This sound is the result of numerous complex, interacting factors. The Sound Of TapeĮach instance of VTM can be assigned to one of eight groups, allowing parameter changes to be applied simultaneously across multiple tracks. I don't think anyone can tell you exactly why analogue tape sounds so 'musical', at least not if you base your reasoning purely on spec sheets and measurements, but there's no denying that terms such as 'warm', 'smooth', 'big' and 'musically involving' sum up the way that many of us feel about the sound. Digital audio, by comparison, still carries the stigma it acquired when it was an emerging and immature technology competing with analogue tape machines - a mature technology that had evolved almost to the point where no further improvement was possible.ĭigital may be way more accurate these days, but many people still prefer the sound of tape. Tape was used to make so many great records over a period of so many decades that we have come to associate the sound of these records with the way recorded music should sound. And that begs the question: if tape machines are so inherently imperfect, why do we like the way they sound?
The audio path in a tape machine is surprisingly complex, and sophisticated though the later tape recorder designs were, they still suffered compromises and technical limitations that gave them a distinctive sound. So why so much fuss about modelling a tape recorder? Surely a bit of distortion, a touch of compression and some EQ would do the trick? Well, no. VTM turned out to be Fabrice's greatest challenge so far, and we're told it took around a year of optimising, listening and tweaking to get it to the point where they were happy to allow it out to the world. Apparently, Steven told Slate Digital's Chief Technology Officer Fabrice Gabriel that unless the end result was indistinguishable from the real thing, he wasn't prepared to release it at all.
Slate sought out two particularly good-sounding tape machines to base their emulation on: NRG Recording's 16-track, two-inch Studer A827 machine and Howie Weinberg's two-track Studer A80 RC half-inch mastering deck. In fact, Steven Slate tells us that their Virtual Tape Machines is the most complex plug-in they've ever coded. Slate Digital's VTM is the most detailed attempt yet to capture these in digital form.įew companies are brave enough to try to model the behaviour of a professional analogue tape recorder in software. The sound of magnetic tape stems from a hugely complex set of interacting factors.
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