or snare drum and then fly it back into Reason.

This is one of my favorite articles on saturation/color - got it bookmarked and have poured over it many times. Interestingly, I'm not all that into tape saturation, having lived with it and "fought" it for so many years. I'm more attracted to saturation based on circuited, particularly tube (LA-2a, Putnam/Urie 610 preamps) and the often overlooked transformer saturation (always loved the way Neve 1272 and API preamps overloaded).


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Well, the thing to remember is that the tape machine is only ONE part of the recording/mixing/mastering chain. You can record with lower levels and avoid the obvious "soft" high end saturation, and instead get the effect from a microphone(s), mic preamp, compressor, EQ, or mixer gain stage just as easily. Then, IF it IS tape giving your "that sound", was it the multi-track machine, the fact you bounced to another track at some point, or the mix down machine that gave you that sound?

More often, it's almost NEVER one thing creating the sound you hear in the end, it's the careful combination of multiple elements each contributing their own flavor. The belief that ONE aspect of the process gives you "that sound" has led many down dead end rabbit holes in the past. Same with mastering, with many believing that a track's loudness comes solely from the mastering stage. The only way you'd know that for sure is to hear the "before/after", which also applies to many things from believing that a microphone will give you "that sound", to a tape formula giving you "that sound".

And finally, for the most part, tape was not often used as an "effect". Every effort was made to record as clean as possible 99% of the time. Exceptions would be obviously compressed overdubs, or "accidentally" processed (read: overloaded) tracks such as with Janet Jackson's Control.

"Part of the aggressiveness attained on Control was due to Jam and Lewis’s relative newness to being in charge behind the boards. An engineer quit on the duo for undisclosed reasons and left them at the helm during the initial studio sessions. “We recorded Control ourselves because we had an engineer who walked out on us. So a lot of things were recorded too loud and were sort of distorted,” Jam told BBC in 2005. “But it made for an interesting sound because some of the things [were] fixed and some [were] left distorted. The record has this kind of loud, frantic sound.”"

[Marco Raaphorst]

Yeah I find it all very interesting. One thing in there that got my attention is the bit about tape altering the high frequency transients. I have sometimes been stumped by the high end on certain analogue recordings that seem quite 'crisp', definitely bright enough and yet are not harsh and I suspect the aspect of transient highs could be the answer in those cases. And that's not something that can be just EQed, I'm not sure how else to achieve that effect and still retain the same average level of high frequencies.

Just for grins I am going to try reviving an old Akai 1/4 inch machine I have - just record a single track, like a vocal or snare drum and then fly it back into Reason.

This is one of my favorite articles on saturation/color - got it bookmarked and have poured over it many times. Interestingly, I'm not all that into tape saturation, having lived with it and "fought" it for so many years. I'm more attracted to saturation based on circuited, particularly tube (LA-2a, Putnam/Urie 610 preamps) and the often overlooked transformer saturation (always loved the way Neve 1272 and API preamps overloaded).


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I believe saturation is key in this. On guitar it works the same way. A totally clean guitar often lacks that special juice overtones can give it. A sine wave tone, no overtones, is a very boring tone. Overdrive it and the fun begins

[selig]

Yeah I find it all very interesting. One thing in there that got my attention is the bit about tape altering the high frequency transients. I have sometimes been stumped by the high end on certain analogue recordings that seem quite 'crisp', definitely bright enough and yet are not harsh and I suspect the aspect of transient highs could be the answer in those cases. And that's not something that can be just EQed, I'm not sure how else to achieve that effect and still retain the same average level of high frequencies.

Just for grins I am going to try reviving an old Akai 1/4 inch machine I have - just record a single track, like a vocal or snare drum and then fly it back into Reason.

This is one of my favorite articles on saturation/color - got it bookmarked and have poured over it many times. Interestingly, I'm not all that into tape saturation, having lived with it and "fought" it for so many years. I'm more attracted to saturation based on circuited, particularly tube (LA-2a, Putnam/Urie 610 preamps) and the often overlooked transformer saturation (always loved the way Neve 1272 and API preamps overloaded).


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I believe saturation is key in this. On guitar it works the same way. A totally clean guitar often lacks that special juice overtones can give it. A sine wave tone, no overtones, is a very boring tone. Overdrive it and the fun begins

Agreed.
Additionally, it's the dynamics of the input that add even more character. A static sine gives you one sound, but an exponentially decaying guitar or drum into saturation reveals a whole 'nuther level of complex audio gooey goodness!

