Tape (Redux)
TL;DW: Tape needed to get improved. So now it is!
For a plugin that’s supposed to be the simplest, easiest, least fussy and most ultimate tape mojo ever, this sure has been through a lot of changes.
First, it came out with a quirk of level setting, where the gain trim didn’t work exactly like just altering gain into the ‘tape’. That got updated. Then, the head bump was too much for many people: really a pretty significant boost on some sounds. So, this Redux is updating that plugin in place (the new version will outright replace the previous one, discard or overwrite the previous wherever you’ve got it) to add what people needed so badly, in spite of my need to keep it almost control-less: a head bump control.
Now, if you crank to 1.0 you get exactly what the previous version was. (If you need to match earlier mixes you can do it this way: just set Bump to 1.0 and you have exactly the previous plugin.) If you turn it to 0, you get the head bump completely removed. It’s like an upgraded version of FromTape in this setting, where you have tone softening/shaping but absolutely no bass bump. And if you leave it at its default of 0.5, I think THAT ought to work for people as the ‘don’t touch anything’, no-fiddling way to mix to Airwindows Tape.
This is meant to be the best. I think people were right about the bass being too much… it was pretty much exactly twice as much as it should’ve been. So, course corrected: now it’s the ultimate. (Tape is of course like the latest ToTape, but it leaves off ‘flutter’ and such things that real tape also tries to avoid, it’s totally current in terms of dithering to the floating point buss etc. and it uses Spiral internally rather than Density, for an even more transparent and analog-like sound than any previous Airwindows tape emulation)
Hope ya like it.
Oh, one more thing: as mentioned in the last bit of the video, I’m working on things like LUTs and visual arts, in Airwindows style. So I’ve developed a LUT that fixes my GH5 camera so it renders super-intense watercolor pigments without blowing them out with too much saturation. I think the result looks very filmlike and natural, and a LUT pack will be coming out as soon as I have some crazier ones done for music video purposes… but part of the idea was to make a simple image that had colors on it (slightly blurred) that I could sample in a paint program like Clip Studio Paint. I have done this, so in advance of the fancy hi-tech LUT stuff, here’s the picture: Watercolor Pigments. It’s not meant to be perfectly sharp, it’s meant to have the COLORS as good as I could get ’em, including a number of color mixes done in real pigments (should also work pretty well mixing ’em in multiply mode to emulate watercolor layering).
All this is supported by Patreon, which is going very well. So maybe you aren’t interested in non-plugin things, but so long as I can keep the plugins coming, it pleases me to also give out other things. And if you do find the other things useful, so much the better. One thing about it, if I was working as a normal plugin business I wouldn’t have the freedom to do all this other stuff, and so it seems natural to share all of it, as much as I can. In future you’ll see other products of everything from LUTs for video-making, to synth hardware-hacking DIY projects, to workflows for doing animation lip-sync. It’s all me doing all of it, so it takes a very long time to get stuff done ‘cos I fit it in around all the plugins, but quarantine has given me just a bit more time to dive deep into all this stuff I do, and I am seizing the opportunity :)
Awesome, thank you Chris!
Thanks, Chris!
Have you ever thought about making an audio morphing plugin like Zynaptiq’s Morph 2 or MeldaProduction’s MMorph? I think it’d be really cool to see from you!
From John Updike’s disaster of a novel and second in his Rabbit series, Rabbit Redux…
The universe is unsleeping, neither ants nor stars sleep, to die will be to be forever wide awake.
I’m sure your second iteration of Tape will please those that felt the bump was keeping them wide eyed and at arms length from the soothing embrace of Morpheus.
Thanks again.
Thank you for another one!
What I did not understand: Is there also a sound(!) difference between the newest and the newest totape? Or can we always set totape to sound like tape(redux)?
Greetings from Germany
Thank you, Chris! This is amazing.
Also — I’m very much with Omar Garcia here. Morph2 is THE coolest thing to me, but it’s absolutely merciless with its CPU footprint. Melda’s MMorph is …close, but not quite the same thing. Disregarding MMorph, I’ve never heard anything come close to what Morph2 does.
And yet, if there’s anyone I’d trust to come up with an equally (or more) capable audio morphing tool, with reasonable CPU needs and a unique, creative approach — as is the airwindows standard — it’d totally be you. If you’re ever interested in tackling something like this, I think a lot of people would be really interested in whatever you came up with.
Again, thank you for this gem! Your plugins have made me a better producer and a better listener, which is probably a standard any good plugin should live up to — and yet few non-airwindows plugins do.
Are the linux versions of your updated plugins deliberately left behind?
They all seem to be from Feb 2018.
That Linux machine is a virtual box running on my old Mac dev laptop, and I made the Linux ‘Tape Redux’ at the same time as the others. The date lies :)
Just a note for a bug fix! The bump control seems to be after the ADClip(?). I noticed this when using it on the masterbus. I can push Tape without any clipping when Bump is at 0, but pushing it up induced clipping at transients.
I Just tried out some of these tape plugins for the first time (having been a ‘VTM’ user for a while now) and I really liked both ‘ToTape6’ and ‘Tape’.
I must admit that ‘Tape’ really worked for me as a no-nonsense, great sounding solution (perfect for those like me who are easily afflicted with option paralysis!) I did prefer the sound and immediacy of it, but I have to admit that I missed the output control when compared to its bigger brother ‘ToTape6’. Obviously simplicity is the name of the game here, but an output slider or even an auto gain compensation setting would be great for really pushing into the tape without changing any volume levels. Especially useful when used on individual instruments within a mix.
Perhaps though, the real issue is that the ‘Slam’ sounds so good that it’s far too tempting to feed my addiction by cranking it up. After all, another dB of ‘Slam’ couldn’t hurt could it?! ;)
Airwindows plugins have always seemed highly regarded amongst the discerning audio community. I’ve heard the company name rattling the halls of many an internet thread over the years. Rightfully so it seems! From what I’ve seen (and heard) Chris’s passion for sound is really rather inspiring and this certainly seems to be well represented in these plugins.
Best final plugin on bus! i just wonder why no output gain knob? not ungrateful just seems i gotto always set the output after slamming?
Hi Chris,
Lovely sound on this plugin, but as mentioned in another comment, an output gain control would be the icing on the cake.
Cureently A/B ing is a little awkward
Thank you for your passion and brilliance.
Just a quick comment on CPU/performance. I am a big fan of putting FromTape on every channel, and I have just caught up to Tape (Redux) which, according to the description, I thought I might substitute in for its improvements. Tape (Redux) is way too CPU-intensive to use on every channel, at least on my pretty well-powered MacBook Pro. I was struggling with performance on a mix until I realized this was the issue.
So, if you’re an every-channel FromTape user, stick with it and use Tape (Redux) in tactical situations on channels/groups, and of course on the 2 bus if you want!