Some of my earliest "multitrack" recordings in the early 80s were done by playing recorded tracks on a boom box through a Radio Shack mixer while recording new material on another boom box. After 3 or 4 overdubs, rhe resulting SNR was terrible. By the mid 80s, I benefited from using a roommate's Fostex X15 4-track machine. My favorite cassettes were the TEAC ones with the metal reels inside the case, allowing for less friction. In the late 80s, I was fortunate to have a pro 16- track recording experience, using 2-inch mag tape at 30 ips. It's funny to me that in these days when 192kHz 32-bit recording is a household reality, folks are creating digital FX to replicate the characteristics of mag tape that were considered liabilities of the medium. 🙂
Funny that those old cassettes are going for $10 or $20 a piece on E-bay now too. I remember the TEAC ones. I think I bought mostly Denon and TDK, but I did find some Maxell and Memorex ones recently that were old mix tapes. I still have my old GE boom box that was my stereo in my room for over a decade, although several of the sliders don't work anymore.
Great overview with some very cool patch ideas. I am a UVI fan but I skipped this one because I have so many plugins that cover everything it does already, including pretty much every one of the sound design-oriented plugins that you showed in quick succession at the beginning. Also my ears are no good for final mixing and mastering, so I don't buy tape character saturation plugins intended for those purposes. When I watch videos of a demo of something from IKM or Softube and can't hear the differences before and after comparisons. Honestly I was a little surprised UVI bothered with this because the market is so... saturated (LOL). Maybe they are trying to round out their library on offer for their subscription service.
I just bought HX-ODDY, though... I think their hybrid engine with physically-modeled filters is really cool. I hope we get the new filter in HX-ODDY in Falcon eventually.
I'm guessing that at least some of this will make it into the next iteration of Falcon. They sometimes do that. I was actually pretty happy with the current tape effect in Falcon, but this takes it to another level.
Your modulation of the delay effect was killer! That capability really makes me want to get this plugin. $100 is pretty pricey though. Are there any other delay plugins that you know of that could be modulated similarly to get the same effect that you achieved with this UVI tape suite? Thanks
Thanks Wrigley. UVI has regular sales so I usually wait until those come out. I think they have 30% off sales 3 or 4 times a year. Other Desert Cities from Audio Damage is a little less expensive at $79, but that is just delay effects only, although it’s a really good delay package.
Some of my earliest "multitrack" recordings in the early 80s were done by playing recorded tracks on a boom box through a Radio Shack mixer while recording new material on another boom box. After 3 or 4 overdubs, rhe resulting SNR was terrible. By the mid 80s, I benefited from using a roommate's Fostex X15 4-track machine. My favorite cassettes were the TEAC ones with the metal reels inside the case, allowing for less friction. In the late 80s, I was fortunate to have a pro 16- track recording experience, using 2-inch mag tape at 30 ips. It's funny to me that in these days when 192kHz 32-bit recording is a household reality, folks are creating digital FX to replicate the characteristics of mag tape that were considered liabilities of the medium. 🙂
Funny that those old cassettes are going for $10 or $20 a piece on E-bay now too. I remember the TEAC ones. I think I bought mostly Denon and TDK, but I did find some Maxell and Memorex ones recently that were old mix tapes.
I still have my old GE boom box that was my stereo in my room for over a decade, although several of the sliders don't work anymore.
Suite indeed. And I dig UVI’s recent visual style, ever since the Augmented series. Would like a dark setting, though, if it’s not yet in there.
That's a great suggestion.
Great overview with some very cool patch ideas. I am a UVI fan but I skipped this one because I have so many plugins that cover everything it does already, including pretty much every one of the sound design-oriented plugins that you showed in quick succession at the beginning. Also my ears are no good for final mixing and mastering, so I don't buy tape character saturation plugins intended for those purposes. When I watch videos of a demo of something from IKM or Softube and can't hear the differences before and after comparisons. Honestly I was a little surprised UVI bothered with this because the market is so... saturated (LOL). Maybe they are trying to round out their library on offer for their subscription service.
I just bought HX-ODDY, though... I think their hybrid engine with physically-modeled filters is really cool. I hope we get the new filter in HX-ODDY in Falcon eventually.
I'm guessing that at least some of this will make it into the next iteration of Falcon. They sometimes do that. I was actually pretty happy with the current tape effect in Falcon, but this takes it to another level.
Your modulation of the delay effect was killer! That capability really makes me want to get this plugin. $100 is pretty pricey though. Are there any other delay plugins that you know of that could be modulated similarly to get the same effect that you achieved with this UVI tape suite? Thanks
Thanks Wrigley. UVI has regular sales so I usually wait until those come out. I think they have 30% off sales 3 or 4 times a year.
Other Desert Cities from Audio Damage is a little less expensive at $79, but that is just delay effects only, although it’s a really good delay package.
Ah thank you for the dive and educational tidbits! Always a great evening to consider something AFS looks at. Gotta beef up my tape game!
Thanks Matt. You can do some pretty crazy things with tape effects.
How does this compare to U-he's Satin?
Not sure. That’s one plug-in I don’t have.
nice review and examples
Thanks Davi.