ii. virtual tape machines
Contents
1. SLATE DIGITAL VIRTUAL TAPE MACHINES User s Guide Version 1 0 dat DAL q r Advanced Algorithms by FABRICE GABRIEL Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines Version 1 0 Advanced Algorithms by Fabrice Gabriel Fabrice Gabriel Algorithm Design amp Tuning Steven Slate Plugin Design amp Tuning Vincent Travaglini DSP Development Fran ois Best Architecture amp GUI Development Anthony Taglianetti Beta Testing amp Validation Yannick Bonnefoy GUI Design amp Rendering Slate Digital Thanks the amazing designers who made these legendary machines Deborah Lintz Howie Weinberg Wade Norton Ross Hogarth and our fifth Beatle Jay Baumgardner User Manual by Anthony Taglianetti Steven Slate amp Fabrice Gabriel O Slate Digital LLC All rights reserved Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS k INtrOQUELON susspaciasizai rena dados deb EEANN EEA dada ais a ni rea ao 4 BV SLCVEIA SATO ias US O O db des 4 E Virtual Tape Wa CHING ssa sarna se E tri ceria ee Gai da dao sia eau 6 THE MACHINES seas g ess Caran do GUS NG a wes He boa maca wees Cons a EANA EENEN NE 6 Z NIMC BA PACK asa Da a a a dali ssa a 6 Ve MENZ E go nada ck eset UR RR PR PR RR E SER DR ANP E UR 6 THE TAPE acess cee RA PRENDE QU RE RA E ERAS RS A RREO ADE RD EDER GA DO O A E E 6 POA O nt ne ne en CRE o AE EE SR DA O a 6 DOS a hash lil fu A Rl a la ae oR las Ola2. Level when it is not The VU meter reflects the saturation level of the tape so whatever the Calibration Level a OdB VU will always have the same effect on the sound For instance if you have an input averaging at 18dBFS and a 18dB Calibration Level the VU will show OdB VU If you change the calibration to say 15dB the VU will then show 3dB but also the algorithm saturation will be changed To get the same saturation level you ll have to raise the input by 3dB thus raising the level of the VU back to OdB The best approach is indeed to start with the level at OdB VU and then increase or decrease the IN OUT linked level to change the saturation behavior On some tracks want to push the saturation as far as can before there is too much audible saturation on other tracks just want a subtle effect The good thing is that each tape speed machine has a different behavior so by changing the IN OUT levels can tailor how the processing will react Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines 17 NOISE REDUCTION We believe that Tape Hiss is an important component in the sound of tape We have meticulously modeled the noise characteristics for each Machine Tape Speed and Bias configuration The noise you are hearing is not the product of a noise generator It is a faithful replication of Tape Hiss By default Noise Reduction is set to 3dB You may find the tape hiss to be too much especially if you have multiple ins
3. is not cumulative to the group value it is absolute AUTOMATING VTM GROUPS It is possible to automate every parameter of the Virtual Tape Machines plugin When an instance is grouped you may automate any of its parameters on any track This allows for ultimate ease of use and flexibility However it is up to you to ensure there are no automation conflicts across multiple instances of a group otherwise your automation will not be written read correctly Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines 13 VI COMMON MIXING QUESTIONS How hard should tape be hit This depends on what you want to achieve and what is your mix If you have a lot of bass in a Hip Hop mix you can try to saturate the tape a lot For a clean sound you don t want too much saturation Slowly raise the Input of your track until you begin to hear distortion this level will depend on the content of your mix or tracks Then back off on the input by 5dB Hitting OdB VU is the best way to maximize the tape sound i e the best noise saturation ratio As always experiment and use your ears What is the preferred order of processing To simulate the typical signal flow when mixing a multi track session recorded to tape we recommend the following 1 VTMas the first insert on every track in your mix set to the 2 16 Track Machine a Tape Type Speed and Bias to taste 2 VCC Channel as the second insert on every tack in your mix VCC Mixbuss as the first i
