Tape plugins claim to be reproductions of real tape characteristics.
I am quite surprised to see some very strange signal treatment by some plugins...

Measured plugins:
Softube Tape
Waves Kramer Tape
FuseAudio Flywheel
Fabfilter Saturn 2
BeatSkillz ReeLight
Denise GodMode
ToneBoosters Reelbus 4
U-He Satin
AudioThing Reels
Izotope Vintage Tape

Signal generator and oscilloscope with the square-waveform:

C3 is about 10Hz above 120...I wonder is they are just not trying to emulate unconditioned power...I know my Roberts 770 has the distinct 60Hz hum but it is also tube based...but this is very revealing...

I've never been a fan of tape noise plugins...

I might try plugin doctor on my waves and Antelope tape...the issue I have is any Antelope AFX2DAW I load in plugin Dr. immediately has abuttload of noise on it...

I chose C3 because it gives a good overall impression and an inidication of the DC-filtering effect.
I have some really weird results later.

It seems to me you’re hitting the plugins with very different levels. At least that’s what i get from looking at some of the VU meters. The WAves is over 0VU, but with Flywheel you turned the input down so that it only reaches -20VU (and have it on 30ips compared to 15 with most of the others).

So what is this supposed to tell us?

What explanations do you have for this "discrepancy"?

You and your inability to understand gainstaging it seems

And i don't think you even know what you are facepalming with the Kramer Tape example so, err..... Plenty of tape machines would give you a similar impulse response especially ones that introduce a lot of headbump and have transformers in the amplifier circuit as the passive part of a transformer is just a potentially steep and broad bandpass filter. When you dick with frequencies as much as tape does, then you get a lot of group delay/nonlinear phase responses etc. Probably wasn't a good idea to use a squarewave to perform your test as i guess you are looking for evidence of amplitude modulation perhaps from tape"compression", but tape compression is merely a product of a property inherent to magnetic components called hysteresis http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...udio/bias.html (scroll down a bit for explanation)it doesn't have a voltage controlled gain circuit like a VCA, Opto, FET etc

What are these measurements supposed to be showing exactly

And so it begins...

What picture sounds the best?

Is that the only explanation that comes to your mind?

Can show me measurements supporting your claim?

You are the second Einstein, who claims wrong gainstaging, and claims to know all answers, but then are asking, what the measurement of a squarewave of a tape is supposed to show?

For one it is just a picture while for others it's a measurement...

you need to do AA Taupe and Slates version too.

M

The right way to evaluate a tape machine emulation is the cumulative effect A/B bypassed across multiple channels.

U-he Satin has the right tape sim physics. CHOW Tape and Fuse Flywheel are the other two options. CDSoundmaster R2R + VTM plugin from 2011 might be the best Nebula option for heavy saturation.

Has anyone used the Anamod ATS-1? Its a hardware emulation of the magnetic tape process.
https://www.anamodaudio.com/products/anamod-ats-1/

I am interested in this thread. I make use of lots of tape emulations effects. But I don't understand how to read your analysis. Can you explain what you are seeing in these screenshots?

So you are feeding a tone into the tape plugin. What do you expect to see if a well made tape emulation plugin? And why is the Waves Kramer getting a face palm. I am trying to understand.

Can you do IKM Tapes?

Since I do not want to tell you something wrong, I leave it up to the hostile commentators who already know, why my measurements are wrong, to answer your question.

As you mabye have read, someone claimed the Waves Tape was looking perfectly normal.
Do you see any difference to the other measurements?

Instead of asking me, maybe we both should ask him about the measurements of tapes showing a Waves Kramer Tape behaviour?

I am still waiting for them to answer my questions anyway.
So lets be patient and wait for the super forum monday morning quarterback experts to answer our questions first.

Have done IK already.

I only saw the aliasing discussion. Is there another tapes plugins thread where IKM tapes results are on?

Anyways, these sorts of obfuscationist threads are not useful. If you are posting results of a test, in this case, it would be helpful to define what is the expected results that one would expect to see of a tape emulation plugin and, of the plugins that have been tested thus far, which plugin seems to do the expected and why.

In the case of tape emulation plugins (I use Softube and IKM).. I don't feed them tones. I feed them a mix or drum bus mix, and I can hear what they are doing. Some are used for subtle effect and others are used for stronger lo-fi coloration. I obviously have no idea what those tape machines would do in real word as I have never owned or seen them. But the expectation of me as a non technical consumer is , they will add what sounds like tape warmth for a reasonable price. From what I hear in my mixes, I feel they do what they claim they do.

I also use DAW Cassette and in that one, i do know what a cassette tape machine sounded like and behaved like. I still have a dual tape deck sitting in basement. It sounds and behaves nothing like a real cassette tape machine, but when I am working on a DAW, it is much easier to load it up as a plugin and get the job done, then spent a hour or two hooking the old thing up and trying to figure out how to get that DAW mix processed through that external tape deck and back into the DAW. You should do one on DAW Cassette. I find these threads interesting, even though I don't really know how to gauge what they really mean in the real world.

First he claims to be interested in measurements and wants to know their interpretation.
Then he claims not to know, that the hostile trolls have open questions to answer.
And then he admits that measurements are not of interest.


I should do?
Who do you think you are? The centre of the universe?

Hey Fred, thanks for doing this and taking the time to post them, I know which tape plugin I am going to go for now.

I don't understand where you are coming with the the "hostile" comments. The idea that anyone that questions how to interpret the your results is hostile makes no sense.

You came on here and posted a bunch of screen shots. One person is asking you to explain what do the screen shots mean and how are they supposed to look like? If there is something in those screen shots that we should be looking at to acertain that the products we bought are flawed .. but you are not saying what the screenshots mean. Are those curves supposed to be more rounded or more curvy? I don't get it.

Do the screen shot mean the plugins are not the real thing? Yes. I am fully aware of that fact that I bought a $20 plugin and not a $20,000 tape machine. For obvious reasons. a) I don't know where to find to buy a MCI JH24. b) I can't afford a MCI JH24 and c) I have no place to stick a MCI JH24 if I could get past A and B.

Do these results mean we should not be driving the input on tape plugins if we want more realistic emulation? Only drive the output knob?

Because I am not sure yet if you are a troll, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Read the comments about gain staging.
My reaction: a question. An important one, btw.
And pay careful attention to the reaction...

ok. i get it now. so they are supposed to be square as possible and resemble what the first one shows. fair enough. i will sit back and watch for more posts.