The Pro EQ stage preceding the TriComp provides the head bump EQ and has a control to emulate the effect of underbiasing tape (more highs, which pushes more high-frequency level into the TriComp and therefore increases distortion in that range) or overbiasing (less highs, less distortion).Īt first, I wasn’t going to include tape hiss and hum, but if someone needs to use this FX Chain for sound design (i.e., an actor starts a tape in a theatrical production), then including hiss and hum sounds more authentic. 1).Īfter auditioning all available Studio One 5 saturation options, I liked the TriComp best for this application. This FX Chain starts with a Splitter, which creates three signal paths: one for saturation, one for hiss, and one for hum (Fig.

Tape Emulator Audio Demo – Before And After.

The difference is subtle, but it adds that extra “something.” The first part is unprocessed, while the second part uses the default FX Chain control settings with a little underbiasing and head bump. For example, some engineers aligned their machines to underbias the tape, which increased distortion but gave more highs other engineers did the reverse and made up for the lack of highs with subsequent equalization.Ĭheck out the audio example to hear what this FX Chain can do.

Tape is a flawed recording medium that trades off noise, high-frequency response, and distortion.

Even though in theory 30 IPS offered better fidelity, many engineers preferred to work at 15 IPS due to the bass response characteristics (and they saved money by using half as much tape for the same recording time). However, at 30 IPS, the bass response drops off below the bump-sometimes drastically, sometimes gently.

At 15 IPS, a typical peak is in the 40-70 Hz range, and at 30 IPS, in the 70-150 Hz range.

Head “bump.” The frequency of a bass range peak (around 2 dB) depends on the tape speed and the tape machine.This gives a higher average level, which is part of why tape sounds “punchy.” Tape saturates, which rounds off waveform peaks and affects dynamic range.However, emulating three important characteristics provides what most people want from tape emulation. Although Studio One 5 doesn’t have a tape emulator plug-in per se, it can emulate some of the most important characteristics that people associate with “the tape sound.” Truly emulating tape can go down a serious rabbit hole because tape is a complicated signal processor no two vintage tape recorders sounded the same because they required alignment (influenced by the engineer’s preferences), used different tape formulations, and were in various states of maintenance.

Softube tape saturation