4. the buyer of this fee at the time of sale Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines 21 X CONCLUSION MAKING THE VIRTUAL TAPE MACHINES By Fabrice Gabriel After the success of the Virtual Console Collection Steven and were convinced that the sound of tape was still not authentically modeled in the digital domain In fact it didn t seem that anyone had accurately captured the essence and feeling of a real tape machine We wanted to change that was convinced that could design an algorithm that would be so close to the tape sound that you could not distinguish a track recorded to the real tape machine versus the same track processed with the algorithm The most important thing for us is to have the most absolute authentic sound At Slate Digital our mission is for people to not be able to differentiate from the real thing so it s really important to reproduce faithfully and accurately the exact sound and behavior of a real tape machine and here are the reasons First our purpose is to make sound replicas not average sound imitations For years there have been a lot of companies who advertise that they precisely model certain pieces of analog hardware and still today there are a lot of products which imitates the analog sound rather than accurately replicating it For me it s really easy to see in their algorithm what they did and how they did it what they missed and where technical issues are Some people who are n
5. to experiment with both of them Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines TAPE SPEED IPS means inches per second as in the number of inches of tape that spin around the heads per second The two professional recording tape speeds are 15ips and 30ips which were the speeds that we modeled on both of our 2 inch and inch decks So what are the sonic differences between these speeds This is a question that is based on many factors including the machine type the way it is aligned and the tape formula 30ips The faster speed setting 30ips has less noise an overall flatter frequency response and a slightly extended high end On both of our machine models 30ips is relatively flat above 200Hz and then has some emphasis in the higher portion of the low end This is a great speed setting for a pristine sounding high end with smooth saturation on peaks and a nice thickening of the upper low end 15ips 15ips has a higher noise floor and a more non linear frequency response First you ll notice that the low end extension is driven down to the sub lows below 100Hz This is one of the reasons why 15ips is often said to be fatter sounding The midrange of both of the machines is a bit extended which adds a nice presence and bite Overall the 15ips Speed setting on both models is definitely great when you want to add more attitude and flavor to your recordings And the best part is that you can overcome the extra noise by red
6. OCESS BYPASS You can bypass the Tape Channel processing for an entire Group by hitting the Process Bypass switch on the front panel This switch also disables processing for a single Tape Channel if it is ungrouped 11 When assigning a Tape Channel to a Group all parameters will be initialized We recommend assigning the Tape Channel to a group BEFORE adjusting any parameters Pro Tools Multi Mono Due to the nature of our grouping system the Group Assign parameter will not Link to other Multi Mono Channels It is recommended that you use the Link function instead of our grouping system in this configuration VTM s front panel parameters will link correctly across all channels Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines 12 ISOLATING THE GAIN STAGE FROM A GROUP Sometimes you will want to customize the Input or Output of a particular track within a group For instance you may have your drums in a group with your Input at 2dB However you want to add more saturation to only your snare To isolate the gain stage from the group simply click the Link symbol between the Group Assign menu and the Input value display The symbol will afan l dim to show the change Now you can adjust the MACHINES gain section of this channel independently from ti the group To add it back to the group simply click the Link symbol again VIRTUAL The Group Isolate toggle highlighted in red The isolated Input and Output value
7. WOW S FLUTTER sorceres eae Ca canais rE E ET 17 FSS FTO Becca he eiar ia a AN EEEE a a 18 VIII System Requirements amp Installation ccccsscscsccsccccsccccsceccececcscnccccsceccscescscsccececeses 19 INSTALLATION INSTRUCTION Sics aidan a EEA 19 iLook Ge TSC DOW TNC CNN aaea T 19 stalne tn TW arses GD AAE NE AE Gad nonce eset 19 USET IM O Rd 19 IX 3RD PARTY ILOK LICENSE TRANSFER FEE cccscsccccscsccccscscscsccccscsccccccscnccccccscscsccscscsces 20 Mi CONCUSSION E ta alo ain did ed dadas ini adora hudson danilo 21 Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines INTRODUCTION By Steven Slate The first time put a reel of tape on a tape machine was a fifteen year old coffee boy interning at a northern New Jersey recording studio Even though placing the reel on the machine was similar to letting your kids push the floor button on an elevator remember being ecstatic that was given the opportunity to perform this crucial role Playing back in my brain was a montage of Kirk the head engineer showing me how to properly wrap the tape around the heads With my heart beating fast followed his tutorial with exact precision Once the session began felt a great sense of accomplishment as watched the reels spinning grew up in the industry listening to tape machines Back then it was not clear how magical these machines were In fact recall when the first ADAT digital machines became available One day t
