PTF Reverbs Releases STUDER A80 ANALOG TAPE RECORDER IR'S
by PastToFuture   27th April 2020

Definitely getting these!

Bought. Damn, this is FAT. Too fat to just add onto an existing element (on 2bus absolutely impossible unless you mix into it and reduce low end inside your convo plugin). Using it inside Live's Max4Live Convolution Pro and reducing low end by 5 or so dB to get a reasonable low end

But absolutely loving the tone! Thanks for this PTF!

Thanks enjoy!

Is it me or is gumroad pushing for Paypal Onetouch activation ? I just desactivated this, but it's still asking. Did gumroad chanded something ? It's the second time in a row i'm facing this with them, no problem with others. Hmmm... I'm sure it's a perfect set of irs but i'm not so sure i want to go in my paypal account to deactivate Onetouch every time i purchase one of your products, so on hold for now !

Actually not.. wierd.

I don't think a website can push for onetouch activation, that's just a PayPal thing. A website can interact with PayPal in a number of ways (I've written software to take payment from PayPal so have experience of this) - the simple way (redirect the user to PayPal, take the payment and redirect back to the website) and the complex way (create an order in PayPal, redirect the user, take the payment, redirect back then complete the order) and it may be that the onetouch thing is only prompted for one of these types.

Dunno, but I'm pretty sure a website can't request it.

Well... don't know. I went forward and bought it, i'll see next time ! Cheers And congrats for the sampleset !

Last night I picked up the Studer and the RCA mic libraries and I agree 110%!
Are they too fat? Yes definitely!
Are they usable? Yes with some tweaking and thoughtful eq!
Are they worth it? OOOOOOOOOHHHH yes!

Hey Past To Future:

A) Great Job!! They value is nuts and I need you to do more gear impulses
B) Do you have any "best practices" type tips for getting the best result with these?
C) Do you have a particular convolution plug you recommend?

Again great work!

I called the Paypal - they confirmed, that this is because of the Gumroad.
I asked Paypal, if there is any way to prevent this behaviour, I think that the user should be able to do that in settings. But no, Paypal will not prevent the seller to ”leave the door open”. The user has just to go to the Paypal account after the transaction and delete the seller privilidge manually.

This is totally uncomprehensive for me, from the Paypals side, towards their customers.

Thank you! Enjoy!

Wow, I am quite surprised by that! Thanks for calling them and finding out.

Thanks a lot! More gear impulses are on the way.

The best way is to mix into these IR's. We would recommend to use cab Ir loader like pulse which is for free if you are having lots of tracks to save CPU.

Put these on every track and on the master bus and mix from there.

For reverb IR's you will need a convolution reverb
Like space designer, altiverb...

Or are you looking for a free convolution reverb plug in?

All the best
PTF

Thanks that was exactly the info I was looking for. I had been using a convolution reverb (MConvolution MB) to load these but IR’s. Glad to know that there are different tools for gear impulses. I’ll try pulse out now.
Thanks

So a convolution reverb loader as SIR3 wouldn't work?

It will work.

All this can do is a simple eq curve, though. The magic of tape is its curve, its saturation/distortion, and its compression. IRs can't capture or reproduce that. I own a couple PTF drum products, but the last couple releases (ribbon mic and this) are beyond what can actually be reproduced by IRs, so justice isn't really done and a little bit of an odd direction. They do have a lot of cool offerings, though.

I’ll start off by saying I’m no expert and I honestly enjoy learning the correct info on whatever subject is being discussed... but I feel like calling an impulse response a simple eq curve is a little reductive isn’t it. As far as the mild compression and saturation/distortion that make tape...tape... isn’t that exactly why people capture IR’s of different cabinets (and in this case a tape machine?). Aren’t impulse responses essentially a “photocopy” of the environment or gear that there trying to mimic? I was under the impression that their only drawback was that they were static?
Again I could be totally wrong. This is just the way it was always explained to me. Just wondering... as I really do want to learn

Thought I’d give this a shot and I’ve never had the pleasure of using the machine my self so maybe someone with more experience can help me. Was that tape deck really that heavily tilted to the lows?

No.

In fact, there is a shootout with this exact tape machine vs the pure digital recording here on Gearslutz.

The differences between those two files and a digital recording vs this impulse (used at 100 % on a source) is night and day.

The actual tape machine being way, way, way more subtle.