[Data_Shrine]

I'm using a Yamaha MT4X for tape sound, with Chrome cassettes (type2) it sounds really great to my ears. Overdriving the volume on the mixer of the 4 track itself also works nicely with the DX7 - I can get some very smooth crackles going to extremes.

[theshoemaker]

I also like the PMS-20 a lot for some analog warmth... Anyone with me here?

[Data_Shrine]

I like the PMS-20 too. But its very cpu hungry, so I tend to use its "legacy" mode which uses less cpu, and is a bit less smooth. Ladder filter is smoother, but more than 1 instance eats up my whole computer. They really should optimize the code, at least to some degree.

[Marco Raaphorst]

Primal Audio PM-20 is great but only Primal Audio device not doing oversampling

[SA Studio]

I have tried to find everything useful online on the subject of emulating the analogue recording process and a good article I ran across recently is this one from Sound On Sound (I think from 2010 so any plugins mentioned may be out of date, but the interesting part is about what each component does to the sound: http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/analogue-warmth

This is one of my favorite articles on saturation/color - got it bookmarked and have poured over it many times. Interestingly, I'm not all that into tape saturation, having lived with it and "fought" it for so many years. I'm more attracted to saturation based on circuited, particularly tube (LA-2a, Putnam/Urie 610 preamps) and the often overlooked transformer saturation (always loved the way Neve 1272 and API preamps overloaded).


Sent from my crappy device using Tapatalk

It's because it's something that's a fools chase ITB and most engi's worth their salt get over the chase pretty quickly and learn to call a digital sturation device a distortion unit...because it is.

Interestingly....I'm not into tape saturation either. For the same reason I don't paddle a canoe with a tennis racket. I've also explained before why you even said what you said there: "I'm more attracted to saturation based on circuited, particularly tube (LA-2a, Putnam/Urie 610 preamps) and the often overlooked transformer saturation (always loved the way Neve 1272 and API preamps overloaded)"

....and you boys kept trying to say up and down how "digitally emulated harmonics are just as good"....

Lol. No they're not. Glad to see you properly biggin' up analog, Selig.

Because yes = There's a massive difference between a digital saturation plug-in and LA-2a, Putnam/Urie 610 preamps. Thanks for bringing that up.

[SA Studio]

I think that The Beatles had a pretty bad sound and I can barley tolerate listening for enjoyment, but their melodies are great.

In many ways, yes. They almost set the bar for as many "Don't's" as they did for "Do's".

I'm looking at your hard-panned drums, Ringo.......*shakes fist

Good ol' Abbey Road. 'Tis been considered the zenith of recording by a whole generation of "could-be's". They became "could-be's" by limiting their outlook. And that selling power still happens today. Anything that says Abbey Road on it still gets bought up.

This industry is rife with buyers. And anything "Abbey Road" is an easy sell.

[normen]

....and you boys kept trying to say up and down how "digitally emulated harmonics are just as good"....

If I remember the old discussions (under your old forum name) correctly the discussion was about digital recordings per se and how they "can't be as good as analog" (to quote you in the same subjective way you quoted Giles). We argued that if you can record and play it back digitally then you can in theory create that same sequence of zeros and ones in the box.

Lol. No they're not. Glad to see you properly biggin' up analog, Selig.

Because yes = There's a massive difference between a digital saturation plug-in and LA-2a, Putnam/Urie 610 preamps. Thanks for bringing that up.

And here the argument was that there may be a difference (as of now) but a difference doesn't mean "better" or "worse". Its "better" if you want to sound like ages-old recordings But with all the new options you can create your own saturation sound so that in 20 years people will try to run virtual PC software to run Reason 9 to get "THAT" sound

Edit: Actually thats already happening in DubStep etc. The Bob Marley sound is nothing to write home about anymore

[Marco Raaphorst]

Yes it's all relative.

And let's do a listening test if we are too biased

[4filegate]

Records by HiFi-tape machines at home - Today this is no more subject? Ambitious music listeners want "closer to recording" and get themselves copies of master tapes. This is not cheap, but one guarantees the highest quality and 100% of analogous George Duke and Yello music material.

I've access on REVOX A77 and B77 revised in 2016, containing Frank Zappa's white label collections.

[slightlyprog]

My latest external saturator effect It's definitely the beez kneez for going completely retro. Saturation, noise floor (although a lot quieter than I expected), some kind of mid frequency bump, pretty drastic treatment of highs, all that kinda stuff in abundance, no problem, the proverbial one-stop-shop for tape effects. It has done some very nice things with a drum track on one song but I think I hit it a bit too hard and the compression effect ended up giving me too much crash cymbal, but the tone is very nice.