8. at input Bass Alignment Allows for fine control over the low end response of each tape machine VU Ballistics Adjusts the VU Needle Response to either Fast Mid or Slow Default Group Determines which Group the VTM is assigned to upon instantiation This is very useful for setting up groups quickly Unlike VCC Settings are stored in the Session File and not a separate settings file on your hard drive If you wish to have your own default settings we recommend saving VTM presets for recall in your DAW Please consult your DAW s user manual for instructions on saving presets and setting a User Default preset Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines 10 IV VIM QUICKSTART 1 Place the Virtual Tape Machines plugin on the first insert of one of your tracks 2 Assign VTM to Group 1 sR OUP Ungrouped Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5 Group 6 Group 7 Group 8 3 Copy this instance to the other tracks in your mixer Default group sROUP 4 Using any of the VTM instances select a Tape Machine Tape Type Tape Speed and Bias All instances of VTM will slave to these changes BIAS MACHINE TYPE HIGH 2 16 MACK vo LOW 1 2 2 TRACK 5 Start playback Depending on your material you may need to boost or attenuate the input level of each track to achieve the desired level of tape saturation 6 Finally insert VTM across your stereo buss You can assign it to the same group or leave i
9. e latest iLok drivers for your system You can download the latest installers here o iLok drivers for Mac OS http sw ilok com macextsx dmg o iLok drivers for Windows http sw ilok com DriverSetup exe In order to download your iLok license to your iLok 2 dongle please visit the link that was given to you in your email receipt and enter the required info including the issued pass code This will unlock your iLok redemption code Use this code via your iLok account s Redeem License Code Enter the iLok code and then download the license on your iLok 2 dongle Installing the VTM Click on the INSTALL icon Choose your designated VST AU or RTAS folder usually the default location that the installer insists will be best User Manual The Virtual Tape Machines User Manual will be installed in the following location Windows 7 C ProgramData Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines OS X Applications Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines You can also access the User Manual by clicking the text Virtual Tape Machines from the Info Panel Accessed by clicking the Slate Digital Logo Version 1 0 1 0 320 build 5031 12 07 12 14 27 14 Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines 20 IX 3RD PARTY ILOK LICENSE TRANSFER FEE When reselling any Slate software product there will be a 30 License Transfer Fee in order for us to process the new customer into our user database It is the responsibility of the seller to inform
10. ect of the VTM to feed the VCC where can add some final subtle flavor ld try several bias settings depending on the high frequency reduction behavior want which are all far different from a simple EQ So for instance I d use the 2 with FG456 30ips High Bias and play with the IN OUT linked levels to have the highs want For a piano track would use a different configuration For the piano I d use the VCC Mixbuss to get some cool stereo and harmonic effects then EQ then VTM with not too much noise and just a little bit of flutter Here just would like to add to the sound A little bit of smoothness for high amplitudes but don t want to use the VTM as the same high frequency reduction tool than for the vocals just want to warm up the sound a little and make it less sterile Here I d use the 1 2 FG9 15 ips with Normal Bias Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines 15 VII ADVANCED SETTINGS CALIBRATION LEVELS The VTM Calibration Settings are useful to quickly set up the processing of the tape to get it hotter more saturation better signal to noise ratio or quieter less saturation more noise In order to be properly calibrated the VU meters need to display OdB with a 1kHz sine wave is played at 18dBFS with an 18dB Calibration Level arge Calibration Global 2405 Group 1 2408 Group 2 248 Group 3 248 Group 4 2408 Group 5 248 Group 6 2408 Group 7 24 Group 8 24 To get the signal h