But there are, as far as I see it, two terrific uses for this impulse:

1. Use it on 100 % and compensate a lot on the highs with a great EQ like CraveEQ going into it. This will make the sound have a separate character from any other sound in your mix and can help increase the overall '3D' depth of your overall soundscape. The secret is knowing when and where to apply it of course.

2. Blend in this tape impulse, between 15 and 20 % on a source. This makes the track tonally very similar to the actual tape machine. Without the compression element of tape, yes, but it's a cool way to get the actual tonal color.

If you are skeptical of this blend in method, go ahead and import the files from the shootout for yourself.
You can match the tonality and even the 'feel' surprisingly accurately this way (minus the hiss of the tape machine) in a way that fiddling around with simply an eq wont achieve.

It's a quick and easy way to get the color of the tape machine.

It was not meant to replace the real tape or the the real vintage mic. The reactions to these IR's Are great and these IR's sound really good.

With that being said, we are still keeping our Tape Recorders and vintage mics.

Thanks

Yes you are correct, it is non-dynamic. Acustica Audio plugins address this issue and they have their own technology that allows them to use impulses for compression etc. These IR's are purely just to add a bit of saturation/colour /whatever. You can even throw the WAV file into a sampler like Kontakt and if you roll off the really low end you can get some nice crunchy lo-fi noise you can trigger and tuck in behind other sounds. Putting IR into samplers is my new thing now whenver i get a new IR.

Yes but it's easy to put any soft clipper in front of it with some emphasis/de-emphasis EQ and you'd already have what a lot of tape plugins already do. I think the IRs are a cool idea definitely!

Exactly! Thanks.

You put the IR into a sampler??? Can you elaborate? That sounds really cool! I'd love to try that.

I don't want to derail this, so I'll be really brief. No, impulses do not capture distortion or saturation. They can capture a space (reverberation) and an EQ curve, essentially. It's a static snapshot. Cab IRs do not capture things like breakup/distortion or dynamic response. It's not possible. It's correct that this is simply an EQ curve. There's no time dependent aspect of tape, so it's solely EQ. I'm not at all opposed to this. In fact, using QClone I've captured a few tape machine curves myself for specific uses. This is the same as that.

IRs can't add saturation. They can't capture anything non-linear, dynamic, or modulating. People have quite a misunderstanding of impulses.

PTF does captures of reverbs and similar units. This is completely legit, with exception of non-linear algorithms, and these can truly sound just like the originals. Their guitar captures are quite clever and a much more realistic, usable, pleasing output from a piezo that even includes real captured space. PTF does great things. Just be aware of the limitations of what can and can't be done with impulses. Now, back to topic.

I'm still confused... Everything you're saying seems right... but it still sounds mad reductive. From the research I'm reading; I'm getting the idea that an eq curve is to an impulse response as a stickman drawing is to a Picasso (I know nothing of art either haha). Yes they're essentially the same thing at their core... filters. However, the respective levels of detail communicated by those two filters is vastly different; with the I.R. holding way more detail. I get that IR's don't saturate or distort and that they are static. They're "pictures" of whatever environment (or gear) that a sound might have passed through at the moment in time that is captured (or photographed). I'm wondering though... wouldn't that mean that I can still pick up on the distortion that was captured in the "picture"? The distortion/saturation that was present at the time picture? Another analogy could be I could draw you a picture of what my backyard looked like on Tuesday; all while doing my best to get the colours dimensions and lighting just right; or I could take a picture. The drawing would give an idea of what I saw. The picture on the other hand; shows the EXACT dimensions, colours and lighting as they were at the time the photo was taken.

I think haha... still learning over here.

does anyone have any of their reverbs the you would recomend?
Id like to try some out but i dont want to spend the money demoing these.

No. If we're talking about something like the clever Martin IRs PTF makes it wouldn't be at all accurate to call it an EQ curve. Tape, on the other hand, has nothing time-based occurring. It really is just a curve in this case.

IR can't capture distortion. It can capture the frequency response that distortion creates (in other words, an EQ curve), but that's it. Without time involvement, an IR is simply a frequency response imprint. There really is nothing else to it in this case.

Anything further, please PM me, as the thread has already diverged enough. My intention was only to make that limitation clear.

As to your analogy, without the time aspect it's like watching a still image of a waterfall on a Blu-Ray repeated at 30fps.