Hello,
I took advantage of the promotion to buy the license to use the Tape-J37.
Apart from a few tests I would like to know how you use this effect.
Although it is totally original while being vintage have you already used it, in what context.
Thank you in advance.
Musical Friendship.
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HI @PascalH_59
From my own perspective hereā¦
I LOVE the sound of tape, itās something many of us grew up with, from those old Motown records, through to the 80ās & 90ās, then āsomethingā happenedā¦
Tape quite literally shaped the way we heard recorded music for the best part of a century, so for some of us, itās ingrained in our own psyches/minds or whatever you want to call it.
Thereās just āsomething missingā or rather there WAS āsomething missingā from certain music, yes it sounded more transparent, yes you could hear the, very often massively over doneā reverb and its tails in more detail; but it lost its warmth and punch.
From very early on, some of us had the opinion that digital recording was great, there are MANY things you just cannot do in the analogue world, cutting and pasting (itself a phrase that came from the analogue days of graphic design when people literally HAD to physically cut and paste things), time stretching etcā¦ but once the novelty had died down some people started actually ālisteningā and finally worked out what was missingā¦ distortion, in a wordā¦ not the full on āheavy metalā Grrrr sounds, but more subtle, and not so subtle in some cases, harmonic distortion, compression etc that comes from using analogue gear and tape in particular.
From day one, some of us have realised that a great analogue āfront endā is the way to go if you want a certain type of soundā¦ itās why things like Neve, SSL ,old Altai preamps etc are STILL sellingā¦ they 'āimprintā their own sound into whatās being passed through them.
THIS is what i want from tape plugins personallyā¦
Tape J-37 also has one of the most convincing sounding delays onboard imho too.
You donāt have to come at it from that perspective though, you can use the plugin before/after ANYTHING you want to, it can be REALLY subtle or as crazy as you want it to be.
Currently, iām looking at getting an āauthenticā late 70ās/early 80ās drum sound, just before everyone went mad with HUGE and gated reverbs, those lovely tight drum rooms before it all got swallowed up by reverbā¦
Just mhoā¦
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Bonjour Pascal,
as Mat points out, it can be to recreate sounds of Abbey Road, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, etc.
The first FX plugin I bought was the Coomp-VCA for itās outstanding tube effect on voice (and acoustic instruments).
Arturia describes itās goal as āadding subtle tape coloration to a master track or driving the input of a bus or insert with harmonic distortionā.
I would use it to āglueā a master track by giving all tracks the same color. Compression is also used with the same purpose.
This article compares known artistā takes with/without J37:
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Hello @matjones et @francoise and thank you for your messages.
It is true that until now, tape recorders like the Revox were only useful to me for recording, either for collecting vinyl albums or for direct recording.
Besides, I had a second-hand 4-track from Philips of which I only kept the microphones.
It was while watching a show where Depeche Mode used tape recorders that I thought they were used in a loop, in hindsight certainly for an echo or reverb effect.
Besides, while listening to some musical compositions, in the end, I was surprised by this effect of slowing down or stopping the tape or restarting like a vinyl on the turntable.
For the moment I have put all my compositions on hold, purged my Youtube, deleted my sound cloud account because I need to empty my mind to really know what will motivate me to continue composing or playing just to pass the time.
I just need to bounce back musically.
Thanks for your friendship.
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What Iāve found interesting is comparing the Tape-J37 against the results I get by bouncing my mixes to a real half-track Revox B77HS tape recorder. Conclusion is the Tape-J37 is a close to real tape as Iāve heard from any emulation. Thereās still a certain something that it doesnāt quite do, relating to gelling everything together. But literally no software can completely replicate hardware, and itās not something you notice until you A/B.
I like how thereās an option to emulate brand-new current tape-stock which you can genuinely still buy, as well as older tapes, and I like the NAB/IEC EQ options.
(EDIT: Churlish criticism, but iāll give it anyway: having the benefit of a real 7.5IPS/15IPS R2R sitting just feet from me, the speed which the animated NAB reels rotate on the Tape-J37 is precisely half what it should be, at both speeds. The speed the reels rotate at 15IPS is the speed the reels on my machine rotate at 7.5IPS. Choosing 7.5IPS on the Tape-J37 shows the reels rotating at what I would expect to see at 3.75IPS. The preciseness of this error seems more than just a coincidence, and is very likely a bug, albeit an inconsequential one.)
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I have to concur, but as you say, itās about the closest thing to tape around currently and it IS very close. I think we WILL get there eventually with tape emulation though, unlike modulation effects which, imho, STILL sound considerably better/deeper/phatter in the analogue domain.
I forgot to mention also that ātapeā can also round transients off things like snare drums, high hats etc VERY nicely too, as well as bringing up the decay.
It can also be nice for generating harmonics in a sub instrument which might not be audible on smaller systems, ok there are other things that can do this too, but itās always nice to have more than one option/colour in the toolbox.
I used the waves version on a track when it first came out, it sounds more like an effect āoverā the source rather than being integral to it and itās a bit heavy handed too compared with this.
Iām using it A LOT on my own stuff these days, usually with the more modern, cleaner sounding options and itās getting be pretty much to where i want to be.
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Itās not really the āintended useā, and not really the ācorrectā thing to do, but Iāve placed it on my master channel as my mastering/finishing effect and have been really happy with the result. It does a great job of smoothing things out and providing some nice āEQā and compression.
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For more noticeable results, use this thing as a tape delay.
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