11. h Sa he DIO Gi RU OO on ud Aunts ue it DA da 6 TAPE SPEED sia sed E desde ia a dA o CSA 7 SOS E E a T ESE E E E E E a eA ia aad ia DD wed Pred elect A 7 STEVI Ss bi A AEEA ecg atta Ua ca E A aie Sa aga eB cae sper nad eee eae 7 BIAS ssa ossos ar anal aa aa id rd aa Cras 7 Il VIRTUAL TAPE MACHINES Overview ccccccscsccccccscsccccccscnccccccccsceccscecscsccscscscececcecsens 8 FRONTRANEE asas seda aet bia dali nd oie aii dada nie Dia aaa oiee ds eds ho ta dae 8 SETTINGS PANELS stage ssa ob onawacdsnw esate suista renee bobinas dae bai seda da bad ade di ara in 9 IV VTM QUICKSTART sz sonsisainabss io dis sda dia ca pisa Gaga iG 10 Vo GROUPING api red ess Na IGG ia EDS OS AACS a A 11 ROSIN GROUP GS ssa sons dio paso raias Densa rd teneemoeus sexs neces asas tenda cases n asas 11 DEPAULI GROUP train to te ace e a rd AD A RA E o Dt a aa eas 11 PROCESS BYPASS paro ai EEEE EOE AET EE a OER 1i ISOLATING THE GAIN STAGE FROM A GROUP sandra io o ia EE T AON 12 AUTOMATING VIM GROUPS pinsioni nrs E E A das ss nica nm nisi ea 12 Vi Common Miine QUESTIONS seriais ninnaa N EE NA 13 VIL ADVANCED SETTINGS aaa si sata O 15 CALIBRATION LEVELS rea ieir a O E EA 15 DEFAULT CALIBRATION asas iesen ac E EEEN 15 VU AVERAGE POSITION amp SOUND situs sisiaacanisicicisasedacriscaiectaies icniaeses Qua EN O Conti Etna as a 16 NOISE REDUCTION recreere aE EEEN 17 BASSALIGNMEN Essas sus isisa naiara a NAN Gebeewitanuces tus Concenresaswceeeves 17
12. he head engineer at the studio where was working at came into the control room with a confident grin and announced to us all Say goodbye to that noisy hiss truck and get ready for the future digital He set up the 16bit VHS recording machine next to the Studer 2 inch machine and we tracked 8 mics of drums into it His smile quickly faded Something must be wrong this doesn t sound good at all he said as the lifeless and somewhat harsh digital tracks played back And realized back then that digital was likely going to solve a lot of problems for this industry but one thing that it was not going to do was sound like tape Digital has come a long way since the first 16bit VHS recorders Using a nice converter and clock you can record an extremely detailed and high bandwidth sound with great resolution and dynamic range There is surely nothing wrong with digital And perhaps that s the problem Two years ago we released a plugin called the Virtual Console Collection which replicated the signal path of an analog desk We did this because it was clear that many pro engineers still preferred the sound of old vintage analog desks And we soon discovered why The nonlinear artifacts of analog are pleasing to the human ear And just as it is with the circuit of a console the tape machine has a very unique set of dynamic nonlinear traits that cause our ears to hear warmth glue depth space and width So just as
13. is dragged to the right Our measurements show that a precisely tuned and carefully maintained tape machine had a flutter which corresponds to the 25 Setting Most tape machines are around the 50 setting and not very well maintained tape machine is at 100 which can be still interesting While this may be undesirable in some circumstances it would have been completely unrealistic to omit this aspect of analog tape from the VTM Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines 18 You can turn off the Wow amp Flutter effect by setting the slider to 0 HISS AUTOMUTE Automatically mutes the modeled Tape Hiss when there is no audio present at the input VU BALLISTICS Chooses the speed of the VU Meter needles The Fast mode will react very quickly and precisely to oncoming audio where the Slow mode will react less precisely to individual audio pieces Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines 19 Vill SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS amp INSTALLATION PC Requirements RTAS VST e Hardware Dual Core Intel or AMD Processor Quad Core Recommended 2GB RAM iLok2 e Operating System Windows XP Windows Vista 32 64 Bit Windows 7 32 64 Bit Mac Requirements AU RTAS VST e Hardware Dual Core Intel Processor Quad Core Recommended 2GB of RAM iLok2 e Operating System Mac OS X 10 5 or later INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS iLok License Downloading Before downloading the iLok license for VTM make sure you have installed th
