32 l April 2012
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studiofeature
analogue tape saturation or even vinyl noise. No doubt these are iPod-busters, or at least a reaction to the brittle, antiseptic cleanliness of digital audio generally, but they work. Crane Song’s Phoenix is a big hit: it’s a TDM plug-in suite for Pro Tools HD designed to inject ‘analogue colour’ into the digital domain by increasing apparent loudness without increasing gain. The five individual plug-ins aim for various tape characteristics: a fairly neutral Luminescent; Iridescent, described as ‘magnetic’ with a fatter bottom and midrange; Radiant, with a steeper compression curve; Dark Essence, offering the effect of a wider frequency range to sink troublesome vocal artefacts into a more saturated background mix; and Luster, providing a range from gentle to aggressive saturation.
iZotope’s Vinyl is described as an “authentic lo-fi vinyl simulation for Pro Tools, VST, MAS, Audio Unit and DirectX audio applications”
Emulating the wear, tear, The SSL E-Channel AT A GLANCE
crackles and warps of a record, iZotope’s Vinyl is hailed as “authentic lo-fi vinyl simulation for Pro Tools, VST, MAS, Audio Unit and DirectX audio applications”. With 64-bit processing, filtering, modelling and resampling, Vinyl’s various parameters introduce turntable motor rumble and noise; a sweep from brand new to played to hell; electrical noise, like time- honoured 60Hz grounding hum; the amount of dust on the record; the number and depth of scratches on the record; and the amount of warping and warp edges. So if at some point in tracking, mixing or mastering you feel the urge to make it feel as though you left the recording on the back shelf of the car one day in July, this is your plug-in. Such geek heaven continues with BRB’s Hummer, which puts general analogue hum and noise onto the incoming signal, and a dizzying array of sonic spoilers including Sxcratch (sic), Nebula’s R2R, TapeBooster, Massey Tape Head Saturator (for RTAS),
URS Saturation, Reel Tape, Roundtone’s Tape Emulation (for AU/VST), Airwindows’ ToTape and ToVinyl, Wave Arts’ Tube Saturator, Duy Tape, Decapitator from Sound Toys, Analog Channel by McDSP, Ozone, Tapehead and Ferric TDS (Tape Dynamics Simulator) by Variety Of Sound. Not to be outdone, both
Universal Audio and Waves chip in with their own forensic emulations of specific tape machines: UA’s Ampex ATR-102 Mastering Tape Recorder and Studer A800 multitrack; and the Kramer Master Tape plug-in from Waves, reconstructing the rare combination of an Ampex 350 transport and 351 electronics. Eddie Kramer himself adds authentication here, along with undisclosed Studer endorsees found under a sarcophagus somewhere between one Swiss canton and another.
CONVOLUTED PROCESS Just as was once attempted with plug-ins, during a flurry of ‘shoot-outs’ and canapés on the
London studio circuit, Focusrite’s unique Liquid Channel concept has been under scrutiny recently – pitted against various hardware originals in a series of blind tests at Snap! Studios. Liquid Channel has been around since 2003 and is enormously successful. As well as sampling it uses ‘dynamic convolution’ to add realism and flexibility to the countless corridors of borrowed sound within it, and impartial engineers Guy Massey and Marco Pasquariello were invited to pick between signals. Mostly they actively preferred Liquid Channel for certain guitar and vocal takes, while remaining loyal to the hardware when it came to the percussive brightness of a tambourine. Tests like this show how far
emulation has come. If you have
HARD FACTS But that’s not the only renaissance in town. While two of the most revered names of yore continue to supply their hardware in bite-size chunks, elsewhere a grass roots industry is emerging in which lovingly crafted replicas attempt to bring the past back to 3D, touchy- feely life. AMS Neve’s Classic Series
takes most of the early 1970s limiter-compressor, EQ and channel strip repertoire and presents it as modular units: the 2264A and the 1073 stand out. More or less the same marketing technique has been adopted by SSL, whose XLogic concept slices up the classic consoles so that more people can have some of the cake. It should be said, however, that neither brand literally builds from the same
“There has been a sharp rise in the popularity of those plug-ins that attempt to reintroduce some sense of analogue tape saturation or even vinyl noise”
the choice – and studios like Snap! certainly do – it might be assumed that original is always best. But clearly the advantages of Liquid Channel go beyond ergonomics and economics, so if you add those factors too the future is beyond doubt convoluted. At the very least, packages like this one from Focusrite – itself a revered name in signal processing – will keep the legacy of specific models alive and, more than that, encourage new generations to find out exactly where these reputations come from.
blocks that they used to, and while SuperAnalogue and AMS-driven updates do take things to the next level, they are not genetically identical to their forebears. The only person who might come close to genealogical veracity is UA’s Bill Putnam Jnr. Many of UA’s hardware replicas do have the same DNA as the originals thanks to the company’s access to Putnam Snr’s blueprints, surely the most accurate schematics of the 1176 available. In fact, the 1176LN replica that UA sells draws upon
Focusrite’s Liquid Channel proved popular in tests at Snap! Studios
Waves’ Jack Joseph Puig Collection, produced in collaboration with the father of the Fairchild 670
The ‘official’ Lexicon 224 Digital Reverb Emulation for the UAD-2 platform, recreates the first of Lexicon’s digital reverbs from 1978
Cartec Audio EQ-Pre-2A with a second amplifier for greater mic gain
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