14. k from Howie Weinberg Mastering Many recordings have been mastered onto this deck and it s obvious why It has a thick low end nice rich midrange and a smooth top that perfectly takes away the digital edge in the most natural way THE TAPES The tape formulations that we modeled are two of my favorites the classic 456 and the more modern GP9 picked these tapes based on my years of using both and my knowledge that these represent two very unique sounds FG456 456 was introduced in 1975 as a high output tape formula that was needed since new tape decks at the time were able to handle higher headroom signals in their electronics 456 is known as a 6 tape which means it s 6dB over the 185 nWb m Standard which means you have an additional 6dB of headroom before tape saturation occurs FG9 GP9 is a more modern tape that has an even thicker layer of oxide and is known as a 9 tape 570 nWb m GP9 became very popular because you could record at hotter levels and not have the same introduction of saturation and distortion While the sound of these tapes is subjective what we notice is that 456 is a bit more colorful with slightly thicker lows Switching to GP9 you ll notice more punch due to the fact that you have 3db more headroom before saturation You may also notice more definition throughout the frequency spectrum and a slightly more forward sound Both of these tape types sound really good and we suggest
15. l level post the Input control Slate Digital Logo Opens the Info Panel which contains the version number Machine Type Selects between the 2 inch 16 track A827 or the 1 2 inch 2 track A80RC tape machines Tape Type Selects between the vintage FG456 tape and the modern FG9 tape Tape Speed Selects between 30ips and 15ips Bias Selects a High Normal or Low Bias Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines SETTINGS PANELS All of the settings in the VTM Settings Panels with the exception of Group Calibration Levels are GLOBAL Noise Reduction Wow amp Flutter Bass Alignment Hiss Automute VU Ballistics and Default Group Settings will affect EVERY instance of VTM in your session Noise Reduction We ve taken great care to model the noise Noise Reduction Wow amp Flutter characteristics of each machine tape type 4008 30dB OdB 25 Q Q and speed This may be undesirable in some situations This slider allows you to fine tune the amount of tape hiss in your mix Hiss Automute Bass Alignment Dragging this slider to the far left will remove 6dB OOdB 3dB noise entirely o SEE Se Wow amp Flutter The subtle pitch and amplitude variations inherent in tape machines have been faithfully reproduced with VTM as well The VU Ballistics effect intensifies as the slider is dragged to Fast the right us O a Hiss Automute pan Automatically mutes the tape hiss when no Default Group signal is present
16. nsert on your Master Fader 4 VTM as the last insert on your Master Fader but before any limiting set to the 2 Track Machine a Tape Type Speed and Bias to taste o This effectively reproduces the signal flow of mixing off a 2 16 Track tape machine into console channels through it s mixbuss and printing the mix to a 4 2 Track tape machine Of course this all depends on what you want to achieve for the order of processing What is cool with plugins is that you can do whatever you want It s totally up to you For instance used to stack up several instances of the VCC Mixbuss with different consoles to obtain the color wanted It s pretty amazing what it can do this way So here like all plugins the more creative you are the better Personally I d use a different order of plugins depending on my track For instance on a vocal track I d use the following chain want to use the deesser with the more pronounced sibilants possible and fix them as soon as possible in the processing chain with both the deesser and the Virtual Tape Machines If you push the VTM it acts as a vocal smoother and a kind of deesser very complimentary from a regular deesser Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines 14 In this scenario want to take advantage of the Virtual Tape Machines harmonics smoothing and distortion to warm it up and to even attenuate boost them with the EQ want to take also advantage of the compression asp
17. ot familiar with the original hardware may not be able to tell the difference But any professional who has used the real hardware certainly can In order to be authentic an algorithm must be faithful to every aspect of the original gear it is intended to replicate It means that both the original and the model should produce the same output waveform with the same input waveform with any kind of waveform It also means that the frequency response should be the same in every situation every amplitude But there are a lot of other aspects which need to be reproduced like the dynamics the harmonic behavior the saturation characteristics and so on Most importantly the scientific tests are nothing without real life listening tests That s why Steven and compare and test the algorithms against the real thing and then several experienced mixing and mastering engineers validate them We stop refining the algorithms when we can t tell the difference between the original and the algorithm in a blind listening test Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines 22 We chose to offer a tape replication because it was clear that tape had not properly been represented in the digital domain yet guarantee that took care of being very faithful to every aspect of the original tape sound and behavior that is our mission at Slate Digital and this is the reason why we say Advanced Algorithms Steven and are so involved in making the bes
18. otter you have to decrease the calibration level If you process a 18dBFS peak sine wave and change the calibration level to 24dB the VU meter will show 6 dB VU thus the tape processing will be hotter i e with more saturation Increasing the calibration will yield less saturation with a higher noise floor 436 Felstwe os oa o a oa a o a nes o The VU meter level is linked to the saturation level of the tape so whatever the calibration the same VU meter display should give the same amount of saturation DEFAULT CALIBRATION We wanted the needle to not be too hot by default because we wanted the user to use the Virtual Tape Machines at the right calibration preferably with the needle around OdB VU also wanted the VU Calibration and the Model Calibration to be coherent with what measured with the real tape knowing that there is no right calibration with real tape for several reasons e Calibration i e relation between Input Output Saturation levels depends on the technician who set up the machine on the tape etc e The same tape formula could be calibrated in several ways i e the GP9 has more headroom but some engineers chose to have the same headroom with a lower noise floor which at the end is the same thing on the tape itself but regarding the input output is not the same e Calibration also depends on the machine maintenance model etc What I did for the algorithm was achieve cohe
19. rence between all Tape Type Machine Type Tape Speed variations For instance the FG9 has more headroom and less noise than FG456 the Machine has more headroom than 2 machine etc Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines 16 This is representative of the fact that when two tape machines are calibrated the same way with same Input Output gains but which may not be the case with far different calibrations or configurations That s why after discussing with many tape technicians we found it very useful to feature calibration settings which are representative of reality We set the Virtual Tape Machines default calibration to 15dB because we thought it was more representative to the default saturation level a real tape machine would exhibit with typical RMS levels of digital files In other words we wanted the user to load the VTM and to have the typical tape sound with the most common digital files Wade Norton NRG Recording Studios who is one of the best tape technicians in Los Angeles calibrated the tape machines for testing We also hired several other tape techs and it was very interesting to see that the calibration and the SOUND was different with the same tape machine according to the calibration which was done by different techs The best sound we got from the tape machines was from Wade s calibration VU AVERAGE POSITION amp SOUND One common mistake is to believe that the VU Meter is dependent on the Calibration
20. t replications on the market we hope that people enjoy our products appreciate their authenticity and overall make great music Thanks for reading Fabrice Gabriel Studer is a registered trademark of Harmon and is not affiliated with Slate Digital Machine names used in this manual are meant solely to explain which tape decks were used in the Slate Digital Modeling process
21. t ungrouped to emulate printing your mix to a inch machine 7 Mix your song Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines V GROUPING USING GROUPS Groups make using the Virtual Tape Machines plugin very simple quick and intuitive At its most basic use you can set all instances to the same group and use the Virtual Tape Machines to emulate mixing off a single tape machine GROUP Ungrouped Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5 Group 6 Group 7 Group 8 VTM Group Assign Menu DEFAULT GROUP You can quickly assign multiple Tape Channels to a group by using the Default Group feature in the Settings Panel Click Settings and change the Default Group to the VTM Group of your choice All new instances of Virtual Tape Machines will be assigned to this You could also use several groups and make your own hybrid tape machine You can mix and match machines tape types speeds and even bias The Virtual Tape Machines has 8 Groups that enable you to slave multiple Tape Channels together This means that from a single instance you can control the Bias Machine Type Tape Speed Tape Type Process Bypass and Input Output for every Tape Channel in the Group To assign a Tape Channel to a group click the Group Assign pull down menu and choose one of VTM s 8 Groups VTM is now assigned to that group Default Group group by default This makes group setup quick and easy VTM Default Group Setting PR
22. tances spread across an entire mix Luckily you can dial in the perfect amount of tape hiss using the Noise Reduction slider located in the Settings Panel BASS ALIGNMENT In a real tape machine the Bass Alignment would be dependent on the tech s calibration The bass alignment setting is not a simple EQ that modifies bass roll off It takes care of the bass behavior of the tape and then enhances or reduces it The Bass Alignment slider influences bass and sub bass frequencies Thus it s different for each tape model tape machine and speed since the calibration made by a tech on a real tape machine would be dependent on these parameters as well It could be very useful in different mixing situations similar to the changes a tech would make according to a mixing engineers request For example one may want to add some typical bass from a tape especially for Hip Hop RnB etc It may be easier using the Bass Alignment to get the right amount of bass in your mix For mastering purposes it may be useful to lower the Bass Alignment to have a more neutral behavior in the bass and the way that tape processes the bass frequencies will help that while still keeping the typical tape bass sound WOW amp FLUTTER Wow amp Flutter is intended to precisely emulate what happens in a real tape machine The subtle pitch and amplitude variations inherent in tape machines have been faithfully reproduced with VTM The effect intensifies as the slider
23. ucing it with the Noise Reduction slider in the Settings panel BIAS The recommended Bias Normal is dependent on the Tape Type Tape Speed and Record Head Gap length When you switch Machines Tape Types or Tape Speeds the Bias is automatically adjusted to the recommended value internally We also modeled two additional Bias settings above and below the recommended Bias value These additional settings change the frequency response and saturation for each Machine Tape and Speed configuration With the Bias set to High High Frequencies will saturate earlier When set to Low High Frequencies will saturate later with increased dynamics Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines Hl VIRTUAL TAPE MACHINES OVERVIEW FRONT PANEL Input Output Use the Input level to adjust the level going to tape The hotter the signal the more tape saturation and compression will occur Use Output Level to adjust the level coming off tape VIRTUAL Input Output Link TAPE When activated this option allows for Constant Gain MAS Monitoring making it easy to quickly reference the r Processed and Bypassed signal without any difference AEREE in volume Advanced Algorithms by FABRICE GABRIEL Group Assignment Selector Assigns the plugin to one of VTMs eight Groups See the section on Grouping for more details Process Bypass Bypasses plugin processing Settings Opens the Settings Panel VU Meters Displays the signa
24. we did with the VCC we sought to make the absolute most authentic replication of the analog tape machine that the industry has ever heard And think we have succeeded Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines After more than a year of scientific research and algorithm development Slate Digital led by our Chief Technical Officer and head algorithm developer Fabrice Gabriel have created the Virtual Tape Machines digital audio plugin Using this plugin you can have the sound of both a 2inch 16 track analog deck or a 2 track analog deck right in your DAW Your mixes will come to life Things will be easier to balance Tracks will need less EQ and compression Depth space and warmth will be achieved like you ve never heard before Welcome to the sound of Analog Tape Your music deserves it Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines VIRTUAL TAPE MACHINES Many of you out there are familiar with the physics of tape machine it s speeds and the various tape formulas that have been introduced over the last few decades For those of you who are not here is a crash course THE MACHINES 2 Inch 16 Track This is the 2 inch Studer A827 with 16 track headstock from NRG Recording Studios This machine has recorded some of the biggest albums in the world It has a fat punchy thick sound with a very detailed top end This is the ultimate tracking machine Y Inch 2 Track This is the 2 track Studer A80 RC with inch headstoc
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